Romance Kharjas in Andalusian Arabic Muwaššaḥ poetry : a palaeographical analysis 0863720854, 9780863720857

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Romance Kharjas —

in Andalusian Arabic Muwassah Poetry

Alan Jones

Oxford Oriental Institute Monographs, No. 9.

Romance Kharjas in Andalusian Arabic Muwassah Poetry by Alan Jones For nearly forty years the Romance kharjas that survive in Arabic and Hebrew poems from Muslim Spain

have been the subject of intense study

by scholars of Spanish, Arabic and Hebrew. However, the series in Arabic

poems has never been critically edited.

The present work aims to remedy that situation. After a general introduction that surveys the development and difficulties of Kharja studies, a chapter

is

devoted

to

kharja.

There

is

a

brief introduction to the poem containing the kharja. The lines of the final stanza that lead into the kharja

are then given in facsimile, transcribed and translated. The kharja is then

examined section by section, with the

facsimile texts being discussed

letter

by letter in transcription in a way that

will allow Romance scholars to follow the manuscript

versions

together text.

for

evidence.

each

to provide

Finally, the

section

are

put

a basic working

Alan Jones is Fellow in Arabic and Islamic Studies at Pembroke College and Chairman of the Board of the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Oxford University.

Romance Kharjas in Andalusian Arabic MuwasSah Poetry

In memory of

Thomas Settle

Romance Kharjas in Andalusian Arabic Muwassah Poetry A Palaeographical Analysis by Alan Jones Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford

Published by Ithaca Press London for the Board of the Faculty of Oriental Studies Oxford University

1988

Oxford Oriental Institute Monographs, No. 9

@©aAlan Jones 1988

First published in 1988 by Ithaca Press, 13 Southwark Street, London SE1 and 171 First Avenue, Atlantic Highlands N.J. 07716 for the Board of the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford

Typeset at Oxford University Computing Service

.

Printed and bound in England by Biddles Ltd., Guildford and King’s Lynn

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Jones, Alan, 1933Romance Kharjas in Andalusian Arabic Muwasah Poetry :; a palaeographical analysis —(Oxford Oriental Institute monographs; 9) 1. Muwashshah—History and Criticism

I. Title

II. University of Oxford, Faculty

of Oriental Studies, Board 861 PQ7056

III. Series

ISBN 0-86372-085-4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jones, Alan, 1933Romance Kharjas in Andalusian Arabic Muwastah Poetry.

(Oxford Oriental Institute monographs ; 9) In addition to facsimile texts and transliterations of the kharjas, includes facsimiles of portions of the Arabic poetry, with transliterations and translations into English. Bibliography: pp. viii-x.

Includes index

1. Muwashshah—History and criticism. 2. Paleography, Title. II. Series: Oxford Oriental Institute monographs ;9. PJ7542.M8J66 1988 892’7104 © 87-11150 ISBN 0-86372-085-4

Arabic—Spain.

I.

Contents Bibliography Glossary Introduction Concordance of the kharjas Schema of the muwassah Kharja \ Kharja2 Kharja 3 Kharja 4 Kharja 5 Kharja 6 Kharja Ta Kharja 7b Kharja8 Kharja9 Kharja 10 Kharja 11

viii xi 1 23 24 25 35 41 48 56 60 67 73 16 85 89 95

Kharja 12

101

Kharja 15

117

Kharja 13 Kharja 14 Kharja 16 Kharja 17 Kharja 18

Kharja 19 Kharja 20 Kharja 21a

Kharja 21b

106 li

122 125 131

136 142 150 157

Kharja 22

161

Kharja 23b Kharja 24 Kharja 25

172 177 185

Kharja 23a

Kharja 26

Kharja Kharja Kharja Kharja

27 28a 28b 29

Kharja 30a

Kharja 30b Kharja 31

167

191

198 204 212 216 222

228 232

vi Kharja 32 Kharja 33

Kharja 34

Kharja 35

Kharja 36 Kharja 37 Kharja 38a

Kharja 38b

Kharja 39 Kharja 40 Kharja 41

Kharja 42 Appendix

Index verborum The Andalusian Arabic alphabet

238 243 249 254 261 267 272 276 279 284 288 294 300 301 304

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book, which is a by- -product of my work on the texts of the Andalusian Arabic muwasSahat, is one that I had not originally intended to write. Its existence is due to the promptings and kindness of fellow academics, particularly Hispanist friends, too numerous to mention by name. It is with gratitude that I thank them all. Special mention must be made of Rhoda Sutherland and Richard Hitchcock for the understanding way in which they have advised me and coaxed me on when other preoccupations have seemed likely to distract me. As always, my colleagues in the Oriental Institute have been generous in putting their time and knowledge at my disposal. Among them I placed a heavy burden on Fritz Zimmermann, who read the early drafts and brought

all his acumen to the problems of presenting the evidence coherently. Where I have failed in that, it is certainly not his fault. Searching comment has also come from Fred Hodcroft of St. Cross College and from one of my graduate students, Philip Kennedy. On

the practical

problems

of typesetting,

I am

greatly

indebted

to

Catherine Griffin of the Oxford University Computing Service for her cheerful readiness to use her expertise to find solutions for the niggling problems I pushed her way; also to Stephen Ashworth who prevented further delay by dealing with the pagination.

My greatest debt is to my wife Margaret. As well as helping me with all

her good sense, she has shown immense patience on the frequent occasions

when I have been preoccupied by my work. I hope that there is a small

recompense for her in a dedication to someone who who meant much to us

both.

It would have been impossible to present the manuscript evidence without

help from certain individuals and libraries, and all those who read this book are indebted to them: the late Professor Georges Colin, who put the manuscrit Colin at my disposal; Professor Derek Latham, who provided me

with microfilms of the three manuscripts of the Jays al-tawsih; the Bodleian Library for a photograph

of a page from the al-Wafi bi-'l-wafayat of al-

Safadi; the Escorial Library for a microfilm of the Tawii‘ al-tawsih of al-

Safadi: and the Bayrische Staatsbibliothek, Boedeh, for a microfilm of the

Kitab al- ‘Gril al-hali of al-Hilli. Pembroke College Oxford

December 1986

AJ.

Bibliography The bibliography is confined strictly to works mentioned in some way in this book. For general bibliographies the reader is referred to the items by Armistead, Hitchcock and Sola-Solé listed below. Some works that might well have featured do not, simply because they remained part of my working background rather than being cited specifically. The Arabic manuscripts used are discussed in the Introduction. Arabic material Abii Nuwas, Diwan, ed. Gazali, Baghdad, 1963. al-A‘ma, Diwan, ed. Ihsan ‘Abbas, Beirut, 1963.

al-Hilli, Kitab al-‘Gtil al-hali, ed. Hoenerbach, Wiesbaden, 1956. ed. Nassar, Cairo, 1981. Ibn al-Abbar, al-Takmila, Madrid, 1886-9.

* Ibn Bassam, al-Daxira, ed. Ihsan ‘Abbas, Beirut, 1975-9. Ibn Manzir, Lisan al-‘Arab, Bulag, 1882-9. Ibn Quzman, Diwan facsimile ed., de Gunzberg, Berlin, 1896. ed. Corriente, Gramdtica, métrica y texto del cancionero hispanoGrabe de Aban Quzm4an, Madrid, 1980. Ibn Sa‘id, al-Mugrib, ed. Shawqi Dayf, Cairo, 1953-5. Ibn Sana’ al-Mulk, Dar al-tirdz, ed. Rikabi, Damascus, 1949, second edition, Damascus, 1977.

Ibn al-Xatib, Jays al-tawsih, ed. Naji and Madir, Tunis, 1967. al-Maqaqari, Nafh al-tib, ed. Ihsan ‘Abbas, Beirut, 1968.

al-Safadi, Tawsi‘ al-tawsih, ed. A.H. Mutlaq, Beirut, 1966. Id., al- Waft bi-'l-wafayat, volume 7, ed. Ihsan ‘Abbas, Wiesbaden, 1969. oe Gazi, Diwan al-muwassahat al-Andalusiyya, 2 vols., Alexandria, al-Zabidi, Taj al-‘ariis, Kuwait, 1966-84. Hebrew material Schirmann, Hayyim, Sirim hadasim min ha-genizah, Jerusalem 1965.

Todros

Abulafia (Todrés

Jerusalem, 1932-36.

ben Yehiidd

Abi

‘1Afia),

Diwdn,

ed. Yellin,

Yehtida Halevi, Diwan, ed. Brody, Berlin, 1901. Western material

Armistead,

Samuel,

Some

recent

developments

in

Kharja Scholarship,

ie

Bibliography

La Corénica, 8, Spring 1980, No. 2, pp.199-203. Borello, Rodolfo A., Jaryas andalusies, Bahia Blanca, 1959. Corominas, Juan, Para la interpretacién de las jaryas recién halladas, alAndalus, 18 [1953], pp.140-8. Corriente, Federico, Spanish Arabic Dialect Bundle, Madrid, 1977.

Id., The metres of the muwa8Sah, an Andalusian adaptation of ‘arid, Journal of Arabic Literature, 12 [1982], pp.76-82. Fahd, T., Review of Heger Deutungen (see below), Bulletin Hispanique, 64 [1962], pp.263-8. Garbell, Irene, Another

Mozarabic

Garcia Gomez, Emilio,

Veinticuatro jarfas romances en muwassahas arabes

[1953], pp.358-59.

Jarja in a Hebrew

Poem,

Sefarad,

13

(Ms. G.S. Colin), al-Andalus, 17 [1952], pp.57-127.

Id., La muwasSaha de Ibn Baqi de Cordoba:

Ma

jarpa romance, al-Andalus, 19 [1954], pp.43-52.

laday sabrun mu‘inu con

Id., Dos nuevas jarjas romances (XXV y XXVI) en muwasSahas arabes, alAndalus, 19 [1954], pp.369-384. Id., Las jarchas romances de la serie arabe en su marco, Madrid, 1965,

second edition Barcelona, 1975.

Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Maurice, Ibn Qotaiba, ‘Introduction au livre de la poésie et des poétes, Paris, 1947. Haykal, Samir, The Eastern Muwassah and Zajal, Oxford University D.Phil thesis, 1983. Heger, Klaus Die bisher veréffenlichten Hargas und ihre Deutungen Tubingen, 1960. Hitchcock, Richard, The Kharjas: A Critical Bibliography, London, 1977. Id., ‘The fate of the kharjas: a survey of recent publications, B.R.I.S.M.E.S.

Bulletin, 12, [1985] 2, pp.172-190.

Jones,

Alan,

Romance

scansion

Literature, 11 [1980], pp.36-55.

and

the Muwa%%ahat,

Journal

of Arabic

Lane, E.W., Arabic-English Lexicon, 8 vols., London, 1863-93. Latham, J. Derek, New light on the scansion of an old Andalusian muwasSah, Journal of Semitic Studies, 27 [1982], pp.61-75.

Id. The prosody of an Andalusian muwassah re-examined, Bidwell and Smith

(eds.), Arabian and Islamic Studies: Articles Presented to R.B. Serjeant,

London, 1983, pp.86-99.

Monroe, James. T., Two Further Bilingual Hargas (Arabic and Romance) in Arabic Muwasahs, Hispanic Review, 42 [1974], pp.243-264. Id., The Structure of an Arabic MuwaSah with a Bilingual Kharja, Edebiyat

(Philadelphia), 1 [1976], 113-123. Id., ¢Pedir peras al olmo? La Corénica, 10 [1982], pp.121-47. Monroe, James T. and Hebrew Muwassahs: Features, Journal of the Stern, Samuel, Les vers

Swiatlo, David, Ninety-three Arabic Hargas in Their Hispano-Romance Prosody and Thematic American Oriental Society, 97 [1977], pp.141-170. finaux en espanol dans les muwa8Sahs hispano-

hébraiques: une contribution a U'histoire du muwa8%ah et a l'étude du vieux dialecte espagnol “mozarabe”, al-Andalus, 13 [1948], pp.299-348.

Bibliography

x

14 [1949],

arabe avec terminaison espagnole, al-Andalus,

Id., Un muwaS8ah

pp.214-228.

Id., Muhammad ibn ‘Ubada al-Qazzaz, un andaluz autor de ‘muwassahs’, alAndalus, 15 [1950], pp.79-109. Id., Les chansons mozarabes, Palermo, 1953 (reprint Oxford, 1964).

Id., Two Anthologies of Muwa8sah Poetry, Arabica, 2 [1955], pp.150-192. Id., ed. L.P. Harvey, Hispano-Arabic Strophic Poetry, Oxford, 1974.

Sola-Solé,

J.M.

Corpus

Barcelona, 1973.

de

poesia

mozarabe

(las

hargas

andalusies),

Weil, Gotthold, ‘arid, Encyclopedia of Islam, new edition, Leiden, 1960-, vol.1 pp.667-677. Whinnom, Keith, The mamma of the kharjas, La Corénica, 11 [1982], pp.1117.

Wright,

William,

Arabic

Grammar,

2nd

edition,

London,

1874-5

and

subsequent reprints. Wulstan, David, The muwaS8ah and zajal revisited, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 102 [1982], pp.247-264.

La Corénica, 10, Fall 1981, No. 1, p.75.

Glossary agsan ‘ajami

plural of gusn, q.v.* non-Arabic; in the context

agra*

‘bald’: the technical term used to describe a muwassah that begins without a matla‘.* plural of simt, g.v.* a stanza; alternative term for dawr. the Arabic short vowel u. a stanza.* the Arabic short vowel a.

asmat bayt

damma dawr fatha gusn

kasra

kharja magama

of Muslim

Romance.

one of the rhymes).*

lines

in a stanza

linked

Spain

by

that

it normally

stanza’s

means

rhyme

the Arabic short vowel i. the:tinal part of the muwassah, normally the final simt but not always so. a tale or excursus in highly polished rhymed prose, frequently with

an admixture of verse.

an alternative term for the kharja. mater lectionis a consonant used to indicate the short vowel accompanying markaz

previous

matla‘ mu ‘Grada

(or

consonant.

The

use

of matres

lectionis

common in Hebrew manuscripts than it is in Arabic.

a simt

line preceding

the main

part

is much

of the muwasah;

the

more

sometimes

referred to as a prelude, but strictly the term means ‘opening line’.* ‘imitation’; the composition of one poem in imitation of another. This was a common practise in both Arabic and Hebrew poetry, particularly when music was involved. The mu‘arada could be

complete, in which case simt rhymes and metre (and, presumably, the

music) would be retained, or partial, with retention either of the metre (and music) only or with retention of rhymes but with variation in the metre. It is uncommon for material from the original

poem to be quoted in the mu‘arada, except for the kharja, which may

musammat muwassah

qasida qufl

Sadda simt

be quoted wholly or in part, either as a matia‘ or as a kharja. the earliest and simplest form of stanzaic poem in Arabic, with a rhyme pattern AAAB or AAAAB etc.

a stanzaic poem ending with a kharja; over 90% have five stanzas; a fair majority have non-classical material in the kharja, but the number of poems with classical kharjas is higher than is normally believed to be the case. The proportion of Andalusian Arabic muwassahs with Romance material in the kharja is about 8%. The Arabic plural is muwassahat.* a classical Arabic ode. alternative term, less common but interchangeable, for a sir.

the sign used in Arabic script to show a double consonant. line (or pair of lines) at the end of a stanza with rhymes common to

all the stanzas. matla‘.*

A sim

line preceding

the first stanza is called

a

sukin tamm wassah

the sign used in Arabic script to show that a consonant is to be pronounced without a following vowel. ‘complete’: the technical term used to describe a muwasSah that starts with a matla‘. a composer of muwassahat.

*

See also the schema of the muwassah, p.24.

Introduction The aim of this work is to put the academic record straight by

making available to non-Arabists accurate information about the texts of the Romance kharjas to be found in the extant Andalusian Arabic muwassahdat. Widespread interest in the Romance kharjas was first aroused by two articles written by my late, much lamented, colleague Samuel Stern and published in the now defunct Spanish periodical al-Andalus. The first, which appeared in 1948, was the fascinating Les vers finaux en espagnol dans les muwaS8ahs hispano-hébraiques: une contribution a l'histoire du muwassah et a I’étude du vieux

dialecte espagnol “mozarabe”.1 equally

espagnole.*

significant

Un

A year later came the briefer but

muwasSah

arabe

avec

terminaison

The next landmark was the publication in 1952 of a further article in al-Andalus. This was Veinticuatro jarfas romances en muwasSahas arabes (Ms. G.S. Colin).* Its author was Professor Emilio Garcia Gomez, widely considered to be one of the leading authorities on Andalusian Arabic poetry. His article naturally received widespread attention. It contained most, though not all, of the Romance kharjas to be found in the then recently discovered ‘Uddat al-jalis of ‘Ali ibn BiSri (usually, but, it would appear, more dubiously, known as Ibn Buéra).4 This anthology, which is by far the most important collection of Andalusian Arabic muwassahat that has survived, had only recently come to light when a unique copy came into the hands

of the late Professor Georges Colin. The article contained the first

gleanings from the manuscript. In his invaluable bibliographical survey, The Kharjas: A Critical

Bibliography, Richard Hitchcock succinctly summarized the article as

follows:

Helpfully provides the Arabic texts as well readings and preliminary versions in Castilian.

as

suggested

Romance

Though some of the Romance readings proposed by Garcia Gomez raised considerable doubts, it does not appear to have crossed anyone’s mind that the transcriptions he printed might not be accurate. This is not surprising, given the author’s high reputation as

Romance Kharjas

2

an Arabist and the absence of facsimiles. receptus.§ Yet, if one looked closely enough, Firstly, Garcia Gomez had not seen the fourteen of the kharjas did he have

They thus became a textus . : there were warning signs. manuscript, and for only any material other than

transcriptions of the kharjas themselves. This additional material was supplied by the Arab scholar ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Ahwani.° Secondly, it was clear that the printed Arabic versions were not in all cases straight transcriptions. In those cases in which a kharja occurred twice only one Arabic transcription, conflated from the two manuscript versions, was given: VII = Kharjas 7a and 7b; XXI = Kharjas 21a and 21b; XXII = Kharjas 23a and 23b. Furthermore, Garcia Gomez gave the following candid warning, a warning that he himself has not always heeded: Como habra frecuentes ocasiones de sefialar, habria sido absolutamente indispensable el conocimiento de las muwaSSahas enteras. Dadas las condiciones deficientes de la grafia arabe, a veces es una sola palabra en

toda una muwaSSaha la que da la seguridad absoluta de la rima; en el Dar al-tiraz he hecho varias veces la experiencia.”

The faith put in the transcriptions is clearly to be seen in a book published by Stern in the following year, 1953. This is his famous Les chansons mozarabes, a work summed up accurately by its sub-title: les vers finaux (kharjas) en espagnol dans les muwaS8Sahs arabes et

hébreux édités avec introduction, annotation sommaire et glossaire.

For the Hebrew poems Stern relied on his own earlier versions. For the kharjas from the ‘Uddat al-jalis he relied on the texts printed in Veinticuatro jarjas. He was ready to suggest emendations to those texts, but, as far as I know, he appears not to have questioned the accuracy of the transcriptions. At that stage he had seen nothing of the manuscrit Colin itself, and, given his regard for Garcia Gémez, there is no apparent reason why he should have had doubts.

Stern’s book was published in Palermo by a press that had neither

Arabic nor Hebrew founts available. He therefore agreed to forego

the inclusion of versions of the texts in their original scripts, as he felt

that a brief manual was urgently needed, particularly by Romance scholars. This reluctant decision was to initiate a trend, of which Stern himself disapproved, of dealing with the texts without the

original form being present as an essential check.

For scholars who were familiar with the field, the most exciting part of Stern’s book was its appendix. Here he was able to publish

for the first time fourteen kharjas

collection of Andalusian

from

the other major

Arabic muwassahdat,

extant

the Jays al-tawsth of

Ibn al-Khatib. In one way Stern was fortunate to be able to include

3

Introduction

them. His book was already well through the press before he received

microfilms of two of the three extant manuscripts.

(The third

microfilm did not reach him until some time after the publication of the book.)

However,

there was no

opportunity

to integrate

these

texts with the others, and the hasty production of the appendix,

together with the lack of Arabic and Hebrew printed versions, always

left Stern feeling somewhat dissatisfied with his monograph. It was his intention

to produce

more

studied

versions

in his projected

edition of the whole corpus of Andalusian Arabic muwasSahdt. Sadly, : his early death prevented this.

1954 saw the publication, once again in al-Andalus, of a further article by Garcia Gomez, Dos nuevas jarjas romances (XXV y

XXVI) en muwasSahas arabes (ms. G.S. Colin).® Unlike his previous

article, this one included facsimiles of the two kharjas concerned, though the quality of reproduction left much to be desired. Nevertheless, they mark a step forward. The presence of the

facsimiles enables a specialist to see that in the new article the printed Arabic versions were realizations of what was in the manuscript and

not.straight transcriptions: they do not tally with the facsimiles. This

is largely,

though

not entirely, because

of the addition of some

vocalization. The discrepancies do not appear to have been noticed at the time, or, if they were, they were not considered important. There was another point on which Garcia Gomez failed to give adequate information. The two kharjas dealt with in this article happen to be among the six copied by the final scribe to take part in the copying of the manuscrit Colin. Without information to the contrary— and there is none — the natural, but incorrect, conclusion to be reached the by any reader is that this particular scribe was responsible for manuscript. the of whole copying of the for Such is the material that forms the core of the basic evidence

of the scholar who wishes to study the Romance kharjas. A handful other kharjas has been added

with the passage of the years, most

notably three kharjas in Hebrew poems from the Geniza, published

1965). by Schirmann in his Sirim hadasim min ha-genizah (Jerusalem that 1954 However, it was the texts published up to and including

for most of formed the focal point of discussion and were responsible

as “Kharja the trends that were to appear in what had become known Studies”. that are not of Kharja Studies expanded rapidly, often in directions

of activity direct interest to the present work. The extent and intensity the Among is clearly shown in Hitchcock’s Kharja Bibliography. of attention the many works published were three books that merit

all those particularly interested in the texts of the kharjas.

Romance Kharjas

4

The first was Die bisher veréffenlichten Hargas und ihre Deutungen by Klaus Heger, published at Tiibingen in 1960. This extremely

useful work was the first book to put together the kharjas in their ‘original’ form. Heger produced his texts with care and in good faith.

of the Arabic ones now

The fact that some

turn out to be less

accurate than the editor would have wished is not his fault but due to the fact that he had to rely on Garcia Gémez’s transcriptions. The book still retains a good deal of its value. Though Heger’s book has continued to be respected, it became somewhat overshadowed when Garcia Gomez published Las jarchas romances de la serie arabe en su marco (Madrid 1965). This is

unfortunate because Las jarchas romances is a poor piece of work,

unworthy of a scholar of international reputation. The difficulties are set out very gently in Hitchcock’s summary: Comprises the texts of the Arabic muwasiahas transliterated into Romance script, Spanish versions and full details of the kharjas. The kharjas in Hebrew muwasSahas are included in an appendix. There is also a glossary of words used in the kharjas and brief biographical data of the composers. The versions printed in this book, which include a number of doubtful readings, have been accepted into the canon of Spanish literature. As a compendium of the kharjas with their accompanying muwassahas,

particularly [Barcelona polemicism convictions,

this

is

an

invaluable

work,

but

the

polemical

tone,

in the introduction, can be disconcerting. The 2nd edition 1975] is identical, except for a new prologue, where a similar is evident. The metrics of the kharja are reviewed, and former relating to the ‘pre-existencia de la jarcha’ are reaffirmed.

These remarks point to some of the problems, but not all. By the time that the book was written, Garcia Gomez had become a prisoner of his own strongly held views about various aspects of the muwassahat and the kharjas, and in particular of his theories about the metrical structure of the muwassahat. This determined his approach to the editing of the poems. Throughout the transliterated texts syllables were inserted or excised at will, as required by Garcia Gomez’s proposed metrical patterns, with no regard for such basics as grammar and lexicography. This would have been hightly dubious even if it had been done openly, with a full list of textual changes. There was no such annotation. On the contrary, the only logical

inference to be drawn from the few textual notes that are given is that

the rest of the texts are unamended

and that what have since been

discovered to be Garcia Gomez's own emendations had manuscript authority.!°

There

are,

of course,

not

a few

places

in which

his

excellent basic scholarship shines through in highly skilful emendations, but they are few in comparison with what can at best be

called wilful alterations. One may charitably presume that Garcia

Introduction

5

Gomez felt that his grand vision of the kharjas and the poems that

contain them — as he saw it — vouchsafed him the right to publish his own version of the texts without needing to pay too much attention to the details of what was actually in the manuscripts. Be that as it may, the section on the resultado de la revision de la serie grabe original de jarchas (p.56) was gravely misleading, particularly in the last paragraph:

Aunque no haya alteracién apreciable en los n° I, I, VII, IX, XI, XVII,

XVIII, XIX y XXIII, el estudio del poema completo nos da para ellos un respaldo inapreciable: el de la seguridad. (my italics)

The third book was the Corpus de poesia mozarabe (las hargas

andalusies) published by J.M. Sola-Solé in Barcelona in 1976. Again

I quote Hitchcock:

The most up-to-date corpus of the kharjas, comprising an introduction, study, concordance of poem numbers, bibliography and detailed comments preceded by a literal translation of the muwassahas, for the 59 kharjas known to contain Romance elements. Sola-Solé frequently suggests new interpretations which often differ widely from those that became well known as a result of Garcia Gomez’s studies. The fact that still such divergencies are proposed itself testifies to the uncertainty which insists Sola-Solé circulation. wide such in are that versions surrounds the the on the “profundo impacto del mundo arabe” on the kharjas, posits a concede not does and poetry, c Hispano-Arabi existence of a popular purely Romance origin for the kharjas (p.43). The book is provocative, without easy to use through indices and the concordance, and constitutes

doubt the most useful source of information for kharja studies.

book an The last sentence is particularly apposite. I find the Sola-Solé’s invaluable companion, even though it is my belief that from the reconstructions are usually much too free. For the poems there and ‘Uddat al-jalis he had to rely on the texts of Garcia Gomez, are a fair number of consequential errors. produced With one solitary exception, Arab editors have so far edited al-Safadi nothing to help. The text of the Tawsi al-tawsih of editor’s the by is, by A.H. Mutlag and published in Beirut in 1966 own admission, unsound: carelessly; and it The manuscript is written in a clear eastern hand, but corrected many of have I errors. and readings fanciful many contains since the mistake these errors without specific reference to the correction, (p.14) it. about doubt no with was obvious,

to the one Nor does he make any attempt to give special attention

great deal of Romace kharja included in the work. However, with a

care, the edition is usable.

edition of This is more than can be said for the woefully inadequate

Naji and Madur. the Jay§ al-tawsih published in Tunis in 1967 by bad enough, but is text Their handling of the Arabic portions of the

6

Romance Kharjas

their inability to produce even a

versions of the Romance

manuscripts is truly

straightforward transcription of the

kharjas as they found

lamentable.

them in the .

In the Dini al-muwakéahat al-Andalusiyya (Alexandria 1979), a comprehensive anthology of Andalusian Arabic muwasSahat published up to that time, Sayyid Gazi tried hard to produce careful texts of

the Romance kharjas, but he was heavily influenced by, and for the poems from the ‘Uddat al-jalis dependent on, the texts published by Garcia Gomez, and his versions are essentially the texts of Las

Jarchas romances put back into Arabic script.

The exception to this sorry catalogue is Ihsan ‘Abbas, who deals very cautiously with the few Romance kharjas that he was able to include in his edition of the Diwan of the poet al-A‘ma (Beirut 1963). His handling of the one kharja that he was effectively adding to the

corpus

(Ma

encyclopedia discreet.1+

halu

‘l-quliibi,

al-Wafi

[Kharja

bi-'l-wafaydt

of

41])

from

al-Safadi

the

was

biographical careful

and

With the benefit of hindsight, some obvious questions are bound

to be asked. Why,

for example, were facsimiles of the other kharjas

not printed? And why was there no attempt to re-edit the texts of the Kharjas after the manuscrit Colin had been consulted further?

Without condoning what has happened, or, rather, what has not happened, J think it fair to point out that the facsimile reproduction of Arabic sources has always been something of a rarity. In most editions of Arabic texts, a specimen page of each manuscript is the most one can expect.'? In any case, scholars who knew no Arabic were hardly in a position to ask searching questions about manuscript

readings. Equally, Arabists are thin on the ground, and re-editing of

texts tends to havea low priority. The attention paid to Ibn Quzman, of which Romance scholars may be aware, is unusual. F urthermore, the atmosphere that burgeoned in the early fifties and that has prevailed

€ver since was one in which scholars, with rare exceptions, have been trying to look beyond the texts to other, wider questions or

them as a basis for reconstructions that have shown no greathave used concern for textual fidelity. The situation would have been put right much

earlier but for a fateful decision by Stern. In 1957 he decided to give greater attention to other subjects in which he was specially interested, in particular Isma‘ilism. It was always his intention to come back to the edition of the corpus, and whenever asked he readily talked about the muwassahat, but for a dozen years his interest in them was overshadowed by other topics. In the autumn of 1969 he was ready to return to

the task. At that very point he died.

7

Introduction

There was then another long hiatus before I decided to revive the

project to print the whole corpus. When I did begin work on the ‘Uddat al-jalis, a detailed examination of the texts of the Romance kharjas was low among

my

priorities. With

a manuscript posing a

host of problems, the crucial matter was to learn how to handle the material as a whole. Also I still had some faith in Garcia Gomez, though I was deeply worried by the trends shown in Las jarchas romances.

When I did eventually turn my attention to the transcriptions in Veinticuatro jaryas, 1 could hardly believe my checking. Not one

transcription is completely accurate. In some cases, to be fair, the deviations concern only minor matters of vocalization, but in others the errors are serious.!? By no stretch of the imagination can these transcriptions be considered to be of an adequate standard. All who have relied on them have been perforce misled.

Since I first began to point out how unreliable the printed texts of

the Romance kharjas were, I have been pressed by Romance scholars

to re-edit them in as accurate a form as possible. The present work is my response. I confess that I have been reluctant to publish a work

that concentrates so narrowly on the Romance kharjas. There are

two main reasons for this. First, I believe that each kharja, whether Romance or Arabic, needs to be studied as an integral part of the muwasiah it rounds off. This is not to deny the normally rather loose attachment of the kharja to the main body of the muwassah or to argue against its basically quasi-quotational nature. The point is that phrases and allusions from the main part of the muwassah may well be picked up in the kharja. Secondly, the study of only a small fraction of a scribe’s handwriting is insufficient even for the most skilled palaeographer to establish the characteristics, and problems, of that

hand.

However, interest in, and writing on, the Romance kharjas continues unabated, and it would be wrong for me not to respond to the requests of colleagues. In fact, I am simply extending and making generally available the information that I have supplied to various

individuals over the past few years. Nevertheless, the need for careful assessment

required,

of the texts of the kharjas is only one part of what

and

I hope

that more

extended

studies

based

is

on the

facsimiles and editions of the ‘Uddat al-jalis and the Jays al-tawsih will supersede the present work in many aspects. The need for a general overview has already been referred to by Garcia Gomez in the passage quoted above about his problems with the transcriptions. He returned to the topic in another article in

al-Andalus on the muwasah by Ibn Baqi, Md laday:

Romance Kharjas

8

Algunos romanistas han formulado el reproche de que los que estudiamos las jarvas nos limitamos a s6lo ellas, sin darlas dentro de los poemas a que pertenecen, que en ellas se basan y de cuya estructura forman parte. Tienen razon. Pero esa omisién ha venido impuesta por economia de papel y tiempo, o porque (es el caso de mis Veinticuatro jarfas) no se disponia del poema entero. De todos modos, conocer la integridad de la muwaSSaha es siempre util, cuando no indispensible.'*

I very much hope that with the texts and supporting information

presented here Romance scholars will begin the reappraisal that is so clearly needed. As far as possible, I have tried not to pre-empt them.

Therefore

I have

refrained

from

commenting

on

the

Romance

material unless that could not be avoided. Similarly, I have tried to avoid dependence on Romance evidence. This does not mean that I have ignored Romance factors and possibilities. To pursue such a

course would be to stop short before one should. One example will

make this clear. In section 3 of Kharja 22 we have an unvocalized cluster bstry. It has to fill four syllables and Arabic scansion points to either bastarayya or basatarya. Romance considerations allow us to rule out the latter.

However,

Romance

I have

been

reluctant to go further in the use of

evidence, though on occasion it has been necessary.

For

example, in section 1 of Kharja 18 the Arabic metrical requirement is

for the cluster flyw/ to scan as -- -~ . There are no good grounds for

doing this on the basis of the manuscript text, but knowledge of Romance allows us to argue that we may take the cluster as fiiyilu.

Nevertheless, the extrapolation from known Romance forms to this arabicized form has strict limitations. One cannot then include filiyilu in a more general discussion about Romance vowels, as the argument would then become circular.

Palaeography does not exist in a void, and one’s decisions about the

texts are constantly being influenced by a wide range of factors. Three

of these seem to me to call for special comment. They are: metre, music and language switching.

Metre

Consistent with the views that I have expressed previously, I have treated the metres as being derivatives of the classical Arabic ‘arud

system. My reasons are empirical. I have spent long hours examining the metrical problems of the muwassahat. What I have found is best understood by taking the metrical basis to be an extended ‘ariid

system. It is the only system that provides a convincing explanation for the majority, though not all, of the problematical features.

9

Introduction

This cannot be said of any of the other systems. Take, for, example,

the use of non-standard Arabic forms such as garmd’ilan for samd’ila:

agyadin for agyada; or Yiisufun for Yasufu.1© These forms are common throughout the corpus. Together with such constructions as the indefinite accusative vocative, they are a normal part of the Arab

poets’ repertoire for producing a syllable of the correct quantity in

classical Arabic poetry. It is inconceivable that they can have any other function in the muwassahat. As their use is due to problems of quantity rather than to those of stress, they are in my view a barrier to Professor Corriente’s ingenious arguments in favour of an Arabic

stress-based system.!7

Simple logic is against the Romance systems that have so far been proposed. If, as is ordinarily the case, poem after poem can clearly be shown to have a complex metrical pattern, the occurrence of those

patterns can hardly be adventitious. Any metrical scheme that does not acknowledge them wilfully ignores basic data, and is at best simplistic and inadequate. Thus the suggestions of the major proponents

of

Monroe, fail us.

Romance

scansion

systems,

Garcia

Gomez

and

The notions of Garcia Gomez are particularly unfortunate.'® They not only induce him to ignore all metrical data other than his own but also tempt him to rewrite the text whenever he sees fit within the extraordinarily crude framework he has set up. As a result, his emendations are more likely than not to distort whatever underlying metrical pattern was originally there. Monroe, a more refined theorist, sees the unacceptability of Garcia Gomez’s system, but he has not yet come up with a viable alternative. One cannot accept either a musical-beat stress system that is unverifiable (and scarcely applicable if the muwassah is not being sung) or a linguistic stress that is wholly alien to the Arabic to which it is being applied.1° Incidentally, there is no reason for assuming that Romance material

necessarily requires Romance scansion. In kharjas in which the manuscript text is in a reasonable state there is remarkably little difficulty in applying the Arabic scansion pattern, as determined by

the main body of the poem, to Romance words. of A more complex issue arises when one ponders the possibility Romance a Arab poets making their poems fit both an Arabic and imagine it metrical scheme. That is not impossible — one can easily poets revelled. as an extension of the verbal virtuosity in which Arab of However, I think it fair to say that whilst the complex patterns

Romance Arabic scansion can accommodate Romance, the proposed is it schemes can hardly do so for the Arabic ones. Yet hypothetically

not inconceivable that Arab poets could have started from a simple

10

Romance Kharjas

Romance basis and grafted on a more complex Arabic system that

could take account of an original Romance system. Unfortunately, the absence of poems datable to the first century of the muwassah’s

existence makes it impossible to pursue this line of argument. Acknowledgement of the existence of the Arabic scansion patterns has implications when we have to consider textual emendations. As

the Arabic system is more rigorous than the suggested Romance scansion schemes, it normally imposes greater constraints. For example, in the last stanza of the poem containing Kharja 3 Garcia Gomez produces a simple emendation to restore a missing syllable. However, if one is applying Arabic scansion, the emendation has to be rejected, because it results in the section starting -~ - , when in all

other lines it starts

- ~ . To satisfy Arabic requirements another

emendation has to be sought. There are numerous examples of this.

To some extent they are balanced by the places in which knowledge of the Arabic metrical pattern makes analysis of the text less difficult, usually by fixing the position of a short vowel. Representation of Arabic scansion is something

of a problem.

Arabs write out scansion patterns in a notation that is very difficult

to follow for those not brought up with the system. I have therefore compromised and used scansion symbols in the form set out in Wright’s Arabic Grammar:?° - for a long syllable [a long syllable

consists of a consonant plus a short vowel followed eithar by a ‘letter

of prolongation’ (alif, waw or ya’) or by another consonant that does not carry a vowel]; ~ for a short syllable [a short syllable consists of a consonant plus a short vowel not followed either by a ‘letter of prolongation’ or by another consonant without a vowel]; = for an anceps; and for a long syllable that may be resolved into two short syllables.?1 This produces fairly clear patterns for readers to follow, but there is a drawback, as the use of these symbols tends to give the impression that the system depends entirely on quantity. This is not so.

Some stress is involved.??

Music

All the available evidence that we have points clearly to the fact

that the muwaisahs were primarily intended to be sung, with formal recitation as a secondary mode of performance. It is thus extremely

disappointing to have to adhere to the view that we know virtually nothing of the music of the period. Assertions to the contrary rely on back projections either from what we know of medieval Iberian music — itself a subject of no little controversy — or from

present-day north African music or from both. As far as we can tell, both these traditions appear to be conservative. However, we have

ll

Introduction

no idea of the form or extent of their conservatism. All conjectures based on these traditions must therefore be untested and untestable. They are thus of no help to us, and I see no point in discussing them in this book.?3 Language switching It has been forcefully argued that in many cases the switches from

one language to the other and back again that are found in, or are

suggested for, the Romance kharjas are not normal or convincing if

judged by what has been learned in recent years about language switching.?* This is true. However, I cannot accept that the kharjas should be judged on such a basis. My note about music indicates that

the muwasiahs were never intended for delivery in a conversational

mode; either they were delivered in a recitational mode, appreciably slower than conversation, or sung, normally very much slower still. Slower delivery, longer pauses and repetition of syllables, words and phrases all allow greater flexibility in switching. There can of course be no doubt that such extra flexibility is artificial, but this is not out of keeping with the many conceits of the muwassah and especially with those used to give a twist to the kharja. The literary background

The great problem

in discussing the literary background

of the

muwassahdit is that we have no datable evidence for the first century of the history of the genre. Ibn Bassam makes it clear that even in his time, the middle of the twelfth century, knowledge of early muwaséahs had largely disappeared.?> Naturally, matters have not improved since then.

The extant corpus of Andalusian Arabic muwasSahs comprises some six hundred poems. All the datable ones amongst them are

from the period when the muwaisah was fully developed. There is perhaps one poem in the corpus that we may tentatively ascribe to the first century of the muwasSah’s existence. It is an anonymous muwassah, ‘Uddat al-jalis poem 164,?° which resembles a musammat in structure: A A A AB etc., with only one section in the simf lines. With this single exception, the undatable poems appear to be as fully

developed as the datable ones. Embedded amongst these extant poems

total are the kharjas that are wholly or partially in Romance. They wholly are them of few very and only some 8% of the surviving kharjas,

in Romance.?7 The writings of Ibn Bassam

and Ibn Sana’ al-Mulk,

the two

helped us, medieval Arabic literary sources that might possibly have

are

a

disappointment.

