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CATULLUS
edited by
IAN DU QUESNAY AND TONY WOODMAN
cambri dge uni versi ty p re s s
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town,
Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Mexico City
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb ru, UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/
Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by the MPG Books Group
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
v
vi Contents
Catullan contexts in Ovid’s Metamorphoses
K. Sara Myers
Epilogue
Callimachus in Verona
Catullus and Alexandrian poetry
Damien P. Nelis
See, for example, Syndikus () , Wiseman () , Holzberg () , Batstone () ,
Knox () –. More generally, see Wheeler () –. On the text of Callimachus, fr. .
and the problematic reading a¬ kat lept»n, see Lehnus (). On the slender Muse of line
see Fantuzzi and Hunter () –.
For an excellent survey of the whole question see Knox ().
damien p. nelis
Poem begins thus:
Saepe tibi studioso animo uenante requirens
carmina uti possem mittere Battiadae . . .
Often I have sought, like a keen hunter, poems of
Callimachus that I could send to you . . .
There can be little doubt that the attentive reader is expected to appreciate
that there is a connection between these two couplets. In each, and in
the same metrical position, Catullus mentions poems of Callimachus,
identified as a descendant of Battus. Furthermore, the former poem acts
as the introduction to a translation of a section of the Aetia in Poem ,
while the first word of the latter poem, saepe, translates the first word of
the Aetia, pollki. The connection will have been even more obvious if
Poems and did indeed open and close a Catullan libellus of elegiac
poems. Whatever one’s opinion of that idea, if one accepts that there is a
meaningful connection between the two couplets, then it must be obvious
that in turn they create a highly marked and obviously very important
recollection of the explicitly introductory Poem and its Callimachean
credentials.
A great deal of work has gone into investigating these and many other
moments of intertextual and intratextual engagement in Catullus and their
overall importance for attempts to grasp the structure and thematic coher-
ence of his oeuvre. But once again, difficult questions abound. Was our
collection organized by the poet himself or is it the result of editorial
work done after his death? Can we be sure that the corpus as we have it
can be divided up into three separate books? If we believe we can, what
was in each book? Was one of those books entitled Passer? Given such
uncertainty, is it really possible to establish the significance of intratex-
tual patterns both within each of the libelli and between them? Amidst
The Suda states that Battus was the name of Callimachus’ father, but the better known figure of
that name is the mythical founder of Cyrene: Pind. Pyth. ., Hdt. .. The poet himself uses the
patronymic at Ep. .: ‘You are passing by the tomb of Battiades . . . ’. For discussion see Fantuzzi
and Hunter () –, .
See Pontani (), Knox () . For additional Callimachean elements in see Macleod
() = () –, Barchiesi () –.
See Skinner () for a full-scale defence of the thesis that Poems – form an elegiac libellus;
note also Hutchinson () = () ch. . See Butrica () and Skinner (b) for useful
surveys of the history of the transmission of the text and the whole question of the arrangement of
the collection as a whole; see also Claes (), and Gutzwiller and Hutchinson in this volume.
On Callimachean influence and the mention of Battus at . see Cairns () –.
Since the fundamental study of Wiseman () see, for example, Beck (), Claes (), Hutchin-
son () = () –, Hubbard ().
Callimachus in Verona
the debates surrounding these matters Callimachean poetry and poetics
are often invoked as a key part of the argument. In , for example,
T. P. Wiseman wrote: ‘We can see now . . . how Catullus exploited his
readers’ knowledge of the Aetia at the beginning of all three books of his
collection.’ At this point it becomes important to emphasize that in recent
years research on Hellenistic poetry has brought about some radical changes
in the appreciation of Callimachus and of his profoundly influential Aetia.
In , Alan Cameron challenged established and cherished certainties
about Callimachus and opened up new ways of thinking about his poetry
and its reception. His revisionist interpretations offered new perspectives on
a number of much debated issues. Cameron attaches great importance to
orality, performance culture and social function in reaction to approaches
based on the culture of the book and preconceptions based on the image
of the ivory tower and ideas about l’art pour l’art. In addition, his radical
reinterpretation of the Aetia prologue as a text which has little or nothing
to do with epic poetry has strongly challenged many traditional readings of
many Hellenistic and Roman texts. More recently, S. Stephens has argued
that Hellenistic poetry has suffered from being read in terms of purely
Greek cultural patterns and that it requires careful study from an Egyp-
tian perspective as well. Her approach depends on a profound process
of historicization in relation to Callimachus and his contemporaries, espe-
cially Theocritus and Apollonius Rhodius. Concerning the latter, in
R. Hunter had already offered a ground-breaking reading of the Argonautica
from a Ptolemaic perspective. He draws attention to the central position
in the Alexandrian court which the post of Librarian of the Royal Library
accorded Apollonius and emphasizes the importance of those aspects of
the story which celebrate the successes of Greeks overseas. He also draws
attention to contemporary political links between Egypt and the Black Sea
and such episodes as that in Book which looks forward to the foundation
of Cyrene. As a result, Hunter is able to show how Apollonius’ poem can
be read as an exploration of the relationship between Alexandria and its
Greek past, in both literary and historical terms, and also as relating to
the history of the Ptolemaic presence both in North Africa and in the
wider Greek world. Along similar lines, M. A. Harder has argued that
Pompey and Caesar became related when the former married the latter’s daughter Julia in bc; see
Seager () .
