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The Historians' History of the World 02 [Israel, India, Persia, Phoenicia, Minor Nations of Western Asia]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
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62) Ye know the original production by creation; will ye not therefore consider.…
63) What think ye the grain which ye sow?
64) Do ye cause the same to spring forth, or do we cause it to spring forth?
65) If we pleased, we could render the same dry and fruitless, so that you would not cease to wonder, saying,
66) Verily we have contracted debts for seed and labour, but we are not permitted to reap the fruit thereof.
67) What think ye? The water which ye drink,
68) Do ye send down the same from the clouds, or are we the senders thereof?
69) If we pleased we could render the same brackish: will ye not therefore give thanks?
70) What think ye? The fire which ye strike,
71) Do ye produce the tree whence ye obtain the same, or are we the producers thereof?
72) We have ordained the same for an admonition, and an advantage to those who travel through the deserts.
This passage, which is complete in itself, consists of four stanzas, of 5-4-3-2 verses, all of them diverse presentations of the same idea and alike in construction.
The whole group is enclosed between two single verses which correspond to one another, and form, as it were, a frame to it.
An exact observation of the Koran shows that strophes of the most varied structure occur in it, often combined with the responsion, and held together by all kinds of other literary forms. The principal characteristic of the strophe is still unity of idea, which, being in its nature relative, is subject to great variation. Nor is the strophe the final and greatest unit. As the strophe is formed by the combination of several lines or sentences, so a group is formed of a number of strophes and a great systematically constructed discourse of several groups. The same laws which govern the sentence and the verse prevail in the structure of the strophe and the formation of the group. Parallelism and antithesis are the principal elements of form in sentence and verse; they are likewise the forces that struggle for expression, and assert themselves in the structure of the strophe and the formation of the group.
The question may be raised: How did Mohammed come to adopt this form of composition? For the present, I can only advance a hypothesis in reply. Mohammed received the first impulse to meditate upon matters of religion from various wise and learned men, and through them became acquainted with the principal doctrines of Judaism and Christianity; and in like manner he must have acquired from them the tradition of this form of poetry, a form which, unlike the poetry of the heathen, was not devoted to the delight and joy of life, but to religious meditation and to ancient and pious legend. This form of composition may have been practised and preserved by the old soothsayers (Kahin) after it had been generally superseded by the new-fangled and rigidly metrical poetry. Mohammed may possibly have acquired the secret of this form of composition from such a Kahin, who had meditated upon the nature of religion. He therefore rightly rejected the title of poet, and with equal right called himself the “Seal of the Prophet”; for he spoke and wrote in the style of the prophets of old.
THE PREVALENCE OF STROPHIC FORM AND RESPONSION EXPLAINED
A careful consideration of the laws of strophic form and responsion which can be shown to exist, though in unequal measure, in the three great Semitic literatures, leads us to the conclusion that there are only three possible explanations of their occurrence. Either we have to do with a phenomenon evolved independently in different parts of the world, or these literary forms were invented by one nation and borrowed and imitated by the others, or, lastly, they must all be referred to a common origin.
The three nations among whom we find these literary forms are so widely separated in space and time that there can be no question of borrowing between them. But, again, phenomena so original and complicated could not appear in different places without something of a common origin.
Accordingly, the only possible assumption is that they may all be referred to a common origin, and that even in primitive times religious poetry was governed by these literary forms. They have been preserved in the Bible, the cuneiform inscriptions, and the Koran.
The establishment of the fact that strophic composition combined with responsion is to be found in all three Semitic literatures naturally drew my attention to a similar phenomenon in the choruses of Greek tragedy, a phenomenon noted and recognised by classical philology, though not treated with the consideration it deserves. Too much stress has been laid on the metrical uniformity of the strophes, too little on their substantial correspondence, and more especially on the way in which the latter is interwoven with assonance and verbal responsion. A certain amount of critical acumen is required for the recognition of these subtly concealed and delicate allusions and antitheses, but when once they are recognised, we cannot doubt that in their choruses the Greek tragedians employed the same artistic methods as the prophets. Strophe and antistrophe are modelled on the same pattern, not in rhythm and syntax alone, but in idea. Now and then the correspondence may be seen and shown to exist line for line, but in most cases it is found only in single lines, though almost always in such as occur in the same place, a circumstance that proves that the correspondence is not due to chance, but that a definite artistic intention was at work to create a certain symmetry between the two strophes.
EXAMPLES FROM THE GREEK TRAGEDIES
I subjoin a few examples in support of this assertion. From the Prometheus of Æschylus, 397-414.
Strophe
I mourn thy grievous fate,
Prometheus! From my tender eyes pours forth a flood of tears,
Wetting my cheeks from the springs of weeping. 400
For thus harshly Zeus,
Ruling in the law of his own will, displays
An imperious sceptre to the gods of old.
Antistrophe
And now all the earth mourns,
And for that grand and ancient sway she weeps,
With mourning for the empire thou and thy brothers held. 410
And all who have abodes
On holy Asia’s borders, in thy loud mourned woes
Those mortals suffer with thee.
The curious responsion of these two strophes is very interesting, interwoven as it is with most of the lines, now by verbal similarity (as in στένω and στονόεν), now by similarity of sense (tears and weeps), now by antithesis (gods and men), and lastly, by an etymological play upon words (νόμος and νέμονται). In addition we have the contrast of ideas in the last lines, in the one strophe Zeus constrains the gods, in the other men mourn complaining. Again in the Œdipus Rex of Sophocles, 1, 863-910:
Strophe I
Antistrophe I
Beginning.
863) Be it my lot to keep
873)’Tis
insolence
begets the tyrant,
That
reverent purity
of word and deed, etc.
Insolence
, foolishly puffed up, etc.
Conclusion.