trouble about them, or to have business with them, saying, in the first book of "Physics," that against him who denies the first postulate it is not right to dispute. And of such men as these are many idiots, who may not know their A B C, and who would wish to dispute in Geometry, in Astrology, and in the Science of Physics. Also through sickness or defect of body, it is possible for the Mind to be unsound or sick; even as through some primal defect at birth, as with those who are born fools, or through alteration in the brain, as with the madmen. And of this mental infirmity the Law speaks when it says: "In him who makes a Will or Testament, at the time when he makes the Will or Testament health of mind, not health of body, is required." But to those intellects which from sickness of mind or body are not infirm, but are free, diligent, and whole in the light of Truth, I say it must be evident that the opinion of the people, which has been stated above, is vain, that is without any value whatever, worthless. Afterwards the Song subjoins that I thus judge them to be false and vain; and this it does when it says, "Sound intellect reproves their words as false, and turns away." And afterwards I say that it is time to demonstrate or prove the Truth; and I say that it is now right to state what kind of thing true Nobility is, and how it is possible to know the man in whom it exists; and I speak of this where I say: "And now I seek to tell As it appears to me, What is, whence comes, what signs attest A true Nobility." Chapter xiv. of the fourth treatise of "The Banquet » complete. Translated by Elizabeth Pryce Sayers, and edited by Henry Morley. JAMES DARMESTETER (1849-1894) AMES DARMESTETER, the noted French Orientalist, was born March 28th, 1849, of Jewish parentage. From 1885 until his death, October 19th, 1894, he was professor of the Iranian languages in the Collège de France. His works on Philology are numerous and highly valued. He is happy in popularizing science, as he does in the "Love Songs of the Afghans," an essay based on a personal investigation made by Darmesteter during a visit to Afghanistan. The subject is specially interesting in view of its bearing on the development of the great Persian classics. L LOVE SONGS OF THE AFGHANS OVE songs are plentiful with the Afghans, though whether they are acquainted with love is rather doubtful. Woman with the Afghans is a purchasable commodity; she is not wooed and won with her own consent; she is bought from her father. The average price of a young and good-looking girl is from about three hundred to five hundred rupees. To reform the ideas of an Afghan upon that matter would be a desperate task. When Seid Ahmed, the great Wahabi leader, the prophet, leader, and king of the Yusufzai Afghans, tried to abolish the marriage. by sale, his power fell at once, he had to flee for his life, and died an outlaw. There is no song in the world so sad and dismal as that which is sung to the bride by her friends. They come to congratulate-no, to console her; like Jephthah's daughter; they go to her, sitting in a corner, and sing: "You remain sitting in a corner and cry to us. What can we do for you? Your father has received the money." All of love that the Afghan knows is jealousy. All crimes are said to have their cause in one of the three z's: zar, zamin, or zan -money, earth, or woman; the third z is, in fact, the most frequent of the three causes. The Afghan love song is artificial; the Afghan poet seems to have been at the school of the Minnesinger or the Troubadours. It is the same mièvrerie which seems almost to amuse itself with its love- more witty than passionate, a play of imagination more than a cry of the heart. They would have felt with Petrarch or Heine, si parva licet componere magnis. There is much of the convenu and of the poetical commonplace in their songs, as there is in those of their elder brothers in Europe. You will hardly find one in which you do not meet the clinking of the pezvan (the ring in the nose of the Afghan beauty), the blinking of the gold muhurs dangling from her hair, the radiance of the green mole on her cheek; and the flames of separation, and the begging of the beggar, the dervish at her door, come as pilgrim of love; and the sickness of the sick waiting for health at her hand; and the warbling of the tuti, sighing by night for his beloved kharo bird. Yet, in the long run, one finds a charm in these rather affected strains, though not the direct, straightforward, all-possessing rapture of simple and sincere emotion. It is difficult to give in a translation an idea of that charm, as it can hardly be separated from the simple, monotonous tune ever recurring, as well as from