Konstan () elegantly summarizes the viewpoint that the political context evoked by the poems
is that of – bc and that Catullus’ poetry as a whole, including the erotic texts, offers a complex
and profound reflection on Roman imperialism and morality in these years.
See McNelis () – on ‘Greek myth and Roman realities’.
See Herrmann () and also the discussion of his arguments by Konstan () –. Konstan
() – is the most up-to-date statement of this position; see now also Hardie in this volume.
damien p. nelis
speculative. But there are other ways of approaching the text which may
perhaps help to set these issues in a wider perspective and at least pro-
mote further discussion of an approach which, if there is anything to it, is
obviously of primordial importance for the understanding of the nature of
Catullan poetry.
As already noted, Poem begins with the Argonauts, before veering
off in quite striking fashion to recount other stories. Recent scholarship
has gone a long way toward elucidating the central importance of the
Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius as a key model of Catullus, both in
relation to the opening description of the Argo and to the stories of Peleus
and Thetis and Ariadne and Theseus which follow. There can be little doubt
that Catullus composed with the Argonautica constantly in mind. But
did he read the Argonautica as a political poem which uses the story of the
Argonauts to think about the situation of Greeks in Egypt and explore the
cultural relationship between Ptolemaic Alexandria and the Greek past?
Certainly, important aspects of the influence of Apollonius on Virgil’s
Aeneid can be put down to this political or cultural interpretation of the
Hellenistic epic. And since Catullus is also a model in sections of the
Aeneid in which Apollonius is a central model, especially the Dido episode,
it seems worth asking whether Apollonius may have been read by Catullus
in much the same way as by R. Hunter and Virgil. This approach has in
fact already been applied to another version of the Argonautic saga written
(on traditional datings) several years after Poem . Both A. Arcellaschi
and D. Braund have independently connected Varro Atacinus’ translation
of Apollonius Rhodius to Rome’s eastern policies in the mid-s bc, the
essential point in the argument being that the period in which Julius
Caesar was planning a massive military campaign against Parthia must
have seemed a suitable one in which to indulge in a Latin translation of a
famous poem recounting the successful adventures of Greek heroes in the
eastern Mediterranean.
As far as the thematic coherence of Catullus is concerned, sev-
eral scholars have in fact already pointed out that there are important
He argues, for example, that Daphnis in Virgil’s ninth Eclogue represents Catullus, whom Virgil, as
Menalcas, is exhorting to write about the Caesar and the sidus Iulium. He even suggests that the
wedding couch of Julia and Pompey was decorated with the story of Ariadne and that the regal
treasure of Peleus (regali . . . gaza, .) corresponds to the royal treasure of Mithridates.
See DeBrohun () for an excellent survey, with full bibliography. Nuzzo () is admirably
alive to the importance of Apollonius throughout.
Hunter (a) –, Nelis () –.
See Hardie in this volume. On Virgil’s Dido and Catullus see Cairns () –.
See Arcellaschi () –, Braund (). On the fragmentary remains of the Argonautae see Hol-
lis () –; note that he down-dates the poem from the mid-s, to which it is traditionally
assigned, to ‘soon after bc’.
Callimachus in Verona
connections between the poem’s Argonautic opening and its closing move-
ment in which the mythical world is brought into direct relation to the
Roman present. The complexity of the poem as a whole has, however,
provoked considerable disagreement over the precise nature of the relation-
ship between the heroic past and the corrupt and violent picture of the
present. While there is on one level an obvious overall trajectory tracing
moral decline, Catullus simultaneously seems to see the past both in ide-
alized terms as a time when true harmony reigned on earth and as a time
when the world was already corrupt. As has been pointed out repeatedly,
lines –, which declare that the artwork on the coverlet represents the
heroum . . . uirtutes, must provoke a strong sense of irony, given that the
uestis in question depicts Theseus’ desertion of Ariadne, which is hardly an
obvious example of heroic uirtus, whatever his other achievements.
One obvious parallel between the opening of the poem and its close
helps to explain in part why Catullus chose to begin with the Argo and
how this beginning fits into the thematic unity of the text as a whole. At
line the song of the Parcae ends and, as the narrator moves into his
finale, we read (–):
talia praefantes quondam felicia Pelei
carmina diuino cecinerunt pectore Parcae.
praesentes namque ante domos inuisere castas
heroum . . .
foretelling such things long ago, for Peleus
the fates sang joyous songs with all-seeing mind.
For in earlier times the gods in person came to visit
the holy homes of heroes . . .
Catullus goes on to contrast this period, in which gods and mankind
mingled freely on earth, with the corruption of a subsequent period of
estrangement ():
sed postquam tellus scelere est imbuta nefando . . .
but after the earth was stained with frightful crime . . .
And finally he relates this nefas directly to ‘us’, i.e. to contemporary Romans
(–):
omnia fanda nefanda malo permixta furore
iustificam nobis mentem auertere deorum.
all right and wrong caught up in mad folly
turned away from us the just attention of the gods.
See for example Bramble () –, Konstan (), Feeney () –.