Ibn

Bassim’s

comments

are

terse

and

P)

Romance Kharjas

enigmatic, and doubts beset their interpretation.** The remarks of Ibn Sana’ al-Mulk?° seem to me of even more dubious value. It is clear from what we know

of the eastern muwassah

that Ibn Sana’

al-Mulk was attempting to lay down norms for the genre in Egypt according to his own perception of the Andalusian muwassah.°° He did this by analysing a fairly small number of Andalusian muwassahat, without any instruction of any sort; and, whilst his remarks are fairly accurate, they often contain surprising errors and are thus not of the standard that inspires real confidence.

This seems

to me to be a poor evidential basis on which to

construct theories about pre-existing Romance poetry being the source of the genre, particularly if such theories pay little regard to various points that come from the Arabic side. For a more balanced perspective, it is important to acknowledge the highly Arabic nature of the poetry in which the Romance kharjas are found. The Arabic muwassahs were written by Arab poets for Arab audiences, and they are an integral part of the Arabic culture of Muslim Spain. The unique features of the muwassah — its stanzaic form, metre and kharja — do not remove it far from the traditions of classical Arabic poetry. The themes of the muwassahs, for example,

fall entirely within the range of the themes of classical Arabic poetry.

Clearly, the kharja is a particularly important component of the

muwassah, the main feature if we accept the thrust of the views of Ibn

Bassam and Ibn Sana’ al-Mulk. Nevertheless, its importance should not be over-emphasized. It is simply the final part of the muwassah and not a separate unit, and it must be seen in the framework of the

poem as a whole. One should also note that the topoi of the Romance kharjas are also to be found among the topoi of the Arabic kharjas;

that the written form of the Romance in the kharjas in the Arabic series indicates a strong Arabic filter;3! and that the muwassah cannot readily be seen as a form of popular poetry — one has only to think of the number of singers and musicians required for full performances. Obviously, the quotational or quasi-quotational nature of the kharja means that very many of them are borrowings from earlier compositions. However, this is by no means always the case, as Garcia Gomez, the main advocate of the pre-existence of the Romance material, found himself arguing in the case of Kharja 24,3? a kharja that does not seem to me to be atypical. There is also a tradition, one of the chief proponents of which was the influential Aba Nuwas, of finishing a poem with a quotation from another of one’s own poems.?3

Consequently, even when a ‘Romance’ kharja has every appearance of

being borrowed from an earlier poem, that does not necessarily take us

B

Introduction back beyond another Arab poet.

All these points should be taken into account if speculation about the origin and nature of the kharja is to have a reasonably plausible basis. Most of the theories about pre-existing Romance poetry sadly ignore them. Moreover, though they take in the fact that Romance material was

incorporated into the poems, they show virtually no awareness of the

significance of this for Arabic (and consequently for Romance). The

use of Romance material is unparalleled in Arabic either before or since. Until very recently, Arabic has remained highly resistant to influence from other languages. Vocabulary has been borrowed when

convenient, but the use of foreign material in foreign constructions is virtually unknown.

This is one area in which the half-Persian Abu

Nuwas did not blaze a trail. His poetry is almost totally Arabic. Apart from the odd attempt to incorporate one very simple Persian construction, his experiments with that language are confined to individual

al-Andalus

items

of vocabulary.

of Romance

In contrast,

the incorporation

in

constructions as well as vocabulary was

clearly acceptable and indeed applauded. This is all the more remarkable if we see the muwasSahs, as I have said it would be prudent to do, largely in an Arab environment. In that case, the incorporation of Romance is a major literary and linguistic step. It matters little that much of the material has been lost, or that part of what has survived has become garbled and incomprehensible, or that those kharjas that we can understand are not of the highest literary quality. The very existence of such fused

material in poetry, the most intensely Arabic of all Arabic literary

forms, is a unique manifestion of cultural symbiosis. This is not a matter of doubt, and it should be appreciated by all those who study the kharjas. The Manuscripts

A full, technical description of the manuscripts and the problems they raise for an editor is not appropriate to the present work. They

are fully dealt with in my editions of the ‘Uddat al-jalis and the Jays

al-tawsih. Attention must be drawn, however, to some of the peculiarities both of the manuscrit Colin, the unique manuscript of the ‘Uddat al-jalis, and of the three manuscripts of the JayS al-tawsih. The manuscrit Colin

The age and provenance of the manuscript remain unclear, because of the loss of the final pages, which would have held any colophon. Little can be added to the brief description given by

14

Romance Kharjas

Professor Colin and incorporated in Veinticuatro jaryas: Le ms. parait d’époque sa‘dienne et a appartenu au prince al-Mustadr, fils

du sultan Muley Isma‘il du Maroc, qui mourut en 1173 h. = 1759-60.3+

The manuscript has suffered greatly in the passing of time. In many places the ink has eaten away the paper; it is much damaged by worm holes; and pages towards the end have been soaked by water at top and bottom, causing both staining and the fading of the ink, in some places to the point of illegibility. The manuscript ends abruptly in the middle of poem 354 (page 222). It is impossible to say how

many pages have been lost, probably only a few.*5 No

less than

six copyists

were

involved

in the copying

of the

manuscript. A further complication lies in the fact that the last two of them vocalized

one

part of the pages

they copied

but did not

vocalize the other. Five of the copyists were involved in the copying of the poems containing Romance material. They are: Scribe

Poems

A Cc D

Total

22,31 90,98, 102,109, 110,111,124,140,149, 157,167 178,190,193,224,230,260

Ei F, F,

2 11 6

273,276,280,281 (with vocalization) 311 (without vocalization) 344,345,347,348,349 (with vocalization)

4 1 5

The handwriting of each of these scribes has some characteristics that mark it as quite different from that of the others, and it is necessary to treat the kharjas written by each of the scribes as falling into a separate group. What may seem plausible in the interpretation of the

writing of one scribe may well be inappropriate with the others. Of course,

this

is not

always

the

case,

but

extrapolation

from

one

scribe’s writing to that of another must normally be considered to be

highly dubious.

A further complication is the general uncertainty with which the

kharjas containing Romance material are written. Scribal uncertainty

is not

infrequent

considerably

more

in colloquial marked

with

kharjas,

the

but

Romance

it is, in my kharjas,

being a positive indication of the presence of Romance.

view,

sometimes

In some

cases (a good example is the last word of Kharja 18), the scribe seems

deliberately to have written an incomplete or ambiguous form, in the hope that a learned reader would know what was meant, a technique used by countless students writing for examiners.

The copying of the scribes is of variable quality. The best, by some

way, is D, though even he would win no prizes for accuracy. E, and

A are tolerable. F is rather poor in both the vocalized

and

the

Introduction

15

unvocalized sections of his copying. Worst by some way is C, and it is typical of the fortunes of the muwaséahat that he is responsible for copying the largest individual group of Romance kharjas. His neat and apparently assured handwriting masks gross ignorance and careless-

ness. Mistakes litter the section of the manuscript for which he was

responsible (poems 85-173, pp.58-110). His incompetence adds greatly to our problems, as it sharply increases the probability of

irretrievable corruptions. This is a situation that has to be accepted.

It is certainly no reason to extend the bounds of speculation about

what the text might originally have been.

The manuscripts of the Jays al-tawsih Unsatisfactory though sections of the manuscrit Colin may be, it is no worse than many other medieval manuscripts, and, for the most

part, it is a good deal better than any of the manuscripts of the Jays al-tawsih. There are three of these, all relatively modern. In descending order of reliability and age, they are: 1. Manuscript 4583 of the Zaytiina mosque in Tunis. It is undated,

and our sole information about its history is that it is recorded as having passed into the possession of the mosque as a wagf

2. 3.

bequest in 1841. It was presumably considered to be of some value by then. Manuscript in the private library of Muhammad al-Nifar in Tunis.

It was copied in 1836.

Manuscript in the private library of Hasan Husni ‘Abd al-Wahhab in Tunis. It is incomplete and bears no date, but it is clearly

modern.

The latter two manuscripts are closely related, though some of the variants in the ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript would appear to indicate that it is not simply copied from the al-Nifar manuscript. Though not numerous, these variants are not of a kind that a copyist could readily make without additional information gleaned from another copy. The

tradition represented by the Zaytiina manuscript is fairly close but distinct. The better parts of the Zaytiina manuscript are, I suppose, about the same quality as the poorer parts of the manuscrit Colin. The

other two manuscripts are decidedly inferior.*°

Other sources Three other works must be mentioned briefly, as they each contain one Romance kharja. The Tawsi‘ al-tawsih of al-Safadi provides a further recension of al-A‘ma’s Dam ‘un safuhun, which is

also to be found in both the ‘Uddat al-jalis and the Jays al-tawsih. The Tawsi‘ al-tawsth is another work that has survived in only one

16

Romance Kharjas

manuscript, now to be found in the Escorial Library (no.438). The manuscript is, as Mutlaq says,°7 written in a clear but somewhat careless eastern hand. It is quite a fair manuscript in many ways, but the scribe clearly had difficulties whenever he had something

non-Arabic to copy. (In addition to the Romance of Dam‘un safuhun,

muwassah 6 contains some Persian phrases, and muwassah 7 some Turkish phrases.*®) by al-Safadi, al-Wafit another work above, As mentioned bi-’l-wafayat, is the source for another poem by al-A‘ma, Md hdlu ‘l-qulabi. Tpsin ‘Abbas printed the version in a manuscript in the Topkapi Seray Library (no.2920). I have not been able to procure a copy of this, but I have been able to consult the manuscripts in the Bodleian Library (Uri 664) and in the British Library (Or.105). The poem was first introduced to the non-Arabic reading public in 1974

in a good article by Professor James Monroe in volume 42 of the

Hispanic Review.?° Finally, there is a solitary muwasSah by Ibn Quzman, preserved in the Kitab al-‘atil al-hali of Safi al-din al-Hilli.*° Method of analysis

palaeographical and my notes on literary

As the aims of this book are primarily linguistic, I have for the most part confined

matters to brief comments about the contents of the muwasSahs and to elucidating the links between the main body of the poem and the kharja. Notes on authors are included from time to time, when there

is unpublished

information

to be made

available.

Further

ground information can conveniently be culled from Sola-Solé.

back-

The texts are dealt with in the following manner: 1.

2.

3.

After a brief introduction

to the poem,

the whole

stanza is given, first in facsimile and then in my

of the final

own printed

Arabic version. The latter retains the medieval Arabic spelling of the manuscripts, but that should not cause difficulties, as the accompanying transliteration will give clarification. Serious textual problems are fully discussed, but routine corrections, which should be apparent, are not commented on.

The agsan of the stanza are given in full transliteration and are then translated. The translations are reasonably faithful, but differences in the structures of Arabic and English often render

close translations impossible. In particular, most of the Arabic poems are light pieces, and the lightness is almost always destroyed in translation.

The text of the kharja is examined section by section exactly as I

17

Introduction

believe it to be in the manuscript. This is normally done in two

stages.*! First, the consonantal outline is gone through, letter by

letter, and possible divisions of the consonant clusters are indicated. If there is doubt what the cluster represents, either the

cluster is enclosed by question marks or a single letter is followed

by (?). Some words lack essential dots. If it is possible to indicate tentatively what the letters might be, this has been done, using

the sign “above the letter concerned. Occasionally there is no way of knowing what a letter is. In such cases I have also used a question mark, but without either brackets or the closing question mark used with a doubtful cluster. Finally, there are 4.

some words and phrases that seem to me to be irretrievably corrupt. These are marked with an obelus. The possible vocalization of the text is examined. Vowels shown in the manuscript are added, unless reasons are given. When the manuscripts lack vocalization and the vowels have to be worked out, two symbols are used to indicate the possibilities to be considered:

They

are

a,

indicating

that

a

vowel

must

occur,

but that it is not clear at that stage what the vowel might be; and A, indicating that the preceding consonant may or may not have a vowel. The transliteration, basically, the alphabet, apart from the follows: ’ if it is initial and is article; 9 if it is initial and medial or final.*?

is the same letter alif, clearly part indicates a

as that in the table of which is dealt with as of the Arabic definite vowel; and 4 if it is

The format of the analysis is somewhat cumbersome, but, as far as I can see, inevitable if those who do not know Arabic wish to follow the arguments about the adding of vowels to unvowelled or partially vowelled consonant clusters. Manuscript variants, including those from Hebrew muwassahs, are always indicated. There is a brief statement of what readings, if any, might be reached from an Arabic perspective. The point of this is to draw attention to all the words to which an Arabic reading might be given. It is not to claim that the words are definitely Arabic. In fact, in many cases an Arabic reading will be rejected as impossible or unlikely; in others it may be argued to indicate whole or partial assimilation of a Romance word to Arabic during the transmission of the text. In some cases, however, I shall point to probable or possible Arabic words and phrases that have hitherto been neglected.

Occasionally, whole sections that have so far been Romance turn out to have a possible Arabic reading.

treated

as

Romance Kharjas

18

Whenever it is possible to work out what any of the variables are or to replace an undetermined vowel by one for which there is

evidence in the Arabic or Hebrew manuscripts, this is done.

The next stage is problematical. We have the question of what further vowels might be added because it is abundantly clear what

the Romance word is. If there is sound Romance evidence to indicate

what a vowel would have been when allowances have been made for arabicized pronunciation, I have decided to add it but to show its less authoritative status by underlining it.*3 The vowels a, i and u present no great problem, but written Arabic lacks the vowels e and o, and

there is irrefutable evidence in some of the Romance kharjas that

they were assimilated to the appropriate Arabic vowels. The use of u for o appears to have been normal. It is shown clearly in the rhyme position when the rhyme is -u throughout the simt lines. There are nine examples of this, of which albu for albo in section 3 of Kharja 14

is typical.44 With e both a and i were used. This is shown most clearly by the use of both di and d@ to represent the Romance de.

There are six clear examples of the former and five of the latter.**

From the evidence that survives it appears that the use of i was more

common than that of a. Different assimilation factors may have been

at work. Another example of the problem is the Romance este/esta,

about whose vowels we have virtually no manuscript evidence. The masculine/feminine differentiation would clearly have been provided

by final i/a, but the initial vowel remains in doubt. The superscript hamza in Kharja 10 and the probable occurrence of a shortened form as in Kharja 24, where a is required by the rhyme, may be suggestive, but they are hardly conclusive.*® At the end of each analysis the texts worked out for the various sections are brought together and printed baldly so that the reader can see as a whole the text that I think should be used for further study. Additional comment at this point is normally avoided. I must stress that these texts are not claimed to be definitive. Given the state of the manuscripts, that would be absurd. A high number of subjective judgements are inevitably involved, and many of these will

naturally be challenged

by

others.

I simply

hope

that in going

through the texts very carefully and in drawing on my knowledge of Arabic palaeography I will have provided a fair infrastructure for

further studies.

The kharjas are normally given in the order in which the poems

are found in the manuscripts, beginning with the ‘Uddat al-jalis, then

the Jays al-tawsih, then the minor sources. The order is fairly close

to, but not identical with, the order used by Garcia Gomez in Las jarchas romances. An order that is basically neutral about

19

Introduction

chronology

is

less

misleading

than

one

hopefully

based

on

chronological data, when the data may be incomplete or wrong.*’ It

also avoids problems about doubtful attributions.+® However, in the

one case in which two poems share the same kharja and there is a

clear chronological order, I have put the earlier poem first.4°

The texts thus established will in many cases seem rather disappointing and any further work on them will at most be of a provisional nature. That, I submit, is inevitable because of the nature

of the manuscript evidence. In the past hopes have been pitched high, when too much

should not have been expected.

It is unrealistic to

think that the texts of a significant number of the kharjas will be amenable to emendation and that the resulting versions will normally offer good sense and viable syntax. There are a large number of places where corruptions of the text are serious and deep-seated in ways that make plausible emendation impossible or at best highly dubious. The extent of this problem can be readily seen by reference

to the kharja of a muwasiah

by Ibn

Ruhaym

(Jays al-tawsih,

section 13, poem 8). The poem has survived in only two of the three

manuscripts. These read: 1. Imrny aw kd 5rd dbyb | hbyb | sm/(?mm?)

btadn hsyb

2. Imrny awkr srd by | hs(?)b | sm btadn 950 The second section is clearly the Arabic word habibi ‘my beloved’, but it is extremely difficult to make anything of the first and third

sections. Yet we can be sure that if the above versions had been the

sole evidence both Garcia Gomez and Sola-Solé would have produced ingenious realizations, probably quite different from each other and also different from the kharja that we find in a Hebrew muwassah by Todros Abulafia, which reads: ky frdyw aw ky Syrad dmyby | hbyby | nwn ty twlgs dmyby5? It so happened that the poem by Todros Abulafia came to light

before that of Ibn Ruhaym, and it has therefore been used as the basis for restoring the deeply corrupt Arabic version. The basic

reason for this appears to have been that there is a comprehensible version in the Hebrew poem and that the kharjas concerned are “clearly” the same. No attempt was made to show that the two versions are in fact related, though the arguments can just about be put together. Yet this apparently obvious step cannot simply be taken as a matter of course, as there are at least two cases (Kharjas 12

and

/8)

in which

Sola-Solé

takes

the view

that

much

smaller

differences between the Hebrew and Arabic versions point to two partially differing kharjas. Other similar examples could be cited. They indicate, or should indicate, the difficulties of getting even fairly close to the original text

20

Romance Kharjas

in many places. Recognition of this fact is central to any realistic study of what is to be found in the kharjas. However, we should not be too gloomy. A reasonable number of the kharjas in the Arabic series are in good enough shape to give us a fairly clear idea of the sort of thing that we might have expected to find in the texts that are corrupt. I am on record as believing that there is a baby in the kharja bathwater.5? What sort of a baby it is I leave to the reader to judge. I regret that because of their technical nature the analyses are not easy reading. I have provided two items that I hope will mitigate the difficulties for the non-Arabist. The first is a glossary of the Arabic terms used in the book. This precedes the introduction. The second is

an appendix

about

the Arabic

alphabet,

as used

in al-Andalus,

containing a table showing its printed forms, and my transcription.

This is at the end of the book. A concordance of the kharjas and schema of the muwassah precede the first analysis.

a

ue

NOTES

al-Andalus, al-Andalus, al-Andalus, The name

vocalization,

. 6. 7, 8. 9.

10. 11. 12, 13.

14,

13 [1948], pp.299-348, 14 [1949], pp.214-228. 17 [1952], pp.57-127. occurs only once in the manuscrit Without

manuscript

evidence,

Colin

(page

we have to look

2), and

at what

that

we

is without

find in other

Andalusian and Maghribi texts. The scanty evidence that emerges is too problematical to be examined here, but in my view it would appear to favour the spelling Bisri, The words textus receptus are actually used by Sola-Solé (Corpus, p.298), al-Andalus, 17 [1952], p.61. al-Andalus, 17 [1952], p.61. He reiterates his view about the necessity of studying the poems in toto in Las jarchas romances (p.56).

al-Andalus, 19 [1954], pp.369-384, It lists over 230 articles and books. A supplement to it is to be found in a very useful article by Professor Samuel Armistead, Some recent developments in Kharja Scholarship, La Corénica, 8, Spring 1980, No. 2, pp.199-203. Dr. Hitchcock has produced a further judicious survey in an article in the B.R.I.S.M.E.S. Bulletin, ‘The Sate of the kharjas: a survey of recent publications (Volume 12, number 2 [1985], pp.172-190). For detailed criticism of a representative sample of these problems, see my article Romance scansion and the Muwassahat, Journal of Arabic Literature, 11 [1980], pp.36-55. The poem was first printed in the Diwan of al-A'ma, edited by Ihsan ‘Abbas, Beirut, 1963, pp.288-9, De Gunzberg’s facsimile of the Lesser Diwan of Ibn Quzman was very much the exception to normal practice. The evidence for this statement will become plain in my analyses,

al-Andalus, 19 [1954], p.48.

Introduction

oy

15.

The curious will find most of my views in the edition of the Arabic muwassahs containing

16.

The problem for the poets is normally one of lengthening a short vowel, but long may also be shortened. For example, we find the poetic form yaku for the standard (e.g. wa-lam yaku jurmi [‘Uddat al-jalis poem 286)). See, for example, Corriente’s edition of Ibn Quzman and his article The metres muwas’ah, an Andalusian adaptation of ‘artid, Journal of Arabic Literature, 12 pp.76-82. See note 10.

vowels yakun

For the former,

for the

17. 18. 19,

20. 21.

Romance kharjas that I have produced for Arab readers,

see Monroe’s

comments

in La

Corénica,

10 [1982], pp.121-47;

of the [1982],

latter, Monroe and Swiatlo, Ninety-three Arabic Hargas in Hebrew Muwassahs: Their Hispano-Romance Prosody and Thematic Features, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 97 [1977], pp.141-170. Wright, Arabic Grammar, 2, pp.358-368. This is a description of convenience for the reader. Arabic metrical theory has a different view of what takes place. Those who wish to know more should start with the article ‘arid by Gotthold Weil in the

23.

new edition of the Encyclopedia of Islam (vol.1, pp.667-677). Those who want to see a recent article on theory about the music might care to read

David Wulstan, The muwai8ah and zajal revisited, Journal Society, 102 [1982], pp.247-264. I remain totally unconvinced.

24. 25. 26.

27. 28. 29. 30.

31. 32. 33.

36. a7, 38.

Oriental

For some pithy remarks see the late Keith Whinnom, The mamma of the kharjas, La Corénica, 11 [1982], pp.11-17. See Ibn Bassam, a/-Daxira (ed. Ihsan ‘Abbas), vol.1, part 1, p.469. Only two poems in the Arabic series (Kharjas 16 and 18) can confidently be said to be

wholly in Romance. Kharja 12 appears to be in Romance apart from one word. This is corrupt in both the Arabic and Hebrew manuscripts, but it would appear to be either Arabic or hybrid.

An anonymous Hebrew poem of similar structure is to be found in Schirmann, Sirim

hadasim min ha-genizah (Jerusalem 1965), poem 165, pp.336-7. It has an Arabic kharja.

Ibn Bassam, al-Daxira (ed. Ihsan ‘Abbas), vol.1, part 1, p.469. The passage has been translated several times, but not yet successfully, as there are textual problems in the

Arabic that have not so far been solved. Tbn Sana’ al-Mulk, Dar al-tirdz (ed. Rikabi, 2nd ed., Damascus 1977), pp.42ff.

The value of Ibn Sana’ al-Mulk’s comments was examined by a former student of mine, Dr. Samir Haykal, in his thesis on The Eastern MuwaSiah and Zajal (Oxford 1983). The thesis has not yet been published, but I hope that this will shortly be rectified in the case

of volume 1, which has much that is useful for the study of the two genres in al-Andalus. The same filter is to be found to a lesser extent in the Hebrew series. Hebrew, with a much less pervasive influence, cannot be expected to manifest the same effect. Las jarchas romances, p.284. See also my note 9 on Kharja 24. At least 36 (out of a total of some

Nuwas

end

compositions.

34. 35.

of the American

with

a

quotation

300 poems and fragments) of the xamriyyat of Abi

from

another

poem,

These closing quotations are normally

including

some

of

his

own

introduced by a verb of transition

such as ‘he sang’. al-Andalus, 17 [1952], p.63. The muwassahs rhyming in ha’ begin with poem 351, and poems rhyming with the last three letters of the Arabic alphabet (ha’, waw and ya’) are never numerous.

For further details of the manuscripts of the Jays al-tawsih, see Stern, Two Anthologies of Muwassah Poetry, Arabica, 2 [1955], in particular pp.152-5.

Taw3i' al-tawsth (ed. Mutlaq, Beirut 1966), p.14. Tawsi' al-tawsih (ed. Mutlaq, Beirut 1966), pp.49 and 51.

Romance Kharjas

22 39; 40. 4l.

Hispanic Review, 42 [1974], pp.243-264. ed. Hoenerbach, p.94ff.

There are some sections that are unarguably straightforward pieces of Arabic. When this

appears certain, the text is given immediately with full vocalization, without going

through all the stages of augmenting the consonantal text. The use of ’ (normally used to transliterate hamza) to transliterate alif is not helpful, particularly in medial or final positions. In the Romance kharjas there is only one case in which a hamza has to be supplied with an alif. This is in the Arabic word al-sa’amu (Kharja 6, section 1) — and even there Garcia Gomez opts for a Romance reading, which of course has no Aamza. In all other cases, medial or final alif represents a or even a. 43, This is quite different from the underlining with @ and 1, where d and J represent distinct Arabic letters. See Kharjas 2, 13 (twice), 14, 18 (twice), 23 (twice), 28. 45. We find dhiin Kharjas 1, 4, 8, 19 (twice), 35 ; and dha in Kharjas 2, 11, 22, 31 (twice). 46. The actual quality of the vowels is something to which I hope to return in a general work on the muwassahs The use in this book of only the a, i and u of written Arabic begs some difficult questions but has its points: it is a rerainder of the link in rhyme between the kharja and the other asmdt; and it also serves as an indicator that the kharjas are not written in any genuine vernacular but a literary approximation to one. 47. For a clear example of Sola-Solé’s chronology being wrong, see the introductory comments

42.

to Kharja 17 (‘Uddat al-jalis poem 230).

48. 49. 50. 51. 52.

See, for example, Kharjas 27 and 31.

See Kharjas 28a and 28b. These are the versions in the Zaytiina and al-Nifar manuscripts. Diwan, ed. Yellin, p.15. See La Corénica, 10, Fall 1981, No. 1, p.75. The kharjas that I feel to be not too seriously corrupt are: J, 5,9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24, 31, 36, 38 and 40. Only the last four of these are from the Jay§ al-tawsih — and 3Jand 38 are largely in Arabic; whilst 40 is restored from the version preserved in Todros Abulafia.

Concordance of editions of the kharjas This edition 1

2

Stern/Heger 22 23

Garcia Gomez I

Il

Sola-Solé XI

XXII

3 4 5 6 Ta 7b 8 9

24 25 26 27 28a 28b 21 29

Ill IV Vv VI Vila VIIb Vill Ix

ll 12 13 14 15 16 17

31 5a 32 33 34 35 36b

XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII

L XXVIIla XV LI XVII LI XXVb

19 20

36a 37

XIX XX

XXVa XII

38b

XXIb

Vila

8a 8b

XXIla XXIla

10

18

2la

21b 22

23a 23b 24

25 26

27

28a

28b

29 30a 30b 31 32

33 34 35 36

37

38a 38b 39 40

41

42

30

Ta

38a 51

52

39 40

42

4la

4lb

43 44a 44b _— 45

— 50 46 47

48

= — 49 16a

—

=

x

XVIII

XXIa

XXV

XXVI

XXIII XXIV

XXVII

XXVIIIb

XXVIIla

XLVI XLVII XXIII XII Ila IIb XXI XLVIII

XLIX

XXXVila

VIIb

XXIV

XXIXa XXIXb IX

LI LIV

XXVIL

XIVa

XIVb

XXIX XXXa XXXb _

Xx Va Vb IV

XXXII XXXII XXXIV XXXV

XVI XVII XXVI XLIII

= a XXXVI XXXVIII

—e = VI XLa

XXXI

XXXVI

XXXIX

Til

XLIV

—

XLI

24

Romance Kharjas

Schema of the ‘complete’ muwassah (muwassaha tamma) Three typical rhyme schemes

Ist

dawr

2nd dawr

3rd dawr 4th dawr 5th dawr

matla‘

AA

gusn I

B

gusn 3

B

gugn 2

B

ABA Cc

Cc

iC

ABCB DE

DE

DE

simt 1

AA

ABA

ABCB

gusn I gusn 2 gusn 3

Cc ¢ Cc

D D D

FG FG FG

simt 2

AA

ABA

ABCB

gusn 1

D

E

HI

ABCB

gusn 2 —gusn3

D D

E E

simt 3

AA

ABA

gusn I

E

F

gusn 2 gusn 3 simt 4

gusn 1

gusn 2 gusn 3

kharja

E E

F F

HI HI

JK

JK JK

AA

ABA

ABCB

F

G

LM

ABA

ABCB

F F

AA

G G

LM LM

If there is no matla‘, the muwasiah is called agra‘ ‘bald’. Agra‘ poems make up almost one sixth of the extant corpus. The pattern set in the first dawr cannot be varied except in the rhymes of the agsdn. Agsan

With only the rarest exceptions, a dawr has three or four agsdn. Each gusn may have one, two, three or four sections; one or two being the most common. The sections normally rhyme, though occasionally the first section of a two-section gusn does not do so (see Kharja 20). Asmat

With one exception (‘Uddat al-jalis, poem 164), a simt line must have at least two sections. Two, three or four section lines are most widely used, but simt

lines with up to ten sections are not uncommon. Sections in simt lines always end with a rhyme. ™,

25

Kharja 1 Poem 22 Min mawridi 'l-tasnim by Muhammad ibn ‘Ubada The name of the author of this poem has been the subject of some

discussion. Stern argued cogently that references to Muhammad ibn “Ubada and to ‘Ubada were not references to two different poets but

to the same one.! The manuscript of the ‘Uddat al-jalis offers conclusive proof for this proposition. It attributes the present poem

to Muhammad ibn ‘Ubada and then goes on to head the next poem “by ‘Ubada also”. Such laxity in references to the names of composers of muwasSahs is not uncommon in Andalusian Arabic literary works. It will surface again, for example, concerning the authorship of two of the poems in the ‘Uddat al-jalis that have Romance kharjas (109 and 230). Muhammad ibn ‘Ubada/‘Ubada may reasonably lay claim to be the greatest virtuoso among the composers of the muwasiah who flourished in the period of the muliik al-tawa’if. Seventeen complete muwassahs of his have survived. They range from quite simple poems such as Kayfa an yasla (‘Uddat al-jalis poem 341: AB AB AB CD etc.) to the famous Kam fi qudiidi 'l-ban (‘Uddat al-jalis poem 138, Dar altirdz poem 15: ABCD ABCD EF EF EF EF EF ABCD ABCD etc.) and on to the remarkable Wa-hagqi strati qaf (‘Uddat al-jalis poem 309: AAAAAAAAAA BC BC BC AAAAAAAAAA etc.), with its brilliantly successful tenfold-rhyming simfs in the difficult rhyme of -df. Amongst these extant poems, Min mawridi 'l-tasnim is one of his

more complex compositions. The rhyme scheme adopted for the simt lines (the majla‘, the asmat and the kharja) is not easy: ABCD ECCD.

The poet adds a further complication for himself in the metre of these parts of the poem. In terms of Arabic scansion the basis of the

full metre is as follows:?

We have this twice, but in the first case it is divided: Reve

ee

|

Feve

eleven

[---

and in the second it is divided: Reve

ne

|

Seve]

&

eve

lee

The agsan of the poem provide a strong counterbalance to the asmat.

26

Romance Kharjas

There are four of them in each stanza. The Arabic scansion pattern is: We thus and are structure the poet

have stanzas in which the agsdn have a total of 60 syllables then followed by a simt of 34 syllables. This is a large for a muwassah composed during the eleventh century, but handles it lightly. There are deft contrasts, too, between the

smoother rhythms of the agsdn and the more staccato sections that

make up the asmat.

The

poem

conventional,

is mainly

and

amatory

the poet’s

in

content.

skill lies in the

Its

great

themes

dexterity

are

and

linguistic subtlety with which he handles them. It would seem that we

should conclude from the use of the name Abii ‘Amr in stanza 2, line 1, and of the name Ibrahim in the kharja that the person to whom the poem was originally dedicated was someone named Abi ‘Amr Ibrahim. The final agsan

The text of the manuscript is:

done adil

In my view the first section of the third gusn requires emendation.

The manuscript has batal, which leads Sola-Solé to translate the section as ‘Cuando la doncella Io vio presuntuoso’. This appears to be an ingenious attempt to combine something of two meanings of

batala ‘to be idle’ and ‘to behave as a champion’.? It is not, however, convincing.

The

palaeographically, them more directly a poet like ‘Ubada. ofa promise’, and to consider.

change

to

matal

is

not

particularly

difficult

and it gives clearer meaning to the agsan and links to the kharja in a way that one might expect from The verb matala can mean ‘to delay the fulfilment this is very appropriate to the kharja we are about

Kharja 1

ar

Including

the

follows:

emendation,

haa Vo

the

agsén

may

be

Sas

55 fb golds

ee Ye bt

hee oe GU

OLS ULE Ua5 oe

ot,

“hh

fs,

Cast at Vi

transcribed

as

85

28, , Oe pu Uyyee 02

wa-gadatin lam tazal taski li-man la yunsifu y@ wayha man yattasil bi-habli man Ia yus‘ifu lamm ra’athu matal wa-hya garaman taklafu gannat wa-md li-l-amal illa ilayhi l-masrifu They translate as follows: Many a maiden has continued to complain of someone who is unjust — Alas for the one who is tied to the rope of someone who is not helpful — When she has seen him delay fulfilment of his promise while she is smitten with passion; She has sung, when the only hope has been to go out to him: The kharja then follows.

The kharja Section 1

ei a

The first cluster raises quite awkward problems. It looks as if the scribe wrote mim + kasra, nin. This would give us the Arabic

preposition min ‘from’. The main difficulty is that min does not fit

with what follows in the rest of the line, and it may be an attempt at assimilating a Romance word to Arabic. If we make minor changes, two other readings seem possible. The first is to take the Kasra as a mistake for a dot,* and to read the first letter as a ba’ or a fa’. This would allow us to read the cluster as

ban|fon, which we can understand as a form of ven. If we take note

of

the

fanta

in

section

3,

we

should

prefer

fon.

The

alternative is to ignore the putative kasra and to read the second

letter as waw. The cluster mim, waw cannot be taken as Arabic, but it

28

Romance Kharjas

is the normal form possessive adjective, It is perhaps not the meaning of the

for the Romance first person masculine singular as we shall see elsewhere. coincidental that neither fon nor mw is crucial to line. If we read fon it is picked up by fanta in

section 3; whilst if we read mw

it is picked up by the first person

singular pronominal suffix of sidi, the second word in section 1. Intuitively I prefer the repeated verb to the repeated possessive, but both readings deserve consideration in any final text. The second and third clusters, which are partly vocalized, are two

straightforward Arabic words. We can therefore read: 2fan | mw? sidi Ibrahim

As the metre requires six syllables, the reading mw must be taken as ma.5 Also the second vowel of sidi should undoubtedly be shortened.° The section may be read as: ?fon / mii? sidi Ibrahim

Section 2

Ke zlob

The consonants read: ya’, alif - break - niin, waw, alif, mim, nin - break - dal, lam, jim ya nwamn dlj

Doubts have been expressed about the first letter of the second cluster,” but the manuscript is clear. The letter is certainly a nan. Any

other suggestion requires an emendation. The first cluster is clearly

the Arabic vocative particle ya. However, it is impossible to produce

any satisfactory Arabic readings for the second and third clusters, with or without the vocalization that is present in the manuscript.

That vocalization is not without a problem. At the end of the second cluster there is a kasra that goes either with the penultimate letter (mim) or with the final letter (niin). It may well be that the scribe intended

the vowel

to

be

taken

with

the mim,

but

the

metrical

requirement for a short vowel at the end of the word indicates that we must take it with the niin. With the vocalization and the variable we get:

y@ nuwamani dalji This produces two syllables too many. Neither the y@ nor the dalji can be changed. We must therefore look to the second word. One syllable can be eliminated if we read the variable as a sukiin, But the only way of reducing the number of syllables further is to reject the

manuscript vocalization of the initial nin, and to read it with a sukiin instead. Initial vowelless consonants are sometimes allowed if, as

Kharja 1

29

here, they can be linked to a preceding vowel. The uncertainty about

the vocalization of this word may arise from a scribal attempt to produce a spelling that is plausible, if not totally comprehensible, in

Arabic — nuwdmin — but I doubt whether this argument should be pressed. The reading nwamni has the incidental merit of fitting the Arabic metrical pattern but some doubt about it must remain. This leaves us with:

Section 3

ya 2nwamni? dalji

The writing is clear. The consonants are: Ja’, alif, niin, ta’ - break - mim, ya’, ba’: fant myb

There are two vowels with the first cluster, both the fa’ and the ta’

having a fatha. In principle, it would be perfectly simple to read this as the Arabic fa-anta ‘and so you’. However, as the section has only three syllables, one of which must be the second cluster myb, this is impossible. The reading must be fanta, unless Romance scholars decide that the second vowel is wrong. The rhyme in -i indicates that the second cluster is mib. Neither cluster can now be read as Arabic. We must therefore assume that both words are Romance: fanta mib Section 4 ; “

2

2¢

¢

Again the writing is clear. The consonants are: dal, ya’ - break - niin, xa’, ta’ di nxt As we shall see elsewhere, the cluster dy can be taken as Arabic, being either a feminine demonstrative or the genitive of the masculine word di ‘possessor of’. Neither of these possibilities would appear to give any sense here. The only option, therefore, is to treat the word as Romance. As for the second cluster, there is no way of reading it as Arabic once we take the vocalization and the rhyme into consideration. The xd’ is vocalized with a sukiin and the ta’ with a kasra, as one would expect from the rhyme. The nam must have a vowel, and it seems reasonable to take account of the occurrence in

the Kharja 4 of the form nwxt and assume that the vowel of the niin is

a damma. This leaves us with:

di nuxti

30

Romance Kharjas

Section 5

The writing here can give no doubt about the consonants: alif, niin - break - nun, waw, niin - break - Sin, nun, waw, nin - break

- kaf, alif, ra’, Sin

an nwn Snwn kars There is no vocalization. It seems to me to be reasonable to accept

the view that the first cluster is likely to be the Arabic conditional

particle in if. In theory the second cluster could also be Arabic, but

the meanings available are all outlandish and unsuitable.® In fact, I believe that the occurrence of the cluster niin, waw, nin throughout

the kharjas we are examining is likely to be only one thing, the Romance negative, which, given the Arabic setting, I conservatively spell as nun. In the present section it would certainly be an

appropriate word to follow what we have thought reasonable to accept as a conditional particle. The next two clusters can be read as Arabic words, Sanin ‘lean’ and kari§ ‘wrinkled’, that might possibly be linked together. However, I do not see how they can be put into

any meaningful context. I therefore think that the clusters should be treated as Romance, as has been the normal practice.? If we take account of the rhyme and of the metrical requirement for six syllables, we have the following text:

in niin Soniin karis

There is one further step that we can take. It is to read Sonin as Siniin. We may do so on the basis that the phrase in nan, Si-niin has every appearance of being a bilingual version of a common Arabic

construction

in

which

‘otherwise’

illa@

is

followed

by

another

conditional particle, which in its turn is more often than not followed by a negative (i.e. we get illa followed by in lam ‘otherwise, if ... not’).

This is, in fact, the only way that the phrase translates naturally into

Arabic. If we take this into account we have: in niin Si-niin kari Section 6

Met

M

re

The first letter brings various problems, letters are clear enough. We must read:

but apart

Ja’ or ba’, ya’, ra’, ya’, mim - break - ta’, ya’, ba’

from

that the

Palaeographically, it is impossible to say whether the first letter is {4 , or ba’. The important point here is to draw attention to its existence,

Kharja 1

31

as it is inexplicably omitted from Garcia Gomez’s transcription and

accompanying commentary in Veinticuatro jarfas.41 Yet it is undoubtedly in the manuscript. There are strokes for two letters before the rd’ and there is the normal cluster of three dots that we get with ba’/fa’, ya’. The difference can be illustrated by comparing the beginning of the cluster, below, numbered (1), with two words from nearby poems copied by the scribe. The first is byn, taken from poem 24, line 13, and numbered (2). [The relative closeness in form between final nin and final ra’ is sufficient for our purpose.] The second is yrd from poem 23, line 28, numbered (3), the first two letters of which are the first two letters of Garcia Gémez’s transcription.

