ning to our race," that is to say, one beginning; it does not say beginnings. And this is most false according to the Philosopher, according to cur Faith, which cannot lie, according to the Law and ancient belief of the Gentiles. For although the Philosopher does not assert the succession from one first man, yet he would have one essential being to be in all men, which cannot possibly have different origins. And Plato would have that all men depend upon one idea alone, and not on more or many, which is to give them only one beginning. And undoubtedly Aristotle would laugh very loudly if he heard of two species to be made out of the Human Race, as of horses and asses; and (may Aristotle forgive me) one might call those men asses who think in this way. For according to our Faith (which is to be preserved in its entirety) it is most false, as Solomon makes evident where he draws a distinction between men and the brute animals, for he calls men "all the sons of Adam," and this he does when he says: "Who knows if the spirits of the sons of Adam mount upwards, and if those of the beasts go downwards?" And it is false according to the Gentiles, let the testimony of Ovid in the first chapter of his "Metamorphoses" prove, where he treats of the constitution of the World according to the Pagan belief, or rather belief of the Gentiles, saying: "Man is born" - he did not say "Men"; he said, "Man is born," or rather, "that the Artificer of all things made him from Divine seed, or that the new earth, but lately parted from the noble ether, retained seeds of the kindred. Heaven, which, mingled with the water of the river, formed the son of Japhet into an image of the gods, who govern all." Where evidently he asserts the first man to have been one alone; and therefore the song says, "But that I cannot hold," that is, to the opinion that man had not one beginning; and the song subjoins, "Nor yet if Christians they." And it says Christians, not Philosophers, or rather Gentiles, whose opinions also is adverse, because the Christian opinion is of greater force, and is the destroyer of all calumny, thanks to the supreme light of Heaven, which illuminates it. Then when I say, "Sound intellect reproves their words as false, and turns away," I conclude this error to be confuted, and I say that it is time to open the eyes to the Truth; and this is expressed when I say, "And now I seek to tell, As it appears to me. » It is now evident to sound minds that the words of those mer are vain, that is, without a crumb or particle of Truth; and I say sound not without cause. Our intellect may be said to be sound or unsound. And I say intellect for the noble part of our Soul, which it is possible to designate by the common word "Mind." It may be called sound or healthy, when it is not obstructed in its action by sickness of mind or body, which is to know what things are, as Aristotle expresses it in the third chapter on the Soul. For, owing to the sickness of the Soul, I have seen three horrible infirmities in the minds of men. One is caused by natural vanity, for many men are so presumptuous that they believe they know everything, and, owing to this, they assert things to be facts which are not facts. Tullius especially execrates this vice in the first chapter of the “Offices," and St. Thomas in his book against the Gentiles, saying: "There are many men, so presumptuous in their conceit, who believe that they can compass all things with their intellects, deeming all that appears to them to be true, and count as false that which does not appear to them." Hence it arises that they never attain to any knowledge; believing themselves to be suffi ciently learned, they never inquire, they never listen; they desire to be inquired of, and when a question is put, bad enough is their reply. Of those men Solomon speaks in Proverbs: "Seest thou a man that is hasty in his words? There is more hope of a fool than of him." Another infirmity of mind is caused by natural weakness or smallness, for many men are so vilely obstinate or stubborn that they cannot believe that it is possible either for them or for others to know things; and such men as these never of themselves seek knowledge, nor ever reason; for what other men say, they care not at all. And against these men Aristotle speaks in the first book of the "Ethics," declaring those men to be insufficient or unsatisfactory hearers of Moral Philosophy. Those men always live, like beasts, a life of grossness, the despair of all learning. The third infirmity of mind is caused by the levity of nature; for many men are of such light fancy that in all their arguments they go astray, and even when they make a syllogism and have concluded, from that conclusion they fly off into another, and it seems to them most subtle argument. They start not from any true beginning, and truly they see nothing true in their imagination. Of those men the Philosopher says that it is not right to 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 ov Elizabeth Pryce Sayers, and edited by Henry Morley. JAMES DARMESTETER (1849-1894) AMES DARMESTETER, the noted French Orientalist, was born languages in the Collège de France. 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: 1. I am sitting in sorrow, wounded with the stab of separation, low low! 2. I am She carried back my heart in her talons, when she came today, my bird kharo, low low! 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! |