See Konstan () –, O’Hara () –.
damien p. nelis
Just as the quondam of line recalls the poem’s opening line (Peliaco
quondam prognatae uertice pinus), this evocation of the fall of humanity
from an earlier state of bliss is in fact a reworking of a central theme of the
whole opening section of the poem. The launch of the Argo in antiquity was
frequently represented as a key moment in the breaking down of natural
barriers leading to humanity’s loss of the peace and security of the Golden
Age. Right from the beginning, therefore, Catullus’ narrative deals with
the theme of moral decline, thus establishing a direct connection between
the description of the first sailing of the Argo and the grim depiction of
both heroic and human violence and terror which brings the poem to a
close. Of itself this thematic and structural connection need not invite
any more precise allegorical reading of the Argonautic section, but it does
create a link within the poem’s narrative logic between the myth of the
Argo and the contemporary Roman scene, a parallel which suggests that
some further aspects of the myth must also be considered before a fully
informed interpretation of its role in the poem is possible.
∗
The myth of the Argonauts came to Catullus with a rich literary history
going all the way back to Homer. At Odyssey . the story is already
famous and the Argo well known to everyone (%rgÜ psi mlousa).
The epic tales of both Jason and Odysseus, whatever their mythic origins
in earlier substrata of Indo-European story-telling, became involved in
patterns of Greek thinking about colonization. One result of this process
is that the myth came to be used to deal with narratives of cultural origins,
history and identity. Admittedly, the highly fragmentary remains of the
earliest Greek versions of the Argonautic saga make interpretation of the
cultural and political use of the myth difficult, but some points can be
made.
Among the meagre and scattered fragments of early versions of the Arg-
onautic saga, Eumelus’ Corinthiaca stands out as an example of Corinthian
myth-making using aspects of the story in order to fill in the ori-
gins of the city and the history of its kingship. Corinth was of little
importance in traditonal epic myth and is hardly mentioned in Homer
(only Il. . and .). Therefore, a mythical history having to be
See Bramble () , Feeney () –. On Argo as the first ship see Jackson () = ()
–, O’Hara () –.
See West (). He argues that Homer’s Laestrygonians, Sirens, Helios, Circe, the Clashing Rocks
and the descent to Hades are all borrowed from the Argonautic saga.
See in general Malkin ().
See Dougherty (), Calame (), Stephens () ch. .
For surveys of the early Argonautic tradition see Braswell () –, Dräger () ch. .
Callimachus in Verona
constructed, Eumelus has Aeetes as first King of Corinth and afterwards of
Colchis. The Corinthians subsequently invite Jason and Medea to Corinth
from Iolcus, marking a return of the original ruling family. Whatever
the historical details involved, it is easy to see how travelling heroes were
extremely useful for myth-makers seeking to trace in poetic form their
city’s origins back to a heroic past and in doing so to provide justification
for contemporary power structures.
It is Pindar who provides our first example of the telling of the myth
of the Argonauts in a complete surviving poem. The myth occurs in the
Fourth Pythian, a poem for Arkesilas of Cyrene, victor in the chariot race
in bc. The real motive for the composition of the poem is to be
found in contemporary political conditions in Cyrene. Herodotus (.–
) records challenges to Battiad rule in the s bc and in lines –
Pindar clearly reveals the serious threats faced by Arkesilas, before going on
to support the recall of the exiled Demophilus. The essential link between
the political situation and the myth comes from the fact that the Battiadai
claimed the Argonaut Euphemus as one of their ancestors. Medea explains
in the opening section of the poem how Euphemus had received a clod
of earth from Triton near Lake Tritonis in Libya. This clod is brought to
Thera, from where Cyrene was much later colonized. Pindar’s plea for the
monarchy runs thus: by divine will, the Euphemids were chosen to become
kings of Cyrene and by divine will their rule has continued. The basis for
this approach is to be found in the myth of the Argonauts, their adventures
in North Africa and specifically the presence of Euphemus among them.
As told by Apollonius Rhodius, in direct and consistent interaction
with Pindar’s version, the same story occurs near the end of the Arg-
onautica (.–). Once again, a mythical narrative about Greeks in
Cyrenaica obviously interacts with contemporary concerns, the context on
this occasion being relations between Cyrene and Alexandria and Magas
and the Ptolemies. So close is the connection between the two poems in
dealing with the Argonauts and the founding of Cyrene that for Pindar
and Arkesilas we can read Apollonius and Ptolemy Philadelphus, as the
story of Euphemus and the clod is used in both poems to provide the
mythic background to current political contexts involving the presence
of Greeks in North Africa. Subsequently, in different ways and with
different emphases, Susan Stephens and Anatole Mori have both argued
persuasively for the obvious contemporary relevance of the Argonautic saga
For discussion see West (), with down-dating to the sixth century and a terminus post quem of
bc.
See Hunter (a) –, –.
damien p. nelis
in Ptolemaic Alexandria. Overall, the remarkable popularity of the story
of the Argonauts in the Hellenistic period (Callimachus and Theocritus
also deal with various parts of the story, for example) can be put down to
the fact that it clearly spoke on several levels to Greeks living in Alexandria
and it thus became a central element in the ways in which a series of poets
depicted the Greek past from a contemporary Ptolemaic perspective.