AP

VF

Fr

(1)

(2)

(3)

-e@

There could be an additional break after the ra’, but this seems very unlikely. We have the following consonantal form: Fibyrym tyb There is no vocalization. The rhyme makes it certain that the second cluster is ib. If all the variables were to be included, we should move to f/bayarayama tib, but the Arabic metrical requirement of = -~means that the only likely text is: f/birimo tib This must, so far as I can see, be taken as being essentially Romance and therefore something for Romance scholars to ponder over. However, there is one possibility that might be borne in mind. I would emphasise that the suggestion is speculative, but I think that it should not be ignored. If we take the first letter as fa’, it may represent a form of the Arabic particle fa-, which is commonly used to introduce the apodosis of a conditional sentence. Given the metrical requirements, it would have to be shortened to /-. Such an introduction to the apodosis might have been used, even though it would be the only Arabic element in the section. If we allow the shortening, we have the following version: f-irima tib Section 7

The consonants read:

32

Romance Kharjas gayn, ra’ - possible break - mim, ya’ - alif, waw, ba’ gr my awb or grmy awb

There are two vowels in the manuscript, a kasra under the mim and a

sukin over the waw. spelling

the

presence

It should be noted that in medieval Arabic of a sukin

does

not

necessarily

indicate

a

diphthong: it may be written over the wdaw of a or the yd’ of 7. Here the final vowel ab is certain because of the rhyme. It is possible to read grmy as Arabic, but no good sense emerges. A Romance reading is therefore indicated. There seems no reason why we should not take the first two letters, gayn and ra’, as the imperative of the verb, the arabicized infinitive of which, gariri, occurs in Kharja 15.

One form of the imperative, gari, is protected by the rhyme in Kharja 5. If we take this form into account, we move to: gari mi ib

This is the text adopted by Sola-Solé.1?2 The problem is that if one wishes to adhere to the Arabic scansion pattern = -~- , one has to

scan the words as gari mi ub. The lengthening of the second vowel is slightly difficult, though the shortening of the third is fairly routine.

Another solution is to move Gomez’s reading,!? that is:

to the base implied

by Garcia

gar mi ib However, this does require the insertion of an additional alif before the alif of ab, in my view a minor and readily acceptable emendation. Alif is a letter that is frequently omitted in manuscripts, particularly before or after another alif.

It seems to me less difficult to insert an alif than to have slightly

awkward

Gomez.

vowel quantities. I therefore prefer the reading of Garcia

Section 8

re second letter is somewhat doubtful. I believe the natural reading to

be:

lam, gayn, ra’ - possible break - ta’

lgrt or Igr t A technical case can be made for reading the second letter as qaf, producing /grt; but this does not appear to offer any sense.

The reading given by Garcia Gomez in Veinticuatro Jjaryas is ifrt.1* This is an inexplicable blunder. In Maghribi manuscripts, such as the manuscrit Colin, fa’ has a dot underneath the letter and not

above it. The dot in the manuscript is clearly above the letter, and

Kharja I

33

this must indicate either gayn or Gf, as set out above. The ta’ is correctly vocalized with a Kasra, as needed by the rhyme. The rhyme also requires the ra’ to be read with a sukin,

producing final réi or r ti. These rhyme requirements and the metrical

requirement of only three syllables render impossible such Arabic readings as li-girrati or li-qurrati, which would otherwise be quite

plausible. This leaves us with Romance again. It would appear reasonable to use the long vowel in the form Jagar in Kharja 8 to allow us to read /gr as lagar, followed by ti. I suspect that Arabs would treat the ti as enclitic, and I would therefore read the section

as:

logar-ti When the sections are put together, the base text is: fon? sidi Ibrahim —_| ya ?nwamni? dalji | fanta mib | di nuxti [ ?mii? sidi Ibrahim] | | logar-ti | f/birimo tib | gar mi ib in nin Si-niin kariS | [f-irimo tib] | [gari mi ab]

NOTES

1.

2.

Muhammad ibn ‘Ubdda al-Qazzaz, un andaluz autor de ‘muwaisahs’, al-Andalus, 15 [1950], pp.79-109.

This is not closely connected to any traditional Arabic metre. There is more than one way

of analysing it in terms of Arabic prosody; the most satisfactory one derives it from the basit metre.

3.

Corpus, p.116.

4.

Any attempt to read the kasra as two dots, thus turning the first letter into ya’, appears to be impossible, as no plausible reading emerges.

5.

This is the basic spelling to be derived from Arabic script. With the reading mw, the

problematical mark under the mim (which does not recur elsewhere) might be thought to

give an indication of a diphthong or even of a bisyllabic pronunciation. This is very

doubtful. In the present case any attempt to have a bisyllabic pronunciation falls foul of metrical considerations. This is not always so. In some places one can read a bisyllabic

form at the expense of another syllable in the section concerned (see, for example, the first

section of the second line of Kharja 22). However, such a pronunciation is never essential, and there is no manuscript evidence for it. This is also the case in the majority of the

6.

kharjas in Hebrew poems, though one (by Yosef ibn Saddiq) [Stern, Hispano-Arabic Strophic Poetry, p.145] does have myw. The shortening of final 7 to i is a very common phenomenon in the muwassahat.

7.

By Stern (Les chansons mozarabes, p.21) and by Sola-Solé (Corpus, p.117).

8.

Nin can mean ‘fish’ or ‘the letter niin’ or even ‘the blade of a sword’. Verb forms, such as nawwana, would be unmetrical.

Sometimes, as here, the final ya’ is written, though the vowel is to be pronounced short.

34

Romance Kharjas

9.

ll. 12.

There have been no dissentients from this. See Corpus, pp.116-7; also Latham, New light on the scansion of an old Andalusian muwas8ah (Journal of Semitic Studies, 27 [1982], p.74), The i vowel for the Romance conditional particle is guaranteed by the form sy in a muwaiiah by Todros Abulafia (muwasah 25). al-Andalus, 17 [1952], pp.72-75. Corpus, p.118.

14.

al-Andalus, 17 [1952], p.72.

10.

13.

al-Andalus, 17 [1952], p.74-75.

35

Kharja 2 Poem 31 Man Ii bi-rasan The poem is anonymous. The attribution to al-A‘ma, first made in Veinticuatro jarfas,! is incorrect. The manuscript of the ‘Uddat al-jalis attributes poems 29 and 30 to al-A‘ma, but for poem 31 it simply has muwaisaha at the end of the line containing the kharja of poem 30 (and not, as we should expect, on a separate line). The words Jahu aydan (‘by him also’), which would be needed for the manuscript attribution of the poem to be to al-A‘mi, are not there. As there is nothing in the poem itself to support this attribution, one must assume an error in reading the manuscrit Colin caused by the unusual and obscure position of the word muwassaha. A fair number of the poems containing Romance kharjas have a very simple structure: each gusn has one section only; each simf two sections which have the same rhyme; and the same metrical scheme applies throughout. This is one of those poems. The Arabic scansion scheme for this poem is:? The poem is agra‘, having no mafia‘, with the format a A A BB etc. It is for the most part a conventional piece, with the bilingual kharja as the only striking feature: The final agsan, which simply imply a verb of quotation, are neatly turned. The final agsan The text of the manuscript is:

il wh leel te18 2the ie;

the

BES coals Sie

le whee) aby

36

Romance Kharjas

We may transcribe this as:

Liss) abi ie BL uy

UU 55 LAM slp Ga

GI

gel Lal Se

ya amlaha xalgi ‘llahi arkana mud binta fu’adu 'I-sabbi gad bana yabki asafan li-l-bayni hayrana

O most handsome in form of God’s creatures, Since you have left, the heart of the love-lorn one shattered, As he weeps in sorrow at the separation, bewildered:

has

been

The kharja then follows. The kharja

Section J

Ce Apel ga Ble

The first cluster is first letter is clearly am inclined to take but I do so with no

clear: gayn, alif, ra’. The second is difficult. The kaf, but the second could be either nan or ra’. I it as niin because of the length of the final stroke, great conviction. The next three clusters are clear:

lam, ba’, ra’, ya’, then dal, alif, then alif, lam, gayn, ya’, ba’, ta’

marbija. In the fifth cluster the niin/ra’ problem recurs. Again the length of the final stroke makes the primary reading nan, waw, nun,

but one could just make a case for nin, waw, ra’. Had

cluster occurred almost certainly 1a’, niin, ta’. Our gayn, alif, ra’

the final

elsewhere in the section the initial reading would have been a’, 1a’, niin. However, the rhyme secures first reading must therefore be: - break - kaf, nin/ra’ - break - lam, ba’, ra’, ya’ -

break - dal, alif - alif, lam, gayn, ya’, ba’, ta’ marbiita - break niin, waw, nin, ra’ - break - ta’, niin, ta’ gar kn/r lbry da ‘Igybt nwn]r tnt

Two vowels are given: one fatha on the dal of the fourth cluster

and another on the 6a’ of the fifth cluster. As these are self-evident, they do not help us with any of our problems. The text differs from that given in Veinticuatro jarfas at two points. Garcia Gomez reads the second cluster as kaf, ra’ with no

alternative, and he reads the 1a’ marbita as ha’. The latter reading is probably correct on technical grounds, but the uncertainties that

Kharja 2

37

beset the rest of the section leave some doubt. The occurrence of the classical ta’ marbita (3) is something of a problem in non-classical

kharjas. One normally expects it to be modified to Ad’ (0), indicating the colloquial form and not pronounced. When a’ marbiita is found, it usually turns out to be a scribal error, but occasionally the ¢ is retained for metrical reasons. Scansion is the normal way of checking, but here that is very difficult. If we read da ‘I-gaybati, we have four syllables; with da -gaybah we have three. Both would fit

the Arabic metrical pattern when followed by the three syllables provided by the last two clusters. The decision whether to read

‘L-gaybati or ‘Il-gayba' thus depends on how we try to read the first three clusters. These possibly give some help. It seems unlikely that gar kn/r lbry could represent as few as four syllables, the last of which would have to be short. I therefore incline to da ‘I-gayba',

which would allow five syllables for the first three clusters.

The question of what might be Arabic is also difficult, apart from al-gayba ‘absence’, which picks up the absence mentioned in the final agsan. It seems impossible to take gar and tt as Arabic. The former can be taken as a fuller spelling of the form that we encountered in section 7 of Kharja 1. Also, if we adhere to the view adumbrated in section 5 of Kharja 1, we shall treat nwn as Romance. If the reading is nwr, Arabic comes back into the reckoning with nar ‘light’. It would also be possible to take da as the accusative of dit ‘possessor of, if this were to make any sense. However, I do not see how it could be taken as the masculine demonstrative da, as the following word al-gayba is feminine. As I shall also have occasion to argue concerning Kharja 22, the breakdown of grammatical usage that would be implied by the linking of the words da and al-gayba, which are of opposite gender, is avoided just as much in the kharjas as elsewhere in the corpus. This indicates, I believe, that d@ should be treated as Romance. That leaves us with kn/r and /bry. As kn is the consonantal form of the masculine singular imperative of the verb ‘to be’, it is normally worth seeing whether it will fit. But there is a counterbalancing point to be borne in mind: kn, being a familiar word, might be written by a scribe uncertain of what he was copying (though not in place of the equally familiar km — Garcia Gomez’s alteration to km is unconvincing for this reason). The alternative kr could also be read as Arabic, but the possibility is so remote that I feel that it need be given no further consideration. Turning to /bry, one could try to read it as /i-bari ‘for someone who is innocent’, but there are severe problems when one tries to link it to da, and a Romance reading seems more likely, particularly as similar forms are found elsewhere (e.g. /bdr in Kharja 6).

38

Romance Kharjas

If, as suggested above, we assume that the first three clusters represent five syllables, the only vowel pattern that fits the metre is: gar kon lobaray da ’I-gayba niin tontu I hesitate to go further, as the text of the whole section seems to me

to be in a very dubious state. Sola-Solé’s attempt to make sense of the first part of the line [gar k(i)en lebarad de ‘l-gayba}* is quite plausible. I see no objection to emending yd’ to dal, given the characteristics of the handwriting here. However, I feel that he lets

himself down with his nin. This carries little being corrupted to nwn Maghribi handwriting. corpus.

An

easier

proposed substitution of the conviction. It is hard to see as final ba’ and final niin are Also there is no sign of nawb

emendation

Gomez in Veinticuatro jarfas.>

is yin,

first

Arabic nawb for an original nwb quite distinct in elsewhere in the

suggested

by

Garcia

Section 2

The consonants have been read as follows: yd, alif - break - waw, lam, niin, ya’, Sin alif, lam, ‘ayn, alif, Sin, qaf - break - sin, ya winys da "l'G5q Snnt There are fathas written above five of the first cluster; the waw of the second cluster;

- break - dal, alif - break niin, nin, ta’ consonants: the ya’ of the the dal of the third cluster;

the ‘ayn of the fourth cluster; and the final ta’. This last is, of course,

an error, as the rhyme requires damma . Only the second fatha, that

on the waw, gives us additional information. Whether it is correct or not is another matter. Two clusters stand out prima facie as Arabic. The first cluster

appears to be the vocative particle ya, whilst the fourth cluster must be %-‘Gsiq ‘the lover’. In this section one cannot say that the third

cluster, da, is not the Arabic demonstrative. It may or may not be. The second cluster has been recognised from the outset as being

problematical. The writing looks clear, and the most obvious reading is walnys, which produces no meaning in Arabic, and on that basis

one might argue that it is Romance. However, before plumping for this as a basis for further argument, one should remember that a case

can be made for walyn, as there are a fair number of places in the Arabic in the manuscript in which the dots are written in what is technically the wrong order. The point of this technical incorrectness

should be noted carefully. Whilst the reading walyns gives possible

Arabic readings (one of which, walyunsi ‘and let him raise’, cannot

Kharja 2

39

instantly be dismissed), the irregular position of the dots in this reading argues against the dot of the niin having been added to facilitate an Arabic reading. Had that been the case, it would have been in the proper place. Thus the dot cannot be excised on the crude assumption that it is a silly error, though this has been done by every one apart from Fahd,° on the basis, it would seem, of a throw-away remark by Garcia Gomez: Creo necessario corregir .... la segunda urd » de acuerdo .... con Colin.”

The reading thus produced,

palabra

del segundo

verso

en

wiys, is then equated with the form

wlyws, which appears to occur once with reasonable certainty (in a Hebrew muwassah by Yosef al-katib®), and is argued by Garcia Gomez to occur elsewhere.° I am not convinced by his arguments in favour of emending in this way in general, but least of all in this

section. I know of no place in the whole corpus in which ‘eyes’ and

‘lover’ are linked in the way that they are alleged to be here.® And even if there were evidence, I do not see how ‘eyes’ fits in with the rest of the section. As it stands, the text of the second cluster seems to me to resist emendation and I am prepared to mark it as corrupt.

Closer inspection brings doubts about the final cluster also. On

palaeographical grounds a good case can be made out for the reading Snnt. If it is accepted, it has to be taken as Romance, as the cluster makes no good sense in Arabic. This has been the general view, and, apart from one highly speculative reading by Fahd, the cluster has been consistently interpreted as 3i non tu. However, this is not easy in meaning or syntax. Garcia Gomez and Stern treat the second section as independent from the first one, and their attempts to explain the 5i nun tu are not convincing. Garcia Gomez translates: iAy de los ojos del amante, si no (estas) ti!!° and iAy de los ojos de la amorada, si no (estas) ta!1? Stern, with considerable hesitation, has: Helas, les yeux de l’amant si tu n’es pas (présent) (?)! 17 The weakness in these translations lies in the fact that they take no

proper account of the Arabic fondness for exceptives. One would certainly expect si nun to function here in the same way as the Arabic

illa ‘except’. Sola-Solé grasps this and takes Si non tu as an exceptive to his reading k(i)en (quién) in the first section. This is reasonably satisfactory, even if one cannot accept his reading of the first part of

the section [ya olios de ’I-‘asiqi).1* If one turns to the reading tt, there is no difficulty in taking it as

the verb suttittu ‘I have become distracted’, which would fit nicely with the hayrdnd in the last gusn.1* This is slightly more difficult to

40

Romance Kharjas

justify palaeographically than Sonantu, but it cannot out. The whole section seems desperately uncertain: ya twalnyS/walyns} da ’1-‘a8iqo Sonontu/Suttittu For the whole kharja my doubtful offering is: gar kon loboray da ’I-gayba ?niin? tantu|

be

ruled

ya twalny$/walyns} da ’I-‘a8iqo Sonontu/Suttittu

NOTES

1.

al-Andalus, 17 [1952], p.76.

2. 3.

In Arabic metrical Corriente (Spanish gender breakdown are a few examples

terms this is a derivative of the rawi/ metre. Arabic Dialect Bundle, 9.5.2) provides some evidence for occasional between verb and subject and between noun and adjective, and there of this in the kharjas of muwassahat. However, there do not appear to

be any examples of the demonstrative and its noun being treated in this way.

4.

Corpus, pp.166-7.

5.

al-Andalus, 17 [1952], p.78, note 6.

6.

T. Fahd, Bulletin Hispanique, 64 [1962], p.264.

7.

8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

al-Andalus, 17 [1952], p.77.

See Stern, Les vers finaux (al-Andalus, 13 [1948]), no.18. al-Andalus, 17 [1952], p.77 note 4. al-Andalus, 17 [1952], p.78. Las jarchas romances, p.90. Les chansons mozarabes, p.22. Corpus, pp.166-7. The verb is a rare one in the corpus, though there are at least three non-conjectural occurrences: ‘Uddat al-jalis, poem 144, line 2 and poem 232, line 24; and Ibn al-‘Arabi,

muwassah 22, line 13.

41

Kharja 3 Poem 90 Qad wadaha ’n-najwa* This anonymous poem is one of those that have the same pattern for every line, the agsan and the asmat being distinguished only by the rhymes. The poem is agra‘, having no maztla‘, and the basic format is:

ABC ABC ABC DEE etc. The Arabic scansion pattern is:? ¥ yee

ee] RELA

[eee Eee,

The poem is the first one in the series to have been copied by Scribe C, and unfortunately he is at his worst: the main body of the poem contains no less than seventeen textual problems, some of a major kind. How far this affects the text of the kharja should not be prejudged, as there are conflicting indications. There are two serious textual difficulties in the final set of agsdn, the second of which hampers our understanding of the relationship between the agsdn and the kharja. On the other hand, there appears to be nothing wrong with the first section of the kharja, which is in Arabic. The literary quality of the poem is not very high. It moves through a succession of stock amatory themes without evincing any real character or distinctiveness. For the most part the poet appears to try not to link the sections of the lines too closely, thus stressing the value of each individual section, but his efforts are not convincing. If anything, they lead to obscurity, particularly in the fourth stanza. It should also be said that the second and third rhymes in the simt lines, -dd and id respectively, strike one as somewhat artificial, but they are

needed for the Romance of the kharja. This is certainly a poem of which it can be reasonably said that the simt rhymes are what they are because of the requirements of the kharja. The final agsan The text of the manuscript is:

Splla.| S614 ,

cial dlp) saGli ye

42

Romance Kharjas

Peas .

\ 3. alee nilig

oy. ce

TS

The final set of agsdn of this poem present two knotty textual problems. The first is that in the manuscript version of the third section of the first gusn (matayd ’l-rakbi) does not scan either for a Garcia Gomez type scansion, which requires six syllables, or a traditional Arabic scansion, which requires = ~ - = - -. Garcia Gomez makes a deft, though silent, alteration and comes up with

matayd lil-rakbi. The emendation may be sufficient for his purposes,

but it will not fit the Arabic scansion pattern, which requires a short

second syllable. The most likely corruption is that a syllable has been lost at the beginning of the section. The only emendation that fits both the meaning and the metre and is not too difficult palaeographically is the addition of min, giving us min mataya ‘Lrakbi. The second problem is in the third section of the final gusn, where the manuscript clearly has rahgatan lil-harbi. This may be

fairly translated as ‘an approach belonging to war’, for the English is then as clumsy as the Arabic. The only obvious emendation is to read rahqata ‘I-harbi ‘the approach of war’. This is a reasonably

straightforward palaeographical change, but it raises metrical problems, and I am reluctant to adopt it.3 The meaning of the section is virtually the same whichever reading we adopt, and the use of a word meaning ‘approach’ may be thought to prepare the way for the ws yntrad of the kharja. The text, including my emendation, is:

SH

ee

len

all pl rr)yen

dik )

wa-laylatin adnat fi tarfatin afnat wa-gadatin gannat

Np

4

°

de

Sb Ls on xayla s-sura ta‘ma |-kara hina tara

.

Cal aly

hab Cob

doles

min mataya r-rakbi li-l-marami s-sa‘bi rahgatan li-l-harbi

Many a night has brought the horses of the night journey close to the steeds of the troop;

In a trice it has destroyed the savouring of sleep that is so difficult

to attain;

And many a maid has sung when she has perceived that war has been getting close to her:

Kharja 3

43

The kharja Section 1

bah This cannot be taken as anything but Arabic. It must be read as ya fatin @ fatin, with the nin of the first fatin being run together with the

following d. This reading is in accord with the manuscript, for it must be remembered that in medieval orthography alif + hamza may represent d as well as a. Section 2

The letters read: waw, Sin - break - ya’, niin, ta’, ra’, alif, dal Here the difficulties begin. Many of them arise from the assumption that the first cluster is Romance. No arguments have yet been given for this assertion, which is, as far as I can see, totally unwarranted.

The

natural

reading

for the cluster is as the colloquial

Arabic

interrogative pronoun was ‘what?’. This form of the pronoun is attested in two kharjas close to the present poem in the ‘Uddat al-jalis (poems 105 and 112, all three poems being copied by the same scribe) and elsewhere.* Further evidence is to be found in a Hebrew muwassah by Todros Abulafia.5 This is a mu‘Grada of poem 112 in the ‘Uddat al-jalis, and although the wording of the two kharjas is not identical, the Hebrew poem does have the interrogative pronoun, and it is in a slightly fuller form, ways, which indicates the provenance of the word (wa-ay-5i)® more clearly than does was. It might be argued that some problematic evidence in the kharja of poem 262 of the ‘Uddat al-jalis could indicate a bisyllabic form wasi,” but the balance of examples is clearly in favour of was.® With such an obvious and suitable Arabic reading, there should be short shrift for Garcia Gémez’s bland statement in Veinticuatro Jaryas: En el 2° verso leo: os y (< silabas.®

ibi) entrad, para que resultan las cuatro

It is surprising that Sola-Solé was prepared to accept Garcia Gomez’s view.° To be tenable, the case for a Romance reading needs

to be no less good than that for was. It should not rely on what might, or might not, be in the following cluster, least of all on the

surmise that the initial ya’ of the second cluster points to the word y.

44

Romance Kharjas

There is no solid evidence for this. The ya’ could well indicate either

an Arabic colouration to the pronunciation of the word or an attempt to give some indication of the initial vowel. When we turn to the second cluster, there are three basic points to be made. First, the nin and the ta’ appear to be written in that order, but the dots are close together and one could argue for ta’, niin instead. Secondly, it is impossible to argue for a break after the ra’, as this would destroy the rhyme in -ad. Finally, there appears to be

no possible way of taking the cluster as Arabic.

If we accept was as the best available reading, the second cluster

must represent three syllables. Initially addition of all the variables

gives

us

requirement

yanararad,

into

is not a straightforward

sound

more

but

if

account

natural

to

we

we

move

Romance

Arab

take

form,

ears

triconsonantal cluster ntr. However,

to

the

Arabic

yantordd.

this

containing

the

but it is one

than

one

scansion

Clearly,

that would

I leave it to Romance

scholars

to ponder on the acceptability of an arabicized Romance form for the second cluster. My tentative reading for the section is: wa8 yontorad

Section3

eZ

nye

..

With one exception, the letters of this section are clear. They are:

kaf, nin, dal, ra’, xa’, lam, 25in?, - break - kaf, alif, ra’, dal. The only vocalization is a sukan on the final dal, in accordance with the rhyme. In fact, the final cluster, kard, can be dealt with easily.

Metre and rhyme require it to be read as karid. The rest of the section is extraordinarily

difficult.

The

first

problem is whether there should be a break after the third letter (dal)

or after the fourth (ra’) or after neither. On balance, I incline to the

view that, given the relative gaps between the letters manuscript, the ra’ should be taken with the previous three rather than with the following cluster, but one cannot take firm view about this. The position is further complicated possibility that the ra’ might be a mistake for a waw. Moving

on

a few letters, the final letter before

break is extremely uncertain working. In an ordinary piece landmarks, one would almost correctly without any pause.

in the letters a very by the

the undoubted

in the relative void in which we are of Arabic, which would present other certainly read the end of this cluster As it is, the form can quite easily be

read in five different ways: (1) sin only; (2) sin, waw; (3) sin, rd’;

Kharja 3

45

(4) Sin, qaf; (5) Sin, niin. Only two of these readings have been

considered

seriously:

sim

ws

beginning

of

only

and

sm,

qaf.

In

the

end,

two

considerations incline me to the view that the letter is a sim with no following letter. Firstly, the writing varies very little from the sin in at

the

the

previous

section.

Secondly,

all

the

two-letter readings, apart from sin, waw introduce an additional,

unmetrical, syllable, or, as with the reading of Sola-Solé, require an emendation. The reading sin, waw would lead to a form xls, which

looks most implausible.

The uncertainty about the doubt whether the ra’ belongs these problems there has been In Veinticuatro jarfas Garcia

end of the cluster to the cluster or some very sloppy Gémez read the

is balanced by the not. In addition to handling of the xa’. rd’ as part of this

cluster and took the final form as sim, gdf, i.e. rxalsq.8 He noted,

however, that it might be possible to read his cluster as rhdls (sic). One might reasonably wonder how the dot of the xd’ vanishes in this reading, particularly when he goes on to suggest that the first two

clusters might be kndr ja/§, thus transposing the dot to produce jim

instead of xa’. Sola-Solé takes as his starting point the readings of Garcia Gomez in Veinticuatro jarfas, as we can see from his

comment: Presenta la grave dificultad de la explicacién de la lectura rx’lg (que debe de ser preferida a rh’/i).1°

The parenthesis may be correct, but Sola-Solé does not focus on the crucial point — that if the xa’ of rxdliq is correct, the ha’ of rhal§ cannot be so. The result is that he does not give adequate consideration to the reading rxdls. If we heed the Arabic metrical requirement for =~ - = at the beginning of the section the only viable reading from an unemended text is kand raxdlos. If we read waw instead of rd’, we may also read kandu xdlos, with the waw being treated as a mater lectionis. Garcia GOmez’s cavalier approach to the text in the manuscript is all too apparent here. Despite the fact that the manuscript clearly has a rd’, he finds it possible to say: Creo que esta jarcha, cuyo tercer estico qued6 en duda cuando publiqué la serie original, resulta ahora perfectamente clara: se confirma kando;....11

If we eschew such flights of fancy, we are left with the following basic text for further consideration: kond roxalo’ karid with kondu xalo’ karid as an alternative based on a text with only one

emendation.

.

The next question is whether

:

any part of the section could be

Arabic. For the first and the third clusters the answer is definitely

46 No.

Romance Kharjas For the middle

cluster opinions

vary.

Garcia

Gomez

has no

hesitation in taking the whole section as Romance. His final version in Las jarchas romances! is kando gélés kéded. This requires no less than three emendations. As mentioned above, the first of these, the substitution of waw for ra’ is plausible. So too is the third, the change

from ra’ to dal. The second emendation is of a different order. Garcia

Gomez has to argue that a putative consonantal form jal¥ has been

corrupted to xdlax, which is incomprehensible in Arabic. There is the greatest difficulty in sustaining this argument. Had an original Jjals been corrupted, it would have almost certainly been to the very common jalis ‘sitting’. I cannot see any grounds for Garcia Gémez to go on to use his emendation as part of his argument for the existence of an arabicized form of gilds.12 And even if the reading were to be plausible palaeographically, there would be a problem with the meaning. Whatever the obscurities in the final agsdn and the kharja, it appears that gé/és is an inappropriate word to be linked to verses that end with the word harb ‘war’.

It is Garcia cluster, the loss

hardly surprising that Sola-Solé is not prepared to accept Gomez’s final realization.13 He believes that the middle in which he includes the ra’, is Arabic, defective only through of an alif. He proposes the reading rxdl-sq. Omission of alif

is a frequent error, particularly before or after another alif, and so one cannot object to Sola-Solé’s reading on palaeographical grounds. However, his reading does not fit the Arabic metrical requirements,

nor is it convincing Arabic, principally because raxa’ cannot mean relajamiento, Sola-Solé’s proposed

tarxiya would be required. I have

yet to see a proposed

translation.

reading

For such a meaning

for the first cluster/two

clusters that carries any conviction, and I cannot avoid the feeling

that the poor state of the text in the rest of the poem bedevils this section also. The uncertainty seems to me to be such that we cannot

even decide whether the section is wholly or only partly Romance. Perhaps

the

odds

are in favour

of the

former.

This

is hardly

a

statement about evidence: one is speculating about the probability of deep-seated corruption. My final effort for the section is therefore: fkondroxaloS} karid

For the whole kharja we now have the following rather defective

version:

ya fatin 4 fatin | waS yantorad | Tkondroxalo8} karid

Kharja 3

47 NOTES

The word is not clear in the manuscrit Colin. Garcia Gomez reads ‘L-Sajwa. The metre is not one of the traditional Arabic ones. It may be taken as being based on either the xafif metre or the basit metre.

The reading

‘l-harbi leaves the section one syllable short, and produces a quite different

metrical pattern from the apparently defective mafdya I-rakbi in the first gusn. I cannot see any grounds for supposing that these final sections might be shortened to five syllables, For example, wag is also to be found in Ibn Quzman — see Corriente, Spanish Arabic Dialect Bundle, 5.12.5.

Todros Abulafia, Diwan, muwassah 29.

The basic constituents are the copula wa, together with ay, a colloquial form of ayyu ‘what?’, and i, a colloquial form of say’ ‘thing’. The poem is also to be found in the Jays al-tawsth (section 2, poem 14), but the teading in the corresponding section of the kharja is different. The fourth section of the first line of the kharja of poem 262 appears in the manuscript as asi yakiin ‘what is he?’, though there

is some suspicion that this may be an error for wasi yakiin. The doubt about the spelling

affects neither its status as an indicator for a bisyllabic pronunciation nor its meaning. However, the bisyllabic form is clearly rare, whilst it is not difficult to find other examples of was. One of the more striking occurrences is in poem 232 of the ‘Uddat al-jalis, where we find was, in the second section of the kharja, whilst the simpler form a¥ (not including the copula wa- ‘and’) is used after it, in the third section.

al-Andalus, 17 [1952], p.79. Corpus, p.282.

10. 1.

Corpus, p.283. Las jarchas romances, p.98.

Garcia Gomez (Las jarchas romances, pp.98, 296, and 343-4) takes the view that there are

three kharjas in which gilés occurs. In each case the evidence is highly dubious - and it should be remembered that doubtful examples do not strengthen each other but weaken the general case that is being made. The clusters from which he extracts gélés are xal¥

(‘Uddat al-jalis 98), jals (Jays al-taw3th 1, 2) and hls (Jays al-tawsih 5, 10). His fullest comments are on the third of these examples, when he says:

No hay duda que se trata del provenzal gilos ‘el marido celoso’, muchas veces sefialado como equivalente del arabe ragib, pero que ahora sale por escotillén en caracteres arabes y en ambito mismo de la Espafia musulmana, ... (Las jarchas romances, p.343) I find this totally unconvincing.

13.

Corpus, pp.283-4.

48

Kharja 4 Poem 98 Sahi hal min mujiri

This is another anonymous poem. It follows one of the more popular formats: AABA CB CB CB AABA etc. The Arabic scansion pattern is:1

The poem is composed in honour of someone called Muhammad (line 10). He is also referred to in the next line as a wazir. Prima facie,

this means that he is a minister, but there are grounds for believing

that this is one of a number of passages in the muwassahat in which

wazir means ‘one who carries the burden of heavy wine-cups’, and is thus a conceit for sdqi (cup-bearer).2 The poem comprises a mixture of amatory, bacchic and panegyric themes, ail fairly conventionally

expressed. I cannot agree with Sola-Solé, who feels that the final stanza ‘has no apparent link with the first four stanzas’.? The link may be somewhat tangental, but it is there. The amatory themes

which occur in all the four previous stanzas are picked up neatly by the use of al-habib in the first gusn of the final stanza, the beloved who is yearned for by the girl who is to sing the kharja. The final agsan The text of the manuscript is:

Gel SEL sie, 591 oy

je tes A)al

We may transcribe this as:

Stl ld I

cil oe dls Gert Ope

Ont

ih

apie Gy

a

27,98

CS je ST

Kharja 4 rubba ‘adra’a hannat id ra athu tamannat anSadat hina gannat

49 ila liga’i 'l-habibi zawala xawfi 'l-raqibi bi-husni sawtin ‘ajibi

There is many a young maid who has yearned to meet her beloved. bin she has seen him, she has desired the end of fear of the raqib,

And she has proclaimed when she has sung with the beauty of a wondrous voice: The kharja then follows. The kharja

Section 1

There can be no doubt about the first cluster. It is alif, Jam, ba’. Next we have qdf, dal, followed by mim, ra’. It is normally assumed that these four letters represent two separate words, but this is not necessarily the case. The next cluster would cause great difficulty if it were not in the rhyming position. What the manuscript actually gives is fa’,‘ayn, waw, niin. However, we know from the rhyme that we must read the last letter as ra’. It is also a reasonable assumption that the second letter is gayn.* This gives us: alif, lam, ba’ - break - qaf, dal - possible break - mim, rd’ - break fa’, gayn, waw, ra’ alb - gd( -? )mr - fgwri In the absence of vocalization, the ending is determined by the rhyme. The first cluster cannot be read as Arabic. If we assume that it represents the Romance alb-, well attested elsewhere, we can read it very cautiously as alba. We may also-note that it fits metrically, giving -~ . The final cluster, too, cannot be read as Arabic. However, the Arabic metrical requirement coincides with basic expectation about pronunciation (that the first consonant of a word will normally be followed by a vowel) to give us a short vowel with the fa’. This means that we must treat the cluster as fogiri. As the section is made up of seven syllables, we are left with only two long syllables for the problematical four letters af, dal, mim, ra’. We must assume that gdf at the beginning of the second cluster has a vowel, regardless of whether the cluster represents one word or two; and if the gaf has a vowel, so too must the mim — otherwise we have an unpronouncable cluster of consonants. We must therefore read qed-mar. This can be taken as two Arabic words gad mar(r) ‘has already passed’. That is a reading that should not be dismissed

50

Romance Kharjas

out of hand, though I doubt whether one can say more than that.

The likelihood of corruption seems high. that

It is difficult to think of convincing alternatives, as the changes are

palaeographically

easy,

mor raise other problems: mw

gor

would

for

gad and

mw

(mil)

for

appear to be possible only if

we are prepared to accept the double possessive (mi + the Arabic suffix -i) with a rare word, or if one can think of another emendation allows fagir to be taken as a genitive. This occurs with Garcia Gomez’s reading of dy mw for gd mr,° but in my view the replacement of qd by dy is unsatisfactory palaeographically. I see no justification for SolaSolé’s alba dad mio fogore.° It requires the unlikely emendation of gdto

dd; mw is read as mio but understood as me; and the rationale for the

final vowel is unexplained. The furthest that we can go with this section would appear to be: albo ?qod - possible break - mor? fogiri

Section 2 2*

ge A s

This is another very difficult section.

) ‘ The

first three letters of the

initial cluster are clear. They are alif, lam, mim. The final letter is less clear. All the indications that I know from the scribe’s handwriting lead me to the view that it is a ya’. However, it could be read either as a sin, or as a niin, in that order of probability. Neither seems very

likely, and it is fair to accept the general assumption that it is a ya’. A further assumption that this yd’ represents an alif in the form of a yd’ is debatable. I shall return to this point when considering the Arabic possibilities.

The next cluster is dal, ya’. This is followed by mim, waw, followed

by something that is extraordinarily difficult to read. Examination of

the scribe’s handwriting in other places leads me to believe that it must be a dal. One problem is that the dot of the dal is much more faint than the dots on the dais on either side. Yet it is definitely there. We are not dealing with a mark that has come through from the other side of the folio nor with a flaw in the paper. In my view, the scribe’s handwriting characteristics make it impossible for us to read the letter as a ya’, and I cannot see how it is possible to take it as a ligature of niin and yd’. The letters that follow are much more

straightforward: lam, dal, waw, ra’. As far as I can see, the total cluster is mwdldwr. The consonantal reading of the section that seems

most likely is thus distinctly different from the text printed by Garcia Gomez in Veinticuatro jarfas.” It is:

Kharja 4

5]

almy di mwdldwr

There are no vowels written in the manuscript. The rhyme once again indicates that the final wr is to be read as ari.

It has been customary to assume that the whole section is Romance. This view may prevail in the end, but again I would stress that a reasoned case needs to be made, and that case would be very much stronger if Arabic alternatives were examined properly. The dismissive approach to the Arabic possibilities shows up clearly in

Sola-Solé’s comments:

La lectura ‘Imy seria, como ya han sostenido todos los autores, el rom. alma, aunque se imponga una correccion textual en Im/(’). La forma ‘Imy tal vez hubiera nacido por influencia del término alma, frecuente, sobre

todo, en la poesia arabe.®

It is quite wrong to say nothing more about the Arabic alma, especially when, as Sola-Solé notes, it is quite a common word in Arabic poetry. It means ‘with dark red gums’ and is frequently used in contrast to the whiteness of the teeth. Little imagination is needed to picture a musical setting in which the word alma might be sung several times, thus tantalizing a bilingual audience about its meaning, before clarification by the following words. Speculation, it is true, but not all that fanciful. The spelling alif, lam, mim, ya’ could in theory also be read as the Arabic alami ‘my pain’, but this can be ruled out on metrical grounds. Incidentally, Sola-Solé is wrong to say of alif, lam, mim, ya’ that an emendation is necessary for the word to be read as alma. Final alif representing 4, is spelled with alif or with a ya’ quite indiscriminately in medieval manuscripts. Alif, lam, mim is virtually impossible as a spelling for the Romance alma, as it would be confused with a-lam ‘did not?’. This leaves alif, lam, mim, alif (whatever the shape of the final alif) or alif, lam, mim, ha’, which we find in Kharja 16. As has been stated before,® the cluster dal, ya’ might represent either an Arabic feminine demonstrative or the genitive of di ‘possessor of”. It is not easy to see either fitting here. The final cluster does not appear to be Arabic, wherever we try to divide it, which forces us to assume that it is Romance. It is worth noting at this point that a possible cluster mim, waw, dal recurs in another kharja copied by this scribe (Kharja 6). Unfortunately, its presence there is ‘equally enigmatic. My feeling is that the text is faulty here, and this view is strengthened by the difficulties that arise when one tries to work out what the scansion pattern might tell us. We appear to need to scan mim, waw, dal as two long syllables. This is impossible. Perhaps we

should look again at the mim, waw, niin, ya’ that I have previously

52

Romance Kharjas

dismissed — though what it might represent continues to elude me. We

have made no real advance, apart from the first cluster, for which the

vocalization alma is basically satisfactory in either language: alma di t{mwdldirit

Section 3

qsplae

The manuscript is much easier to read here, though it is extremely

difficult to make sense of what we find. The first cluster is ba’, sin,

nun, ta’, dal (bstnd). It would nin, but this seems an unlikely cluster can be made to make Arabic: /i-I-ragibi. This clearly

be possible to reverse the ta’ and the reading. There is no way in which the sense in Arabic. The second cluster is refers back to the raqib mentioned in

the penultimate gusn. The only vocalization is fatha and Sadda over

the ra’, confirming that the previous letter is the /am of the Arabic definite article. Thus our initial version must be: bstnd li-l-raqibi Both Garcia Gomez (in his second version in Las jarchas romances)'° and Sola-Solé!! emend Ji-l-ragibi to ‘I-ragibi. There must be considerable doubt about this. Unless we are willing to countenance a change in the metre by dropping the final syllable of the simt lines — something not proposed by anyone hitherto — the rhyme requires the ending to be -ibi. In all normal circumstances this would indicate

that raqibi is an Arabic genitive. The manuscript version presents no problem grammatically, as /i is a preposition and thus takes the genitive.