the rich and high-sounding rhyme for which the Afghan poet has the instinct of a modern Parnassian. The most popular love songs are those of Mira of Peshawer, Tavakkul of Jelalabad, and Mohammed Taila of Naushehra. Here is the world-known "Zakhmé" of Mira: I. I am sitting in sorrow, wounded with the stab of separation, low low! She carried back my heart in her talons, when she came today, my bird kharo, low low! 2. I am ever struggling, I am red with my blood, I am your dervish. My life is a pang. My love is my doctor; I am waiting for the remedy, low low! 3. She has a pomegranate on her breast, she has sugar on her lips, she has pearls for her teeth: All this she has, my beloved one; I am wounded in my heart, and therefore I am a beggar that cries, low low! 4. It is due that I should be your servant; have a thought for me, my soul, ever and ever. Evening and morning, I lie at thy door; I am the first of thy lovers, low low! 5. Mira is thy slave, his salam is on thee; thy tresses are his net, thy place is Paradise; put in thy cage thy slanderer. 6. He who says a ghazal and says it on the tune of another man, he can call himself a thief at every ghazal he says. This word of mine is truth. I shall give only one other ghazal, which derives a particular interest from the personality of its author, as well as from a touch of reverie and quaint lunacy rarely met in Afghan poetry. As I visited the prison of Abbottabad, in company with the commissioner Mr. P., I saw there a man who had been sentenced to several months' imprisonment for breaking a Hindu's leg in a drunken brawl. The man was not quite sane; he told Mr. P. that he was not what he was supposed to be; that he was a king, and ought to be put on the gadi. His name was Mohammadji. Next day I was surprised to hear from a native that Mohammadji was a poet, an itinerant poet from Pakli, who more than once had been in trouble with justice, for he was rather a disorderly sort of poet. Here is a ballad, written by the prisoner, which is quite a little masterpiece, "in a sensuous, elementary way,-half Baudelaire, half Song of Solomon: » Last night I strolled through the bazar of the black locks; I foraged, like a bee, in the bazar of the black locks. Last night I strolled through the grove of the black locks; I foraged, like a bee, through the sweetness of the pomegranate. I bit my teeth into the virgin chin of my love; then I breathed up the smell of the garland from the neck of my Queen, from her black locks. Last night I strolled in the bazar of the black locks; I foraged, etc. You have breathed up the smell of my garland, O my friend, and therefore you are drunken with it; you fell asleep, like Bahram on the bed of Sarasia. Then thereafter, there is one who will take your life, because you have played the thief upon my cheeks. He is so angry with you, the chaukidar of the black locks. Last night, etc. Is he so angry with me, my little one? God will keep me, will he not? Stretch out, as a staff, thy long, black locks, wilt thou not? Give me up thy white face, satiate me like the Tuti, wilt thou not? I shall let you, my friend, into the garden of the white breast. The Lord gave thee the peerless beauty. Look upon me, my enchanting one! I am thy servant. Yesterday, at the dawn of day, I sent to thee the messenger. ́snake bit me to the heart, the snake of thy black locks. Last night, etc. The I will charm the snake with my breath; my little one, I am a charmer. But I, poor wretch, I am slandered in thine honor. Come, let us quit Pakli, I hold the wicked man in horror. I give to thee full power over the black locks. Mohammadji has full power over the poets in Pakli. He raises the tribute, he is one of the Emirs of Delhi. He rules his kingdom, he governs it with the black locks. Last night I strolled through the bazar of the black locks; I foraged, like a bee, through the bazar of the black locks. Poor Mohammadji, as you may see from the last stanza, was already seized with the mania of grandeur before he entered the prison at Abbottabad, though he dreamed as yet only of poetical royalty. If these lines ever reach Penjab, and find there any friend of poetry amongst the powers that be, may I be allowed to recommend to their merciful aid the poor poet of Pakli, a being doubly sacred, a poet and a divana, and one who thus doubly needs both mercy for his faults and help through life. There is a poetical genre peculiar to Afghan poetry: it is the misra. The misra is a distique, that expresses one idea, one feeling, and is a complete poem by itself. Poets, in poetical assaults, vie with one another in quoting or improvising misras. They refer generally to love and love affairs, and some are exquisitely simple: |