Most frustratingly, we are not in a position to appreciate fully the role the
myth played in the Aetia of Callimachus. Apollonius’ version is influenced
to an unknowable extent by that of Callimachus, and the wider issue of
how the Argo story operated within the Aetia as a whole is an interesting
question which merits more detailed study than it has received. As far as we
can tell from the fragmentary remains, Argonautic episodes appeared near
the beginning and end of the four-book version of the poem, and the myth,
strongly marked as a pre-Homeric story in terms of mythical chronology,
may well have played an important role in Callimachus’ handling of history
and geography in the poem as a whole. As an example of the kind of
connection we could possibly make if we knew more about the Aetia, one
need only reflect on Feeney’s observation that the status of King Minos as
‘the first thalassocrat’ is an important issue in Catullus and that it is ‘not
casually introduced: the penalty of human sacrifice that Theseus sails to halt
is one that was imposed on Athens by Minos during an imperial punitive
expedition’. In his very first aetiological story, Callimachus dealt with the
career of Minos. One early fragment ( Massimilla = Pf.) informs us that
Minos ‘stretched a heavy yoke on the neck of the islands’ and the Florentine
scholia inform us that Callimachus also mentioned the death of Androgeos.
In introducing the story of Theseus in Poem did Catullus allude to the
Callimachean use of the myth of Minos in the first book of the Aetia?
We will probably never know, but the possibility is intriguing. If Minos
played an important role in the poem’s construction of historical narratives
and its handling of past, present and future time seen from a Ptolemaic
perspective, then Catullus’ opening of Poem with first the Argonauts
and then Theseus may perhaps be seen in a new light. Could its opening
scene also be seen as conveying contemporary political significance for
Rome’s role in, and relations with, the wider Mediterranean world?
Consistently, therefore, Greek writers from the Archaic to the Hellenistic
period use the story of the Argonauts to reflect on politics and history, on
the links between present and past, on the questions of origins, traditions
See Stephens () ch. , Mori (). On which aspects see Harder ().
Feeney () . On Minos in the Aetia see Harder () –.
Callimachus in Verona
and cultural change. When we encounter the Argonauts in Latin litera-
ture, it is not surprising, as we have seen, that scholars have suggested the
presence of similar resonances in the Argonautae of Varro Atacinus. Those
looking for the possible relevance of the Argonautic opening of Catullus
to the contemporary Roman world should take into account, therefore,
that Catullus has chosen a myth which was already heavily politicized in
both Greek and Roman authors. As we have observed, every writer who
uses it seems in one way or another to see in it a story that can convey reflec-
tions on cultural origins and identities, the processes of historical change
and political power. To write about the Argonauts is to engage inevitably
with ideas about history and culture and so the myth frequently became a
medium for reflecting on particular moments in history, be it in Corinth,
Cyrene, Alexandria or Rome.
One obvious problem confronts any attempt to probe further in search
of more precise topical allusion in the use of the Argo myth in Catullus
, and that is the question of the dating of the composition of the poem.
There seems to be general agreement that the situation Catullus evokes in
his poems as a whole fits well with the period following the formation in
bc of what is often called the First Triumvirate. Certainly, the famous
and vicious attack on Caesar and Pompey in Poem is usually dated
to late or early . As already mentioned, Konstan has gone on from
such indications to argue that the corpus as a whole evokes the politics of
the s bc, during which the appetites of Caesar and Pompey for military
conquest and political power in Rome came to dominate the political
scene. If this is indeed the case, is there anything in Poem which could
invite the contemporary reader to connect the mythic elements to current
events?
One piece of evidence may be provided by the possibility that a near-
contemporary Roman reader may have sensed the presence of connections.
It is well known that Virgil’s fourth Eclogue is a poem that deals explicitly
with a precise historical moment in Rome’s history, the year of Pollio’s
consulship in bc and, in all probability, with the marriage of Antony
and Octavia. Scholars have frequently noted that Eclogue owes much
to Poem . In general terms, where Catullus depicts humanity’s loss of
In general on Rome and the myth of the Argonauts see Fabre-Serris () –.
See p. above. Cf. Leigh () for historicizing readings of Roman Comedy.
For a detailed allegorical reading of Valerius Flaccus’ epic in relation to Flavian Rome see Taylor
().
Note however Newman () , who is tempted by a date c. bc.
Konstan (). See Clausen () –.
See for example Fabre-Serris () –, Hardie in this volume and Trimble (forthcoming).
damien p. nelis
conditions which are associated with the Golden Age, Virgil offers glimpses
of their possible return. And, quite specifically, he refers to the voyage of
the Argonauts in charting the stages of that return, doing so by borrowing
Catullan language (Ecl. .–):
at simul heroum laudes et facta parentis
iam legere et quae sit poteris cognoscere uirtus,
...
pauca tamen suberunt priscae uestigia fraudis,
quae temptare Thetin ratibus, quae cingere muris
oppida, quae iubeant telluri infindere sulcos.
alter erit tum Tiphys et altera quae uehat Argo
delectos heroas.
But as soon as you learn to read the praiseworthy
deeds of heroes and the achievements of your
father and understand what virtue is
...
however, a few traces of former deceit will remain,
which may drive mankind to risk sailing the sea
in ships, encircle cities with walls and plough the
earth. Then there will be another Tiphys and a
new Argo to carry chosen heroes.