However,

if Ji-l-ragibi

is emended

to

‘I-ragibi,

another

justification for the final vowel must be found. Two possibilities deserve consideration. The first is that the cluster preceding the

emended form is a preposition (or something deemed equivalent); the second is for the al-ragibi and the word before it to be in the idafa

relationship, making it a genitive of association. Both these options are difficult with the preceding non-Arabic cluster, unless the cluster

could be taken as a preposition, (another possibility not hitherto canvassed). Further, they do not fit in either with Garcia Gomez’s

non estand’ ar-ragibe or with Sola-Solé’s visitando al-ragibe, in which ‘l-ragibi

simply

cannot

be

a

genitive.

Neither

of

these

editors

attempts any real justification for the emendation. They appear to have assumed that it is legitimate to take the final kasra aS 4 paragogic

vowel.

It is an

assumption

fraught

with

the greatest

difficulty. Classical Arabic poetry does not allow paragogic vowels;!?

nor is there any sound evidence for them in the non-classical material

Kharja 4

53

in the muwassahat. Alleged paragogic vowels occur only in emendations or in dubious interpretations of manuscript material. The putative paragogic vowel is required here only if ‘-ragib i is to be treated as the subject of the section. It is possible in Arabic to use

li and

the

genitive

to introduce

the

object,

and

there

are many

instances of this happening in poetry simply because of the metre and/or the rhyme.

Furthermore, Corriente has the following to say

about Andalusian dialectal usage: However,

and

because

perhaps

of

the

Romance

substratum,

preposition /i is quite often used as an accusative marker,}3

It would

appear,

therefore,

the

that li-l-ragibi is not lightly to be set

aside. I am still attracted by Garcia Gémez’s original suggestion that

what is required is something equivalent to burlando. Apart from finding the appropriate word,!* we should have to be prepared to tolerate the omission of its final vowel. This is because li-l-raqibi provides four out of seven syllables in the section. We are thus left with only three syllables for the first cluster. If Arabic scansion is applied, the only pattern that provides both a vowel after the initial consonant and allows the second vowel to be short is basatand. My base text has only progressed to: ?bosotond’? li-l-raqibi This has not advanced us beyond a text that Garcia Gomez and Sola-Solé thought to be incorrect. Their doubts certainly have some justification, even though their versions are not convincing. Section 4

The manuscript is absolutely clear. The consonants are: alif, Stn, ta’ - break - niin, waw, xa’, ta’ - break - alif, mim, ya’, ra’ The alif of the final cluster has a hamza and a fatha, but there is no other vocalization. Garcia Gomez’s vocalization of the xa’ and the ta’ of the second cluster in the printed Arabic version has no manuscript basis.15 When we add the rhyme indications we get: ast nwxt amiri Neither the first nor the second cluster can be read as Arabic. However, the third gives a simple, straightforward Arabic reading amiri (short for amiri), meaning ‘my prince’. The meaning ties in neatly with the mention of wazir in line 11, for even if wazir only means ‘cup-bearer’, there is a nice twist in the upgrading from wazir to amir. The reading amére, more strictly amiri, first put forward by

54

Romance Kharjas

Garcia Gomez is wild even by the virtually non-existent standards of

proof allowed in Veinticuatro jarfas. Garcia Gomez’s original presumption appears to have been based on the fact that #@ and 7 are interchangeable in Arabic rhyme; thus amari is a putative alternative to amiri; amiri fits a Romance kharja better; therefore amiri must be

a corruption of amiri; therefore amiri should be restored. This is nonsense. If we allow, for the sake of argument only, the possibility

that the original reading was amiiri, i.e. alif, mim, waw, ra’, there is no reason why an Arab, if puzzled by the word, would wish to alter it to amiri.

The

letters

alif,

mim,

waw,

ra’ present

several

readings that would occur to an Arab reader (or scribe). The first is umiiri ‘my affairs’. In a line presenting him with little sense, this would certainly give him something with meaning, without any need for alteration.

In fact, a change

overall meaning in a kharja Arab with no knowledge of possible readings that would yamiru; and from a dialectal

to amiri would

not improve

the

that is predominantly obscure for an Spanish. Moreover, there are other come to mind: from the verb mara, form of the verb marra.1® With these

other options available, the change to amir probable. One could, I suppose, suggest that the as he was, simply made a stupid mistake, but such an assertion? In the absence of any reason amiri, with its perfectly acceptable meaning, must

becomes even less scribe, incompetent how can one prove for an emendation, be retained.

There is common consent that the first two clusters represent esta nohte. In general, that seems fair, though, as mentioned in the Introduction, the initial vowel of the arabicized form of ast remains

uncertain. Here, the second vowel, representing a feminine ending, is reasonably sure. For nwxt the vocalization can be established from

that of nxti in Kharja J. A conservative reading takes us to: asta nuxti amiri

This reveals a major problem. We have only seven syllables, and the metre requires eight. Garcia Gémez and Sola-Solé add a word before the last cluster. (Garcia Gémez kér’,!7 Sola-Solé mw, which he then

reads as mio1®), However this will not do if we are to apply Arabic

scansion, as it would require us to try to read asta nuxti as - -~ ~This is impossible. The first syllable of nuxti could never be treated as short. For the Arabic scansion to work we must assume that the missing syllable is at the beginning of the section. That leads to a

reading: - asta nuxti amiri There is one relatively simple emendation that can be suggested. The Arabic pronoun anta ‘you’ differs very little in its written form from the word that we have read as asta, and it could easily have

Kharja 4

55

dropped out because of haplography, )ansd sid) spar ba’, niin, fa’, sin - break - alif, mim, nin, ta’ - break - kaf, sin, alif,

dal - break - mim, waw - break - lam, ‘ayn, alif, ra’

bnfs omnt ksad mw I‘ar The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

je,;

b al aly

do) as

ba’, niin, fa’, sin - break - alif, mim, niin, ta’ - break - kaf, mim, alif break - mim, waw - break - lam, ‘ayn, alif, ra’ bnfs amnt kma mw I‘ar The manuscript of the Tawsi‘ al-tawsith has: ‘\

)\ :?

Us

”

\

iy

es

ba’?, niin, fa’, sin - break - alif, mim, ya’, ta’ - break - kdf, Sin, alif,

dal - break - mim, waw - break - alif, ta’, alif, ra’ bnfs amyt ksad mw atar

82

Romance Kharjas

The text of this section is the least certain of the three, and again | have no faith in any of the realizations that have been proposed.19 The last two clusters do not provide too many problems, and we may have some confidence that they represent an original mw /gdr. In the Tawsi‘ al-tawSih the final cluster is written as atdr, and it is possible that this could represent an alternative version, as Garcia Gomez

suggested.!1 However, palaeographical corruption of an original /gar could easily have produced afar, and no clear decision is possible. It seems a reasonable step for us to take the mw as mi, and if we add

the necessary vowel to the Jam we move to mii loagar. This fills the last three syllables nicely.

When we move back a cluster, the problems begin. The manuscript versions point clearly to ksad, despite the ravages of transmission in the Jays al-tawsih. There we find the Zaytiina and al-Nifar manuscripts dropping the dots of the sin, whilst in the ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript there is apparently an attempt to assimilate the cluster to Arabic by reading kama ‘as’. If we accept ksdd at face value, metrical constraints allow us to read it only as kasad, thus filling syllables 7 and 8 only. There is certainly no way in which it can

give the =~ - required for syllables 6-8. I therefore reject the reading of Garcia Gomez (ke s’a de, later. modified to ke s’a de) and Corominas (keSa de). Stern’s reading (que sanad (?) ), together with its modification by Sola-Solé (ke Sanad), poses a different problem. The emendation gives three syllables that would fit syllables 6-8; but the insertion of nin into the cluster, though not difficult palaeographically, is against all three recensions. I am therefore somewhat reluctant to accept it, and I would prefer that further thought be given to the basic ksad. The earlier part of the section is also problematical. The suggestion that the second cluster (clusters 2 and 3 in the case of the ‘Uddat al-jalis) might be amyb, i.e. a mibi, is attractive, though intuitively so. It is not difficult to see how all the manuscript texts could be corruptions of amyb, but we cannot prove that this is the case. Also, unless we take the following cluster as representing three syllables, we have to scan the first syllable of a-mibi as long. This is difficult, though not impossible. Though we might hesitate about a-mibi, it is a good deal better than any other reading. The am byn of the ‘Uddat al-jalis appears not to make sense in either Arabic or Romance. The amnt of the Jays al-tawsih gives various possibilities

in Arabic: G@mantu/a, ammantu/a, amintu/a etc. None of them seem to give us anything particularly apposite,!? and it is best to leave them

out of consideration. This takes us back to the somewhat dubious 74

mibi?.

Kharja 8 That leaves Jays al-tawsih been linked at which, with a

83 us with the first cluster. In two of the recensions, the and the Tawst‘ al-tawsih, it appears that the text has some stage to the Arabic phrase bi-nafsi ‘by my soul’, shortened final vowel, is not without some plausibility.

However, it does not help us with the yngys of the ‘Uddat al-jalis.

Bad though Scribe C may be, one cannot see his version as due to a corruption of bi-nafsi. It might, on the other hand, be a corruption of

something Romance. That, too, is a possible explanation for bi-nafsi.

Metrically, we want - -~ ,}3 and so, if the consonants in the ‘Uddat al-jalis are correct, we should have to read yangisa, as this is the only reading that produces the necessary short third syllable. If this is rejected, other versions such as bangisa might be tried. If we attempt to put the clusters together, we have a very messy

version:

fyonqisot (?bonqisa / bi-nafsi?) 2a mibi? 2ka8ad? mii logar When we put the three sections together, we have: mii al-/miu ’I-habib anformo di mii amar | ?kari? Sonar | tyangisot (?bangqisa / bi-nafsi?) 2a mibi? 2ka8ad? mii logar Apart from al-habib, most of the kharja appears to be Romance, but the suggested base text for sections 2 and 3 looks distinctly unpromising. The three surviving recensions have become corrupted in different ways, and so badly that, even when carefully collated, they fail to provide a basis for non-intuitive restoration.

NOTES

1.

al-Andalus, 14 [1949], pp.214-228.

2.

We know from al-Safadi (Tawi al-tawsth p.109) that the poem was popular in the East, and I know of at least eight eastern mu‘@radas. Amongst the authors are five of the most important eastern wassahs: Ibn Qalaqis, Ibn Sana’ al-Mulk, al-‘Azazi, al-Safadi and al-Mawsili.

3.

In terms of Arabic scansion the metrical pattern is based on the sari’ metre. Corpus, pp.163-4.

5. 6. .

7. 8.

9. 10. Il.

There are some textual differences in the other recensions, but none of them is of great significance. Un muwaiSah arabe avec terminaison espagnole (al-Andalus, 14 [1949], pp.216-7).

Both are suitable macaronic phrases, and either could have been used. On the basis of the

text of Kharjas 21a and 2/b it is possible that mi al-habib is the more likely. See pp.44-45.

For earlier realizations of section 2, see Corpus, pp.163-4. For earlier realizations of section 3, see Corpus, pp.163-4. al-Andalus, 17 [1952], p.90.

84

Romance Kharjas

12.

The suffix tu is the first person singular of the perfect and the suffix ta the second person

masculine singular of the same tense. The verb amana means ‘to believe’ or ‘to protect’;

ammana

13.

‘to entrust’ or ‘to reassure’; and amina ‘to trust’ or ‘to confide in’. All could fit

with bi-nafsf, but no link to the rest of the section seems possible. In theory it would also be possible for the section to start» ~~

or "~~,

letters in the manuscrit Colin one can produce only the one vocalization.

but with the

85

Kharja 9 Poem 140 Jarriri fadla dalika ‘Lmirti This is one of those muwaisahs that has a simple structure: each gusn has one section only; each simt two sections which have the same

thyme;

and

the same

metrical

Arabic scansion scheme is:

scheme

applies

throughout.

The

Bee eS eee.

This metrical pattern deserves some attention. In terms of Arabic scansion it is a well-known form of the xafif metre. One of the characteristics of this form is that the last foot can begin with either two short syllables or a long syllable. The line can thus have ten or eleven syllables. No less than three stanzas of this poem (stanzas 2, 4 and 5) have agsan that end with ~~ - . In other words twelve out of the twenty agsdn have the resolved foot in a consistent pattern. No

trace of this is to be found in the transcription printed in Las jarchas

romances,’ Garcia Gomez having suppressed a syllable in each of the eleven-syllable agsan. The style of the poem is not without interest. The poet has worked hard to keep the various parts of each stanza linked reasonably closely together. He has been fairly successful, perhaps more so in the agsan than in the simf lines, where the difficult double rhyme in sa’ is slightly oppressive. Overall, the impression given is rather florid, an impression not lessened by what appears to be a deliberate contrast to the Arabic formal ode (gasida). The gasida normally begins with an amatory prelude. In the present poem the first stanza dwells on wine themes and the second gives us a vignette of garden poetry so typical of the work of many Andalusian Arab poets. The scene having been set, the rest of the muwasiah is amatory in theme. The final agsan The manuscript has:

eek Sly yels

Leogall ghch

86

Romance Kharjas

ee iets

elauahetp

We may transcribe this as:

aes

hs!

Lai 4

693

Cb

Gh Ob

la Cus, el 2 cits

Line UWA os Le quitu zuri afdiki mukta’iba

bata yalga min al-hawé nasaba fa-Sadat tumma a‘radat la‘iba

— ‘ajaban min magaliha ‘ajaba —: I said, ‘Visit — I will be your ransom — the broken-hearted one, who has spent the night enduring distress caused by love.’ So she sang and then turned away in play

— O wonder at what she said, O wonder —:

The kharja that follows is less difficult than most in the series, as the greater part of it, including the whole of the second section, is in Arabic. The kharja Section 1

The letters read: ta’, niin - break - ta’, mim, ta’, ra’, alif, ya’ - break - alif, lam, alifbreak - kaf, niin - break - alif, lam, Sin, ra’, ta’

tn tmtray ‘Ila kn al-srt

The third and fifth clusters stand out immediately as Arabic: alif,

lam, alif is undoubtedly illa ‘except’, and the genitive of al-sart ‘the condition’. understood, it is relatively easy to deal clusters also, The first cluster has a damma

the final cluster is al-Sarfi, With these two clusters with the first and fourth on the second letter giving

Kharja 9

87

us tanu. However, there can be no doubt that it should be emende d to read nun. The Arabic ila (cluster 3) normally follows a negativ e

clause, and we can be confident

that a negative is required here.

Similarly, a word that leads to the use of the genitive is needed before al-Sarti. We can therefore safely conclude that kn is not the Arabic imperative kun ‘be’, but the Romance preposition ‘with’, a word that

would almost certainly have been given the same pronunciatio n kun. It is, as far as I can see, a prime example of the couplin g of a Romance preposition with an Arabic genitive, a usage with splendi d

macaronic possibilities.

We have now resolved the meaning of four of the five clusters. At this point we have:

nun tmtray illa kun al-Sarti

The second cluster is much less easy to deal with. Metrically, we should expect ~ - -, but it is not clear that anything that fits the metre

and gives a satisfactory meaning can be achieved with the retention

of the manuscript reading. There has been a divergence of views on this point. Garcia Gomez led the way in Veinticuatro Jaryas, by emending to tmray, which he read as t’amaréy.? Stern accepted this,? but it has not found favour with others. Corominas read temtaray.* This is not unattractive, but it is unmetrical. Even So, it is better than the reading of Sola-Solé, who airs his predilection for hyper-correct forms of the verb ra’a ‘to see’ by reading tar’d. This is unconvincing enough in itself, but Sola-Solé then has to suggest that that the last syllable of his proposed tar’a must be run together with the first syllable of il/a to meet the requirements of the metre.5 Perhaps the manuscript text deserves some reconsideration. The metrical pattern would allow only one vocalization: tamatrdy. I prefer this as a doubtful reading to the emendations we have seen. We thus have: nun ?tomotray? illa kun al-Sarti Section 2

Ss gies

te)

The whole of this section is Arabic. The text printed by Garcia Gomez is unmetrical, and it ignores the only piece of vocalization, despite the fact that this appears to be correct. It is a sukan on the penultimate word, which is the preposition that is usually pronounced ma‘a but which has an alternative form ma‘. If we accept the manuscript reading ma‘, the consequence is that we must read a different form of the verb from that given by Garcia Gomez for the second cluster. We must also take the common step of reading the

88

Romance Kharjas

first person prominal suffix as a short vowel even though it is written

in the manuscript with a ya’ indicating a full long vowel. Our text must be: an tujammi‘ xalxali ma‘ qurti

Putting the two sections together, we have: nun ?tomotray? ill kun al-Sarti | an tujammi‘ xalxali ma‘ qurti It is not for me to speculate further on the meaning of the first two

clusters, but from i//@ onwards it runs, ‘except on the condition that

you join my anklets with my earrings’. Garcia Gomez was the first to point to the erotic posture depicted in the kharja and to give three Andalusian verses that mention the posture.? However, it appears to be another eastern importation. Abi Nuwas, a grand master in the writing of Arabic erotic poetry and a poet whose influence on Andalusian poetry was so profound,* mentions in it one of his wine poems (xamriyydt).°

pens

eS

NOTES

Las jarchas romances, pp.142-4. al-Andalus, 17 [1952], p.92. Les chansons mozarabes, p.26. Para la interpretacion de las jarfas recién halladas, al-Andalus, 18 {1953], p.143. Corpus, p.290. His reading for clusters 1 and 2 is non tu me tar’a il(1)a, with 4 and i run together.

al-Andalus, 17 [1952], p.91.

al-Andalus, 17 {1952}, p.92 and Las jarchas romances, pp.144-5. See pp.12-13 and p.59. The poem (Diwan, ed. Gazali, p.19) runs:

ya bi-abi man ja’a-ni za’iran | fi Sahri di 'l-hijjati min nisfihi bata yu‘atini min xaddihi | xamran bi-‘aynihi wa-min kaffihi wa-kuntu fima bayna da rubbama | adnaytu xalxalayhi min Sanfihi The word Sanf at the end of this poem is synonymous with the word qurf, the last word in Kharja 9.

89

Kharja 10 Poem 149 Unzur ila 'l-badri tahta 'I-halaki This is another poem that is given without attribution in the ‘Uddat al-jalis. It has the pattern ABA D D D D ABA etc. The scansion pattern is somewhat complex. It is:! agsan

asmat

|

|

The pattern of the first section of the asmdt is the same as that of the agsan, but the final foot is resolved in each case. In the agsan resolution takes place only in the fourth stanza. If one counts only the syllables one has: agsdn 10 or 11; asmat 11-5-8. This is quite different from the pattern eventually imposed by Garcia Gomez in Las jarchas romances: 10 syllable agsan with asmat of 10-5-7 syllables.? The poem is amatory, being addressed to a woman who is not named, but is referred to frequently.3 Initially the references are in the third person; then from the first simt to the end of the fourth stanza they are in the second person;* and finally in the fifth stanza they switch back to the third person. The symmetry of these changes would appear to be carefully thought out, as is the general thematic flow of the poem. The overall effect is pleasing. The final agsan The manuscript has:

G12la le, Gas ul

ok, aloes

spal dy

90

Romance Kharjas

There is one small problem in the manuscript text. The reading of the first word

of the third gusn is clearly intended

to be mumazziqun,

This is ungrammatical, and an alif must be added to the end of the word to give the grammatical mumazzigan. With this change we may transcribe the text as follows:

og os Ue Sub UI

aga Yet at, cb, eal

Ls Bye

as ge Wel oatuti lamm zafirtu bihd fi I-xalwah wa-niltu rasfa ‘l-tandyd I-hulwah mumazzigan tawbaha bi-’I-‘anwa*

fa-ansadat ummaha

‘an zahwah

When I got hold of her in private, and obtained the moisture from her sweet teeth, tearing her robe with the force I used, she sang out disdainfully to her mother: ‘

The kharja then follows. The kharja

Section 1

melee lias gla Lu

The letters read:

wee

Te

‘ws

7

wh

*

alif with superscript hamza, sin, ta’ - break - alif, lam, ra’, qaf, y@, ‘ayn - break - mim, mim, niin - break - alif with superscript hamza, Sin, ta’ - break - alif, lam, ha’, ra’, kaf The ra’ of the second cluster has a adda and a fatha, and so too does the second mim of the third cluster. This gives us: ast ‘l-raqy‘ mmman ost 'I-hrk

The second and fifth clusters are clearly Arabic words preceded by

the definite article.’ Together with the rhyme requirements, this moves us to:

ast ‘l-raqi‘ mamman ait ’l-haraki The first Arabic cluster fills syllables 3 and 4 at least, and the second

one similarly fills syllables 9, 10 and 11. Syllables 3 and 8 would also

be filled if the preceding cluster were to end in a consonant without

91

Kharja 10

a vowel. However, there is no cogent reason for not equating the

cluster ast with the cluster ait in Kharja 4, where

we accepted

it

as a Romance demonstrative. The presence of a hamza in both occurrences of the word in the present kharja in no way alters that.

The hamza could possibly indicate that the Arabs perceived the word as beginning with a fatha, but this is not certain.® On the other hand, we may be reasonably sure that the second vowel would have to be i, to

preserve the differentiation between masculine and feminine (i for

masculine, a for feminine). If we adopt the conservative spelling ati in

both places, we move asti ‘I-raqi‘ mamman This version gives us (S and 6) being = ~

to: aésti 'l-haraki nine of the eleven syllables, the remaining two . From this it is clear that ‘-ragi‘ must be a

colloquial form, without a final vowel, unless we were to propose to

reduce the manuscript mamman to a single short syllable. This is impossible. On the other hand, mamman cannot be left as it stands. In my view, it is a simple, but incorrect, piece of assimilation of the cluster mamm (i.e mammé, as in Kharja 14) to the Arabic mimman ‘from him who’. Mimman makes no sense here and must be wrong. Mamma has the incidental advantage of fitting the metre, but the telling argument in its favour is that palaeographical considerations indicate that a change to mimman is much more probable from mamma than from the more common mammd to mimman. With this emendation we now have a section that both makes sense and fits the metre: a8ti ’l-raqi‘ mamma o8ti ’l-haraki Section 2

6a

.

3

The interpretation of this section has been bedevilled by the incorrect

reading of the first cluster printed in Veinticuatro jarjas.’ The letters undoubtedly read as follows: ba’, ya’ - break - ha’, mim - break - gaf, ha’, ra’, ha’ by hm qhrh The only piece of vocalization is a sukin on the first ha’ of gahrah. _ By far the easiest of the clusters to deal with is the third: it is undoubtedly Arabic, and the most likely reading is gahrah, a pausal form of gahratan ‘by force’.® The middle cluster is the most difficult, but it has to be taken next, as there is a fair probability that the first cluster is linked to it. There can be no doubt that the manuscrit Colin

has Am. However, it is difficult to accept that this is correct as it

92

Romance Kharjas

stands. None of the meanings of the verb hamma or the noun hammun gives good sense,° and the presence of the ha’ makes it

difficult to propose a Romance reading. Sayyid Gazi came up with a very attractive solution in his Diwan al-muwasSahat al-Andalusiyya,.

Almost certainly by inadvertence, he ignored the dot under the first letter of hamma in the romanized text published by Garcia Gomez in

Las jarchas romances.'! The resulting verb, hamma, not only makes very good sense ‘he had designs’, but also makes it easy to

understand the first cluster by. This can be read as bi ‘on me’. In fact, Sayyid

Gazi,

without

any

knowledge

of

the

manuscript

text,

correctly restored by for Garcia Gémez’s my. With this reading, the

section means ‘he had forcible designs on me’ ‘he was after me by force’.

There is one other factor in favour of the reading hamma. It is that it instantly recalls a famous verse from Sira 12 of the Quran, wa-lagad hammat bihi wa-hamma bihd.12 Now the poem has aleady had one quotation from Sara 12 in the first section of the simt of stanza 2.13 A second quotation would be pleasing to the audience, particularly if — and this is something of which we now have no knowledge —

the poem was originally dedicated to someone called

Yisuf.!+ There is an obvious question. How

could the corruption

from hamma ( read ) to hamma( i ) occur? I am inclined to think that the

simplest answer, the incompetence of Scribe C, is the correct one. It is not difficult to find cases in which two letters that should not, in theory,

look much alike do converge in their written forms. With such convergence a careless scribe could mistake one for the other, particularly if, as was clearly the case with Scribe C, he did not grasp what he was copying.

The reading I propose for the section is entirely Arabic:

Section 3

The letters are:

bi hamma qahrah

Sheba] - 2

oy

.

alif with a subscript hamza, niin - break - niin, ba’, ya’, dal, waw, alif - break - waw, alif, lam, fa’, lam, kaf

in nbydwa w’l-fik There are three definite pieces

of vocalization:

a kasra with the

hamza; a sukiin on the first Jam of ’1-falaki; and a fatha on the fa. In

addition, there is a large dot over the waw of the second cluster. As

will shortly be seen, I should like to take this as an indication of a copying error, but I am not sure that it is correct to do so.

Kharja

10

93

The last cluster would appear to be Arabic: wa-'l-falaki. It fills syllables 5-8 of the section. The second cluster presents a problem.

The final alif could represent the otiose alif of the colloquial first person plural, pointing to the form nabidi favoured by Garcia Gomez (in Veinticuatro jarjas) and Sola-Solé.15. However, the meaning is poor (‘we shall die’, hardly what one would expect of one person speaking with disdain), and the scansion requires ~ -~ , so that we would appear to have to think again. I incline to the view that we have a case of dittography and that the final two letters of the second cluster, which are the same as the first two letters of the third cluster,

should not be there. It is for this reason that I should like to take the

large dot as an error mark. I propose to read nubidu, colloquial for ubiduhu, a first personal singular verb plus a third personal masculine singular accusative suffix, the meaning of which is ‘I will kill him’. This takes up syllables 2-4, leaving only one syllable for the first cluster. We must thus read: in nubidu wa-’]-falaki The whole section again makes good sense in Arabic. The final cluster wa-/-falaki ‘by the celestial sphere’ is a somewhat ironic oath, referring not to one of the things by which one normally swears in Arabic, but obliquely to the beloved. The earlier part of the section starts with a quasi-colloquial modification of the construction that we would expect with an oath. The form in is a shortening for inni (‘indeed I’),1° and we have already seen that nubidu appears to be colloquial for ubiduhu. When we put the text of the three sections together, we have: asti “l-raqi‘ mamma 28ti ’I-haraki | bi hamma qahrah | in nubidu wa-’]-falaki In this interpretation the kharja is a pleasing amalgam: the first section has mamma surrounded by two fairly colloquial Arabic words which are qualified by Romance rather than Arabic demonstratives; the second uses high-register language, with the Quran in the background — a touch of self-righteousness; whilst the third has its quasi-colloquial oath, thus balancing up the line.

NOTES 1.

Looked at in terms of classical Arabic scansion, the gusn pattern is the straightforward majzii' al-basit. This naturally applies to the first section of the sims lines. The second section of those lines can be seen as the first five syllables of the first section; whilst the third section is a mugtadab hemistich.

94

Romance Kharjas Las jarchas romances, pp.148-151. For the most part Garcia Gomez manages to achieve his object by suppressing final vowels, but this is not so in the agsan of stanza 4, where he

is hard pressed to find suitable syllables to excise. Most ludicrous of these suppressions,

on which he gives no note, is in the second gusn. The manuscript clearly indicates that we

should read sayfu ‘I-rada bi-yadin minki naba. Yet Garcia Gomez reads sayfu lradg

bi-yadi-ki naba. This reading, containing five consecutive short syllables (bi-yadiki na-), is impossible. There are a dozen references altogether, an unusually high number. In three places the second person feminine pronominal suffix ki is neatly used in the thyming position. Both ragi ‘wretch’ and haraki ‘restless’ appear to have an Andalusian dialectal flavour. The presence of the eleventh syllable and the rhyme in -ki is important here. The form haraki, shortened from harakiyyi, is comprehensible in a way that harak would not be. As mentioned in the comments on section | of Kharja 8 (p.77), initial superscript hamza can take either a fatha or a damma as its vowel. al-Andalus, 17 [1952], p.93. Apart from the sukiin on the first ha’ of qahrah, the vocalization in Veinticuatro jaryas is a figment of the imagination. The sukdns printed on the final kafs of sections 1 and 3 no doubt influenced Garcia Gomez’s later view of the poem (as evidenced in Las jarchas romances), in which he chose to ignore the one piece of evidence that the manuscript offers, a kasra on the final letter of the matla‘.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14, 15.

It is also possible to read quhrah, with the same meaning. The only meaning of the verb hamma that might possibly fit is ‘to decree something to someone’. This sense requires the preposition /i, so that the initial cluster would have to be emended to /i. This might be satisfactory, but for the fact that this sense of hamma appears to be confined to the intervention of the Almighty. With the noun Aummun ‘vehemence’, one could reasonably have the phrase hurmmu qahrah ‘the vehemence of his force’, but the bis left isolated, and the section does not hold together. Diwan al-muwasSahat al-Andalusiyya, 2, 620. The text of the first two clusters in Las jarchas romances (p.150) is My HM (2). Sura 12, verse 24 ‘She had designs on him, and he had designs on her’. The section reads md anti min basarin bal malaki, which is based on an even more famous

verse in Siira 12, verse 31: ma hada basaran; in hada illa malakun karimun ‘This is not 4 man; this is nothing but a noble angel’. Siira 12, one of the most popular chapters in the Quran, is known as the ‘Siira of Yiisuf. al-Andalus, 17 [1952], pp.93-4; Corpus, pp.294-5. For the lightening of inna etc. to in in Andalusian dialects, see Corriente, Spanish Arabic Dialect Bundle, 9.1.2.

95

Kharja 11 Poem 157 Bi-za‘mihima gayyabik This is another anonymous poem, in which the poet moves through a series of conventional amatory themes. One basic Arabic scansion pattern can be applied throughout:!

The straightforward metrical pattern is matched by the lightness of the poem’s language and by its format: AA B B BB AA etc. An impression of general simplicity makes the final gusn all the more surprising, for the line is very clearly not Arabic. This is unique among the surviving Andalusian muwaisahat,? though there is one eastern muwassah that exhibits the same peculiarity in having ‘ajami material outside the kharja proper. This is poem 7 in the Tawsi‘ al-tawsih of al-Safadi. It is a poem by al-Safadi himself, and he uses Turkish both in the final gusn and in the kharja.3 There is not much vocalization in any part of the poem, so that there is no noticeable decrease in the final gusn and the kharja. The final agsan Agsan 1 -3 The text given in the manuscript is:

Cells] Caplelaiel

eebol tis

We may transcribe this as:

cal OME Sl,

Gath Cie aly Gene pe, Clip

96

Romance Kharjas

ra‘at gafalati 'l-ragib fatatun xalat bi-'l-habib fa-qalat bi-sawtin ‘ajib There was a young girl who saw the inadvertence of her watcher And found herself alone with her beloved And said in a wonderful voice:

The final gusn then follows. Gusn4

so Kt=

“Z

Re

Vo

\2

“

The consonants read as follows: sin, kaf, alif, ra’, Sin - break - kaf, mim - break - ba’, waw, niin break - mim, ya’, ba’, giving: Skars km bwn myb

The two letters of the second cluster are vocalized to give us kdf,

fatha,

mim,

sukin,

that is kam.

The

ba’ of the third cluster has a

damma, indicating that the first part of the cluster is ba. The rhymeis in -ib, and the scansion requires a short vowel before the rhyme syllable. When we take account of this and also put in the variables we get: Sokarasa kam biina mib On the basis of the Arabic scansion, all the variables must be read as

vowels — unless one assumes that the vocalization of kam is incorrect. In my view, an error is highly likely. It would appear that the scribe has understood the word as the Arabic kam ‘how much’. This is clearly an impossible reading. The logical step is, therefore, to ignore the vocalization. As there is no other plausible Arabic reading for the

cluster,* it is not unreasonable to treat it, and hence the whole gusn, as

Romance. If one discards both the fatha and the sukin, one has to

consider the possibility that both the kdf and the mim have vowels. If

that is so, one of the other variables must be treated as a sukin. The

possible alternatives are Sokaréa kama or Sakaras koma. The evidence

elsewhere in the Romance kharjas points to the latter, with the first syllable being the conditional particle si. We

can take two further

steps. As stated in the introduction,° the masculine ending o appears aS

uin the kharjas. This allows us to read biny. More hesitantly, we might suggest that the putative vowels for the second cluster are two us. There

is no evidence in either the Arabic or the Hebrew manuscripts for what we can only take as the arabicized form of como, but wis the only vowel likely to have been used. The most probable reading for the gus woul thus appear to be:

Si-kariS kumu biinu mib

97

Kharja 11 The kharja

Section 1

ye Billede

This section starts with a major difficulty: it is not clear what the first three letters are. It has hitherto been assumed that the first letter is a ba’. This is the most obvious reading, but I doubt whether it is correct. It is equally possible to read it as fa’. (However, it should be noted in passing that there is no reasonable probability of reading the second letter as a fa’.’) If ba’ is preferred as the first letter, one has ba’, ba’, jim, mim. Alternatively, the cluster can be read as fa’ / ba’, ya’, ha’, mim, though this does not appear to give any sense. The reading ba’, ya’, jim, mimgiven by Garcia Gomez in Veinticuatro jarjas is erroneous and misleading, with the unfortunate effect of making more intractable the metrical problem that besets the first syllable.® If for the moment we read this first cluster as fa’ / ba’, ba’, jim, mim, we can read the section as follows: {a'/ba’, ba’, jim, mim - break - alif, dal, alif - break - alif, lam, nian, za’, mim - break - dal, waw, kf. Thé only vocalization is on the nin of the third cluster, which has both a fatha and a Sadda, indicating that the scribe read the cluster as the Arabic ‘-nazm. Given the presence of the letter za’, this is a convincing reading. We may also note that the rhyme is in -ik and that a short vowel is required in the penultimate syllable. At this stage we have: Ffibabajama ada ’l-nazma dik. Whatever reading we adopt for the first word, it seems quite

impossible to read the latter part of it as Arabic. Thus we may

reasonably think that this part might be Romance. However, if we take the first letter as fa’, we must consider the possibility that the first syllable is the Arabic particle fa-. As mentioned in the comments on section 6 of the kharja of poem 22 of the ‘Uddat al-jalis, this particle is commonly used to introduce the apodosis of a conditional sentence. Most pertinently, in Arabic non-hypothetical conditionals in which the apodosis has an imperative as its verb — and it is generally agreed that the following verb is an imperative — the fa- is obligatory. Reading fa- would have the additional advantage that it would

require the next letter to have a vowel. This solves the metrical

problem, because the section would now begin with a short syllable and throughout the rest of the poem the first syllable of the line section is short. Further, it is clear that the remaining clusters take five syllables. This means that the first cluster must be composed

— or up of

98

Romance Kharjas

three syllables. If we read fa-, we are left with two possibilities: Ja-bajma or fa-bajam. I leave it to others to decide which of the two, if either, is to be preferred.°

The second cluster is equally problematical. Two Arabic readings spring to mind. The first is ida, meaning ‘if’, ‘when’, or ‘behold’. None of these meanings seems at all likely, as far as I can determine. The second Arabic reading is to take ida as a variant form of idan ‘then, in that case’. I am not convinced that this is anything more than a remote possibility, as it is a usage that does not otherwise occur in the corpus, but it is not impossible if the preceding gusn is taken as a protasis (as seems to be indicated). It might be argued that ida could serve to emphasize fa-. Another solution would be to take the cluster as two words and to

treat the first alifas the Romance preposition a (although there is no

manuscript evidence about the vowel) and the dal, alif as the Arabic

demonstrative linked to the following Suggested above, we should expect to

however,

something

of

a

problem

word, Lnazma, which, read as Arabic. There

about

treating

da

as

as is,

a

demonstrative. It has been customary to take the view that the last

cluster is a form of the demonstrative, though an extremely rare one.° A double demonstrative would be very unusual. It is not, however, impossible. In fact, if one applies the ordinary rules of

Arabic syntax, one has three phrases, da ‘Il-nazmi, dik, and bakalah

fitting neatly together through the Arabic grammatical process of

badal (permutation).!1 This leaves the second part of the section as either 9 da I-nazmi dik or ida I-nazma dik. On balance, I prefer

the former.

Putting the pieces together we get: fa-bajmo a da I-nazmi dik with the alternatives fa-bojom and ida I-nazma in mind.

Section 2

dik

to

be

borne

bu wlll,

The consonants in this section are clearly written: ba’, kaf, alif, lam, ha’ - break - dal, alif - break - ha’, ba’ - break alif, lam, mim, lam, waw, kf, that is: bkalh da hb almlwk Two vowels are given in the manuscript. The first is a damma on the ha’ of the first cluster. (There is, incidentally, no evidence for the Sadda printed by Garcia Gomez in Veinticuatro jarfas.13) This would

99

Kharja 11

appear to indicate that the scribe thought that the cluster was baka

lahu ‘he wept for it’. Given the norms of medieval Arabic orthography, such a reading is theoretically possible. However, as far as I can see, it makes no sense here. On the other hand, the consonant cluster ba’, kaf, alif, lam, ha’ (with the final ha’ silent), representing an Arabicized form of the Romance bokella, is well attested. As we have already seen, the cluster dal, alif may represent an Arabic masculine demonstrative or the accusative of di ‘possessor of’.!4 Neither of

these seems possible here, and by elimination it appears that we

should look to a Romance meaning. This view is strengthened by the fact that da has to be read as a short syllable if the Arabic metrical

pattern is not to be broken. This is not a problem with a Romance

word, in which the alif could be considered simply as a vowel marker. It would be difficult with the Arabic d@, as there is no tradition of treating its vowel as short. The last part of the section is very much easier. It is the Arabic phrase habbi /-muliik ‘cherry’. The ba’ of the cluster fa’, ba’ has a Sadda written underneath it. This indicates that the ba’ is not only to be doubled, but also pronounced with a kasra, normally a sign of the genitive. This gives us something relatively clear for the section:

bokala® da habbi I-muliik

Putting the final gusn and the kharja together, the rather tentative text I would offer for further consideration is: Si-kariS kumu biinu mib fa-bojmo a da I-nazmi dik bokalah da habbi I-mulik

It will be clear that the above text is for the most part not very far from that quoted approvingly by Sola-Solé:

Es evidente que la mejor interpretacion de esta harga es la que propuso Garcia Gémez [Si kéres komo bono mib * bézame ida n-nazma dik * bokélla dé habb al-mulik), que no implica ninguna enmienda textual.**

The fact that it has been reached by a quite different, non-intuitive, method of analysis may also be thought to be encouraging. However, the inaccuracies of Garcia Gomez’s transcription of Section 1 of the kharja and his disregard of the metrical problems on the one hand and the tentative nature of my own version of the section on the other are sharp reminders of the very narrow divide between the plausible and the implausible in realizations of the kharjas. NOTES

1.

