I with fear and terror quake, Whilst the pen to write I take; I will utter many a pray"r To the heaven"s Regent fair, That she deign to succour me, And I"ll humbly bend my knee; For but poorly do I know With my subject on to go; Therefore is my wisest plan Not to trust in strength of man.
I my heavy sins bewail, Whilst I view the wo and wail Handed down so solemnly In the book of times gone by.
Onward, onward, now I"ll move In the name of Christ above, And his Mother true and dear, She who loves the wretch to cheer.
All I know, and all I"ve heard I will state - how G.o.d appear"d And to Noah thus did cry: Weary with the world am I; Let an ark by thee be built, For the world is lost in guilt; And when thou hast built it well, Loud proclaim what now I tell: Straight repent ye, for your Lord In his hand doth hold a sword.
And good Noah thus did call: Straight repent ye one and all, For the world with grief I see Lost in vileness utterly.
G.o.d"s own mandate I but do, He hath sent me unto you.
Laugh"d the world to bitter scorn, I his cruel sufferings mourn; Brawny youths with furious air Drag the Patriarch by the hair; Lewdness governs every one: Leaves her convent now the nun, And the monk abroad I see Practising iniquity.
Now I"ll tell how G.o.d, intent To avenge, a vapour sent, With full many a dreadful sign - Mighty, mighty fear is mine: As I hear the thunders roll, Seems to die my very soul; As I see the world o"erspread All with darkness thick and dread; I the pen can scarcely ply For the tears which dim my eye, And o"ercome with grievous wo, Fear the task I must forego I have purposed to perform. - Hark, I hear upon the storm Thousand, thousand devils fly, Who with awful howlings cry: Now"s the time and now"s the hour, We have licence, we have power To obtain a glorious prey. - I with horror turn away; Tumbles house and tumbles wall; Thousands lose their lives and all, Voiding curses, screams and groans, For the beams, the bricks and stones Bruise and bury all below - Nor is that the worst, I trow, For the clouds begin to pour Floods of water more and more, Down upon the world with might, Never pausing day or night.
Now in terrible distress All to G.o.d their cries address, And his Mother dear adore, - But the time of grace is o"er, For the Almighty in the sky Holds his hand upraised on high.
Now"s the time of madden"d rout, Hideous cry, despairing shout; Whither, whither shall they fly?
For the danger threat"ningly Draweth near on every side, And the earth, that"s opening wide, Swallows thousands in its womb, Who would "scape the dreadful doom.
Of dear hope exists no gleam, Still the water down doth stream; Ne"er so little a creeping thing But from out its hold doth spring: See the mouse, and see its mate Scour along, nor stop, nor wait; See the serpent and the snake For the nearest highlands make; The tarantula I view, Emmet small and cricket too, All unknowing where to fly, In the stifling waters die.
See the goat and bleating sheep, See the bull with bellowings deep.
And the rat with squealings shrill, They have mounted on the hill: See the stag, and see the doe, How together fond they go; Lion, tiger-beast, and pard, To escape are striving hard: Followed by her little ones, See the hare how swift she runs: a.s.ses, he and she, a pair.
Mute and mule with bray and blare, And the rabbit and the fox, Hurry over stones and rocks, With the grunting hog and horse, Till at last they stop their course - On the summit of the hill All a.s.sembled stand they still; In the second part I"ll tell Unto them what there befell.
PART THE SECOND
When I last did bid farewell, I proposed the world to tell, Higher as the Deluge flow"d, How the frog and how the toad, With the lizard and the eft, All their holes and coverts left, And a.s.sembled on the height; Soon I ween appeared in sight All that"s wings beneath the sky, Bat and swallow, wasp and fly, Gnat and sparrow, and behind Comes the crow of carrion kind; Dove and pigeon are descried, And the raven fiery-eyed, With the beetle and the crane Flying on the hurricane: See they find no resting-place, For the world"s terrestrial s.p.a.ce Is with water cover"d o"er, Soon they sink to rise no more: "To our father let us flee!"