In these lines, the period during which the Argo sailed is associated explic-
itly with fraus, while the subsequent disappearance of the art of sailing will
mark the return of peace and security, thus inverting the Catullan evocation
of the association between the sailing of Argo and the end of the Golden
Age. It is of course possible to read Virgil’s use of Poem in purely literary
terms, but it is worth considering whether Virgil may have seen in Catullus
the trace of a political subtext. The similarities in detail between the two
poems may make sense only when it is realized that each evokes an impor-
tant dynastic marriage intended to bring stability to Roman politics –
that between Pompey and Julia in bc and that between Antony and
Octavia in bc. In a similar vein, it could also be pointed out that a par-
allel relationship may exist between another famous Virgilian episode, the
Aristaeus story in Georgics , and Poem . It is clear that Virgil’s account
of the story of Aristaeus and Orpheus, often characterized as an epyllion,
is in many ways indebted to Poem . This being the case, it should be
noted that some scholars have seen in this section of Georgics a political
allegory, within which the Virgilian fabula can be read as commenting on
the political situation involving Octavian, Antony and Cleopatra in the
Cf. lecti, .; heroes, .; uirtutes, .; Thetis, .–. See Crabbe ().
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dress, in laws, in ideas and forms of government—indicate the
operation of widely different influences.
CHAPTER XXXV.
ARE ALL ORIENTALS MAD?
With respect to the Koran, the Orientals are at this day in the
position into which, as respects our Holy Scriptures, an attempt was
made to bring our forefathers in the days of mediæval scholasticism.
They believe that in their sacred volume is contained all knowledge,
either explicitly or implicitly. We have long abandoned definitively this
idea. We have come to understand that the New Testament
announces itself only as a moral revelation; and of that gives only
the spirit, and not the letter; that is to say, that it does not profess to
give, and, as a matter of fact, does not contain, a definite system of
law, but the principles only which should regulate such a system. It
leaves us, therefore, to go not only for our astronomy to
astronomers, and for our geology to geologists, but also for our
municipal law to jurists and legislators, so long as what they
propound and enact is not at discord with Christian principles. The
Mahomedan, however, has not this liberty, for the Koran professes to
contain an all-embracing and sufficient code. It regulates everything.
This is very unfortunate; or, whatever it was at first, it has, in process
of time, come to be very unfortunate; for it makes the ideas—what
we must regard as the ignorance rather than the knowledge—of a
more than half-savage Arab of the seventh century the rule by which
everything in law, life, and thought is to be measured for all time.
While I was in the East I was full of commiseration for the people I
saw bound hand and foot in this way. They are handsome, clean-
limbed fellows, and quick-witted enough. There is in them the
making of great nations. Power, however, is an attribute of mind, and
mind cannot work unless it be free. While I commiserated them, I
saw no hope for them. The evil they are afflicted by appears not to
admit of a remedy; because while, for men who have advanced so
far as they have, it is intellectual suicide to be faithful to such a
religion, to be unfaithful to it has hitherto proved to be moral suicide.
Their ideas and sentiments on all the ordinary concerns and
events of life, and, in short, on all subjects, are the same in all, all
being drawn from the same source. So also are even their very
modes of expression. There is a prescribed form for everything that
occurs; of course, not drawn, in every instance, first-hand from the
Koran, but, at all events, ultimately from it, for these expressions are
what have come to be adopted by the people universally, as being
most in harmony with the spirit and ideas of the Book. The words to
be used at meetings and at partings, under all circumstances; the
words in which unbecoming acts and sentiments are to be corrected
and acknowledged; the words, in short, which are appropriate to
every occasion of life, are all prescribed, and laid up in the memory,
ready for use. God’s name is rarely omitted in these formulæ,
reference being made sometimes to one of His attributes, sometimes
to another, as the occasion may require. Sometimes a pious
sentiment is to be expressed; sometimes a pious ejaculation will be
the correct thing. But everybody knows what is to be said on every
occurrence, great or small, of life.
Learning the Koran by heart is education. It is for this that schools
are established. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are de luxe, or for
certain occupations only. History and science, of course, have no
existence to their minds.
They treat the material volume itself, which contains the sacred
words, with corresponding respect. For instance, when carrying it
they will not allow it to descend below the girdle. They will not place
it on the ground, or on a low shelf. They will not, when unclean,
touch it. They will not print it for fear of there being something
unclean in the ink, the paper, or the printer. They will not sell it to any
unbelievers, even to such partial unbelievers as Jews or Christians.
And in many other ways, indeed in every way in their power, they
endeavour to show how sacred in their eyes is the Book.
In principle and effect it makes no great difference whether the
letter of the Sacred Text be exclusively adhered to, or whether it be
supplemented by more or less of tradition, and of the interpretations
and decisions of certain learned and pious Doctors of the Law. The
latter case, as far as the view we are now taking of the action of the
system is concerned, would be equivalent only to the addition of a
few more chapters to the Sacred Text. The existing generation would
equally be barred from doing anything for itself. If the laws of Alfred,
or of Edward the Confessor, had been preserved and accepted by
ourselves as a heaven-sent code, incapable of addition or
improvement; or if the laws of either had been received, with an
enlargement of certain traditions, interpretations, and decisions—we
should, in either case, equally have lost the practice and the idea of
legislating for ourselves: that is to say, we should have lost the
invigorating and improving process of incessantly discussing,
adapting, and endeavouring to perfect our polity and our code: so
that what is now with us the self-acting and highest discipline of the
intellect, and of the moral faculty, would have been transformed into
the constant and most effectual discipline for their enfeeblement and
extinction.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
ORIENTAL PRAYER.