This is a widely used metre in Arabic, the mutagarib catalectic trimeter: (Wright, Arabic Grammar, 2, 386). vn Sve Flee

100

Romance Kharjas The

uniqueness

lies in the use of Romance

material

outside

the

final sim.

It is not

infrequent for what is prima facie the closing section of the poem, i.e. the kharja, to extend

beyond the final sim.

Tawsr al-tawsih, ed. Mutlaq, p.51. It is impossible to take the cluster as the Arabic second person masculine plural pronoun kum, because such a reading makes no sense. See, for example, Kharja 1, in which we find the conditional particle si as well as the form kari§, with the latter protected by the rhyme. We also find karis in other poems, eg.

Kharja 5, where we simply have three consonants: q4f, ra’, Sin. See p.18. In Maghribi handwriting, initial fa’ is sometimes written without the loop that is normally a part of the letter. In such cases it is indistinguishable from an initial ba’. This variation is tolerated, but in the middle of a word the loop is essential, and its omission is an error. Unless there is such an error, medial fa’ and medial ba’ cannot be confused. See al-Andalus, 17 [1952], p.95. The fact that a serious problem can be caused by the mistaken addition of a single dot is a vivid illustration of the difficulties inherent in Arabic script. It is true that neither baja nor bajma can be converted into a form that could be accepted as normal Romance. However, if we accept a degree of arabicization, the forms bajam and bajmi both have some plausibility. Moreover, the rhyme in section 3 of Kharja 36 would appear to point to -mi being an accepted ending. 10.

The

evidence

for a demonstrative

form

dik

is slim to non-existent, depending

on the

rigorousness of one’s assessment. Sola-Solé gives the accepted view and the evidence for it

in a single sentence (Corpus, p.299): En duk nos hallariamos ante un demostrativo dialectal (en el Vocabulista: dik).

There is no trace of dik elsewhere.

ll.

Badal (permutation/substitution) is a very common construction in Arabic. The badal is placed immediately after the term for which it is a substitution and goes into the same

12.

The vocalization of the final dal, alif. If the cluster is demonstrative ga, the final preposition; but if the cluster

case. A term can have more than one badal. (Wright, Arabic Grammar, 2, pp.284-7.)

13, 14. 15.

al-Andalus, 17 [1952], p.95.

vowel of nazma depends on the reading of the cluster alif, taken as the Romance preposition a and the Arabic vowel will be the Kasra of the genitive required after a is read as ida, the vowel will be the fatha of the accusative.

See the comments on section 4 of Kharja 1. Corpus, p.298.

101

Kharja 12 Poem 167 Ajrat lana min diyari 'I-xilli by Yon Baqi This is yet another muwasSah

with a simple structure (AA B BB AA

etc.) and a single metrical pattern, which is closely akin to that we

have encountered in poem 140, the difference being in the reversal of

the first two feet:!

It is a neatly phrased poem on themes of love and longing, but it does not stand out as one of Ibn Baqi’s better compositions. The text of this poem is in somewhat better condition than that of the majority of the poems in this part of the manuscript. However, vocalization is sparse in the main body of the poem and non-existent in the kharja. There is a Hebrew mu‘Grada by Yehiida Halevi,” containing what is apparently the same kharja.3 One of the manuscripts of the Hebrew muwassah (Schocken 37) carries a note to the effect that the kharja is ‘ajami. The final agsan The text in the manuscript is:

Spiny

wilt jal Mais “9

(no hulwa = syl>.) (Qué explicacion hallar a este extrafio hecho? No se me ocurre otra que el desconocimiento de la gramatica del espafiol por el rey poeta, el cual, Ilevado de la moda de las muwaSSahas, introduce en la jarya palabras romances cuyo verdadero juego idiomatico ignora.}*

By the time of the publication of Las jarchas romances, he had changed his mind and was graciously pleased to withdraw his strictures on al-Mu‘tamid’s use of Romance: Tampoco tengo que afiadir gran cosa a lo dicho cuando di a conocer esta moaxaja, salvo que exculpo ahora al rey sevillano de haber incurrido en las faltas al romance de entonces le acusé. Ahora corrijo tuhaiyi...1*

The ironic thing is that if one accepts that the verb is yuhayyi/tuhayyt Garcia Gomez’s change of mind, magnanimous though it may have been towards al-Mu‘tamid, is almost certainly wrong. The verb ordinarily means ‘to preserve’, and its subject would have to be as, which would undoubtedly be treated as masculine — the word is be masculine in Arabic and the Romance homonym could hardly a bakdalat, treated differently. What we might expect is as yuhayyt saying Arabic n phrase that in my view would recall a well-know

if hayya ‘llahu wajhaka ‘May God preserve your face’. Therefore,

uhayyt Garcia Gomez’s solution of emending tuhyi/yuhyi to tuhayyi/y the have and version original is preferred, it is better to stick with his subject. its as aé verb in the masculine with the masculine convinced that However, despite the possible calque, I am not i has the tuhyi/yuhy verb The correct. Garcia Gémez’s emendation is of context the in apposite more only not meaning ‘to revive’. This is the in phraseology the stanza, but also fits in more with the general this form of the prefer we If ‘mouth’. corpus about words meaning

the verb as feminine verb, there are two consequences. We must take syllable in

the extra with bakala as its subject, and we have to find of is one relatively straightforward explanation another way. There

182

Romance Kharjas

the loss of a syllable from the cluster, which must have been badly

written in the exemplar. It is reasonable to argue that the first person accusative pronominal suffix -ni has been lost through haplography,

A slight confusion about dotting has to be assumed, but that is already manifest in the manuscript. On this basis, tuhyi could be emended to tuhyini. Clearly neither yuhayyi/tuhayyi nor tuhyini is entirely satisfactory,

but tuhyimi seems to me to be preferable. I therefore read the section as: tuhyi(nT> bokala

Section 3

7

The letters read: ha’, lam, waw

oo.

6

V5) Same - break

- mim, ta’, lam

- break

- alif with a

superscript hamza, sin hlw mtl alus There are sukins on the /am of the first cluster and the 1a’ of the

second cluster. The rhyme indicates that the final cluster must be

pronounced as as, and it is also clear that it must be pronounced together with the second cluster, the Arabic mitl ‘like’, as mitl-as, to

avoid a difficult consonant cluster. The first word is certainly the Arabic hulw ‘sweet’ in a colloquial

form, but there is a problem about the final vowel. We have to decide whether we have the masculine form hulwu or the feminine form

hulwa. If we wish to take it as the feminine, we have to assume that a 1a’ marbita has been omitted. This is the problem that we looked at

in the comments on section 2 of Kharja 22, and there is no need to

rehearse the arguments here.15 It is possible here to make a case for both masculine or feminine, according to one’s view of the meaning. Despite the problem caused by the dropping of the ta’ marbiita, the feminine gives better sense, and I prefer it. We have: hulwa mit] a Putting the three sections together we have: quitu a8 | tuhyi bokala® | hulwa mifl aS By Arab standards, this wording gives a nicely judged kharja, with slightly more punch in this wording than it has with the reading yuhayyi. There is a tantalizing doubt about the initial a¥ — it is not immediately

clear whether

it is the Arabic

interrogative

pronoun

‘what?’ or that pronoun used in an exclamatory sense ‘what!’ or the

Romance demonstrative.!® At the other end the as is almost certainly

Kharja 24

183

the Romance demonstrative, though there is j add a little piquancy. The meaning is: Just enough doubt to What?/What!/This! A mouth as sweet as this will revive me.7

NOTES

In terms of Arabic scansion the pattern a ppears to be a combi: inati ramal and mutagarib metres.

°

See pp.106 and 110.

The imperatives of the first three agsan are feminine

si

Se

%

le ngulary, They, alle svemootl transition to the ‘she said’ of the final i The full meaning of the verb tajanna, of which tajanni is the verbal noun, is ‘to accuse

someone of a crime that he has not committed’. It is also possible to take /as'as meaning ‘No’. A very rare meaning of lamam is ‘kiss’. Possibly this is also in the background.

As the. facsimile shows, the section isvirtually illegible in the manuscript. My reading is very tentative, but it does make sense and it fits metre and rhyme. Alternatives such as /i-‘abdin

yudahi do not produce good sense.

The shortest kharja proper that I know of is one by Ibn Zuhr (‘Uddat al-jalis poem 18), in which the final simr reads: gala laha wa-galat tujibu, | ‘Man xana habibu Allah hasibu’

He spoke to her, and she said in answer, ‘Whoever betrays his beloved will find God as his reckoner’. Here the kharja proper is the second section only.

p.284), though he Garcia Gomez came to the same conclusion (Las jarchas romances, by eliminating the gives no reason for doing so. The conclusion is reached basically hypotheses in favour of mu‘arada. The hypotheses are: (a) that both lines are borrowed in full from the same poem.

it would also The objection is that such double borrowing is unknown elsewhere; few Such poems are too imply a further example of a poem with alternative kharjas. for us to add to their number by back projection.

(b) that both lines were borrowed from different poems.

poem would then be at Again such borrowing is unknown. Moreover, al-Mu‘tamid’s boost his poetic standing. would that position of sort the not series, a in best the third an earlier poem. (c) that only one of the lines is borrowed from of the Romance kharja: if This is possible, but if it is correct, it lessens the importance is a loose appendix; if the fifth sims is the fourth simt is borrowed, the fifth stanza alternative. borrowed, the fourth simt isa calculated were borrowed from the same poem. (d) that both lines, less the initial gultus, syllable.

sections composed of a single There is no evidence anywhere in the corpus for to argue that the las of simt 4 and Without such supporting evidence, it is impossible earlier poems. Further, the fact that the the a¥ of simt 5 represent whole sections in against joining them to the

a strong argument two words rhyme with each other is following section. were borrowed from different poems. (e) that both lines, less the original quitus, , (b) and (d). under made This is open to the objections poem. earlier an from ed borrow was the qu/tu, a (f) that one of the two lines, still without , ; (d). under stated on objecti the to This is open ng al-Mu‘tamid as leave us no real alternative to accepti These objections seem to me to the author of both sims.

184

Romance Kharjas

10.

The vowel is indicated both by the rhyme and by the writing of the hamza on the line before the alif. In manuscripts like the manuscrit Colin, hamza followed by alif must be presumed to take fatha, without necessarily having the vowel lengthened.

11.

It should be noted that the two ya’s are written separately and that no Sadda is involved,

12.

al-Andalus, 19 [1954], pp.380-4.

13. 14.

al-Andalus, 19 [1954], pp.381-2. Las jarchas romances, p.284.

16. 17.

There is no justification for the translation of a5 by cémo. The Arabic as means ‘what?’. With the reading yuhayyi one has multiple meanings. This could be used as a justification for the reading, in view of the Arabs’ love of plays on words. The problem is that the phraseology becomes too vague, and too many meanings can be coaxed out. There is

15.

See p.164.

confusion rather than punch. The three most likely versions are: He said, ‘This will preserve [me] - a mouth as sweet as this!

He said, ‘What will preserve [me]? A mouth as sweet as this! He said, ‘What will preserve a mouth as sweet as this?’.

185

Kharja 25 Poem 348 Man Ii bi-man sabani This anonymous poem is another of those that have the same pattern for every line, the agsdn and the asmdt being distinguished only by the rhymes. The poem is agra’, having no matla’, and the basic format is: AB AB AB CDED etc. The Arabic scansion pattern is:!

The poem moves through a number of amatory themes in a way that is conventional

and

feature that would

unremarkable.

is, however,

There

a striking

have been certain to attract the attention of

listeners. Every one of the fifteen agsan in the poem ends in the thyme -am. This is very unusual. How effective this was it is now impossible to gauge. It could be that a rhyme scheme that was slightly nearer to the monorhyme of classical Arabic poetry would have had some appeal, though if this had been the case we might have expected more poems to exhibit the feature. In addition, as I have already mentioned,” the poem is one of those that fall within the special group in which the fourth stanza looks very much like an alternative final stanza. In this poem the fourth simt is in classical Arabic, but this is not a barrier to it being treated as a kharja. Otherwise the line has all the hallmarks of a kharja: it is introduced by the phrase n@daytuhd ‘I called out to her’; and it has the appearance of being a quotation.

The final agsan

The manuscript text is as follows: “sre

phages ytsrcab i

2

186

Romance Kharjas

We may transcribe this as:

clap 33,808 oe

tle

Boy ag ed

Sor

oH

je

Dig

OS Ge Es lammd badat bi-Sakli wa-qad danat li-rahli?

Ow

ee

C53 by

bes SEI masdidati l-zimam bi-admu‘in sijam

ista ‘barat li-wasli naw‘an mina |-kalam These lines are not easy to interpret. The problem resides in the fact

that in the first gusn the natural interpretation is that the woman is ready to move, whilst in the other two agsan the implication is that the man is about to depart. It is against the conventions of Arabic poetry for both parties to depart, and so I think that we must assume

that the first line implies that the woman is being prevented from departing with the beloved. My translation tries to reflect this: When she appeared like one with (her riding-beast] reined-in,

Having approached my baggage with tears flowing, She sobbed out a kind of speech, seeking union with me:

The kharja then follows.

The kharja Section 1

Leth We

+

This section is straightfqrward Arabic. It runs: amanu ya habibi

The meaning is ‘Mercy, O my beloved’. he Section 2

Aes)

The consonants read as follows:

alif, lam, waw, ha’, sin - break - mim, niin, fa’, ra’, alif, Sin The first cluster has two vowel signs.* There is a sukin on the ha’and

a damma on the sin. The cluster appears to be the Arabic al-wahs, @ relatively rare adjective, which, together with the definite article, means ‘the desolate one’.S The only argument against the fina damma is that it should be a fatha. The total suppression of the vowel is not possible. It would produce a very uncomfortable grouping

187

Kharja 25

consonants hs m, which would not be tolerable in any respectable level of Arabic. This was recognised by Stern, who, though ignorant of the manuscript vocalization of al-wahs, recognised that a vowel was necessary and read the accusative al-wahsa.° This is probably correct,

but

Stern’s

version

has

seven

syllables,

and

that

is

unmetrical. If we insist on reading al-wahsa — and I think that we

should — we have only - ~ - for the cluster mnfras. As it stands, the cluster contains too many consonants for only three syllables. Although this is prima facie Romance material, I feel that I should

suggest that mnfra§ might be emended to myfrds, to be read as mi

fara§ or something similar. The line would then mean, ‘Have mercy, my beloved, you will make me the desolate one [if you go]’. The change from medial niin to medial ya’ is not difficult palaeographic-

ally,’ and the line now has a

sense that links it properly with the

final agsan. My base text now is: al-wabSa mi-foraS Section 3

EL rhay, The consonants read: ba’, waw, niin - break - ba’, alif, ha’ - break - mim, alif - break - ba’,

kaf, alif, lam, ha’

Other breaks are theoretically possible after the waw and the alifs, but the only one that is technically likely is after the final alif, i.e. before /h. There is no vocalization, and therefore all we have at this stage is: bwn bah ma bkalh The metrical requirements are such that we must read as our basic text:

bin baha ma bakalah® It has usually been assumed that the whole section is Romance, though this can only be the case if the second word is emended. I do not necessarily dissent from the view that we have here a Romance section, but I should point out that if we are prepared to accept ban as a patois word, it is possible to produce an Arabic reading that requires no emendation. It is: bin baha ma buka lah ‘A good man has appeared — there is no weeping because of him’. This is not a reading

that I wish to press, but it shows how uncertain is the basis on which

we have to work. These widely discrepant versions are both viable,

and the reason for preferring the Romance is that it fits better.®

As already indicated, the great problem in the Romance reading is

188

Romance Kharjas

the second cluster. In the manuscript this must be read either as bq’

alif, ha’ or as fa’, alif, ha’, that is either baka or faha. This will not do for Romance.

The obvious reading is to add one dot, reading jin

instead of ha’. That gives us baja or faja. The assumption has been

that the correct reading is baja. This has been followed by a further

very large step to the suggestion that baja represents beiga’° (or bééa"). Garcia Gémez,!? Stern}? and Sola-Solé’ all felt that they were justified in taking this step, and, given all the uncertainties, it is a bold man who will argue that they are wrong. Yet it must be said that it is a speculative reading. There are three places in which beiga

is said

to appear

in the

Romance

kharjas.'*

In each case the

manuscript evidence in favour of the reading is at best problematical. It is the presence of bokella, rather than manuscript evidence, that

has led scholars to plump for beiga. They may be right, but each reading remains intuitive. And, as pointed out in discussing the putative gélog,® such subjective readings do not reinforce one another: the rules of probability reduce very considerably likelihood of all of them being correct. If we accept the emendation of ha’ to jim, the text becomes: bin bajo ma bokalah Section 4

5 J23

SF

we

the

5)

The consonants read: . lam | alif, waw, Sin, kaf - break - ta’, niin, ya’, ra’, Sin There is also the possibility of a break after the waw. Once again vocalization is totally lacking. The first letter raises considerable problems. There can be no doubt that the manuscript has a Jam. However, we have many examples of alif being carelessly written and being joined up to the following letter, thereby producing what appears to be a /am but is 1n fact an alif. Because of the general uncertainty surrounding this kharja, it is difficult to say whether or not this is what we have in the present case. Both possibilities have to be considered. Again it 1s

unfortunate that Garcia Gomez not only failed to draw attention to

this problem, but also plumped consonantal base must be: l/awsk tnyras The cluster awik has been taken as Stern and as Arabic by Sola-Solé. interpretations that have been made

for

the

less

likely

alif.

Our

Romance by Garcia Gomez and I have grave doubts about the so far. I think that the proposal

189

Kharja 25

e separate Romance words is to split a cluster of four letters into thre for something else. However, implausible, and that we should look é’s awsak, which is pretty fair this is not provided by Sola-Sol an initial alif, such as iiik, nonsense.!7 Other Arabic readings with ead of alif, there are three also get us nowhere. If we try lam inst

is as difficult as Sola-Solé’s possible readings. The first, li-waski, there were doubt’ is scarcely awsak. The second, law Sakka/sukka, ‘if a, ‘to Huesca’

for /i- Wisq more viable. The third, /i-Wiika, colloquial s something of a long seem it ly ical uist gives fair meaning, but ling I best of a bad bunch of readings. Even so, shot.18 I prefer it as the been corrupted in a have a strong suspicion that the cluster may have way that is not obvious. nd cluster, and No sensible Arabic can be gleaned from the seco we assume that If e. anc Rom is it that again the assumption must be have three, will nd seco the bles, sylla three the first cluster again has er to drop one giving us taniras. This does not look satisfactory. I pref nun-yaras ‘you as it take to and er clust dot at the beginning of the lar to that simi be d woul verb the of ble will not go’. The first sylla : have now .1° We arad yant 3: ja which we saw in Khar

li-Wi&ka nun yoras

Putting the four sections together, we have the following base text: al-wahSa mi fora amanu ya habibi li-Wi8ka nun yoras bin bajo ma bokalah Mercy, my beloved, you will make me the desolate one [if you go]. Good man, kiss my mouth; you will not go to Huesca.

NOTES

1.

In terms of Arabic scansion the metrical pattern is a form of the rajaz metre.

2.

See pp.106 and 110.

3.

It is not clear whether the transcription or a mistaken ‘my foot’ for /i-rahli al-Andalus, 17 [1952], p.124. unfortunate that they do not

4.

5. 7.

text given in Las jarchas romances (p.260) is an erroneous emendation. The only obvious emendation would be Ji-rijli The two vowels are clear enough in the manuscript, and it is appear in the transcription in Veinticuatro jaryas.

There are only a couple of examples elsewhere in the corpus. Les chansons mozarabes, p.33. It would be possible to adduce the same argument for initial ya’ and initial niin. With both

initial and medial forms, incorrect dotting would easily account for the change. This would not be the case with final or independent ya’ and niin. The different basic shape of these forms makes it hard to argue that they could readily be confused.

190

Romance Kharjas In this section the final Aa’ is the rhyme letter. The meaning would be slightly forced with the Arabic version: a good man who causes no weeping [on my part] (i.e. you) has come here.

10. ll. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

Corpus,p.310. Les jarchas romances, p.261.

al-Andalus, 17 [1952], p.124 and Las jarchas romances, p.261. Les chansons mozarabes, p.33.

Corpus, p.311. ‘Uddat al-jalis poem 157 (Kharja 11), ‘Uddat al-jalis poem 348 (Kharja 25), Jays al-tawith

section 9, poem 8 (Kharja 36).

:

See p.39. Corpus, p.311. For the colloquial Wiska for Wiiga see Corriente, Spanish Arabic Dialect Bundle, 2.23.4, note 74. There is also a form Waki, for Wisgi and presumably to be vocalized correctly as Wiski, in Ibn Quzman, See p.44.

1,2.

191

Kharja 26 Poem 349 Abaha hima ’l-sabbi ‘Uddat al-jalis to This is the last muwaiah in the manuscript of the ution.! It is an have a Romance kharja. Yet again, there is no attrib its themes. It amatory poem, memorable more for its structure than A A A]. These is agra‘ and starts off with four single section agsdn [A have a straightforward metrical pattern:? The simg lines, by contrast, are divided into seven sections all rhyming in -S (sin) [BBBBBBB]. The first six of these sections are very short, having only three or four syllables. The last section

combines the two and has seven syllables. Metrically the pattern that emerges is:?

Such a pattern would provide problems for the poet even with easy rhymes. Combined with the rhyme in -s, which is a difficult letter to use in Arabic in the rhyme position, the constraints under which the poet was writing are tremendous, and the results in the first four simfs are strained and unconvincing. This is less so in the kharja, in which there is a series of words with a Romance feminine plural ending. These fit the rhyme neatly. It therefore seems likely that this is another poem in which the metrical and rhyming patterns of the kharja effectively determined the format of the rest of the poem. The final agsan The final set of agsan present one minor and one major problem. At the beginning of the third gusn the manuscript’s fihi (‘in it’/‘in them’) seems to be incorrect. One would expect bihi (‘on it’/‘on them’), and I emend the text accordingly. The reason for the appearance of fthi in the third gusn may be that it is the first word in the final gusn — where it is correct — and that its presence there diverted the scribe from the original reading. A more awkward problem bedevils the final gusn. The manuscrit Colin has fthi qultu a‘rad. This is one syllable short according to the pattern of the other lines. It also requires us to take a‘rad as a first person singular imperfect verb,

which does not give good sense. Garcia Gomez’s attempt to correct

the line by inserting wa at the beginning of the line is unacceptable

192

Romance Kharjas

because it not only fails to deal with the problem of the meaning but

is also unmetrical.? There is a relatively straightforward correction

that can be made. It is to insert id before a‘rad. This allows us to take

a‘rad as a third person masculine singular verb, with nahd in the first gusn as its subject. The line now gives good sense, and the emendation has fair palaeographical justification. The letters dal and dal

are

sometimes

confused

with

initial

‘ayn.

Thus

it is not

unreasonable to argue that we have something akin to a case of

haplography. The manuscript text is:

; PME

as8

pOIne otic

Transcribed, and with my emendations, this becomes:

Uae Lee 2555 Leal i% asok coe?

Lael FI a

Ure! 3] Clb as wa-xawdin bi-nahdin gad

ka-rumhin ida sta‘rad bihi atarun li-’l-‘ad

Sihi quitu id a‘rad Many a time I think of a young maid with firm breasts* like spears* that kill mercilessly on which were marks* due to biting — about which I have said as they * turned away: The kharja then follows.

193

Kharja 26

The kharja

. ns of being only poorly preserved The manuscript version shows sig last particularly in the first and It presents awkward problems, to heavy Gomez and Sola-Solé resort sections. Both emendation to

convincing.®

Garcia produce

their

realizations,

and

these

are

not

Section 1

The

cluster

that

makes

up

this

section

is very

obscure

in

the

it would appear that manuscript. Given the surrounding material,

alif, Sin the letters read: dal, ha’ with a sukiin, mim, manuscript are large dots the in line All nine sukins in the previous the cluster. Prima facie, of letter d of the size we have with the secon er that he was wrong. clear even is it the scribe’s intention is clear. Yet destroyed. We must is metre the , If the second letter has sukin The latter seems xa’. read and dot a remove the sukin or treat it as question of any no be d woul there more likely. Also, with a xa’ state as the rest same the in be then d woul vocalization, and the section of the kharja. diately Two other points need to be made. Firstly, an alif imme ion. posit that in rect incor be to rs appea before the sin of the rhyme ion osit prop The . vowel short a res requi on The rhyme for this secti One le.° tenab y hardl is onis lecti mater a as that the alif is acting possibility, to which I shall return, is that the mim and the alif have been transposed, and that the last three letters should read alif, mim,

sin.

Secondly, Garcia Gomez was in error in indicating a lacuna at the beginning of the section.7 The manuscript has no sign of any lacuna. It is true that it has three dots before the beginning of the line, but so too do some other kharjas (those of poems 345 and 348 [Kharjas 23b and 25], for example). Furthermore, the line starts directly under the beginning of the simt of the previous stanza. This shows that the scribe himself did not see anything abnormal in the line he was about to copy. Certainly, there is no palaeographical justification for replacing the dal with two letters, as both Garcia Gomez and Sola-Solé have done.® Furthermore, such emendations force one to

assume that the latter part of the cluster is derived from the root xms

or the root fms (the meaning of both roots being connected with the idea of causing scratches). In my view, such assumptions are misconceived. Both xms and hms have already been used earlier in

194

Romance Kharjas

the poem (in simt 3). A second use at the beginning of the kharja

would be weak. More tellingly, the final agsdn refer to a girl’s breasts bearing the marks of biting. There is nothing in those agsan that leads us to expect a prominent reference to scratching, certainly not

before one to biting. The bites are not referred to until section 4,

I should therefore like to return to the form dxams, which involves

the transposition of the mim and the alif in the manuscript cluster. If

we take this emended form and then emend it further by the fairly

straightforward substitution of ra’ for dal, we have the form rxami. This is no more difficult than the emendations proposed by Garcia Gomez and Sola-Solé, but, unlike them, we now have a form that

offers good

sense. It can be taken

as the Arabic ruxam

with a

Romance feminine plural ending attached to it, giving us a hybrid word of a form that we shall see in later sections. The word ruxam,

which basically means ‘marble’ but is sometimes extended to mean

‘alabaster’, is frequently used in Arabic poetry to describe a woman’s breasts. Its sense would be ‘pieces of marble’. I therefore propose to read: ruxamas Section ection 2

fl

b

The letters read: kaf, niin - break - alif, lam, sin, alif, mim, Sin kn sams

I see no reason why we should not take the first cluster as the Romance preposition con, which we have already seen in Kharja 9 governing an Arabic noun. In my comments on the first section of

that kharja I suggested that the most likely pronunciation was kun. Both here and there the word is followed by the Arabic definite article, and the combination appears to allow the first vowel to be taken as a short one. This would be analogous to the treatment of the Arabic prepositions min and ‘an followed by the definite article. The

most

likely

reading

for

the

second

cluster

is one

which

assumes that the first two letters are the Arabic definite article and

that the final 3in represents the Romance plural ending, a pattern that also occurs in sections 4 and 6. The intervening letters can be

understood without the emendations that have been thought necessary. The Arabic word sama ‘mole, beauty spot’ seems an obvious possibility. We may read: kun al-SamaS

195

Kharja 26 Section 3

we

EY

The letters read: mim, ra’, dal, ya’, Sin

—

mrdyS

achieve this with The metre requires ~ - - . The only way that we can and for to have vowels the manuscript text is for the mim and the ra’

s us maradyas. the dal to have a sukin and the ya’ a fatha. This give the manuscript s in ear bts about the yd’ that app

However, I have dou how or why it got before the Jin. If it is corrupt, it is difficult to see a kasra raises as there, and to suggest that it is due to confusion with is to omit it inct , many problems as it answers. Nevertheless my inst el of the vow the as a mistake. In addition to the problem of the ya’, uscript man no e is ra’ must be long, another point for which ther g is no din ed rea pos evidence. Even with these two alterations, my pro Gomez cia gs Gar of more difficult palaeographically than the readin

and Sola-Solé, both of which suffer from other problems. Garcia

Gomez’s is unmetrical; whilst Sola-Solé’s makes nonsense of the ed relationship between the agsdn and the kharja. If my propos ve ati is ern y alt emendation is not accepted, I would feel that the onl t. My rup to keep the manuscript reading and to mark it as cor preference is: moradaS Perhaps the most probable reading would be an arabicized version of moradas.° It would qualify the ruxdmas of the first section in the same way that agiitas in the fifth section does.

Section 4

_ fl

dé

The letters read: kaf, mim - break - alif, lam, lam, zay, mim, Sin km 'Ilzms

The only viable suggestion for the second cluster appears to be that made by Garcia Gomez in Las jarchas romances.'° He takes it as the

Andalusian Arabic dialectal word /azma ‘a bite’, preceded by the Arabic definite article and with a Romance plural ending. If we accept this — and I see no alternative — it would appear that we should emend the first cluster from km to kn. This would make it parallel to the kn in section 2. I would read: kun al-lazmaS

196

Romance Kharjas

Section 5

— psa &

The letters read: alif, qaf, waw, ta’, Sin aqwis There has

been

reasonable

2

unanimity

that

the

word

involved is

aqiutas, though there have been variations in the spelling adopted. The identification of the word would appear to be correct. Certainly,

there is no Arabic alternative. Determination of the first vowel is totally dependent on a knowledge of Romance. Despite the apparent

obviousness of an initial fatha, it is conceivable that Arabic speakers might have pronounced it with a damma instead. It is therefore proper to leave the vowel

section:

as undetermined

in the base text of the

aqiitas

Section 6

_

The letters read: “ kaf, mim - break - alif, lam, lam, niin, jim, Sin

km 'lnjs The aqiitas of the previous section is apparently taken up here by a simile, the first cluster being the arabicized form of como. The only

likely pronunciation would have been kumu. The pattern of a word

preceded by the Arabic definite article and having a Romance plural ending is continued. Here, however, the basic word is not Arabic, as there is no such root as /nj. There is room for only one syllable

between the article and the rhyme, giving us ‘7/-/anja¥. That points to an arabicized form Janja ‘lance’. Thus we have a clear reference back

to the Arabic rumh ‘spear’ in the second gusn. We may reasonably read: kumu ’I-lanjaS

Section 7

ile

The manuscript appears to read:

;

™

kaf, mim, alif, lam ? ? - break - dal - possible break - alif'- possible break - Jam, mim, Sin(?)

kmal?? d alms(?)

nal

Kharja 26

of the first cluster. It might, for Icannot work out what follows the Jam to the preceding lam or itmight example, possibly be a sin joined consonants. Without knowing represent the remnants of a cluster of to decide whether the section what follows the /am, it is impossible . If we take the previous starts with kumu ‘I or ka-mal.... or kamal... alternatives is perhaps the section into consideration, the first of these most likely.

lems, but the length Aworm-hole in the final cluster raises some prob indicates that there is only a of the tail of the sins elsewhere on the page ins of an alif, but ¥in involved. The mark above the hole is not the rema If we take the letters at two red dots signifying the end of the section. , and perhaps, if we face value, rhyme and metre point to d3 alma ever one cannot be assume haplography of the alif, da almas. How ite the text in ways confident of this. Garcia Gomez and Sola-Solé rewr less to the that bear little resemblance to each other and even idered, the manuscript. I see no justification for either version. All cons best I can offer for this section is: Momal?.... ?do alma’ ? When we put all seven sections together, the text before us is: ruxdma’ kunal-Sama$ = mor3da8_ kun al-lazma’ ?do almas? ?kemiall?.... kumu’l-lanja8 aqitas

NOTES

Of the 354 poems in the ‘Uddat al-jalis over 200 are given without attribution. Other

sources enable us to assign a number of these to various authors, but 178 still remain anonymous. When attributions are given, their accuracy is fairly good, much better, it would appear, than those in the Jays al-tawsth. The metre is the base of the Arabic fawil metre, used once only in the agsdn and four times, but split into seven sections, in the asmdt.

ayey

S

1.

Las jarchas romances, p.268.

These words are all in the masculine singular in the Arabic. Las jarchas romances, pp.268-9, and Corpus, pp.314-6. This

would

be

a unique

example

of alif acting

as

a mater

lectionis

in the

Arabic

manuscripts that contain the Romance kharjas. An error through transposition is a far eos

more likely occurrence.

al-Andalus, 17 (1952), p.126.

10.

Las jarchas romances, p.269.

Las jarchas romances, pp.268-9, and Corpus, p.315. Perhaps moradas might be taken as ‘marbled’.

198

Kharja 27 Jays al-tawsih, Section 1, poem 2 Nabd mismat

With this poem we move to the kharjas that survive principally in the

Jays al-tawsih alone, though the group does contain a couple of Kharjas that are also to be found in Hebrew muwassahs. The reader should remember that the text of the Jays al-tawsih is at its best only

moderately well preserved, and the Romance kharjas have fared particularly badly. In fact, the fall in accuracy is similar to that in the ‘Uddat al-jalis, but from a lower general level. I believe that the poem we are about to examine

is wrongly

attributed to Ibn Baqi. Like two other poems in the first section of the Jays al-tawsih (poems 3 and 9), it contains a reference to an obscure family, the Bani Tabit of Tavira in the Algarve. Of these

poem 3 is attributed to ‘Ubada al-Qazzaz both in the ‘Uddat al-jalis

(poem 23) and in the Mugaddima of Ibn kharja of poem 214 of the ‘Uddat al-jalis, ‘If you visit the Banii Tabit in Tavira, And say to them, “Ubada, whom you

Khaldiin.! Furthermore the also by ‘Ubada, reads: give them my greetings, know, remains loyal”.’

This kharja shows a direct link between ‘Ubada and the Bani Tabit and,

I

would

argue,

corroborates

the

case

for

accepting

the

attribution to ‘Ubada of Uddat al-jalis poem 23 / Jays al-tawsih section 1, poem 3. The phraseology in which the Bani Tabit are mentioned

in the three poems

slightly unusual

and

in section

remarkably

similar:

1 of the Jays al-tawsih is

‘O Bani

Tabit, your

gazelle’, ‘Gazelle of the Bani Tabit’, ‘O gazelle of the Banu Tabit’.?

It seems to me unlikely that the Banii Tabit would have been able to

patronize two major wasiahs at quite different periods — ‘Ubada is an eleventh century poet, whilst Ibn Baqi did not die till 1145 aD — and it would be even more surprising for the two poets to use virtually identical phraseology, even when allowance is made for the convention of mu‘drada. One wonders, of course, why Ibn al-Khatib was not more accurate in his attributions, but it is clear from other

poems that he was rather careless in this matter, despite the fact that

the poems in the Jays al-tawsih are put in sections according to . alleged authorship. The poem is amatory in content. There is no panegyric section, with the Banii Tabit merely being addressed briefly with reference to

198

Kharja 27

their ‘gazelle’.

If one format ABC ABC ABC DDDED etc. The poem is agra‘ and has the n is:*

patter applies Arabic scansion, the metrical agsan

asmat

vu

Ws

B

(eyo

[Sin

[Se

cue

te

+

[seen

=

Bee

: [Se

Bees

[Fen

Sa

kve

The final agsan

The text in the Zaytiina manuscript is:

sae pRsSh apis pre GERAY ,

CF

hd

oa

3)3

}

Salevedim

hs

. A dot The final gusn requires two emendations. The first is certain

. must be added to the final word of the middle section to give yuganni

rhyme: The second is more difficult. The manuscript ‘/-/san breaks the a assume must we Either -an. with rhyme to -an allow Arabic does not we or ‘Llisan, to ’ ‘tongue ‘Llisdn n commo the of ning dialectal shorte have to opt for the rare ‘-Jasan ‘eloquence’. With some hesitation I

prefer the latter:

ol ty

be 3

od Cea

Se UM;

cell de

ge ol Gute

ida ’llaylu jan akadu li-huzni wa-atni 'l-Sajan wa-'Ikurbata ‘anni wa-as’alu man ‘indi an yuganni When the night becomes dark, I almost sadness caused by him,

or pl orl

ls

ot Sel bihi ujan bi-binti dan ‘ala 'I-lasan lose my senses through

And I ward off grief and distress from myself with the daughter of the wine-jar, And I ask the one who is with me to sing with eloquence:

200

Romance Kharjas

The kharja then follows. Given the phraseology of the final agsan, it

is difficult to estimate the extent to which they are likely to be taken up in the kharja. The last gusn could lead to a kharja couched in general terms, but we cannot rule out the possibility that man ‘ing ‘the one with me’ might be picked up, though perhaps indirectly. The kharja Unusually

the

vocalization,

apart

manuscripts

show

unanimity

of reading

in this

kharja. The al-Nifar and ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscripts are without from

section

5, where

the the scribe of ‘Abd

al-Wahhab manuscript observes his normal practice of writing a

fatha and a Sadda on the second Jam of any form of Allah. In the circumstances I have confined myself to dealing with the text given in

the Zaytiina manuscript.

Section 1 The Zaytina manuscript has:

The letters read:

GP

waw, jim, alif, lam, sin - break - kf, ra’, ya’ wjals kry

In the first cluster the waw and the jim have fathas and the /am has a kasra. The second cluster has a mark that can be taken as a fatha

accompanying the ra’ or two I suspect that Garcia emending the initial waw to either as a simple connective

dots accompanying the ya’. Gomez and Sola-Solé are correct in mim, waw. The Arabic wa- does not fit ‘and’ or as the waw rubba ‘many a...’. I

further think that Sola-Solé is right in taking the next four letters as

the Arabic jalis ‘companion’, though it is very rare to find this form

rather than the common jalis. Its use would appear to be due to metrical necessity. This unusual usage hardly seems sufficient

justification for Garcia Gomez’s gélés, my comments on section 3 of Kharja 3.+ Turning to the second cluster, rhyme the last two letters as ray, preceded by Sola-Solé is likely to be right in taking

which I discussed briefly in

and metre require us to read a short vowel. I think that the cluster as an arabicized

form of kere. There is no obvious reading that is entirely Arabic, and

I have grave doubts about Garcia Gémez’s half-Arabic, halfRomance reading ka-ray ‘like a king’. The base text that I prefer is:

try xmryd mn 'I-hajb The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

‘l-hajb try xmrya mn

Cmimte ohda??

4Ly7e

The text of this section varies from that of Kharja 30b, and probably only the first word is identical to both. However, even that is problematical, as we have no less than four readings for it: tdry, try, badry and bdr. The last two clusters are clear. They give us the

Arabic mina 'l-hajib ‘from the Hajib’ and fill the last four syllables of the section. All three manuscripts have xmryd for the second cluster.