Straight the ark-ship openeth he, And to everything that lives Kindly he admission gives.
Of all kinds a single pair, And the members safely there Of his house he doth embark, Then at once he shuts the ark; Everything therein has pa.s.s"d, There he keeps them safe and fast.
O"er the mountain"s topmost peak Now the raging waters break.
Till full twenty days are o"er, "Midst the elemental roar, Up and down the ark forlorn, Like some evil thing is borne: O what grief it is to see Swimming on the enormous sea Human corses pale and white, More, alas! than I can write: O what grief, what grief profound, But to think the world is drown"d: True a scanty few are left, All are not of life bereft, So that, when the Lord ordain, They may procreate again, In a world entirely new, Better people and more true, To their Maker who shall bow; And I humbly beg you now, Ye in modern times who wend, That your lives ye do amend; For no wat"ry punishment, But a heavier shall be sent; For the blessed saints pretend That the latter world shall end To tremendous fire a prey, And to ashes sink away.
To the Ark I now go back, Which pursues its dreary track, Lost and "wilder"d till the Lord In his mercy rest accord.
Early of a morning tide They unclosed a window wide, Heaven"s beacon to descry, And a gentle dove let fly, Of the world to seek some trace, And in two short hours" s.p.a.ce It returns with eyes that glow, In its beak an olive bough.
With a loud and mighty sound, They exclaim: "The world we"ve found."
To a mountain nigh they drew, And when there themselves they view, Bound they swiftly on the sh.o.r.e, And their fervent thanks outpour, Lowly kneeling to their G.o.d; Then their way a couple trod, Man and woman, hand in hand, Bent to populate the land, To the Moorish region fair - And another two repair To the country of the Gaul; In this manner wend they all, And the seeds of nations lay.
I beseech ye"ll credence pay, For our father, high and sage, Wrote the tale in sacred page, As a record to the world, Record sad of vengeance hurl"d.
I, a low and humble wight, Beg permission now to write Unto all that in our land Tongue Egyptian understand.
May our Virgin Mother mild Grant to me, her erring child, Plenteous grace in every way, And success. Amen I say.
THE PESTILENCE
I"m resolved now to tell In the speech of Gypsy-land All the horror that befell In this city huge and grand.
In the eighteenth hundred year In the midst of summertide, G.o.d, with man dissatisfied, His right hand on high did rear, With a rigour most severe; Whence we well might understand He would strict account demand Of our lives and actions here.
The dread event to render clear Now the pen I take in hand.
At the dread event aghast, Straight the world reform"d its course; Yet is sin in greater force, Now the punishment is past; For the thought of G.o.d is cast All and utterly aside, As if death itself had died.
Therefore to the present race These memorial lines I trace In old Egypt"s tongue of pride.
As the streets you wander"d through How you quail"d with fear and dread, Heaps of dying and of dead At the leeches" door to view.
To the tavern O how few To regale on wine repair; All a sickly aspect wear.
Say what heart such sights could brook - Wail and woe where"er you look - Wail and woe and ghastly care.
Plying fast their rosaries, See the people pace the street, And for pardon G.o.d entreat Long and loud with streaming eyes.
And the carts of various size, Piled with corses, high in air, To the plain their burden bear.
O what grief it is to me Not a friar or priest to see In this city huge and fair.
ON THE LANGUAGE OF THE GITANOS
"I am not very willing that any language should be totally extinguished; the similitude and derivation of languages afford the most indubitable proof of the traduction of nations, and the genealogy of mankind; they add often physical certainty to historical evidence of ancient migrations, and of the revolutions of ages which left no written monuments behind them." - JOHNSON.