Prayer is still in the East, just what it was of old time, a matter of
prescribed words, postures, and repetitions. This, however, is only
what it is on the outside, and it is not the outside of anything that
keeps it alive, but what is within. It is there we must look for what
gives life. We shall be misled, too, again, if in our search for life in
this practice we suppose that what prompts it in Orientals must be,
precisely, the same as what prompts it in ourselves. Our
manifestation of this instinct is somewhat different from theirs. Prayer
with them is the bringing the mind into close contact with the ideas of
infinitude—infinite power, infinite wisdom, infinite goodness. It calls
up within them, by an intense effort of the imagination, their idea of
God, just as the same kind of effort calls up within ourselves any
image we please. The image called up, whatever it may be,
produces certain corresponding sensations and emotions. But none
can produce such deep emotions as the idea of God: it moves the
whole soul. It is the ultimate concentrated essence of all thought.
The man who is brought under its influence is prostrated in
abasement, or nerved to patient endurance, or driven into wild
fanaticism. It calms and soothes. It fills with light. It puts into a
trance. Mental sensations may be pleasurable just as those of the
body, and the deeper the sensation the more intense the
satisfaction. In their simple religion these attributes of God are really,
as well as ostensibly, the nucleus, the soul, of the matter. All things
else are merely corollaries to and deductions from them—matter that
is evidently very subordinate. Theirs is a religion of one idea, the
idea of God. And the calling up within them of this idea is their
prayer.
Or we may put this in another way. We may say that prayer is with
them the conscious presentation to their minds of certain ideas, and
the prostration of their minds before them—namely, the ideas of the
different forms of moral perfectness, the idea of intellectual
perfectness or complete knowledge, and the idea, belonging to the
physical order, of perfect power. Their conception of these ideas is,
of course, not identical with ours, but such as their past history, and
the existing conditions of Eastern society, enable them to attain to.
We can separate this effort of theirs into two parts. First, there is the
creation in the mind of these ideas of the several kinds of
perfectness; and then there is the effect the holding of them in the
mind has on the mind itself. That effect is the production in
themselves of a tendency towards making these forms of moral
being, such as they have been conceived, instinctive sentiments,
and instinctive principles of action.
In this view prayer is with the Oriental, the effort by which he both
forms the conception of what is good, and actually becomes good;
both, of course, in accordance with the measure of what is possible
for him. But why, it may be asked, should he do this? All men who
have lived in organized societies have done it; though, indeed, the
character of the act has not in all been so distinctly moral as it is with
the Oriental. Still it has been a natural ladder by which individuals
and communities, and mankind generally, have mounted from lower
to higher stages of moral being. It has been the natural means by
which the moral ideas, which the working of the successive stages of
social progress suggested, have been brought into shape, purified,
disseminated, and made universal and instinctive. As respects the
community everybody understands that its peace, and order, and
even that its existence, very much depend on there being a general
unanimity in moral ideas and sentiments throughout all its classes
and members. And it has always been perceived that the most
effectual way of bringing this about is that all should have the same
object of worship—that is to say, that the prayers of all should be the
same. Formerly, when these things were more studied than they are
now, this was regarded as the one paramount way. Fellow-citizens
then were those who worshipped the same Gods in the same
temples; aliens were those who worshipped other Gods. There could
be no citizenship where there was a diversity of prayers; for that
gave rise to, and implied, a diversity of moral standards. And with
respect to the individual, the spontaneous working of what is within
has pretty generally revealed to him that this moral effect of prayer is
his highest personal concern. He regards it as the advancement of
his truest self; for, if he is not a moral being, he cannot tell in what he
differs, specifically, from the lower animals; and prayer, he knows it
is, which has been the chief means for keeping alive, and nurturing,
and bringing into form, his moral being. It gives birth, form,
permanence, and vitality to moral aspirations.
To dwell for a moment longer on the subject, looking still at the
same fact, but now from a somewhat different point of view. The
object of their prayer has been the highly compound abstraction of
all, but more especially in the moral order, that would, according to
their ideas and knowledge, contribute towards the upholding and
building up of a human society. We see indications of this elsewhere
besides among Orientals. In a democracy wisdom and counsel in the
general body of the community are necessary, and so at Athens was
worshipped the Goddess of Wisdom. The maintenance and
enlargement of Rome depended on the sword, and so the god of
Rome was the God of War. The martial spirit and martial virtues were
necessary to them. When concord became necessary, a temple was
erected to Concord. This also explains the deification of living
Egyptian Pharaohs, and of living Roman emperors. Each was in his
time the “præsens deus” of society. What was done was done by
their providence. Their will was the law of society, and its regulative
power.
Even revealed religion is not exempt from this necessity. When the
existence of the Hebrew people depended on the sword, Jehovah
was the Lord of Hosts, the God of Battles. He taught the hands to
war, and the fingers to fight. He gave them the victory over all their
enemies round about. He it was Who made them a peculiar people
—that is to say, Who brought about within them the sentiment of
national exclusiveness; and Who, in short, made them zealous of all
the good works that would maintain society under its existing
conditions and circumstances. At the Christian epoch, when the chief
hope of the world was in peace and order, He was regarded as the
institutor of civil government; and as having made all people of one
blood, so that there could be no ground for anything exclusive. As
men’s ideas changed, the substance of their prayers changed
correspondingly. To deny these facts is to deny both history, and the
plain, unmistakable announcements of the Sacred Volume. And to
reject the grand, simple, instructive explanation universal history thus
gives is to refuse to accept that view of the working of providence in
human affairs, which God submits to our consideration, just as He
does the order and the mind of the visible material world. It is, in fact,
to refuse to be taught of God.