Garcia Gomez and Sola-Solé emend to xamri ‘my wine’. There is no

objection to this metrically, provided that we assume that the first

cluster comprises three syllables, as Garcia Gomez and Sola-Solé do. However, I feel that the whole of the cluster is seriously corrupt and

that it is not just a matter of omitting the final alif. There is nothing in the final agsan that leads us to expect a reference to wine, even less to wine effecting a cure. The second gusn mentions a meeting curing

madness. to a cure hardly be It is purveyor

On that basis it would be or a meeting or, as next thought of in these ways. even more unlikely that of the Hajib’s wine to the

reasonable to expect a reference best thing, a message. Wine can

the mother is depicted as the young girl. Thus the emendation

to traydé is inappropriate if one insists on the reading xamri. With

another reading it might be possible, though one would expect an arabicized pronunciation such as taraydi. However, as we lack a plausible reading for the second cluster, it is difficult to argue that a form such as taraydi should be preferred to such obvious readings as tard ‘you see’, turd ‘you think’, or tadri ‘you know’, both of which can be feminine as well as masculine in colloquial language. This leaves us with considerable uncertainties. The furthest I would go is: tara/tadri/(?taraydi?) }xmryat} mina ’I-hajib

227

Kharja 30a Section 4 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

The letters read:

‘ayn, in, ya’ - break - Sin, ya’, ra’, ya’

‘Sy Spry There is no vocalization. The al-Nifar manuscript has:

‘Sy (2Syr?) Syry The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

t

‘ys Spry

6

2

There appears to be no way in which any of these readings can be coaxed to give sense. The readings of the manuscripts for Kharja 30b, ‘sy Snr and ‘sy s?r, look slightly more promising. They offer the Arabic ‘asa ‘perhaps’ as the first word, and it only needs the addition of a final ya’ for the rhyme to justify Stern’s Romance reading sanaray.* This fits in well with the sense of the final agsan. Sola-Solé makes a minor improvement by reading Janaray.° I follow him and read: ‘asa Sanaray When we put the four sections together, the defects of the text are all too apparent:

ya mamma 28d? ?lys? al-jinnah tara/tadri/(?taraydi?) {xmryaf mina *Il-hajib

tollSmowayt ‘asa Sanaray

NY

NOTES Las jarchas romances, p.321. In terms of Arabic scansion the metrical pattern is a derivative of the basit metre. What

NYP

we have is a basi hemistich of fourteen syllables with a divsion after nine syllables, Les chansons mozarabes, p.55; Las jarchas romances, p.326; Corpus, pp.90-91. Las jarchas romances, pp.326-7. Les chansons mozarabes, p.55. Corpus, p.91.

228

Kharja 30b Section 16, poem 6 Ma

li wa-li-I-xurradi ‘l-‘in by Ibn Malik

This poem was written up to a century later than than containing Kharja

30a.

It

is

a

reasonably

close

mu‘Grada,

though

some

variations are apparent. The rhyme of the third section of the simt

lines is changed from -ib to -ar, to accommodate the name Ja‘far in the kharja instead of the title a/-hajib. As already mentioned in the remarks on Kharja 30a, the first syllable of the second section shows a variation, but otherwise the metre is the same (as, presumably, was the music). It is interesting to note that the metrical variation is a relaxation of the pattern, not a tightening up to bring it closer to a classical Arabic pattern.

Thematically,

Ibn

Malik’s

poem

follows

the pattern

of Ibn

al-Rafi‘ Ra’suh’s muwassah until we reach the fifth stanza. Here the first two agsdn carry on the panegyric material of the previous two

stanzas. The second gusn of stanza 5 provides a thematic link to the

final gusn, which then leads straight into the kharja. The poem is couched in language that is more florid than usual and the treatment

of themes is dull and heavy. In short, it is a rather poor poem. The

poem

is agra‘, having the format AB AB AB CDED etc. The

metrical pattern is:? Eee

Fee

we

ol

Ba

See

Effectively, this kharja survives only in the Zaytiina manuscript. The

al-Nifar manuscript has a cross-reference, a very unusual phenomenon in an Arabic manuscript: the cluster mm is followed by a reference to page 70. This is the page in the manuscript that contains Kharja 30a.? The poem is also one of those that ‘Abd al-Wahhab

copied from the Zaytiina manuscript into his own because some pages were missing. He was evidently very uncertain about the text

he had to copy, and he cannot be said to help us. The final agsan The Zaytiina manuscript reads:

Pdollsas pals aidwls les

Aglse yuh 5 Bip0)s

229

Kharja 30b

s}aobia-oots Oa

pdlalalse .

s

4

>,

@ Gi

Age

where the word fasraxu in There is a minor difficulty in the third gusn, With this emendation we may section 1 has to be corrected to tusarrihu.

transcribe the text as:

CUS es chil sya cl

abla alll oF Ion 5 oe es A

ree Jue

tert

ay gush Ce

yasli ‘ani 'I-qasfi wa-'l-lahwi

oe

pS

wa-yahwa 'I-kifah

hawahu ’qtirah wa-'l-gidu tuzhiru ‘an zahwi ni ‘l-milah gawa wi }-Sad birihu fa-kam tusar and desires the fray, inment enterta and revelry He is diverted from proclaim their proudly s maiden lissom the g yearnin And in their love for him.

How much do the modestly veiled women speak out in song:

The kharja then follows.

The kharja Section 1 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

ade o5 @ ls

The letters read:

ya’, alif - break - mim, mim - break - alif, sin, dal - break - ?, ?, yd -

break - Jam, lam, jim, niin, ha’ ya mm asd ??y Iljnh There is no vocalization. For the first two clusters the reading is the same as that in Kharja 30a: ya mamma. The asd that we find here for the third cluster (as opposed to the Jd in Kharja 30a) gives no good sense. Certainly we cannot take it as the Arabic usd ‘lions’, though I suspect that this is how ‘Abd al-Wahhab tried to take it. We must mark it as corrupt. Clearly the copyist of the Zaytiina manuscript could make

nothing of the next cluster. This must also be marked as corrupt. As

I argued in discussion of Kharja 30a, I have a slight preference for al-jinnah over li-l-jinnah. This gives us: ya mamma fosd} {??yf al-jinnah

230

Romance Kharjas

Section 2

The Zaytiina manuscript has:

Cyd The letters read:

alif, lam, ta’, sin, mim, ra’, ya’ altsmry There is no vocalization. As was mentioned in the discussion of Kharja 30a, the text here may possibly point to the sort of reading proposed by Sola-Solé,* but the emendations are fairly speculative, and for a base text we should simply mark the manuscript text as corrupt: toltsmryt Section 3

The Zaytiina manuscript has:

tls

The letters read: ba’, dal, ra’, ya’ - break -

ra

alif, lam, sin, ra’ - break - jim, ‘ayn, fa’,

bdry alsr j'fr

There is no vocalization. ‘Abd al-Wahhab copied the first cluster bdry as bdr. bdr alsr j‘fr In addition to the straightforward change from al-hdjib to Ja‘far at the end of the section, there are only three clusters instead of the four in Kharja 30a. The first cluster bdry/bdr looks like a mistaken variant of try/tdry. As an expansion of alsr (alsn?) Garcia Gomez’s [mew] ‘L-bino [de]* is ingenious, and, apart from the last syllable, it looks

better than Sola-Solé’s e/ [mio] bino [min].° However, there is the

same problem that we had in Kharja 30a: a reference to wine is implausible, and the inevitable conclusion is that the ingenuity is

misplaced. Overall, we are worse off than we were in Kharja 30a, as the corrupt part of the text takes in an extra two syllables. All we

have is:

tara/tadri/(?taraydi?) talsrt Ja‘far

231

Kharja 30b Section 4

The Zaytiina manuscript has:

3

The letters read: ‘ayn, sin, ya’ - break - sin, nin, ra’ ‘sy Snr

There is no vocalization. both kharjas We have already seen that when we look at the texts of reading: the manuscripts put us well on the way to a plausible ‘asa Sanaray

30a, In general, the text is in a worse condition than that of Kharja with only section 4 giving any real help. We have: toltsmryt ya mamma tosdt t??yt al-jinnah ‘asa Sanaray tara/tadri/(?taraydi?) tals} Ja‘far

NOTES

1. 2.

3,

Ibn al-Rafit

Ra’suh flourished

in the reign of al-Ma’min

Ibn Di ‘l-Nin,

Toledo from 1037 to 1075 aD, whilst Ibn Malik died in 1175 ap.

the ruler of

though In terms of Arabic scansion the metrical pattern is a derivative of the basit metre, less the change to allow a long syllable at the beginning of the second section makes this apparent.

The cross-reference

is in the scribe’s own

handwriting,

and

the

numbering

of the

cross-reference is correct, so that the scribe must have been at least partially responsible for it, as there is no evidence of the manuscripts being copied according to the pagination

ee

of the exemplar. However, the basic note could have been written at some earlier stage.

6.

Corpus, p.91. Las jarchas romances, pp.334-5.

Corpus, pp.90-91.

232

Kharja 31 Section 5, poem 4 al-Rahu wa-l-rudabu The version of the poem found in the Jays al-tawsih is unique among Arabic muwassahs of the eleventh century in having seven stanzas, Another version is to be found in the ‘Uddat al-jalis (poem 49), but it

lacks

the Romance

stanza.

The

order

of the remaining

stanzas

(1,2,3,4,6,5) means that it ends not with a proper kharja but with a panegyric flourish. Such an ending is rare in extant muwassahdt, but in the present case it provides the only easy way of restructuring the poem after the omission of the stanza containing Romance material. Though both stanzas 5 and 6 of the full version are panegyric, stanza 6 provides no clear ending, whereas stanza 5 does. There can be little doubt that the version in the Jays al-tawsih is the original. How often similar stanzas containing Romance were omitted must remain a matter of conjecture.

There is also a problem about the attribution of the poem. In the

‘Uddat al-jalis the poet is given as another eleventh century poet, al-Husri.* It is impossible to say which attribution is correct. The

poem is addressed to Yisuf Ibn Hiid, ruler of Saragossa from 1081 to 1085 AD, but this fact is of no help when it comes to attribution.

The only other extant muwaisah addressed to the Bani Hid is one by Ibn Labbiin (Jays al-tawsih, section 12, poem 3). The poem begins with four stanzas of conventional amatory

themes. These are followed but two stanzas of panegyric. The final stanza has no real link with those that precede it. The poem has the popular rhyme format ABCB DE DE DE ABCs etc. The metrical pattern is:? Seveve

- [=

-v-e-

The final agsan The Zaytiina manuscript reads:

233

Kharja 31

of gusn 2 seems wrong. I prefer The first cluster of the second section also makes a very

zzati.3 He to adopt Sayyid Gazi’s emendation /i-hi 3, where he reads /i-man neat emendation in the first section of gusn and I have not adopted it. for ‘Iladi.* This, however, is not essential, transcribe the agsan With the emendation to the second gusn, we may as:

cas SI

poll gt ele xl 354

Pt ee

il Y

«

Cady Lay dty 4s

CSE oll Ls

1a ansa id tagannat

hayfa’u fi 'l-samar

_li-hizzati ‘l-watar bi-Sadwih@ wa-hannat min hajri man hajar at taskii ‘lladi tasakk when a slender maid gave voice in the time] [the Let me not forget evening g With her singing, as she yearned for [her beloved and his] playin of the lute, Uttering the complaints she had about the absence of the one who was absent: The kharja then follows. The kharja

This kharja is one of those not dealt with by Stern. Garcia Gomez mentions it only briefly,5 and the fullest discussion of it is in Sola-Solé’s Corpus (pp.83-85). A high proportion of it is in Arabic, but it so happens that the difficulties lie with the Arabic rather than the Romance. Section 3 is particularly important, as it raises questions about the use of mamma. Section 1 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

quark

The letters read: = alif- break - mim, mim - break - ta’, niin, ta’ - break - lam, alif,

a’

ya mm tnt lab There is no vocalization.

234

Romance Kharjas

The al-Nifar manuscript has:

Of Ge C» ya mm tnt lab The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

ya mm tnt lab

cl

a

It is clear that the ¢ of the al-Nifar and ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscripts is an erroneous attempt to arabicize tnt.° The rhyme and the Arabic

metrical pattern give us ya mamma tonto labu. Clearly the second cluster should be taken as mammd, and we may perhaps refine tanta to tentu by reference to Kharja 2: ya mamma tontu labu Section 2 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

llysyils

The letters read: dal, alif - break - alif, lam, waw, ‘ayn, dal - break - dal, alif - break alif, lam, ha’, jim, jim

da 'l-w‘d da 'I-hjj There is no vocalization. The al-Nifar manuscript has:

da'l-wdda'I-hij

Pew le

The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

s l l e s p i l $ s see

The

second

and

fourth

clusters

are

Arabic,

and

so

we

may

confidently read the section as da ‘-wa‘do da ‘I-hujaj. The fact that

hujaj is a feminine word leads me to believe that once again the da

that

precedes

a

feminine

noun

is

a

version

of

the

Romance

preposition de and not the Arabic masculine singular demonstrative.

The initial da, which precedes a masculine word, is clearly parallel to

235

Kharja 31

it. This in turn points very strongly to the final vowel of the second cluster being the i of the Arabic genitive, as required by Arabic prepositions. The section thus reads: da ’l-wa‘di da ’I-hujaj

It means: “of promises, of pretexts”. What we appear to have in the first two sections is a Romance kam u.. min ‘how many .....!’.

calque fantu ...... da for the Arabic

Section 3 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

eke

.

e

? er

0

The letters read: dal, ‘ayn - break - ha’, jim, ra’ - break - mim, mim - break - g4f, 1a’, ‘ayn d‘ hjr mm qt‘ There is a fatha on the dal of the first cluster and a sukun on the jim of the second cluster. The al-Nifar manuscript has:

Gaae tee

d‘ hjr mm qt‘ The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

nen,

FE

The third cluster appears to be mammd once again. The other three clusters are Arabic. The only way that I can see to read the section is: da‘ hajri mamma qat‘i It is at this point that the problem of the use of mamma becomes acute, for it is the second time that the word has occurred in the kharja. Yet there was no reference to the girl’s mother in the final set of agsan, merely a general complaint about being forsaken by the beloved. It is therefore natural for the kharja to contain a plea to the beloved to end his neglect. In my view, this is the basic thrust of section 3. The first, second and fourth words are da‘ hajri, qat‘i ‘give up [your] forsaking of me, [your] shunning of of me’. The construction and meaning of these three words are straightforward, with the masculine singular imperative da‘ clearly referring to the

236

Romance Kharjas

absent

beloved.

However,

it

leaves

unexplained, between Aajri and qat i.

us

with

One can either try to explain the mamma

mamma

poised,

or have recourse to

emendation. Sola-Solé, believing that mamma is the crucial word, emends. He reads d‘[y] hgr m(n) qt‘ which he understands to be da‘i hagra man qati‘. He translates this as ‘Deja (permite) el romper de quien embarazado calla’. He appears to me to have made a complete hash of it. The meaning is poor, the rhyme is wrong and the metre is destroyed.

If we

understand

mamma

as an exclamation,

such rewriting

becomes unnecessary. Exclamations, including several that break up

the normal

flow of the language,

are not uncommon

in Arabic

poetry, and we have already seen one of the most common of them,

bi'llahi ‘by God’, in Kharjas 5 and 27. One

of the less common

exclamations includes the word ‘mother’: waylun li-ummika ‘woe to your mother’. With such well-known phrases as analogues, it would

be quite natural to use mamma as a colloquial exclamation, no doubt with much of the flavour of the Italian mamma mia. I see no

difficulty with ‘Give up [your] forsaking of me, mamma abandoning of me.

mia, [your]

Section 4 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

siete

~ The letters read: fa’, alif, lam, qaf, ta’, ‘ayn - break - fa’, ya’ - break - sin, mim, jim

Sl-qt' by smj

There is no vocalization.

The al-Nifar manuscript has:

fl-qt' by smj

sored,

The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

flat‘bysm

©

%

‘

The section is entirely in Arabic. There is one problem. The second

cluster can be read as fy or by. The writing looks slightly more like /y than by, but in our manuscripts the two clusters are virtually

237

Kharja 31

t, interchangeable. The use of the preposition fi ‘in’ would be difficul is this but me’, to bi ‘in me’ could bear the meaning ‘when it happens not is me’, slightly forced. Another prepositional phrase, /7 ‘for infrequently confused with by/fy, and I feel that this is likely to have happened here. I therefore read: f-al-qat‘u Ii samaj

‘Being forsaken is nasty for me’. When the four sections are put together, my base text is: ya mamma tontu labu da‘ hajrimamma gat‘

da ’I-wa‘di da ’I-hujaj _f-al-qat‘u Ii samaj

NOTES

ee

1.

5. 6.

This is similar to poem 2 of section 5, attributed by Ibn al-Khatib to Ibn al-Rafi' Ra’suh, but to al-Husri by al-Safadi in the Tawsi' al-tawsth (poem 48). That poem also occurs in the ‘Uddat al-jalis (poem 92), but without attribution. In terms of Arabic scansion the metrical pattern is based on the rajaz metre. Sayyid Gazi, Diwan al-muwassahat al-andalusiyya, 1, p.21. With this emendation the section means: ‘When she complained to the one to whom she

complained’.

Garcia Gomez does mention this kharja briefly in the introduction to the second edition of Las jarchas romances (pp.24-25), but he has nothing illuminating to say.

The cluster tnt gives no sense in Arabic, but tnt can be read as tanat ‘she folded’. This does

not, of course, make sense in the kKharja, but the verb of which fanat is a form is not

uncommon in the muwassahat.

238

Kharja 32 Section 5, poem 10 Li-l-hawa fi 'Il-qulubi asraru by Ibn al-Rafi‘ Ra’suh The themes of the poem are amatory. Though conventional manner, the writing is not without style and vigour. The kharja is introduced fairly gusn of stanza 5, the gusn having virtually no material that has preceded it.

they are treated in a a certain amount of abruptly by the last connection with the

The poem is agra‘, having the format AB AB AB CDED etc. The

metrical pattern is:

The final agsan The Zaytiina manuscript reads:

peter -tileensss) eleibe

egehislisl hydatleness

DhgSapar. (selblae D2 lbse’

We may transcribe this as:

cafes |e

etl GEG > Sl

semmall Gai GH

orl got U5 Y tee fs

cal

ye ste

anta hibbi ya gayata 'I-husni

GE YY ola OS _fa-bima tastarib

nam hani'an Id zilta fiamni —_anta anta ’I-habib kam fatatin li-ummihé tabki —‘inda xawfi ’l-raqib You are my beloved, O wondrous beauty. What makes you so

suspicious? Enjoy your sleep, may you always remain safe. You, you are my

beloved. How many a young maiden speaks allusively to her mother when she fears the raqib:

The kharja then follows.

239

Kharja 32 The kharja

Section 1 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

The letters read: ba’, ‘ayn, niin, alif - assumed break - ya’, Sin - break - lam, mim, ha’, sin - break - alif, niin - break - lam, ha’, ta’ b‘nd ys Imhé an Iht There is no vocalization. The al-Nifar manuscript has:

G25) G2 whe b‘nd yS Imht on lht

The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

ca hp

oe

8

b‘na y§ lmh(?)t an lht

The construction of the first section is dominated by the last two clusters. These have been generally agreed to be the Arabic in luhtu ‘if I appear’. I can see no good argument against this reading. If we accept it, we have an Arabic conditional structure, and it is reasonable to look for another perfect verb that completes the conditional. That verb could be provided by the reading in the al-Nifar and ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscripts /mht, which could be vocalized as Jumihtu. However, I think it possible that the sin that we find in the /hms in the Zaytiina manuscript could point to a colloquial verb + a pronominal first person singular suffix, Jamahni ‘he (the ragib) will see me’. Whether we read this or /umihtu ‘I will be seen’ makes no difference metrically. In either case we have = ~ - - to be covered by the cluster (or clusters) b‘ndys. The only likely vocalization pattern for this is bo‘andyes. This carries no obvious interpretation, nor has any convincing emendation been suggested. There seems no alternative to treating the cluster as corrupt. It seems that the furthest we can advance is: tbo‘onadyast lamahni in luhtu

240

Romance Kharjas

Section 2 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

The letters read:

peed

kaf, mim - break - ha’, lam, sin - break - mim, nin - break - ya’, dal,

ya’

km hls mn ydy There is a sukiin on the mim of the first cluster.

The al-Nifar manuscript has:

Grepleg

km hl mn ydy The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

pepal .e

km hls mn ydy . The explanations of Garcia Gémez and Sola-Solé? let us down here.

They never even mention that three of the four clusters can be read

as Arabic: kam .... min yaday ‘how many/much .... from my hands’ i.e. ‘how much .... am responsible for’. This Arabic reading is is not

necessarily the correct one, but it is simple and deserves serious consideration. The fact that we have had fi yaday as a rhyme earlier

in the poem is not against the use of min yaday here. The meanings of

the two phrases are quite different, and the use of min yaday would

not be regarded as clumsy repetition. My own feeling is that kar ....

min yaday could be used with either an Arabic or a Romance word. Having said this, I must also add that I think that Garcia Gomez’s

emendations to the three clusters are neat and reasonably easy to accept.

His

reading,

kon

.... me

berey,

Sola-Solé, though in a modified way. because it needs no emendations.

also

found

favour

with

I prefer the Arabic solely

With the other cluster, A/5, Garcia Gomez and Sola-Solé differed sharply. This is one of the places in which Garcia Gomez tried to

introduce one of his pet readings gildés, here transmogrified to hilds. Sola-Solé politely describes this as ‘extremadamente dudoso’. He then goes on to suggest a minor emendation to allow him to read

males. This seems quite plausible, and could, I feel, be fitted to the

Arabic metrical requirement of -

- . It is difficult to guess how the

second vowel might have been pronounced, but this is a minor point.

241

Kharja 32

this cluster as Arabic. There is no way that I can see of reading Somewhat tentatively I read: kam ?malo8? min yaday

Section 3 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

The letters read:

ebb Alls»

ra’ ba’, waw, nin - break - ba’, lam, alif, sin - break - mim, ta’, alif,

break - alif, waw - assumed break - lam, ha’, ta’ bwn blag mtar aw lht There is no vocalization. The al-Nifar manuscript has:

G2yJ yj

jo)

bwn blag mtar aw lht The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

.

eh

oy

tr,

* He bwn b1as mtar ow lht“ty / oP section comes at the this in problem biggest the see, can As far as I to be Arabic. Both assumed been again has that end in material ow /ht is wrong, that believe to appear Sola-Solé and Gémez Garcia and I think that it is fair to argue that the last three letters are a careless repetition from section 1. However, I am not convinced by their suggested emendations. Garcia Gémez’s abahtu is weak in meaning and unmetrical, whilst Sola-Solé’s aw limtu uses the passive of the verb /ama in a way that is not found elsewhere in the extant material and requires other emendations in the rest of the section. I would emend the last part of the section to awSaktu ‘I have been on the point of’, ‘I have almost’.* We now have seven syllables ( =» - - = -~ ) to cover the first three clusters. Garcia Gomez’s macaronic bono balas matare does not fit this metrical pattern, but with an almost routine emendation

at the

end of the second cluster to give blasy instead of bias, we can read bin bi-last® mattari.° For the whole section we now have: biin bi-lasi mattari ?awSaktu? The meaning is clear enough: ‘I have been on the point of killing a good man for nothing’ (through being seen by the raqib).

242

Romance Kharjas

Section 4 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

Sal

The letters read: mim, mim, alif - break - ‘ayn, nin - break - kaf, fa’, ra’, alif, ya’ mma ‘n kfray There is a Sadda on the second mim of the first cluster.

ey

The al-Nifar manuscript has:

mm ‘n kfry

The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

4 Mu

‘mn ‘nkfry The reading of the Zaytiina manuscript is not too far from the original text, but both the al-Nifar and the ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscripts show further deviation. Restoration from other kharjas is straightforward. We must read:

mammi gar ki-foray Together the four sections provide a mixture of the clear and the doubtful, with an apparent serious corruption at the beginning: tbo‘onadyo8} lamahni in luhtu kam ?malo8? min yaday biin bi-la3i mattari ?awSaktu? mamma gar ki-foray

oe

SS

SS

NOTES

6.

In terms of Arabic scansion the metrical pattern is a derivative of the xafif metre. Las jarchas romances, pp.342-3 and Corpus, p.8l.

See Corpus, p.81.

If we take the view that the second /hr is due to a miscopying, we can only guess at @ suitable

verb. The manuscript text can give us no guidance, For /asi ‘nothing’, see Corriente, Spanish Arabic Dialect Bundle, 1.4.4, note 23, p.30. For mattari see Kharja 5.

243

Kharja 33 Section 6, poem 1 Rahatu 'l-adibi by al-Kumayt The metrical The poem has the format ABCD EF EF EF ABCD etc. pattern is:'

Senve

-[F-¥--(-)

section is This metrical pattern provides some problems. The first twenty-five very regular throughout, with only one variation in the section, lines that comprise the main body of the poem. The second ns on the other hand, shows great variation. Fourteen of the sectio

have six syllables and eleven have seven. Only two of the seven-

be syllable sections are in the asmat, but that is enough to cause us to . kharja the of 4 and 2 ns sectio of unsure about the length None of this is apparent from the text printed by Garcia Gomez of in Las jarchas romances.* In one of his more shoddy pieces have that ns sectio the of each from le syllab a surgery, he excises seven syllables.2 The poem is light and simple, presenting a succession of stock amatory themes in a conventional manner. The final agsan The Zaytiina manuscript reads:

r—Ep Aas + bts) We may transcribe this as:

asllall 58 (pel Ue

als ol

ach U3)

alt CLs

eet ct fils bi-abi baxilah aqbalat bi-hilah diina ma wasilah

ny Le 98

hiya ‘l-Samsu fi 'l-tal‘ah wa-qawlatin bid‘ah tusdyilu ft 'l-raj‘ah

244

Romance Kharjas

Dear to me as my father is the mean [maiden] — she who is like the sun as it rises —

Who has come forth with cunning and with novelty, Asking about return, without any entreaty:*+

words

that are a

The kharja then follows. The kharja

Section 1 The Zaytiina manuscript has: .

eee |5 tle

The letters read: Ja’, alif, niin, ha’ - break - ‘ayn, niin, dal - break - ha’, ba’, ya’, ba’,

ya

Sanh ‘nd hbyby

The first cluster has two pieces of vocalizaton: a fatha on the fa’ and a damma on the hd’.

The al-Nifar manuscript has:

anh ‘nd hby

eh peta .

The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has: '

1

L

= pot a) \

banh|fanh ‘nd hby This section has been treated both by Garcia Gémez and Sola-Solé as beginning with the imperative ven.’ However, this does not

explain the final Ad’ of the first cluster. It is unconvincing to assume

that fanh is a corruption for fan. Such a corruption does not appear

to occur elsewhere, and from the viewpoint of an Arab scribe there is no reason for preferring fanh to fan, which would be taken as the

very common fa’in ‘and if. It is true that fa’innahu ‘for he ....’, the

fully vocalized form of fanh, is equally common, but the point is that the two clusters are not a source of scribal difficulties. The number of syllables in fa'innahu makes it an impossible reading here, and it appears that we should turn to Romance once more. My own feeling is that the cluster Janh is an attempt to reproduce the Romance imperative ven along with a final vowel, @ form analogous to the gari that is fixed by the rhyme in Kharja 5. On

245

Kharja 33

the basis of what we find elsewhere, the a’ points to the additional vowel having been perceived by the Arabs as a, but that looks doubtful. The best we can do is fano. The next cluster, ‘nd, I take to be the Arabic preposition ‘inda, here meaning ‘to’. The reading of the first two clusters as fana ‘inda

gives us -~ -~ . This is metrical, but it means that the final cluster of the Zaytiina manuscript, habibi, will not fit. The by (hibbi) of the

Nifar and ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscripts breaks the rhyme pattern,

and it seems unlikely that it is a mistake for habibi, as scribes seem normally to be aware of the rhyme. Rather, habibi looks like an attempt by a scribe to salvage a reading. Palaeographically, the easiest emendation is to myby, giving us mibi, and I feel forced to prefer it to anything else. With some hesitation I read: fano ‘inda ?mibi? The meaning is ‘come to me’ or ‘come to my house’. Section 2 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

peasples

The letters read: Sin, ya’, alif, Sin - break - mim, sin, ta’, ra’ Syas mstwr There is no vocalization. The al-Nifar manuscript has:

aber pe

Syas mstwr The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

“

SyaS mstwr

jeep

4

b

_

The problems continue. Despite the remarks made a Sola-Solé about

variants,® it is clear that the manuscripts coincide in reading syas

mstwr. To produce six syllables one can read Saya5o mastiri or Sayas masatiiri, to produce seven syllables the only reading is Soyaso masatiri. There is no way of taking the first cluster as Arabic; the

second one could be taken as the passive participle mastir plus the

first person singular pronominal suffix, but it is difficult to see how it

246

Romance Kharjas

might

make

sense. Whether

others to decide.

it can

be linked

with mesturar is for

I can take this section no further, except to say that Sola-Solé’s emendation Ji te bai5® is both difficult palaeographically and against the reference to ‘return’ in the final gusn. I would think that one of

the six-syllable versions gives a better basis for future consideration,

though the seven-syllable version cannot be ruled out. But it may

well be that the whole section is hopelessly corrupt. We may hazard: WoyaSo? 2mostiri? or 7Soyas? ?mosotiri?

Section 3 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

The letters read:

releeteb

1a’, ra’ - break - ha’, ya’, ra’, ha’ - break - sin, mim, alif, jim, ha’

tr hyrh smajh

There is no vocalization.

The al-Nifar manuscript has:

rode Gate jo

tr hyrh smajh The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

lets

tr hyrh smajh The second cluster presents no problems. It is a noun from the same Arabic root that gave us samaj in Kharja 31. It has the meaning ‘an

ugly thing’, and, prima facie, it looks as though it is a predicate or an object. The first two clusters (or first cluster, as one cannot be sure whether there is a break after the first ra’ or not) are very

problematical. The ingenious attempt by Sola-Solé to interpret the

letters more or less as they stand will not hold up, I am sorry to say.

There is no shred of evidence to support his suggestion that a word at the beginning of a section might begin with two consonants, but plenty to the contrary. Garcia Gomez’s suggestion that tr might stand for ¢w (i.e, 1%) is much more plausible, as Kharja 23a shows that

corruption. However, the remaining unmetrical, and, I suspect, corrupt.

letters

hyrh

are

enigmatic,

247

Kharja 33 It would appear that possible base texts might be:

ttrhyrht samajah or ?¢i? thyrh} samajah

The former is possibly more likely. Section 4 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

Op yall 7

The letters read:

;

-

alif, mim, ta’ - break - alif, dal - apparent break - waw, nin, waw, nun amt ad wnwn There is no vocalization.

The al-Nifar manuscript has:

GO» x9) as) amnt adwnwn The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

} ™

6 Pp rw } ast/ant adwnwn The presence of a ta’ in the Zaytiina manuscript looks like a minor

corruption of the amnt that we find in the al-Nifar manuscript, and it seems fair to try to work with ont as the first cluster. The only likely vocalization pattern is amanta. Romance considerations would appear to point to amanti, but the ending of the word may be doubtful. For reasons explained in Kharja 37, the emendation of the first cluster to im$i, suggested by Garcia Gdmez,’ is impossible. However, I see nothing implausible with his suggestion that the final part of the section is an arabicized form of ad unione. A form wuntn sounds perfectly natural. I would take the final vowel as representing the Arabic first personal singular pronominal suffix, the whole cluster being ad wuniini ‘to a meeting with me’. This makes it possible to suggest a base text of: ?amanti? ad wunini In this form the section has seven syllables, but there is no reason why it should not do so.

248

Romance Kharjas

When we put the four sections together, the base text is far from satisfactory:

fano ‘inda ?mibr?

WoyaSo? Pmostiiri? WoyaS? 2mosotiiri?

ttrhyrht samajah 2¢a? thyrh} samajah

?amanti? ad wuniini

NOTES

In terms of Arabic scansion the metrical pattern is a derivative of the mugtadab metre. Las jarchas romances, pp.348-53. This is a dreadful piece of editing. Not only are the excisions unmentioned; we also have a textual note about one of the first sections, the implication of which is that the other

sections are textually intact. The reader is inevitably deceived, whether by intention or not.

The phraseology of impreciseness of the novelty, but it has a undoubtedly register

the translation tries to convey some of the apparently deliberate language of the original. The word bid‘ah in gusn 2 basically means further range of meanings, including ‘heresy’. Some of these would with the hearer.

a

Las jarchas romances, p.352; Corpus, p.142. Corpus, pp.142-3. Las jarchas romances, pp.352-3.

249

Kharja 34 Section 6, poem 9 Lawahizu ‘l-gidi tayyamat qalbi by al-Kumayt We have already met this poem. It is to be found in the ‘Uddat al-jalis

(poem 193, Kharja 15), but there it has a different kharja. I will not repeat the remarks with which I introduced Kharja 15, but it will perhaps help to set out again the metrical pattern: This is augmented simt lines.

by an extra section of two long syllables in the

The final agsan The version in the Zaytiina manuscript is:

There are two minor variants from ‘Uddat al-jalis poem 193. I would again propose to read the last word of the first gusn as nahdayki:

AGS Ge) ealhd whe

ehie ch gl’ Y

ee te gly Cle

xudi fu’Gdi rahina nahdayki 1é tumtilini bi-lahmi xaddayki Sfa-qultu wa-'l-nawmu haswu ‘aynayki Take my heart — the prisoner of your breasts; Do not fail me in the promise you have made of the flesh of your cheeks. Then I said, with sleep filling your eyes: The kharja then follows.

250

Romance Kharjas

The kharja

Section 1 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

dyypholinr, Sy

a

The letters read: lam, alif - break - kaf, alif, niin - break - ba’, waw, niin - break - alif, sin, mim, dal, waw, ra’, ya’

1a kan fy bwn asamdwry There is no vocalization.

The al-Nifar manuscript has:

spphw\spboKy 1a kan fy bwn asamrwr

The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

JSS Laie si tele 1a kan fy bwn asamrwr If we heed the Arabic metrical pattern and the rhyme and what we have learned from other kharjas about the word bwn, there is only one way of vocalizing the section. It is: 14 kana fi biinu asamadiri Section 2 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

The letters read:

ha

Sa’'(?), mim, alif ma

There is no vocalization. The al-Nifar manuscript has:

a

Sma

‘

251

Kharja 34 The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

Ju ’

ma

z the first vowel should be long, we should read famd or famma.

Sola-Solé is right to say that the first and second sections should be taken together and that Garcia Gomez is wrong in trying to link

section 2 to sections 3 and 4. However, that is about the only correct statement that he makes about the line. Both editors ignore some basic rules of Arabic grammar, though at the same time they assume that the kharja has high register features, in which case such rules cannot be flouted. Garcia Gémez’s Jakinna and Sola-Solé’s li’anna both require an accusative as the next word. It is impossible to have /akinna si or I’anna la kana. In addition, 1d kana is optative in meaning. It cannot be taken as a simple statement. Finally, Sola-Solé is wrong to suggest that his reading for the second section, fumd, an accusative, can be the subject of the sentence (though this might have been true if it followed his /i’anna immediately). All this is rather strange as the first three clusters, /@ kana fi, have a fairly obvious meaning in Arabic: ‘may there not be in/concerning .”. On the other hand, I do not think that the second section, which both Garcia Gémez and Sola-Solé have taken as Arabic, is Arabic. I would prefer a Romance reading such as fama. This could be the subject of the sentence. The fact that fama is feminine whilst the verb kana is masculine is not a difficulty. Provided that a phrase is interposed between the verb and the subject, Arabic allows a sentence to begin with a masculine verb even if the subject is feminine. The remaining cluster, asGmardri, would appear to be best taken as Romance, though in theory it would be possible to detach the final moarari and attempt to read it as the Arabic murari ‘my passing by’. It may be that the cluster conceals something like amadiri, though this would need another syllable to be added at the beginning of the cluster — which looks very difficult. Something like addurmidiri would be more difficult palaeographically, though not impossible. It would have the great advantage of picking up the words of the final gusn. However, I leave Romance scholars to pursue the problem. The cluster looks corrupt but susceptible of emendation. The base text I would offer for the two sections together is: 1a kana fi biinu tosamodirit | fama

252

Romance Kharjas

Section 3

The Zaytiina manuscript has: a"

’

’

SP OF LPP C= 3) ‘

The letters read: alif, lam, waw, - break - mim, break - sin(?), alwd sny nwn

dal waw ra’, mw

- break - sin, niin(?), ya’ - break - niin, waw, niin - possible break - mim, waw - break - sin, ra’, ya’ya’ mw sry [s(?2)ry]

There is no vocalization. The other versions indicate that the final

cluster here is due to dittography. The al-Nifar manuscript has:

jr yy uypensy} alwd bsny nwn mw mw nrwnr

The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

LPPOD Gahy|

alwd mny/sny nwn mw mr zyr

The third and fourth clusters are less closely linked than the first and

the second, because the fourth cluster is a vocative phrase that can stand on its own. As Sola-Solé has observed,! Garcia Gomez’s reading obridard-se-le? is a rewriting of the manuscript that is

unconvincing in itself. The fact that he linked it to section 2 further

weakened his case. Sola-Solé’s al-waddu is technically simple, but it inappropriate as far as the meaning of wadd is concerned. It is no good searching Kazimirski’s Dictionary (or any other, for that

matter) for suitable meanings and then to plump for what appears to be most appropriate, if in doing so he lights on a meaning that is contrary to usage in the extant corpus. That is what has happened here. There are no examples of wadd being used in the sense of either hubb ‘love’ or habib or hibb ‘beloved’. The word is used exclusively in the sense of ‘affection, high esteem’, and it is most frequently used in proposing the health of someone, That is not appropriate here, and the emendation should be discounted. A slightly more difficult

emendation palaeographically is to drop the /am of the cluster to produce a reading awaddu. As the rest of the section seems to be

Romance, I would not be particularly keen to take awaddu as

classical Arabic, with the sense ‘I want’, but the colloquial meaning ‘I

253

Kharja 34

rest of the section would want him to ..’ may just be possible. The Two small emendations have to be vocalized sanaya niin mii mariri. leave my base text at a could turn this into sanari nan mi muriri. I will very tentative:

?awaddu? 2sonore? niin 2m? moriri

Section 4 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

The letters read: ya’, alif, mim, alif yama There is no vocalization. The al-Nifar manuscript has:

Jos

The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

Lib

.

ya ama Despite the first alif of the Zaytiina manuscript and the double alif of the al-Nifar and ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscripts, I believe that we have a form similar to the y-ummi of Kharja 6, but with the -i of the first person pronominal suffix being replaced by the indefinite accusative vocative because of the rhyme. The obvious reading is:

y-umma.

Putting the two lines together, we problems, though not so severe as those in 1a kana fi biinu tosamodirit 2awaddu? ?sonors? niin ?mi? ?moriri?

NOTES

1. 2.