THE Gypsy dialect of Spain is at present very much shattered and broken, being rather the fragments of the language which the Gypsies brought with them from the remote regions of the East than the language itself: it enables, however, in its actual state, the Gitanos to hold conversation amongst themselves, the import of which is quite dark and mysterious to those who are not of their race, or by some means have become acquainted with their vocabulary. The relics of this tongue, singularly curious in themselves, must be ever particularly interesting to the philological antiquarian, inasmuch as they enable him to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion respecting the origin of the Gypsy race.
During the later part of the last century, the curiosity of some learned individuals, particularly Grellmann, Richardson, and Marsden, induced them to collect many words of the Romanian language, as spoken in Germany, Hungary, and England, which, upon a.n.a.lysing, they discovered to be in general either pure Sanscrit or Hindustani words, or modifications thereof; these investigations have been continued to the present time by men of equal curiosity and no less erudition, the result of which has been the establishment of the fact, that the Gypsies of those countries are the descendants of a tribe of Hindus who for some particular reason had abandoned their native country. In England, of late, the Gypsies have excited particular attention; but a desire far more n.o.ble and laudable than mere antiquarian curiosity has given rise to it, namely, the desire of propagating the glory of Christ amongst those who know Him not, and of saving souls from the jaws of the infernal wolf. It is, however, with the Gypsies of Spain, and not with those of England and other countries, that we are now occupied, and we shall merely mention the latter so far as they may serve to elucidate the case of the Gitanos, their brethren by blood and language. Spain for many centuries has been the country of error; she has mistaken stern and savage tyranny for rational government; base, low, and grovelling superst.i.tion for clear, bright, and soul-enn.o.bling religion; sordid cheating she has considered as the path to riches; vexatious persecution as the path to power; and the consequence has been, that she is now poor and powerless, a pagan amongst the pagans, with a dozen kings, and with none. Can we be surprised, therefore, that, mistaken in policy, religion, and moral conduct, she should have fallen into error on points so naturally dark and mysterious as the history and origin of those remarkable people whom for the last four hundred years she has supported under the name of Gitanos? The idea entertained at the present day in Spain respecting this race is, that they are the descendants of the Moriscos who remained in Spain, wandering about amongst the mountains and wildernesses, after the expulsion of the great body of the nation from the country in the time of Philip the Third, and that they form a distinct body, entirely unconnected with the wandering tribes known in other countries by the names of Bohemians, Gypsies, etc. This, like all unfounded opinions, of course originated in ignorance, which is always ready to have recourse to conjecture and guesswork, in preference to travelling through the long, mountainous, and stony road of patient investigation; it is, however, an error far more absurd and more dest.i.tute of tenable grounds than the ancient belief that the Gitanos were Egyptians, which they themselves have always professed to be, and which the original written doc.u.ments which they brought with them on their first arrival in Western Europe, and which bore the signature of the king of Bohemia, expressly stated them to be.
The only clue to arrive at any certainty respecting their origin, is the language which they still speak amongst themselves; but before we can avail ourselves of the evidence of this language, it will be necessary to make a few remarks respecting the princ.i.p.al languages and dialects of that immense tract of country, peopled by at least eighty millions of human beings, generally known by the name of Hindustan, two Persian words tantamount to the land of Ind, or, the land watered by the river Indus.
The most celebrated of these languages is the Sanskrida, or, as it is known in Europe, the Sanscrit, which is the language of religion of all those nations amongst whom the faith of Brahma has been adopted; but though the language of religion, by which we mean the tongue in which the religious books of the Brahmanic sect were originally written and are still preserved, it has long since ceased to be a spoken language; indeed, history is silent as to any period when it was a language in common use amongst any of the various tribes of the Hindus; its knowledge, as far as reading and writing it went, having been entirely confined to the priests of Brahma, or Brahmans, until within the last half-century, when the British, having subjugated the whole of Hindustan, caused it to be openly taught in the colleges which they established for the instruction of their youth in the languages of the country. Though sufficiently difficult to acquire, princ.i.p.ally on account of its prodigious richness in synonyms, it is no longer a sealed language, - its laws, structure, and vocabulary being sufficiently well known by means of numerous elementary works, adapted to facilitate its study. It has been considered by famous philologists as the mother not only of all the languages of Asia, but of all others in the world. So wild and preposterous an idea, however, only serves to prove that a devotion to philology, whose princ.i.p.al object should be the expansion of the mind by the various treasures of learning and wisdom which it can unlock, sometimes only tends to its bewilderment, by causing it to embrace shadows for reality. The most that can be allowed, in reason, to the Sanscrit is that it is the mother of a certain cla.s.s or family of languages, for example, those spoken in Hindustan, with which most of the European, whether of the Sclavonian, Gothic, or Celtic stock, have some connection.