But to return to the modern Egypto-Arabs. To us there appears to
be very little, surprisingly little, in their minds. They have but little
thought about political matters, no thoughts about history, no
thoughts about the knowledge of outward nature. Their ideas, then,
of God, which are the summary of their religion, obtain full sway over
them. Prayer is the continual exhibition of them to their minds. It stirs
and keeps alive their hearts and souls. While these ideas are acting
upon them they are conscious of an unselfish, and sublime,
exaltation of their moral, and intellectual being.
With us Prayer has somewhat of a different aspect, both as to its
immediate source, and even, apparently, in some degree, as to its
substance. It is not always primarily, or mainly, an attempt to bring
our inmost thought into contact with the pure and simple idea of God.
It almost seems as if something had occurred which had interposed
an insulating medium between our hearts and that idea, which
cannot now, as of old, directly reach our hearts, and generate within
them its own forms of moral perfectness. Much of our Prayer is
prompted by the thought of our own wants, and of our own sins; and
so has something of a personal, and of a selfish character. Still,
perhaps, this is ultimately the same thing. It may be only an indirect
way of reaching the same point. It is, evidently, a perpetual reminder
of our moral requirements, and a perpetual effort to form just and
elevated conceptions of those requirements. This mode of culture
quickens the moral sentiments, raises them to the level of their
immediate purpose, and makes them distinct, vigorous, ever-
present, and instinctive.
What has been said will explain why Orientals pray in set forms of
words. Words represent ideas; and the Prophet, or the Saint, whose
mind is in a state of extraordinary religious exaltation, and the
general thought of religious teachers and of religious people, can, of
course, better imagine the attributes of Deity, and clothe what they
imagine in more appropriate words, than ordinary people could. It is,
therefore, better to take their words than to leave the matter to the
ignorant, the unimaginative, and the dead in soul. Under their system
of unchangeable forms all become alike animated by the best ideas,
presented in the most suitable words. This will explain why they
practise repetitions. With their method it is a necessity.
Short forms, composed of as few ideas as a piece of granite is of
ingredients, and as inelastic and inexpansive, and those forms
incessantly repeated, could not affect us in the way of prayer; but
they mightily affect the Oriental. They are both the frame in which his
mind and life are set, and the spring upon which they are wound up.
In short, and in truth, these ideas are the seminal germs which
fecundate, legitimately, the moral capabilities of his nature, which, if
unquickened by their contact, either will become aborted; or, by
having been brought into contact with other illegitimate ideas, will
give birth to abnormal, and more or less pernicious developments.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
PILGRIMAGE.
He hath forsaken his wife and children, and betaken himself to a pilgrim’s life.—
Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.
The traveller in Egypt, who observes what is before him, and feels
an interest in conversing with the natives, will have many
opportunities for learning something about their superstitious or
religious ideas—for, of course, much that with them is religion with
us would be superstition—such as their belief in charms and
amulets, and in the beneficial, or remedial efficacy of utterly
irrelevant acts and prescriptions. This is a large—indeed, almost an
inexhaustible—subject, because it pervades their whole lives,
influencing almost everything they do, and every thought that passes
through their minds. Whenever an Arab wishes to attain to, or to
escape from, anything, his method of proceeding is not to use the
means—or if he does, not to be content with them—which, in the
nature of things, would lead to the desired result, but to depend
either entirely, or, at all events, as a collateral means, on something
else which can have no possible bearing on his object, but which, in
consequence of the presence in his mind of certain ideas, and the
absence of certain others, he thinks will have, or ought to have,
some impossible effects.
Among Egyptians—it is so with all Orientals, there is an universal
belief in the potency of the Evil Eye. If any one has looked upon an
object with envious and covetous feelings, evil will ensue; not,
however—and this is the heart and the peculiarity of the superstition
—to the covetous or envious man, but to the coveted or envied
object. I will attempt presently to explain this inversion of moral
ideas. A mother in easy circumstances will keep her child in shabby
clothes, and begrimed with dirt, in order that those who see it may
not think it beautiful, and so cast an envious or covetous eye upon it.
Some kenspeckle object is placed among the caparisons of a
handsome horse or camel, that the eye of the passer-by may be
attracted to it, and so withdrawn from the animal itself. The entire
dress of a Nubian young lady consists of a fringe of shredded
leather, two or three inches deep, worn round the loins. On the upper
edge of this fringe two or three bunches of small white cowrie shells
are fastened. The traveller might, at first,—and, probably, generally
does,—suppose that this is merely a piece of coquetry, inspired by
the desire to attract attention. The truth is the reverse. The white
shells against the ebon skin are, it is true, intended to attract
attention—not at all, however, in the way of coquetry, but from the
opposite wish that the eye of the passer-by may be attracted to the
shells, and thus that the wearer may herself escape the effects of the
coveting, Evil Eye.
There is the same motive in the adoption by women of gold coins
as ornaments for the head. Let the eye be attracted to that coveted
and precious object, and diverted from the face. So, also, with the
use of the veil; and so with many other preventive devices.