Corpus, p.147. Las jarchas romances, p.323.

have a text Kharja 15: foma ~=y-umma

with

various

254

Kharja 35 Section 8, poem 1 Ya man sala minhu ‘Ijafnu by al-Manisi

The poem is yet another of those that begin with two stanzas of

amatory themes, then two of panegyric, and finally a loosely connected stanza introducing the young girl who is to sing the Kharja. The name of the dedicatee is something-of a problem because

of a textual difficulty.! It is either Ibn ‘Abd Allah or ‘Abd Allah. He

is referred to as a minister, but this is too vague for us to be able to

identify him further. The style is conventional and rather pedestrian. The poem has the format ABCB DE DE DE ABCB etc. The metrical

pattern is:? Be

Fee

Fee

[ee

Eee

The final agsan The text of the Zaytiina manuscript reads as follows:

©)

G

sas!

wank Clire, 5

CO b—-ew

Galas

We may transcribe this as:

ol

eld orbs ely

31 ded

Ye

wa-rubba fatatin gannat wa-taskii lahu id hannat

ce

Ske ys

cad

3 al

1 R55

es

ol US

oglsy

id ja’at li-darih li-bu‘di diyarih

wa-tasdi lamma? an gannat _bi-qurbi mazarih Many a young maiden has sung when she has come to his house, Complaining to him when she has been filled with yearning

because of the distance of his dwelling,

And singing when she has sung about the nearness of their visit:*

2 55

Kharja 35

ee = e more we appear to have fina The kharja then follows. Onc the in ned tio men ma without a mother being

the kharja to mam ; in. e of ms to me to be in a poor stat “The text of the kharja see olé a-S Sol and of Garcia Gomez preservation, and the realizations t away from each other.* I ie drif

can show how far interpretations tual ly Sola-Solé’s version, as he vir the gravest reservations about rly ula tic par cia Gomez’s suggestions, rewrites the whole kharja. Gar ng. in section 3, are much more tempti

The kharja

Section 1 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

Je

-

t

ples ve

. sc The letters read: , - break alif , ya’ ak - bre gayn, ra’, ya’, mim - break - alif, mim

mim, mim - break - alif, kaf, nun

grym am ya mm akn There is no vocalization. The al-Nifar manuscript has:

‘rym am ja mm akn

¢

,

C

The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

wl élldp

grym am ya mm akn This is a difficult section. We may instantly dismiss Sola-Solé’s gari-me ya ma(m)ma ke no: the rhyme requires a vowelless consonant before the final nu. Garcia Gomez’s Garé-mé ya mamma! Kanno is a more serious proposition. The dialectal kannu’ ‘as if’, ‘it is as if does fit the rhyme, and it also offers the possibility of reasonable meaning. However, there are two problems: kannu is a word that one would normally expect to come at the beginning of a section (though its position here could be due to the rhyme); and, slightly more seriously, reading kannu leaves us to deal with an unattached alif. One can argue that this should be transferred back to the cluster mm, but it is hard to see why the final alif should have become detached and the second mim written with a final form.

256 Neither

Romance Kharjas objection

is

overriding,

and

kannu

deserves

serious

consideration. Garcia Gomez is surely right to take the penultimate cluster as

mamma, and before that we have the vocative ya, pronounced here, as in many other places, as yd. It also seems reasonable from the evidence of other kharjas to read the first cluster as gari-mi, or something similar. However, if one reads gari-mi, there are problems with the second cluster, am. Garcia Gomez robustly excises it. Now am may well represent an error of some sort, though not any of the more obvious ones such as dittography. The excision is therefore problematical.

Despite these problems, there was a long period when I felt that Garcia Gomez’s realization was a fair one. Thus it was with some

dismay that I eventually realized that it is possible to make sense of

the manuscript version as it stands. This is by reading: gari-m’, am ya mamma aknu

The meaning is relatively straightforward: ‘speak to me [clearly], or, mamma, I will speak allusively’.’? As this realization requires no emendation, I prefer it, though I have an uneasy feeling that it might be a neat attempt to read a section where underlying corruption that we cannot spot.

the

text

has

some

Section 2

The Zaytiina manuscript has:

The letters read:

weclio

ya’, ra’, ta’, alif, ba’ - break - dal, ya’, ha’ yrtab dyh

There is no vocalization.

The al-Nifar manuscript has:

yrtab dwyh

2o7thy,

The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

“wd § ? Rol yrtab dwyh

V

The reading dyh in the Zaytiina manuscript has caught the attention, and it has, almost inevitably, been linked with speculation about the

257

Kharja 35 Romance

for two reasons. Firstly,

dia. This has been unfortunate

with dyh the section would appear to be a syllable short, and there is no straightforward emendation to fill the gap. Secondly, it has diverted attention from the other reading offered by the manuscripts. This

which

is dwyh,

occurs

in

both

the

al-Nifar

and

the

‘Abd

al-Wahhab manuscripts. It seems highly unlikely that dwyh is a scribal correction for dyh,

and it should be taken as a reading in its own right. Fully vocalized

we can read it as dawiyyah ‘my family’, and the section stands as a straightforward piece of Arabic: yartabu dawiyyah ‘my family has doubts about me’. As this also fits the context of the final agsan, I see no reason why we should not read: yartabu dawiyyah

Section 3

The Zaytiina manuscript has:

Lake b>

The letters read:

mim, ra’ - break - nin, alif, ya’ - break - alif, sin, ta’, alif, ra’ -

break - mim, mim, alif mr nay astar mma There is no vocalization. The al-Nifar manuscript has:

Je )do J Ghy mr bay astar mma

The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

la)

Solaby

m yay astar mma

This section shows Garcia Gomez at his best. His version, based on the Zaytiina manuscript, is morro dé mi ‘ntizar mamma. The second, third and fourth clusters are all emended, with changes that are neat

and

technically

convincing.

There

is a problem

because

Garcia

Gomez simply counts the number of syllables and takes no account of the fact that he has a long fourth syllable and a short fifth syllable,

whereas the rest of the poem has a short fourth syllable and a long fifth syllable. To get the pattern of the other lines it is necessary to take

the

second

cluster

(bay/ndy/ydy

in

the

manuscripts)

as

a

258

Romance Kharjas

corruption of an original gi. That is difficult, but it is not impossible,

If we accept the emendation to di, we have (in arabicized spelling): murru di ’ntizari mamma Here the final vowel of ‘ntizdri is the shortened form of the first person singular pronominal suffix.

This is what we might call the gamblers’ version. It is well worth

consideration. A much more cautious approach is also possible. This was shown by Heger.® He reads mew ..... estar mamma. One might

have doubts about the initial mi, because the text is then viewed as lapsing into uncertainty, but estar needs no emendation to the text in the Zayttina manuscript. Presumably the second letter was originally either a Sin or the niin, ta’ of Garcia Gomez’s reading. If it was a sin, the dots have dropped out in the Zaytiina manuscript, whilst the sad of the al-Nifar and ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscripts shows assimilation

to the following 1a’. Sola-Solé’s mio mali estare mamma

has little to

commend it. The reading mali is unconvincing, and estare again gives us a long fourth syllable. The ultra cautious version would be: mr ?ayt 2astar? mamma, though perhaps one could move with Heger to: Imi? } ay} Postar? mamma

Section 4 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

The letters read: alif, sin, ra’, ya’(?) - break - alif, lam, lam, sin, ba’(?), ya’, ha’ asry ‘Ulsbyh There is no vocalization. The al-Nifar manuscript has:

nals mor) The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

Aad) lap | asry ‘Ilssh

Both Garcia Gomez and Sola-Solé take the section This appears to be correct, though the second conceivably be Romance. The section shows in a variations that may surface in the interpretation of

to be Arabic. cluster could vivid way the Arabic words

259

Kharja 35

when the context is uncertain. Garcia Gomez takes asry as being from the root ‘sr ‘to take prisoner’. He to have considered any other possibility. Sola-Solé different stance and emends two of the letters to read

the first does not takes a abrad. I

cluster appear totally am not

the first convinced by either of these views. One can take asry as asri,

is person singular imperfect of sara. The basic meaning of the verb ‘to travel by night’, and it has a secondary meaning of ‘to travel surreptitiously’. This opens up a new range of meanings for the final

cluster.

I prefer

to

read

bi-'-lasiyyah

‘in secret’.

This

requires

iyya minimal emendation and gives good sense. We may treat las(s) some in survive still which of forms gous as a colloquial form (analo colloquials) derived from the verb /assa, a synonym of dassa ‘to conceal’ according to one of the major Arabic-Arabic dictionaries,

the Taj al-‘aris.° Alternatively, one could emend to bi-'l-‘asiyyah ‘at night’. This is easier but as with several that concerning the can be given for the

linguistically, as ‘asiyyah is a well-known word, of the other textual problems in this poem (e.g. name of the dedicatee), no reasoned explanation occurrence of the corruption. I read:

ast bi-’I-lasiyyah

When put together, the four sections give us a better text than might have been expected from the poor manuscript versions. However, it should be remembered that it relies heavily on emendations. yartabu dawiyyah gari-m’ am ya mamma aknu asri bi-’I-lasiyyah murru di ’ntizari mamma [2mii? ¢?ayt Postar? mamma]

NOTES

1.

The manuscript version has 9 syllables: tamakkanta ‘bna ‘Abdi ‘Ilahi. This has been dealt with in various ways. Garcia Gomez has the totally impossible Bn, without any vowel

(Las Jarchas romances, p.362). Sola-Solé (Corpus, p.186) omits the ‘bn. Naji (Jays al-tawsth, p.110) and Sayyid Gazi (Diwan al-muwassahat al-Andalusiyya, 1, 318) appear to

ignore the problem. I think that Sola-Solé is probably right in reading ‘Abda ‘Ilahi.

3.

In terms of Arabic scansion the metrical pattern is a derivative of the mugtadab metre. a is one of the places in which /amma appears to lose its gemination and is to be read

4.

as lamd. The Arabic mazarih means ‘his visit’, but from the first ae rst gusn iti would appear that she isi

5.

See Las jarchas romances, pp.364-5 and Corpus, p.186.

6. 7.

See the kharjas of ‘Uddat al-jalis, poems 239 and 240. Amis a common o1 word meaning ‘or’; $ the cor; pus also contains i a fairi number of the verb kand ‘to speak allusively’, from which the form aknu comes. ibe

2

Sh Sees

260

:

Romance Kharjas

It is also possible to read to last word of the section as uknu, the imperative of kana, though

this is technically not so easy, as one would normally expect elision of the first vowel of the imperative. With the reading uknu, the particle am would have the force of bal ‘or rather’, ie.

‘Speak openly or, rather, allusively’. This could be taken as referring to the mother - there is no special feminine form for the dialectal Andalusian imperative - or, by assuming that

8. 9.

mamma is exclamatory (as in Kharja 31), to the beloved. Deutungen, p.161.

Taj al-‘ariis, .s.v. lassa (Kuwait ed., vol. 16 [1976], p.478). The form /asiyyah suffers the same loss of gemination that we have already seen in, for example, Kharja 13 and Kharja

14,

261

Kharja 36 Section 9, poem 8 Bi ahyafu ‘l-qaddi by Ibn al-Sayrafi The

poem

is a medley

of conventional

amatory

and

panegyric

themes. It begins with two amatory stanzas and then moves to two of panegyric. The dedicatee is a member of the Marwanid family, by name ‘Abd al-Mun‘im,! but we know no more about him than that. The fifth stanza appears to be linked to the preceding two by the phrase min Si‘rihi ‘of his poetry’ in the first gusn, but the connection is very loose. The poem has the rhyme format AABAAB CDE CDE CDE AABAAB etc.

The metrical pattern is:?

The division of the lines into three sections of six, six and four syllables looks to have posed some technical problems for the poet, and in the majority of the lines the third section seems somewhat loosely attached to the other two. The final agsan The Zaytiina manuscript reads:

‘

4 riage

ass

Ch ceassal

We may transcribe this as:

art oe

Ot

om os

pel lb Os ral Gee

ott las

ae id eS

135 pts

cee 5

clu

262

Romance Kharjas kam gadatin gannat,

_fi tarfiha 'I-sihru,

taskii wa-gad hannat — id massaha 'l-durru

min Si‘rihi

min hajrihi

qdlat wa-gad junnat —lammdé bada@'I-durru min tagrihi How many a young maiden, in whose glance is magic, has sung some of his poetry, Complaining, having been filled with yearning, when the harm of being forsaken by him has touched her. She has said, having been filled with the madness of passion when the pearls of his teeth could be seen:

The kharja then follows. The kharja Section 1

The Zaytiina manuscript has: ;

yard}

,

The letters read:

ba’, kf, alif, lam, ha’ - break - alif, lam, ‘ayn, qaf, dal bkalh ’I‘qd With the first cluster there are fathas on the ba’ and the kaf. There is also a damma

on the ha’, but there can be no doubt

wrong. The al-Nifar manuscript has:

Jaw) ai

that this is

e

bkalh 'I'qd The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

bkalh 'I-‘qd ue Nd y The section is linguistically mixed. There can be no real doubt that the first word is the Romance bakdla", whilst the second is the Arabic 'L‘iqdi ‘the string of pearls’. It has hitherto been assumed that ‘-‘igdi is a following genitive, but I have doubts about this. First, there is

problem of euphony. The hiatus produced by -a' al- is something

that Arabs try to avoid. Further, it would appear that the poet 18 trying to balance sections 1 and 2, and the presence of a form of como in section 2 supports the presence of its Arabic counterpart kain section 1. I would propose to read:

bokalah (ka-)’I-‘iqdi

263

Kharja 36 Section 2 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

The letters read:

dal, lam, jim - break - lam, mim - break - alif, lam, sin, ha’, dal dij lm ’l-shd There is no vocalization. The al-Nifar manuscript has:

hee) dé

There is a sukiin on the hd’ of the third cluster. The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

pel

Im alm ‘Ishd The al-Nifar and ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscripts are corrupt in a way that would probably defy restoration if they were all that we had, but fortunately the text in the Zaytiina manuscript is not too difficult to correct. Again we have a mixed section. The first word is the dalji that we had in section 2 of Kharja 1, though there may be some doubt about the initial vowel. For the second cluster I have no hesitation in accepting km for Im. This gives us the Romance kumu, the equivalent of the ka- inserted in section 1. The last cluster must be the the Arabic ‘l-Suhdi ‘honey’, in the genitive after kumu. The sim of Suhd has become a sin because of the very common omission of the dots of Sin. The section should read:

dalji kumu ’1-Suhdi

The meaning is straightforward: ‘sweet as honey’. Section 3 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

ee

The letters read: ba’, alif, niin - break - ?sin, mim? ban ?sm? There is no vocalization.

264

Romance Kharjas

The al-Nifar and ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscripts have a lacuna from

here to the last letter of the kharja. The first cluster ban has been taken as a form of ven, and it is

difficult to argue against this. Certainly, none of the Arabic readings of ban offer good sense. The second cluster appears to be defectively written. It looks more like sm than anything else. Even if this correctly represented the end of the cluster (indicating an ending -somi), it would leave us a syllable short. Stern’s reading jm and his realization of it as bejami® are attractive, perhaps probable, but

intuitive. The furthest we could go is:

ban (?bayja-?>mi

and it is arguable that we should stop at: ban ???-mi

Section 4

The Zaytiina manuscript has:

The letters read:

pa

ha’, ya’, ta’ - break - jim, ya’ - break - ‘ayn, niin, dal, ya’

hyt jy ‘ndy

There is no vocalization.

The first cluster is intended to be the Arabic haytu ‘where’. This is impossible. The emendation to habibi ‘my beloved’, first suggested by Stern,?

is almost

certainly correct.

The

rest of the section is also

Arabic: ji ‘come to my house’, ‘indi ‘come to me’. The section reads: habibi ji ‘indi Section 5

The Zaytiina manuscript has:

pole > | The letters read:

alif, dal, waw, nin, mim - break - alif, mim, niin, dal adwnm amnd

There is no vocalization.

I see no way of reading the clusters as Arabic. In fact, the section looks similar to section 4 of Kharja 33, for which I proposed e

tentative ?amanti? ad wuniini. It is impossible to accept the amando

preferred by Heger and Sola-Solé,* as the rhyme is in -di. We must read amandi. This was basically the reading of Garcia Gomez,°

265

Kharja 36

stion for the first though he read the final vowel as e. His sugge though the mim ems, probl cluster, adiinam, poses no palaeographical vowel of

to the initial at the end of the cluster has to be linked er the Romance is Wheth amandi to keep the third syllable short. ars to decide. schol acceptable linguistically is for Romance

Sola-Solé’s ad union is difficult palaeographically

and impossible

metrically. My tentative text is: Yadina-m’? amandi Section 6 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

(si=

The letters read: kaf, mim, ya’, waw, mim kmywm There is no vocalization. The al-Nifar and ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscripts have only the final mim of this section.

Both Garcia Gémez’s ke huyéme and Sola-Sole’s como yawmi

show these editors at their worst. The evidence from the previous simt lines is clear. We have had ka- ‘-lahdami, ka-’l-argami, wa-‘andami, safka dami, muxattami, muna“‘ami, ka-'l-daygami, bi-'l-anjumi, jahannami and bi-'l-an‘umi. Even those opposed to the application of Arabic scansion patterns should be able to accept the argument that the two editors have ignored something basic: the rhyme. All the ten examples given above end in -dmi or -uimi. Those with some knowledge of how Arabic rhyme works will know that the rhyme is G/i/dmi. This is not the only problem. Garcia Gémez’s ke huydme, as Sola-Solé notes, ‘presenta dificultades de tipo fonético’. In their place Sola-Solé offers us difficulties of meaning, translating yawmi [‘of a day’ or ‘of my day’] as ‘en otro dia’, which is nonsense. It seems to me that there is one possible way of emending the cluster, based on the assumption that it is Romance. That is to make a very minor change to read the fourth letter as a ra’, turning the cluster into kmyrm. The requirements of metre and rhyme mean that the only possible vocalization pattern is kKamayrami, which one can vocalize intuitively as ki-mayru-mi. This is fairly close to ;Qué muero me!, and seems to me to have much to commend

When

it. I therefore read:

ki-mayru-mi we put the six sections together, we have a text of rather

266

Romance Kharjas

variable quality and certainty:

bokala (ka-)’l-‘iqdi

habibi ji ‘indi

dalji kumu ’l-Suhdi

?adina-m’? amandi

ban ¢?bayja-?)mi

—_ki-mayru-mi

yee

NOTES

His name is given in stanza 3 and that of his family in stanza 4. In terms of Arabic scansion the metrical pattern is a derivative of the rajaz metre. Les chansons mozarabes, p.5S7.

Deutungen, p.162 and Corpus, p.268. Las jarchas romances, pp.374-S.

267

Kharja 37 Section 10, poem 3 Ayyu zabyin gariri by al-Khabbaz The poem is wholly amatory in content. Stanza 3 contains a passing reference to a beloved, ‘Isa. Though the themes are conventional, they are handled in a flowing, classical style that is pleasing in its effect. The poem has the format AABA CD CD CD AABA etc. The metrical

pattern is:* See

Fee

|e

ewe

Fe)

The seven-syllable variation occurs only three times, but two of these are in simt lines,? a factor that has to be borne in mind in dealing with the kharja. Garcia Gomez silently pads out the three sections concerned. Two of his emendations are poor, the third is plausible.? The main body of the poem survives in all three manuscripts, but when we come to the kharja we find it missing in both the al-Nifar and ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscripts. The text of the main body of the poem is not particularly well preserved, though the corrections are for the most part obvious. But they are not a good augury for the text of the kharja. The final agsan The final agsdn are interesting on two counts. They are couched highly classical language, which appears to be a deliberate contrast the kharja; and they include a final gusn that is tangentally linked the previous two, in a way that is parallel to the tangental link that often to be found between the last stanza and those that precede Here we start with two lines about the poet and then have a switch a girl who is singing because, like the poet, she is in love. The Zaytina manuscript reads:

pAals — o3)4bre ’

in to to is it. to

268

Romance Kharjas

We may transcribe this as:

cle colds

tay CL

ph oe SH ples

Ag all ley

ele

hdd

psa

wy

Jadda bi-'l-qalbi wajdu Sa-qadahu li-'l-himam wa-nafa 'l-nawma suhdu _fa-lata hina manami rubba hasna’a tasdu — garamuha ka-garami Love has made haste with my heart and has led it to perdition. Sleeplessness has banished sleep, and it has not been a time for sleeping.

Many a beautiful girl sings because her passion is like mine:

The kharja then follows. The kharja

Section 1 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

The letters read:

Levels a

Sin, alif, ba’, Sin - break - ya’, alif - break - mim, waw, ra’ - break mim, waw, ra’

Sab§ ya mwr mwr There is no vocalization.

The first section is certainly corrupt. Attempts to correct it have been

rather superficial and unsatisfactory. Basically there has been one

correction, to read mw amwr for mwr mwr. This fails to recognize the

difficult palaeographical

problem

of the corruption

of an easily

understood cluster of letters into something incomprehensible. This has already come to our attention with the same cluster amwr in

Kharja 4. It is simply not enough to say that mw amwr has become corrupted to mwr mwr. There is no good reason why that should happen.

If we look at a

possible

slightly larger part of the section, we can find a

explanation.

The

last

three

clusters

together

give

us

yamwrmwr. That could also stand for yamwrmwr. If we now treat the

end of the section as a case of dittography, we can reduce the text to yamwr, which we may properly vocalize as ya@ amiri (or ya umitri if

we are looking for an Arabic alternative).

269

Kharja 37

The reading ya amari fits the last four syllables of the section nicely, and I have little doubt that we should adopt it. However, it

leaves us with the cluster sab to fill the first three syllables -~ - . It is perhaps possible to argue that the cluster represents Sabasa, but that looks doubtful. It appears to be more fruitful to consider the

possibility that the beginning

of the section has suffered

graphy, the reverse of what has happened

haplo-

at the end. If we pursue

this possibility, we have to read the the cluster as Ji-Jabis, with the second vowel short despite the presence of the alif. This would give

us the same vowel quantities that occur if we read si-Sabi§ at the beginning of section 1 of Kharja 20. 1 think that both emendations are justified, and I therefore read: Sabis ya amiri Section 2 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

apres

The letters read: kaf, sad, mim - break - lam, ra’ - break - mim(?), ra’, ya’ ksm Ir m(?)ry There is no vocalization. It is possible to take the last cluster as Iryry, i.e. loriri. That is a reading with no obvious meaning, and if we cannot move beyond it,

there seems little alternative to marking the cluster as corrupt. Garcia

Gomez’s suggestion that we should read it as dormire (or durmiri, as it is likely to have been)* is not impossible, though there are palaeographical difficulties. Equally, there is some chance that his kédo-me might be correct, though it looks something of a long shot. The problem is that one or two syllables are missing, and filling the

gap is sheer guesswork. Sola-Solé’s ke kata-mé el morire looks highly

improbable except for the last cluster. Effectively, the section looks garbled beyond emendation, and we can do little more than: %kodama? .... floririt Anything beyond that is entirely intuitive.

Section 3 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

acbpeellie) a

270

Romance Kharjas

The letters read:

alif, mim, sin - break - yd’, alif - break - alif, mim, Sin - break - kaf,

?, ba’

ams ya ams k?b

There is no vocalization. The defective rhyme word in the text indicates further problems. It is not clear to me

that the corruption should

be corrected to habibi.

This is not just a palaeographical problem. If it is thought likely that we have amari in the first section, it seems slightly doubtful that we

should have habibi in the third. There are other possibilities such as tabibi ‘my doctor’. However, the cluster must remain problematical. The rest of the section was deemed to be straightforward Arabic

by Garcia Gomez and Sola-Solé, but again their judgement seems very poor. The problem lies with the phrase imsi ya ‘mSi. Garcia Gomez set the trend by translating it as ‘Ven ya, ven’.’ This is grotesque. The imperative imsi means ‘Go’, and it is usually not particularly polite.© Thus the reading is without foundation. We must assume that the text is wrong. At the beginning of the section | emendation stands out as simple and probable. It is to read anta (or anti, depending on the gender) ‘you’. Anta/i is followed by ya at least twenty times in the extant corpus, and there are many more occasions when the two words are linked in a different word order. Though this

emendation is easy at the beginning of the section, it is difficult with the second occurrence of the cluster. Ya anta is not found elsewhere in the corpus, and if a trisyllabic word such as habibi is read at the end, the most we have left here is one syllable, and a form ant seems very dubious. There are sections elsewhere, such as anti ya nafsi dibi, that would offer a solution, but they take us too far into the realm of speculation. We can not press further than: ?anta/i? ya toms} 20/Tbi Section 4 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

4°

a! SD oii

~eow

.%

7 seheiy

The letters read: niin, waw, niin - break - Sin, niin, - break - lam, ba’, ra’ - possible break - dal, fa’ - break - mim, ya’, zay, ya’ nwn &n Ibr df myzy There is no vocalization. The section appears to be wholly Romance. The first cluster can be taken as nin, but thereafter the problems mount. Both Garcia

271

Kharja 37

t Gomez and Sola-Solé in effect rewrite the section in quite differen

ways. Garcia Gémez’s non Sey lebar tu huyrt is plausible for the first three words, but the last two seem totally impossible. Sola-Solé’s non Je gin te ber dormire seems highly unlikely, apart from the last word. That could be correct (but not if we were to accept Garcia Gémez’s dormire in the second section). Needless to say there is no possibility of putting the two plausible bits together. The final cluster myzy is clearly an error for myry (i.e -miri). The furthest one can go without resorting to fairly wild conjecture is:

niin Son? lobar? ??miri Put together, the four sections show a sadly corrupt text:

Mkodama? .... floririt niin ?8on? ?lobor? ??miri

SabiS ya amiiri Yanta/i? ya toms} 2i/ibi

NOTES 1. 2. 3.

In terms of Arabic scansion the metrical pattern is a derivative of the mujtatt metre. Inthe second line of the matia‘ and in the second line of the fourth sim. His reading wa-nazarata ‘I-mad ‘ari in the matla‘ puts four short syllables at the beginning of the section instead of the = -~ — that the rest of the poem leads us to expect; and in the third gusn of the third stanza the change from ka-sibin ‘like perfume’ to ka-sabibin ‘like a doctor’ does not help the meaning.

4.

Las jarchas romances, p.382.

5.

Las jarchas romances, p.382. Sola-Solé (Corpus, pp.272-3) translates ven, oh ven, entering

6.

into an argument about yd in which they are both wrong. It is only the imperative that is not polite. It occurs nowhere in the extant poems — except

for

a

proposed

emendation

in

Kharja

33.

The

uncommon in its ordinary meanings of ‘to walk’ and ‘to go’.

verb

masa

is otherwise

not

272

Kharja 38a Section 11, poem 1 Wayha ‘I-mustaham by al-Jazzar + There is some doubt whether Kharjas 38a and 38b should be included

in the ‘Romance corpus’. They were first proposed for inclusion by Professor James Monroe in two articles: The Structure of an Arabic MuwaSiah

with a Bilingual Kharja

[Kharja 38a]? and

Two Further

Bilingual Hargas (Arabic and Romance) in Arabic Muwa¥8ahs [Kharja 38b].3 They are thus not dealt with by either Garcia Gomez

or Sola-Solé. At most there are only two possible Romance words,

which come at the beginning of section 1. The first of these is the notorious mamma and the second a cluster which has been taken by some as Romance and by others as Arabic. The case for Arabic has been presented in detail by Professor Derek Latham in his article The prosody of an Andalusian muwa$ah re-examined.* This vigorous and challenging view of the material would possibly have been somewhat modified if Professor Latham had been able to survey all the examples of the putative Romance Su,

but his conclusions have some force for this poem, and his article is a

useful counterbalance to those in which the Romance element is overstressed. On balance, I think that the manuscript evidence points to some Romance colouration, though it may well be that we are dealing with a kharja with a known linguistic ambiguity in it. There is every likelihood that the line was well-known. Neither set of final agsan contains material that gives it an organic link with the kharja. They

simply provide loose, conventional transitional material. ; ine poem has the format ABA C CC ABA etc. The metrical pattern is: agsan asmat

: Se

eve

vy BB

eve

=

[vn

wee

The poem is amatory, and as all the sections are short, there is a very light,

tripping

effect.

However,

the

repeated

use

of such short

sections causes some problems of expression, which is apparent 10

both poems.

273

Kharja 38a

The final agsan

The Zaytiina manuscript reads:

_lech

els ates! \SelX3)

We may transcribe this as:

isl Lt, ol Jy Clb3! fa-kayfa ‘l-sabil an yasfa ‘l-galil

id zallat tagul How is there a way For the love-lorn one to be cured When she has continued to sing: The kharja then follows. The kharja Section 1 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

dlvlatls The letters read:

mim, mim, alif - break - Sin, ya’, ta’ - break - alif, lam, gayn, lam,

alif, mim mma Syt ‘Iglam There is no vocalization. The al-Nifar manuscript has:

Lim) ye

mma sw 'Iglam

274

Romance Kharjas

The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

é Uy? ple

mma Sw ‘Iglam The reading here is bound to be somewhat arbitrary. One may take

the view that su should be preferred on a 2 to 1 majority reading, or, taking Kharja 38b into consideration, a reading based on Syt on a 4 to 2 majority. As variations do occur in kharjas that are basically the same, I have preferred su here and syt in Kharja 38b. Thus I read: mamma Su ’I-gulam The reader will have to decide whether he prefers Monroe’s Romance to Latham’s Arabic. Section 2 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

Lens

6

The letters read: lam, alif - break - ba’, dal - break - kaf, lam - break - lam, ya’, alif 1a bd kl lya There is a fatha on the /am of the first cluster. The al-Nifar manuscript has:

la bd kl lya

The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

labdid ipa

Lyfut

This is a straightforward piece of dialectal Arabic: 1a bud kullu liyya

‘I must have all of him.’ There is no justification for reading the last

cluster as the Romance diyyd, which serves only to produce a poor meaning. Section 3

The Zaytiina manuscript has:

ep)

275

Kharja 38a

The letters read:

ha’, lam, alif, lam - break - waw, ha’, ra’, alif, mim hlal whram There is a fatha on each of the ha’s.

The al-Nifar manuscript has:

Opes Ube

hlal whram The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

dpr/-

hlal whram This is dialectal Arabic again, second cluster. Though all three a slightly metrical anomaly, and the alternative reading aw haram accordingly: halal

but there is a problem about the manuscripts have wa-haram, there is the meaning is not quite so good as that we find in Kharja 38b. I emend aw haram

The meaning is ‘licit or illicit’. When we put the three sections together, we have the following text, which may or may not contain Romance, depending on one’s views of 5u and mamma: mamma u °I-gulam | 14 bud kullu liyya | halal aw haram

Sep r

NOTES

For a note on al-Jazzar see the beginning of my comments on Kharja 28a.

Edebiyat (Philadelphia), 1 [1976], 113-123. Hispanic Review, 47 [1979], pp.9-24. See Bidwell and Smith (eds.), Arabian

Serjeant, pp.86-99.

5.

and Islamic

Studies:

Articles

Presented

to R.B.

In terms of Arabic scansion the metrical pattern may be derived from the mustagil and mujtatt metres (Latham) or from the mugtadab metre (Sayyid Gazi).

276

Kharja 38b Section 12, poem 7 ‘Asaytu ‘I-liwam by Ibn Labbin

The poem has the same format and metre as that containing Kharja

38a. Like that poem, it passes lightly and loosely through a series of stock amatory themes.

The final agsan The Zaytiina manuscript reads:

7 cts

The first part of the third gusn must be corrected to the reading of the al-Nifar manuscript. With this correction, we may transcribe the text as:

jai Lal

Y

on ag be

dom Ma 1G ansa zaman

ganna fihi man awlani hasan

I shall not forget a time During which there sang the one

Who conferred kindness upon me: The kharja then follows. The kharja

Section 1 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

ps0) asa

277

Kharja 38b

7 The letters read: lam, gayn, lam, alif, mim, mim, alif - break - sin, ya’, 1a’ - break alif, mim mma syt ‘Iglam There is no vocalization. The al-Nifar manuscript has:

gin) ae

mma syt 'Iglam The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has: ‘

“os

s

~

mma Syt ‘Iglam

cluster. Here the manuscripts are united in reading Jyt for the second

Syt! to St, This is impossible. However, it is not difficult to emend form Sti. Romance abbreviated and for which would have to stand three the Sti With it. preceding vowel a This is possible with the problem: any clusters fit the metre without mamma Sti ’l-gulam Section 2

All three manuscripts have the same dialectal Arabic that we saw in Kharja 38a. The Zaytiina manuscript has:

la bd kl lya

ee

The al-Nifar manuscript has:

la bd kl lya

ds) depdt

The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

la bd kl lya

Le [tpt

This gives us once again: 14 bud kullu liyya

Romance Kharjas

278 Section 3

Again we have essentially the same Arabic text that we saw in Kharja

38a, but here the three manuscripts have aw rather than the wa- that they have in Kharja 38a. As mentioned there, aw seems correct.

The Zaytiina manuscript has:

oe ké5))tle

hlal aw hram

The al-Nifar manuscript has:

Cr»JU Me

hlal aw hram

ipiiie

The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

hlal aw hram

Vocalized, this is:

halal aw haram Together the three sections read:

mamma &ti ’I-gulam | 14 bud kullu liyya | halal aw haram

NOTES

1.

In North Africa, where all our manuscripts were copied, 3t would have been associated with 4yt, which is the non-vocalized, written form of Si’ta / Si’ti / Si’tu, parts of the verb Ja’a ‘to wish’, even though this would make no sense.

279

Kharja 39 Section 12, poem 8 Saka jismi by Ibn Labbun

This is yet another conventional poem that moves through a series of stock amatory themes. There is very little linkage between the stanzas, and none at all between the last two. The poem has the format ABCD EF EF EF ABCD etc. The metrical

pattern is:

The final agsan

The Zaytiina manuscript reads:

Luan 45 Leases,

boG,s We may transcribe this as:

Sadly Geet) le

bene Ca}

sel cole Wo

be one

wa-kam hasnd —_maridat wa-lam tadri zahat husna ‘ala ’Il-Samsi wa-l-badri Sadat huzna lama ‘alimat amri* How many a beautiful girl has become ill [with love] without knowing, {a girl who] has outshone the sun and the moon in beauty, [and who] has sung in sadness when she has learned of : The kharja then follows. one

280

Romance Kharjas

The kharja

Section 1 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

ee

The letters read: ‘ayn, zay, ya’, ra’ - break - mim, ya’ ‘zyr my There is no vocalization. The al-Nifar manuscript has:

‘zyz my

eof

The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

Hy" »

‘zyzm(?)y

This is a very problematical

section, which cannot

be understood

without emendation. The accepted view has been that the section is Romance, the first cluster being corrupted from garidi and the second cluster being the first person pronoun mi. This is certainly one possibility, though on the basis of this section alone gariri should be considered to be an alternative. If one takes the section as Romance, the

reading

of the

Zaytiina

manuscript

shows

further

attempted

attempt

at

assimilation

is,

some

assimilation to Arabic and the al-Nifar and the ‘Abd al-Wahhab

manuscripts

still more.

This

however, impossible, as mi is protected by the rhyme. There appears to be no Arabic interpretation, and we appear to be left with: garido mi

Section 2

The Zaytiina manuscript has:

(NS aia

The letters read:

kaf, mim, dal - break - sin, yd’, dal - break - ya’, alif - break - qa, waw, mim

kmd syd ya qum

There is a fatha on the yd of the third cluster.

281

Kharja 39 The al-Nifar manuscript has:

rd

part

kmd syd ya qwm The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

cprbpnspf

kmd syd ya qwum

There can be no doubt about the last three clusters, but the first one is highly problematical. Garcia Gomez emends to kmw ‘como’.? This is possible, but the emendation is not straightforward. The change from dal to waw is easy palaeographically, but, as I remarked in my comments on the final gusn of ‘Uddat al-jalis 157 (Kharja 11), the manuscripts are singularly unhelpful with como. Apart from the incorrect vocalization in Kharja 11, it is spelled km, without any vocalization. Thus kmw introduces an unknown form. Sola-Solé’s knd* is not difficult palaeographically, but it is unmetrical. Heger’s de mew$ is much more plausible.

The best text proposed so far is:

di mii sidi ya qawmu

Section 3 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

nob \d

The letters read: ta’, ra’, alif - break - ba’, alif, lam, lam, ha’

tra b'llah

There is a fatha on the rd’ of the first cluster and a fatha and a Sadda on the second /am of the second cluster. The al-Nifar manuscript has:

nashLJy

tra b'Ilh

The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

tra b'Ilh

on L\7

There is a Sadda on the second /am of the second cluster.

282

Romance Kharjas

Here we are on firm ground. The section is straight Arabic: tura bi-’llah ‘You think, by God’. Section 4 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

wpe The letters read:

sin, mim - break - alif, lam, alif, sin, mim - break - niin, dal(?), ra’, lam sm T’sm nd(?)rl There is no vocalization. The al-Nifar manuscript has:

Wy C7, , sm 'l’sm narl

The ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript has:

,

4

Jie?

Y &

sm 'I’sm narl Though the manuscripts present a united face, the text they offer poses serious problems. Neither Garcia Gomez? nor Sola-Solé* get anywhere solving them, because they fail to appreciate that the rhyme is in -allu. This makes their respective readings, dad-lo and

dar-lo impossible. If we assume that the consonants of this cluster are basically correct, we must read them as nadrallu, to cover the final

three syllables. There is no way that I can see of reading this as Arabic, though I suppose it is possible to contemplate nadrallu ‘the little rare one’ as another hybrid diminutive. With the addition of an alif to the first cluster, we can read the rest of the section as sama ‘l-ismu ‘lofty is the name...’, and we could then take the whole section

as sama ’l-ismu nadrallu ‘lofty is the name Nadrullu’. I am not at all convinced that this is right, though it seems to me a less unlikely reading than the proposed Romance versions. In all probability the text is wrong, and we should not go beyond: tsm *I’sm ndrlt

When we try to put the four sections together, we flounder at the

283

Kharja 39

end, but the first three sections seem not implausible: garids mi

tura bilah

di mii sidi ya qawmu

=. ¢sm *I’sm ndrit

NOTES

e of the sawil metre. In terms of Arabic scansion the metrical pattern is a derivativ

ee

2.

to emend zarat to zahat. There are two textual problems in the agsan. In gusn 2 we have is subject to loss of ‘when’ /ammd where places the of one have to In gusn 3 we appear gemination. Las jarchas romances, p.390.

Corpus, p.94. Heger, Deutungen, p.164.

284

Kharja 40 Section 13, poem 8 Man li-galbi bi-idraki ‘l-wisali by lon Ruhaym The poem is a conventional piece, with little of the vigour displayed by Ibn Ruhaym in the muwasiah that contains Kharja 23b.

Thematically it begins with two stanzas of conventional amatory themes and then moves on to two stanzas of panegyric.!

The final

stanza has no real link with the preceding ones. This treatment recalls

that used by Ibn al-Rafi‘ Ra’suh in the poem that contains Kharja 31.

The poem is agra‘, having the format A A A BBB etc. The metrical pattern is:? agsan

asmat

See

=

Few

eve

|--

-|#e-

“vee

There is a lacuna in the ‘Abd al-Wahhab manuscript at this point, and thus the poem survives in two manuscripts only. As was

mentioned in the introduction,? the surviving versions of the kharja in the two manuscripts are in a very poor state, and we cannot

decipher them unless we assume that they offer the same text as that which has survived in a Hebrew muwaisah by Todros Abulafia,* the text of which appears to be in a good condition.

The final agsan The Zaytiina manuscript reads: 2 82 Gl

$4

} We may transcribe this as: on

ee

peel

eel

ols

Ghu

kes

ge Cael

St!

oe

285

Kharja 40

wa-fatatin dati husnin bahiyyi

a‘rabat ‘an mantiqin a‘jamiyyi tattagi man‘a ‘I-jamali 'l-saniyyi Many a maiden possessed of resplendent beauty

Spoke out in non-Arabic diction, Fearing that she would be denied the magnificent beauty [of her beloved]:

The kharja then follows.

The kharja Section 1 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

werseh

The letters read:

lam, mim, ra’, niin, ya’ - break - alif, waw - break - kaf, dal - break sin, ra’, dal - break - dail, ba’, ya’, ba’

Imrny ow kd Srd dbyb

There is a fatha on the mim of the first cluster. The al-Nifar manuscript has:

Imrny awkr srd byb The Hebrew manuscript has: ky frayw ow ky Syrad d myby This gives us a manuscript indication of the pronunciation of que. It appears to be ki/ki, with the vowel being of variable quantity. In earlier Kharjas the basic form of the second cluster has been farayya. The Hebrew version allows us to modify this to ferayyu. The third cluster still seems to me to be something of a problem, though it has normally been assumed that it represents 0. It could equally well be taken as the Arabic aw, which has the same meaning. I do not see any rational way of deciding between the two. Finally, the Romance de appears in the Arabic texts as da, di and di. Here the latter, with its short vowel, is required. My text is therefore: ki forayyu ow ki Sirad di mibi Section 2 The Zaytiina manuscript has:

—

286

Romance Kharjas

The letters read:

ha’, ba’, ya’, ba’ hbyb

There is no vocalization. The al-Nifar manuscript has:

Gah hs(?)b

The al-Nifar manuscript has managed to mangle a word as common

as habibi ‘my beloved’. The Zaytiina manuscript has it right, though without the final long vowel that we find in the Hebrew manuscript: habibi

Section 3

The Zaytiina manuscript has:

“eae

The letters read: sin|mim(?), mim - break - ba’, ta’, alif, dal, niin - break - dal - break - ha’, sin, ya’, ba’ sm] (?mm) btadn d hsyb There is no vocalization. The al-Nifar manuscript has:

wo odd

no

sm btadn byb

If anything, the two Arabic manuscripts are even worse here than

they were in the first section. Nothing appears to be anywhere near the text of the Hebrew manuscript, though the Zaytiina manuscript

just about manages to indicate the rhyme correctly. The Hebrew version gives us: nwn tytwlgs d myby

If we

heed

the Arabic

scansion

requirements,

must be short. We should therefore move to:

Putting the three sections ki forayyu ow ki Sirad Of this one can recognise the Zaytiina manuscript.

nun ti tulgoS di mibi

the second

syllable

together we have: di mibi | habibi | nun ti tulgo’ di mibi ..... aw ... Sarad ....ibi | habibi |... ibi in Perhaps one can also work out how kfry

287

Kharja 40

have become might have been corrupted to /mrny and how nn might whether doubt I ed, surviv n versio sm. However, if only the Arabic to nn. sm or kfry to /mrny g alterin one could reasonably suggest Caveat lector.

NOTES

‘l-Asbag Ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, whom

we cannot identify with any

The dedicatee is Aba

2,

metre. Interms of Arabic scansion the metrical pattern is a derivative of the madid See p.19.

»

1.

4,

certainty.

Abulafia, survives in For the Hebrew text, which, as with all the muwassahs by Todros p.146. Poetry, Strophic rabic Hispano-A Stern, see only, t one manuscrip

288

Kharja 41 Ma halu 'I1-qulibi by al-A‘ma The muwasSah containing this kharja is preserved in a large biographical encyclopedia al-Waft bi-'l-wafayat by an important

fourteenth century

literary figure al-Safadi,

author of the Tawsi‘

al-tawsih and himself an able wassah.1 It would appear that the muwassah has not been preserved in full, as is often the case with

poems

quoted in Arabic biographical works. There are only four

stanzas in the text, and we second,” has been omitted.

may

assume

that

one,

probably

the

This kharja is not dealt with by Garcia Gomez or Sola-Solé. The first serious discussion in print was as the second half of an article by

Professor James Monroe in the Hispanic Review.> His piece is well thought out, and deserves careful study by readers of this book. We

are given the transliterated text of the poem, a translation and a fair amount of background as well as a detailed analysis of the kharja. If I disagree with Monroe’s analysis, it is mainly because, as he himself

pointed out,* there is room for disagreement.

.

Monroe’s article was the target of some venomous abuse by Angel Ramirez Calvente, whose intemperate tirades disfigured some of the final issues of al-Andalus.5 Ramirez Calvente’s fulminations show all the weaknesses of Garcia Gémez’s later work on the kharjas in a

much accentuated form. His conclusion that this kharja is entirely in Arabic is based on untenable arguments,° and it will not be referred to further.

We have an amatory poem, addressed to a certain ‘Abd al-‘Aziz. As is typical in al-A‘ma’s poetry, even conventional themes are

handled with some imagination and deftness, and, in my view, we are given an interesting twist in the final agsdn.

The rhyme scheme is in the popular format ABCB DE DE DE ABCB etc. The metrical pattern is:7 Sm BB ie ee |X awe B(vyee

The final agsan

Save for the odd missing dot, the text is the same in all three manuscripts. The photocopies are of the Oxford manuscript,® which shows some special problems in the kharja. The agsdn appear as:

289

Kharja 41

AM we lash 6 le wl eas labl § elu ob NE

fou s Le laxl ah

ahead

We may transcribe this as:

loka) Cans”

aL3 sate Cagtawe

Zbl

lela Loli

abd Gad Jib lL

leLadl Cha

dls ae

kasaftu ‘l-gina‘a

mustawhiban minhu qublah

azunnuha minhu xajlah fa-stahya mtina‘a ma qala Qaysun li-‘Ablah a ‘fa-quitu ‘nxida‘ from him the gift of a kiss. seeking I lifted the veil, oachability — I think unappr in away He shrank

bashfulness on his part —

that it was

And I said submissively what Qays said to ‘Ablab: The kharja then follows.

them as being an This is an interesting set of agsan. Monroe takes but it does call utterance of the poet himself. That is not impossible, ates it) to be transl for ‘-gind‘a ‘the veil’ (or ‘my veil’, as Monroe or something s’, shynes taken in a metaphorical sense: ‘the veil of arises from em probl s similar. That is not difficult, but a more seriou e says,° Monro As gusn. the reference to Qays and ‘Abla® in the third mistake a Such a. Opheli this is the equivalent of linking Romeo and poet. the of lips is not one that we should expect from the utterance of the However, it is possible to take the agsan as the a woman of be to ture conjec singer, whom we can reasonably agsan can be the ted, projec being non-Arab origin. With her persona of the lovers names the gets she taken as they stand. In the final gusn Lubna or Qays/ of d instea , ‘Ablah wrong and links Qays and to cap this in the kharja, Qays/Layla or ‘Antarah/‘Ablah. She goes on she sings a piece that is where, instead of the pure Arabic of Qays, the end of the poem is partially in Romance. Looked at this way,

t knowledge of Arabic very funny for any audience with even a modes literature.

290

Romance Kharjas

The kharja

Section 1 The Oxford manuscript reads:

gee Ua! amna ana hbyby

The other manuscripts indicate:

ama ona hbyby

This is Arabic, and to my mind it recalls the first section of Kharja 4.

Though the manuscripts have amnd/amda and hbyby, I have no doubt

that this is incorrect. In my view, the first two clusters are a corruption

of an original aman and that the section should read: amanu habibi Section 2

The Oxford manuscript reads: s

Sb

js

mn qzswny The other manuscripts point to: ntyS mw qrswny

This would appear to be an eight syllable section. In my view, the second and third clusters are the Romance mi qurasini ‘my heart’. This is the only kharja in the Arabic series that preserves the word with a sin rather than the jim that we get elsewhere. Monroe’s speculation on the spelling is worth quoting: The spelling ... with Arabic sim very possibly reflects a dialect variant in

Mozarabic that one would not normally expect to find till much later in Hispano-Romance languages, but it is far more probable that it is the result of a scribal attempt to reproduce the Romance voiced alveolar prepalatal 2 of Mozarabic, for which there seems to have been no precise

equivalent in Hispano-Arabic ...1° The spelling with a Sin also occurs in a Hebrew muwassah written some

150 years later by Todros Abulafia,!! so that the form here is not an isolated occurrence. This may possibly point more towards two forms of pronunciation. I agree with Monroe that the first word is from the Arabic verb {asa ‘to be confused’, but I take it slightly differently from him. He removes the dot of the niin and puts two dots below the letter to give yatisu ‘it is confused’, and he makes mi qurasini the subject of this. I prefer to add a dot to the nin and read tutisu. This is from the

291

Kharja 41

causative form of the verb. It means ‘you cause confusion to’. On this interpretation, habibi provides the subject of the verb, and mi qurasuni becomes the object. I read: tufiSu mii qurosiini 1 and 2 have the meaning ‘Have mercy, sections With this reading, my heart’. confusing are my beloved. You

Section 3

The Oxford manuscript reads:

Lalo) ye o Sym ‘yn rsaha

The other manuscripts indicate:

Sym gyn rsaha This is by far the most difficult section. Monroe, after lengthy argument,!? ends by plumping for a hybrid section, the first part being in Romance, but with the last word in Arabic: Si m’ giyan risaha. He translates this as ‘if her arrow feathers guide me’. I am not convinced, as I do not see how such a section fits in with rest of the Kharja. Even if we accept Monroe’s basic interpretation of the kharja, his suggestion that we should take rsahda as a shortened form of risahd is

open to serious doubt. It requires us to drop one of the radical letters

in a way that seems likely to cause confusion. The form he prefers, rigaha, would normally be taken as rasahd ‘its gazelle’ or as a shortened form of risa’uhd ‘its rope’. Moreover, if either the first or the third syllable should turn out to be short, there would be no need

for the first vowel of the cluster rsaha@ to be short. The proposed

meaning of the section is also very strained. The ha, which Monroe takes as the third person feminine singular possessive suffix, is made by him to refer to a beloved who is not mentioned elsewhere. I see no alternative to looking for another interpretation. This is much easier said than done, certainly if we are looking for Arabic readings. I suspect that the text of the section reached the east in a corrupt form, possibly because the first part of it was in Romance. Corruption there could easily have led to the final cluster also becoming garbled. Certainly, none of the proposed meanings of rsaha@ gives sense, and scribal error looks very likely. One can think of Arabic readings such as tanahd or wa-tanaha, but one cannot plead the case for them strongly, as one cannot establish the text for

the earlier part of the section. Indeed, I do not see that one can be

certain

about

the

language

of

the

first

two

clusters.

In

the

292

Romance Kharjas

circumstances, further progress seems impossible, and we must stop at:

28ym? ?gyn? {rsahat

Section 4 The Oxford manuscript reads: - shes .

ya

y

la tgrs mn mnwny

The other manuscripts indicate: ald ngr§ mnwny

Both versions point to an eight-syllable section, with the Oxford version probably being aberrant through dittography (mn mn..). The last cluster is the Arabic manini ‘my fate’.13 The

cluster tgrs/ngrs

makes no sense in Arabic. However, if we take it that the gayn is a mistake for a qaf, as can happen when western manuscripts are copied in the east, we have tgrs/nqr. The latter is similar to the nw qrs that we had in section 2 of Kharja 5. There I was doubtful about emending the text. Here I am more inclined to read tu garis, because of the first cluster in the majority of versions, the Arabic a-/d. This particle basically has an exclamatory sense ‘now’, ‘come’, but it often implies ‘why?’. Despite this, Monroe

makes

a fair case for treating it as nu qaris, and any

decision between the two is marginal.1* I read: a-la tu qari$ maniinit

‘Why do you wish my death?’ or ‘Come, do you wish my death?’.

When put together, the four sections give us: amanu habibi tutigu mii qurosiint Sym? 2gyn? trsahat

a-la tu qariS manini

NOTES

1.

The poem appears in volume 7 of al-Safadi’s 26 volume work. It was first published by

Thsan ‘Abbas in his edition of the Diwan of al-A‘ma. The full text of volume 7 has since

been published, also by Ihsan ‘Abbas (Wiesbaden, 1969). The poem is on page 132 of that edition. I have used these two editions for the text in the manuscript in the Topkap! Library in Istanbul. The

2. 3.

other two manuscripts are in Oxford and

London,

and I have

been able to consult these personally. The name of the dedicatee appears in the second of the four surviving stanzas. On the general pattern of probability in other muwassahs, we might expect the name to appear In the third stanza. Hispanic Review, 42 [1974], pp.251-264.

Awe

Kharja 41

293

Hispanic Review, 42 [1974], p.261. al-Andalus, 39 [1974], pp.281-97, His version (p.289) is unmetrical in sections 2 and 4, ungrammatical in section 3, and,

after emendation, relies heavily in sections 2 and 4 on a verb, farasa, not found elsewhere

in the extant corpus. He also proposes a series of emendations, mostly absurd, to lengthen all the seven-syllable sections in the poem to eight.

In terms of Arabic scansion the first section is composed of two feet of the mutagarib

metre, treated loosely so that only one short syllable is required and may occur in any appropriate place. The second half is the basic form of the mujtatt metre, with the sixth syllable being suppressed in 11 of the 20 lines that precede the kharja.

The Bodleian manuscript is Ms. Arch. Seld. A.21. The poem is on folio 66. Hispanic Review, 42 [1974], p.263.

10. i. 12. 13. 14,

Hispanic Review, 42 [1974], p.253. Muwasiah 25 (Diwan, ed. Brody, p.51). Hispanic Review, 42 [1974], pp.253-260. Monroe’s translation of manini as a plural (p.26/) is not strictly accurate. The tgrs of the Oxford manuscript must be under some suspicion, given the general state of its text in this section, and I therefore hesitate to use it in support of the reading tu garis.

294

Kharja 42 Ma‘Sara ’I-‘uddali by Ibn Quzman The final kharja in the series survives in the sole extant muwassah of the

leading exponent of the zajal, Ibn Quzman. The poem has been preserved through the interest of the Iraqi critic and wassah Safiyyu ’ldin al-Hilli (1278-1349), who comments on it in his book Kitab al-‘atil

al-hali.1 The

main point that al-Hilli makes

is that the use of the.

vernacular is not confined to the kharja but is to be found in every

stanza of the poem. In his view this use of non-classical material is a serious shortcoming. Such colloquialisms may be proper in the zajal, but they make a muwassah ‘muzannam’ ‘bastardized’.? He points out the lapses in each stanza, as he understands them. This is not the place to discuss his critique in detail, but one point of substance needs noting:

in at least two of the passages objected to by al-Hilli, he appears not to have realized all the possible interpretations of the text, and in the final stanza, the one that concerns us here, the text appears to have been ina dubious state when it reached him. If this is the case with the main body of the poem, we can hardly have much confidence in the text of the kharja that rounds it off. ‘Bastardizing’ Quzman’s poem

features apart, there is little to distinguish Ibn from a run-in-the-mill amatory muwassah replete

with conventional themes. Structurally, it is simple: it has the format ABCA DE DE DE ABCA etc.; and if one applies Arabic scansion one finds a single metrical pattern ‘that is used for every section. This is:* Zee

eee

The final agsan These apparently reached al-Hilli in the form:

S5\j nag!

hs?

Jesh Sus

ait

295

Kharja 42 id Sadat fi itri

andarat bi-'I-saddi

wa-dumiiT tajri

‘adda daka 'l-nahdi

ka-'nsikabi 'I-gatri

taratan ft 'l-xaddi

word The reading of the last word of the first gusn as itri and the first fanciful a up of the second gusn as ‘adda caused al-Hilli to dream explanation for the grammar of the first section of the second gusn.*

In fact, it would appear that we should read itri (with a short vowel)

instead of itri and ‘addi instead of ‘adda. The first word of the second gugsn, ‘addi, is now a straightforward genitive dependent on itri, and

similarly daka

‘Il-nahdi is a genitive following

changes we have the following text:

eas 3

Sed Cyt

eyes

tel SIs Uae

jaall ISIS

ah gat

Bg

CF

:

F

‘addi.5 With these

26,

id Sadat fi itri andarat bi-’l-saddi wa-dumii7 tajrt ‘addi daka ’I-nahdi ka-’nsikabi 'l-qatri taratan fi 'I-xaddi She warned me that she would break with me when she sang about the mark from [my] bite of that bosom [of hers] — [a song that caused] my tears [to] flow over my cheeks like a deluge of rain:° The kharja then follows. The kharja Unfortunately, al-Hilli gives us no help with the kharja. One must suspect that he did not comment on it because he could not understand it properly. For once Sola-Solé is content to accept Garcia Gémez’s text and translation.” I wish that I could share their view, but I cannot, since the version they squeeze out of the text is both curiously remote from the preceding agsdn and linguistically dubious in the first and final sections. Section 1 The Munich manuscript has: .

fe

In the first cluster only the middle letter, a waw, is clear. After that we have ba’, Sin, yd’ - break - ya’/ta’, ra’, dad, alif - break - lam, ya’.

b/y/t/t/nwb/t/t by y/trda ly

296

Romance Kharjas

The Istanbul manuscript has: mr bsy yrda ly

The section has been taken as Arabic: mur bi-Say yarda [sic] li

Sola-Solé translates the section as “Ven con algo que me guste’,® but this is difficult. The reading yarda cannot be correct, but it is easily tidied up. We simply have to supply the correct vowel and read

yurda. The first cluster, mr in the Istanbul manuscript, b/y/t/t/nwb/t/t in the Munich

and

Sola-Solé

imperative

manuscript,

assume

of the verb

is not easily explained.

that we have mur, amara

‘to

Garcia Gomez

the masculine singular

order’.

Now

it is true that the

preposition bi is used after amara to indicate the thing ordered. However, there appears to be nothing to support the suggestion that

mur bi- can mean ‘come’ or ‘do’ (or anything else that might fit the

meaning of the rest of the section better than ‘order’). As the problem of the reading of the Munich manuscript is also ignored, it seems unavoidable that we should look for an alternative explanation of the text. One emendation that would not be difficult with either manuscript

is to read nun — nn with the Istanbul manuscript and nwn with the Munich manuscript.2 We should have to take the reading as the Romance negative non. In my view, this would be less difficult than

mur. There is a natural link between several Arabic negatives and the preposition 5i,!° and I see no cogent reason why the Romance negative should not be linked in the same way. The meaning would

be ‘It is not something pleasing to me’, i.e. ‘I don’t like that’. This is a rather hesitant suggestion — it may well be wrong, even though it is

better than mur. I cannot think of any other reading that is plausible.

Attempts form

to make

of mr

(e.g.

something

the

Romance

from words ma

and

resembling the written

the

Arabic

man)

get us

nowhere. They also ignore the problem of the spelling of the cluster

in the Munich manuscript. That can also be made to give us other

readings (e.g. tawb or bin) that do not offer any real help. All I can

suggest is: Section 2

nun? bi-Say yurda Ii

lat

The Munich manuscript has:

The letters read:

:

lam, alif - break - ta’, ra’, Sin - break - mim, waw (- possible break -) /@’, alif, ra’, ya’

297

Kharja 42 Taking the rhyme into consideration, this gives us: Ia tr§ mwtart The Istanbul manuscript has: 1a trs mwtari

The first cluster is clearly the Arabic negative /4. With the second

emend cluster I feel that Garcia Gomez and Sola-Solé are right to iting handwr eastern trs/tr§ to gré.1} This is a minor change with the The . written are al-hali in which the manuscripts of Kitab al-‘atil

form grs may safely be taken as Romance, even though there may be felt to be some doubt, about its vowels. The final group

appears

word

one

to represent

rather

than

two

—

any

of letters

attempt

to

take the mw as the Romance ma renders the last four letters incomprehensible. There has been one attempt to read the cluster as Arabic,!2 but the suggested reading is unintelligible. The reading miitari seems fairly plausible, though I would prefer to take the word in an intransitive sense, ‘You don’t want to change’ i.e. ‘you haven’t changed your ways, have you?’. I keep the simple well-recognized vowels for grs, but I recognize that others may prefer a more subtle reading: 14 qariS mitari Section 3 The two manuscripts have the same text. In the Munich manuscript : this is:

“\*)\

oO

This has been taken as Arabic, and I see no reason for not doing so: al-tawani ‘ada The literal meaning is ‘Slowness (or ‘languidness’ or ‘being remiss’) is a custom’. The most likely meaning appears to be ‘Taking things slowly is a custom you ought to follow’. Section 4 The Munich manuscript has:

The letters read:

J

Wy

nv

ba’, alif, lam, waw - possible break - ya’(?), ha’ - break - waw, alif, ba’, alif, lam, ya’

With the rhyme again taken into consideration, this gives us: balwy(?)h wabali

298

Romance Kharjas

The text of the Istanbul manuscript is the same, but there appears to

be no doubt about the fifth letter: balwyh wabalit

This would appear to be Arabic, but the text is difficult to interpret,

At least one corruption seems likely. Garcia Gomez, followed by Sola-Solé, excises the fourth letter, waw, and reads bal bih wa-ubalz

‘Sujétate a ella y yo también me sujetaré’, as Sola-Solé puts it. I think that Garcia Gomez has correctly identified the corrupt letter, though

it is not easy to account for the corruption.

I therefore accept his

consonantal reading for the first two clusters as bal bh. However, I take the correct vocalization to be bali bih. Garcia Gomez seems to me to have got the final cluster wrong on at least two counts. It is metrically impossible (and this is so even

with Garcia Gémez’s

own

reading bal bih); and it is all wrong

grammatically — one cannot reasonably propose a mixture of a truncated colloquial form bd/ and the non-colloquial ubdli.13 The only way I can see of reading the final cluster is to take the wd as the

particle of lamentation!* and b4/i as a noun and suffix meaning ‘my

state’. This gives fair sense ‘have a care for it; alas for my state’ i.e. ‘have regard for proprieties; alas, what a state I am in’.15 The reading also has a linguistic point: the imperative bd/i contrasts with bali ‘my state’ in a way that Arabs would appreciate. Therefore, I am

inclined to read, somewhat doubtfully:

?bali bih, wa bali? Together the four sections read: nun? bi-Say yurda Ii 1a qari§ miitari al-tawani ‘ada bali bih, wa bali?

NOTES

Ws

1.

From the literary point of view the Kitab al-‘ajil al-hali of al-Hilli does for the zajal (and for its letter-day sub-species the bullayg, the kan-wa-kan, the qiima and the mawaiyya) what the Dar al-jirdz does for the muwassah.

On taznim see al-‘Ajil al-hali (ed. Hoenerbach), pp.8, 12, 14, 94, 96. In terms of Arabic scansion the metrical pattern is a derivative of the mugtadab metre. al-‘Atil al-hallt (ed. Hoenerbach), p.96.

This reading was first suggested hy Garcia Gomez (Tres interesantes poemas conservados

por

Hill,

p.297).

It was

also

adopted

by

Sayyid

Gazi

(Diwan

al-muwaisahat

al-andalusiyya, 1, p.522), The problem about the interpretation appears to have arisen because it is unusual to have enjambement that involves a following genitive beginning the

second line.

Kharja 42

299

but which This avoids any attempt to translate sdratan, which normally means ‘once’, may possibly here mean ‘flowing’. of al-Andalus Garcia Gémez first dealt with the poem in an article published in volume 25 This formed the [1960], Tres interesantes poemas conservados por Hilli (see pages 288-97). basis of his piece on the poem in Las jarchas romances (pp.406-7). For Sola-Solé’s comments see Corpus, pp.260-1. Corpus, p.260. y about The divergence of the spelling in the two manuscripts indicates scribal uncertaint the text as al-Hilli wrote it. Wright, Arabic Grammar, 2, p.158. gives Though both irs and trs can be read as Arabic words, none of the possible meanings any sense here.

al-‘Atil al-hali (ed. Nassar), p.83, note 9.

Ubaifis a classical form, the colloquial form of which is nubdli.

Wright, Arabic Grammar, 2, pp.93-4. This is not all that far from such phrases as wa hasratt ma jard Iv‘Alas, what has happened hali, Dar to met” (the first section of the kharja of Ibn Baqi’s poem Ask wa-anta ta‘lamu al-tirdz, section 2, poem 27).

300

Appendix Kharjas with Romance or possible Romance elements that have not been included in this edition 1.

2.

‘Ubada, Bi-abi ‘ilgu (Dar al-tiraz, muwassah 9)

The kharja reads: ana qil gigi | lis bi-"lah tadiigqi Ibn Baqi, A-ufridta bi-’l-husni In the Dar al-tiraz (muwasiah 10) the kharja reads: habibi mada ‘anni | mata najtami‘ ma‘u

There is no Romance in this version. In the ‘Uddat al-jalis (muwaiéah 287) the kharja reads: habibi mada ‘anni | tardy najtami‘ ma‘u In this version the first word of the second section may point to a Romance word.

In the second edition of Las jarchas romances (pp.23-26), Garcia

Gomez suggested that there are three other poems in the Jays al-tawsih

that contain a certain amount of Romance. They are: 3. al-Jazzar, al-wajdu wajdi (section 11, poem 2)! 4. Ibn Labbin, Kam da yu ‘dal (section 12, poem 5)? 5. Ibn Labbin, Man atla‘a 'I-badra (section 12, poem 10)? I can see no case for for arguing that there is any Romance in no. 3.

There could be one word in no. 4, but the text is ina very poor state, and

the reading is at best doubtful. No. 5 could possibly contain two words of Romance, but again the text isin a very poor condition, and it is not clear to me whether we are dealing with Arabic or Romance. The textual uncertainties preclude any firm claim to a place in the corpus. There are also a couple of muwaiéahs in the Jays al-tawsth (section 2,

poem

2 and section

Romance elements.

14, poem

2) that contain mamma

1. Sayyid Gazi, Diwan al-muwassahat al-Andalusiyya, 1, pp77-78. 2, Ibid., 1, pp.144-46, 3. Ibid., 1, pp.159-61,

but no other

Index verborum 1, Certain and likely Arabic words a414 G31 Abii 17 3, 193 ‘ada 423

halal 38 3 hal 61,62 hamma 102 hamra 20 3

aman 5 1 (twice), 251,411

haraki101

allah 5 2, 27 5, 393 amir 44

hagq 222

Ibrahim 11 i149 1,132 in 15, 103,321 ‘inda 33 1, 364

rumh 22 4 sa’am 61 sahhar 7 1 samaj 31 4

jalis 271

Say 421

aw 383 ay 141 bali 424 bal 424

intizar 35 3 ‘iqd 361 ittagi 6 4a Jafar 30b 3

bi5 2, 64a, 71,73 (twice), 10 2, 27 5, 32 3, 35 4, 39 3,42 1,424

j7364 kalm152 kam 322

da‘ 313 da112 dawiyyah 35 2

kun 73 1423 1,341,382,414,422 lamahni 321

bud 38 2 bar 73

ai73 dak 112

fa6 4a, 112

falak 103 fatin 3 1 (twice) ft341

gayba21 gildlah 23 2

gulam 38 1 habb 113 habib8 1, 141,211,231,

25 1, 36 4, 40 2,411 hajib 30a 3 Hajjdj 19 3 hajr 313

raqi‘ 101

raqib 4 3, 286

hujaj 31 2 hulwa 243

bari 6 4a

qurt 92

haram 38 3

an92 ‘ansara 222

‘asa 30a 4, 30b 4 ag 241 ‘asiq 22 asri 354

Qasim 173 gat‘ 313,314 gawm 39 2 quitu 241

kana 341 Kull 38 2

lasi 32 3 lasiyyah 35 4

1:43, 25 4, 314,382,421

luhtu 321 ma‘92 mali 51

maniin 41 4 min 6 1, 272, 30a3,322

mithl 243 mudabbaj 22 3 mulak 113

nasuqqu 22.4 nazm 112 nubidu 10 3 gahrah 10 2

raximah 19 1 raxsah 23 2

samajah 33 3 Saqq 224 Sarr 28 6 Sart91 Suhd 36 2 sidi1 1, 20 1, 392 tara 39 3 tawani 42 3 tuhyini 24 2

tujammi' 92 tutisu 412 umm 6 3, 344 wa 103,224 wa 42 4

wa'd312

wahsa 252 was 32 Wiska 25 4

xalxal 92 y@12,22,31,51,63,71,

19 1, 20 1, 21 1,.21 3, 23 1, 25 1, 29 1, 30a 1, 30b 1, 31 1, 34 4, 35 1,

371,37 3; 39:2 yaday 322 yartabu 35 2 yurda 42 1

302

Index verborum 2. Possible Arabic words

aknu 35 1 am 351 ant’44

awaddu 34 3 awsaktu 32 3 ka361

anta 373

Suttittu22 tadri 30a 3, 30b 3 tard 30a 3, 30b 3

3. Certain and likely Romance words a112,172, 182,192,232, 283

ad 334

diyya222

diyyah 22 | (twice)

alli 121,122

addormi§ 18 2

asta44

alba 41,72 albu 143

asta 221 asti 10 1 (twice)

alinu 28 2 almah 16 1, 162

ayun 121 faja 174,194

alyinu 18 1 amandi 36 5 amar 8 1,291 anforma 8 1

Sama 342 Sana 331 Santa 13 Santa 6 4b

agiitas 26 5

“fogiiri 41,72

logar 18

logar 8 3

m’ 35 1,365

ma 16 1, 162, 253

mamma 10 1, 14 1, 21 1, 30a 1, 30b 1, 31 1, 31 3,

324 mamma

15 4, 17 1, 21 3,

35 1, 35 3, 381 manyana 172 manyanah 19 2 mar 29 3

matrana 17 4

as 243 baja 25 3 bal 7b 2

Sard 25 2 Saray 27 5, 324 Sorayyu 6 3, 21 3, 401

matranah 19 4 mattari 32 3 mayru 36 6

ban 363 bakalah 11 3, 20 3, 24 2,

filyul 28 2 firima16

marta 272 mattari 5 2

bala Ta 2

25 3, 361 bakallah 144

banid 121

basta 23 2

bastarayyu 22 3

gari 351

.

bin 17 3, 19 3, 25 3, 29.1,

323

binu 111, 341

bur 122

dalji |

gar 17,324 gar 21,213

gari 5 1

bargay 52

basgah 121

‘filiyilu 18 1

2,362

donifu 231

dormirayyu 17 1

dormiri 15 3

da 21, 11 3, 22 2,312 (twice) i172, 174,293,392,401, 403 @14,42,81,192,194, 353

garida 39 1

gariri 151

karay 271

mardas 23a 1

mi 11 2, 23 1, 36 3, 366 mi1 7, 16 1, 23 2, 252, 391

mib 13,111

mibi 28 3, 40 1, 403

mii 8 1 (twice), 8 3, 12 2,

18 2, 21 1, 22 3, 392,

412

karayyu 162

murru 35 3

kari§ 291

nu 23 1

karid 3 3

miitari 42.2

kari¥15,111

nun 9 1, 17 1, 23 1, 254

kadamay 28 1

niin 1 5,15, 13 1, 18 2, 343,

ki6 3, 161, 162,213,275,

muxtil4,44

kun 72,9 1, 262, 264 /a121, 144,174,194 labari 6 4b

qurajtin 122 rayu172 rayyu 192

karu 131

kan21

29 1, 32 4, 36 6, 40 1 (twice) kumu 111,18 1,266,362

40 3,421

374

mwamnil2 qgaris 5 2,414,422 garu231

303

Index verborum rofisu 23 2 Sabi§ 37 1 Sanaray 30a 4, 30b 4 Sonar 82 815,111,371 3718 1 Sin 121 Sinu 18 2

Strad 40 1 Sti 38b 1 Si 38a 1 tala 161 tonkag 23b

tb 16

m4i4

1

tantu2 1,311

taranddi 21 2 118,403

m52 fulgas 40 3 (ata 232

ub17

yontarad 3 2 yards 254

4. Possible Romance words, but considerable textual problems a17,83 adiina 36 5 alba 221 almas 267 amanti 33 4 bayja 36 3 ba 112 basatand’4 3 by§ 212

gi 267,285 dybardy 20 4

ad 28 3 al 14 3, 28 3

anun/nun 21 4

fan11 kalwrsi 20 4

karu, kari 8 2,28 4

labor 37 4 labaray 21

lataray 27 2 14284 mais 18 2 malas 32 2 mas 212

ma 203

maradas 26 3

moariri 34 3 mi 343 mib, mibi, mibi 8 3, 28 5, 331 ma11,271

nu 6 4b qi72 quwallu 14 3 sanara 34 3 Sabis 201 Sonantu 22

$7201 sti72 taraydi 30a 3, 30b 3 vatari 28 5

wunini 33 4

yawan 131

yu 6 4b yun21 yuna 131

5. Hybrid words and words with a termination in the other language allanjas 26 6

lazmas 26 4

aw 401 hamrallah 14 4 jumallah 142

qurajiini 29 1

amiitri 37 1

matari 19 1

qurasiini 41 2

ruxamas 26 1

samarallu 132

Samas 26 2 Saqrallah 142 Sul 142 xilallu 13 1

6. Words of doubtful origin alma 42

da22 alfrar 29 2

ana212 Jinnah 30a 1, 30b 1

kamal.. 26 7 k1273

qedmar 41

mny | gy 273

Sayasa 33 2

mastiri 33 2

qrbari 62 fon 374

mwd 62

wassi 20 2

304

Index verborum 7. Corrupt clusters

‘arf 273 ba‘onayas 32 1 bangisa/bi-nafsi 8 3 allmaway 30a 2 alsr 30b 3 altsmry 30b 2 ams 37 3 asamadiiri 34 1 asd 30b 1 atsdd 27 4 gyn 413 hsry 122 -.1bi 37 3

kdm 372

kanbabs 20 2 kandroxalas 3 3 kasad 8 3 kydy 151 U’sm 39 4 loriri 37 2 losadi 21 4 lys 29 3, 30a 1 miri 374 mwdldiri 42

ndrl 39 4 nay 15.1 nmkyrd 151 nzady 153

rsaha 41 3 Sd 30a 1 Sn/5r/Sy 15 3 Swt 153 Sym 413 sm 394 tomatray 91 trhyrh 33 3 walnys/walyn§ 22 wlS 29 3 xmryd 30a 3 yajenal(a) 21 4 --y 30b 1

The Andalusian Arabic Alphabet independent

Arabic forms final medial

initial

Arabic name

transcription

alif

hamza ba’ st a0

la’

AA

UO

N we

saad

y-y-9

zay

oo x

&

RR

ERERR

&

YOU

WI Wea oa

a ra

ta’ k

lam mim

eee

yaeds

AAs

za’

nun

EY

dh

sad dad

R-

if

Pe

4 9

os

ow

gayn

x

fa’ qaf S- BA nom

sak §%

VY

4

S*h~

Hho

7° 3

y«

vo

‘ayn

The alphabet used in al-Andalus and still in use in the Maghrib differs in two respects from that used in the east (which is the alphabet normally printed in foreign grammars of Arabic). The first is the order of the letters. This is not a major point, though it does affect the order in which the poems are arranged in

the ‘Uddat al-jalis.+ The Andalusian form of the alphabet differs from the eastern in the spelling of two letters: fa’ has one dot below the letter (. x 4 »)? instead of one above (+ 4 43); and gaf is spelled with one dot above (4 5 4 5)? instead of the two dots used in the east (3 3 4 3). It should be noted that Kharjas 41 and 42 and one version of Kharja 8 survive in eastern manuscripts. Eastern spelling is therefore used in the transcriptions of the agsdn preceding Kharjas 41 and 42.

For reasons connected with the pronunciation of Arabic in seventh century Arabia, hamza (a glottal stop) is not normally considered to be a full letter. Sometimes it is written independently; more frequently it has a ‘bearer’. This is another letter (alif, waw, ya’ without dots, or ya’ with dots), which tends to give some indication of the vowels used with the hamza. These ‘bearers’ are confusing for those unfamiliar with the script. The simplest course is to ignore them as far as possible. The Arabs do the opposite: they frequently omit the hamza.

There is an additional form of ta’ to which attention must be drawn: 1a’ marbiita (8). It is found only in the word ending -at, most frequently an

indication of words of feminine gender. In the kharjas it frequently becomes ,

pointing to a colloquial pronunciation in which the t sound disappears. There are four other signs that occur in the manuscripts and the transcriptions. The first of these is Sadda. This is used to show the doubling of a consonant. There is a problem with this sign. The manuscrit Colin, like many other medieval manuscripts, has three forms Y * and _ to show a doubled consonant plus a, u and i respectively. These three forms merged in later Arabic, and modern printing uses ~ for all three, thereby losing some information. It should be noted that it is common for Sadda to be omitted. Finally, there are the vowel signs. One of these, sukiin( ° ), indicates that

there is no vowel. The remaining three are the short vowels fatha (“ a), kasra

(_ ) and damma (’ u). These vowel signs are also very frequently omitted, some manuscripts (e.g. the al-Nifar manuscript of the Jays al-tawsih) having

virtually no vocalization. These three vowel signs may, at the end of a word, be

written twice. This signifies the addition of an n sound to the final vowel (an, in, or un, as the case may be).

1, Thus a poem with sims lines rhyming in niin (e.g. Kharja 18) comes before one rhyming in

sdd (Kharja 20). This in turn precedes one rhyming in gaf (Kharja 22), and the latterprecedes one rhyming in sim (e.g. Kharja 24). 2. The Andalusian fa’ and qaf are very frequently written without any dot if they occur In the independent or final form.

166

Romance Kharjas NOTES

It is the dimeter form of the ramal metre. Las jarchas romances, p.271.

The Hawzani family was prominent in Seville in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The

dedicatee was apparently Abii Hafs ‘Umar Ibn Abi ‘l-Qasim Ibn Abi Hafs “Umar al-Hawzani. His grandfather served al-Mu‘tadid, whilst his father encouraged the Almoravid Yisuf Ibn TaSufin to depose al-Mu‘tamid. Later, his son ‘Ali Ibn Abi Hafs was to serve the Almohads. See Ibn Sa‘id, al-Mugrib, 1, 234-5. T. Fahd, Bulletin Hispanique, 64 [1962], p.264. Few elegaic muwassahs

7:

survive (and none had been published when Fahd wrote). Those

that do are considerably more sombre in tone than the ordinary muwassah, Perhaps the most famous are Talla 'I-naji‘u by Ibn al-Labbana (Jays al-tawsth, section 4, poem 10) and Ya ‘aynu bakki 'l-siraj by Ibn Hazmiin (Ibn Sa‘id, al-Mugrib, 2, 217-8). Las jarchas romances, p.276. Corpus, p.174, note 5.

Sayyid Gazi, Diwan al-muwasSahdat al-andalusiyya, 1, p.311. Dos nuevas jarfas romances, p.375.

See Kharjas 4, 7a, 7b and 13 without going beyond the ‘Uddat al-jalis. If one does the exercise thoroughly, there is at least one other Arabic reading that deserves consideration, iffi (for ilfi) ‘my friend’, Be that as it may, I still prefer Garcia

Gomez's reading. It should be noted that the rhyme requires the ya’ to be doubled in pronunciation here, no matter what might be expected in Romance. Garcia Gémez’s incorrect spelling of the rhyme word in section 1 of stanza 1 as ‘adiliya (Las jarchas romances, p.272) in no way provides support for the spelling diya. ¢ A minor Arabic metrical point arises. If the 4a’ is not given any value, we have a word consisting of one long and one short syllable. If it does have some value, we have two long syllables. The metre can accommodate both, though the latter is preferred. There is just enough evidence to show that this truncation occurred. See, for example, the kharja of ‘Uddat al-jalis poem 68 and Kharja 24. 15. 16. 17. 18.

Corpus, p.175. For a summary of the position see Corpus, p.174.

See al-Andalus, 19 [1954], p.374.

See, for example, the kharja that concludes poems 277 and 278 in the ‘Uddat al-jalis:

qumi gtanim wisali | baydam ana haris sa-taStarini gali | in bi‘tani raxis the jim of the The last two letters of the cluster look very much like ya’, ha’. However, to the previous letter and rhyme requires one dot, leaving the other dot to be assigned thus giving ba’.

20. 21.

Corpus, p.175.

| like spears that kill mercilessly. ‘Many a time I think of a young maid with firm breasts

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