But as the source of the mischief is in the heart of the beholder,
prevention may go further, and may dry up, if the effort be wisely
made, the source of the evil at the fountain-head. This is to be done
by so disciplining men’s minds, as that they shall habitually refrain
from looking on anything with envious, or covetous thoughts. The
method they have adopted for effecting this desirable change in the
heart is to make it a point of religion, and of good manners, that a
man shall so word his admiration as, at the same time, to express
renunciation of any wish to possess the beautiful, or desirable object
before him that belongs to another. He must not express his
admiration of it simply. It would be reprehensible for him to say of a
beautiful child, or dress, or jewel, or garden, or anything that was
another’s, ‘How charming!—how beautiful!’ He must associate his
admiration with the idea of God, and with the acknowledgment, that
he submits to the behest of God that has given it to another. This he
does by saying, ‘God’s will be done (Mashallah),’ or by some similar
expression. If he should so far forget propriety as to express himself
otherwise, the bystanders would recall him to good manners, and a
proper sense of religion in the matter, by reproving him.
But supposing all these preventive measures of strategy, religion,
and politeness have failed, and the Evil Eye, notwithstanding, must
needs alight on some object, what is to be done then? The only
resource is in the recognized counter-agents. These are of two kinds
—those which have a prophylactic, and those which have a remedial
efficacy. To the first belong some selected texts of the Koran, or the
whole of the sacred volume, which must be enclosed in a suitable
receptacle, and hung about the neck of the person to be protected. A
little piece of alum has the same effect. Some have recourse to the
ninety-nine titles of the Deity; others prefer the titles, equal in
number, of the Prophet. These may be kept in the house, as well as
about the person. Lane has an interesting chapter on Arab
superstitions, from which we may gather that the names of the
Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, and of their dog, and the names of the
few paltry articles of furniture left by the Prophet, have great potency.
But supposing these, and other such prophylactics have failed, as
must sometimes happen, in averting the Evil Eye, nothing remains
then but the use of antidotes. One that commends itself to general
adoption is, to prick a piece of paper with a pin, to represent the eye
of the envious man, and then to burn it. Another that is equally
efficacious is, to burn a compound of several pinches of salt stained
with different colours, and mixed with storax, wormwood, and other
matters. But I need not pursue this part of a single subject any
farther: what has been said will be enough to show what are their
ideas as to the ways in which the Evil Eye is to be combated.
And now for the explanation I would venture to offer of what is to
us the strangest part of the matter, that such a belief as this of the
Evil Eye should have had any existence at all, because it involves
the immoral idea that all the suffering falls on the innocent victim,
and that there is no retribution for the guilty cause of the mischief.
This I am disposed to think has been brought about by the facts and
experience of life in the East. There the Evil Eye has always had a
very real, and fearful significance; and people have done very wisely
in endeavouring to guard against it. It never would have done in that
part of the world, nor would it do at this day in Cairo, or anywhere
else, even down to the most secluded village, for one to flaunt before
the world what others might covet, or envy him the possession of.
The simple plan there has ever been, that those should take who
have the power, and that those only should keep who are not known
to possess. A man who had a beautiful wife, or child, or costly jewel,
or a showy horse, or camel, or anything good, if it were observed,
and known, would at any time, in the East, have been pretty sure to
lose it, and perhaps with it his own life into the bargain. This of
course has been a master-fact in forming the manners and customs
of the people. Hence their ideas about the Evil Eye. What befel Uriah
and Naboth, has befallen many everywhere. Hence the wisdom of
keeping good things out of sight, and of diverting attention from
them. Hence the belief that the evil is for the innocent possessor,
and not for the wicked envier, or coveter. The methods adopted for
obviating its effects are, of course, merely the offspring of fear acting
on ignorance.
I need not give any further illustrations of this condition of the Arab
mind. A general statement will now be sufficient. Every evil that flesh
is heir to, every ailment, every as yet unsatisfied yearning, every
loss, every suffering, has its appropriate treatment, all being of the
same character as that which prescribes, for some moral obliquity in
A’s mind, that B should burn a piece of alum, or of storax, purchased
on a particular day. Some of these practices are laughable, some
disgusting. Some that are of the latter class recall Herodotus’s story
of the means to which King Phero, in the days of old Egypt, had
recourse for the recovery of his sight.
It is cheap to laugh at these ideas and practices, but we have
ourselves passed, in this matter, through the same stage. We had
our day of such remedies, when we attempted to cure diseases, and
to dispel evil influences with charms and amulets; and to ensure
success by having recourse to the luck that was supposed to be in
days, and things, and names, and places. The memory of all this has
not, even yet, completely vanished from amongst us. The echo of it
may still at times be heard. The history of all people shows that
these things contain the germ of the empirical art of medicine. The
first step in real progress is the abandonment of the idea that
disease is the irreversible decree of heaven, or of fate. The second
stage, that in which the Orientals now are, is the metaphysical
treatment of disease—that which assumes that each disease is to be
met by something which, from some fancied analogy, or fitness, or
antagonism, it is supposed ought to counteract it. This is futile in
itself, but not in its ulterior consequences, for it issues eventually in
the discovery of the true remedies. In time, if circumstances favour,
the subject comes to be treated scientifically. Every ailment is then
deliberately examined, with the view of discovering in what it actually
consists; and remedies are applied which, in accordance with the
known laws and properties of things, it is reasonably hoped will
check its growth or remove it.
It is curious to observe, while we are on this subject, that
homœopathy is only a reversion to old ways of thinking. Its
foundation is a metaphysical dictum that like cures like. And its
practice that these, or some other, globules will in each case
produce artificially the desired disease, is as contrary to the evidence
of the senses, and the known properties of the globules, as anything
to be found in Arab therapeutics.