True it is that in this case we know not how to dispose of the ancient Zend, the mother of the modern Persian, the language in which were written those writings generally attributed to Zerduscht, or Zoroaster, whose affinity to the said tongues is as easily established as that of the Sanscrit, and which, in respect to antiquity, may well dispute the palm with its Indian rival.
Avoiding, however, the discussion of this point, we shall content ourselves with observing, that closely connected with the Sanscrit, if not derived from it, are the Bengali, the high Hindustani, or grand popular language of Hindustan, generally used by the learned in their intercourse and writings, the languages of Multan, Guzerat, and other provinces, without mentioning the mixed dialect called Mongolian Hindustani, a corrupt jargon of Persian, Turkish, Arabic, and Hindu words, first used by the Mongols, after the conquest, in their intercourse with the natives. Many of the princ.i.p.al languages of Asia are totally unconnected with the Sanscrit, both in words and grammatical structure; these are mostly of the great Tartar family, at the head of which there is good reason for placing the Chinese and Tibetian.
Bearing the same a.n.a.logy to the Sanscrit tongue as the Indian dialects specified above, we find the Rommany, or speech of the Roma, or Zincali, as they style themselves, known in England and Spain as Gypsies and Gitanos. This speech, wherever it is spoken, is, in all princ.i.p.al points, one and the same, though more or less corrupted by foreign words, picked up in the various countries to which those who use it have penetrated. One remarkable feature must not be pa.s.sed over without notice, namely, the very considerable number of Sclavonic words, which are to be found embedded within it, whether it be spoken in Spain or Germany, in England or Italy; from which circ.u.mstance we are led to the conclusion, that these people, in their way from the East, travelled in one large compact body, and that their route lay through some region where the Sclavonian language, or a dialect thereof, was spoken. This region I have no hesitation in a.s.serting to have been Bulgaria, where they probably tarried for a considerable period, as nomad herdsmen, and where numbers of them are still to be found at the present day. Besides the many Sclavonian words in the Gypsy tongue, another curious feature attracts the attention of the philologist - an equal or still greater quant.i.ty of terms from the modern Greek; indeed, we have full warranty for a.s.suming that at one period the Spanish section, if not the rest of the Gypsy nation, understood the Greek language well, and that, besides their own Indian dialect, they occasionally used it for considerably upwards of a century subsequent to their arrival, as amongst the Gitanos there were individuals to whom it was intelligible so late as the year 1540.
Where this knowledge was obtained it is difficult to say, - perhaps in Bulgaria, where two-thirds of the population profess the Greek religion, or rather in Romania, where the Romaic is generally understood; that they DID understand the Romaic in 1540, we gather from a very remarkable work, called EL ESTUDIOSO CORTESANO, written by Lorenzo Palmireno: this learned and highly extraordinary individual was by birth a Valencian, and died about 1580; he was professor at various universities - of rhetoric at Valencia, of Greek at Zaragossa, where he gave lectures, in which he explained the verses of Homer; he was a proficient in Greek, ancient and modern, and it should be observed that, in the pa.s.sage which we are about to cite, he means himself by the learned individual who held conversation with the Gitanos. (66) EL ESTUDIOSO CORTESANO was reprinted at Alcala in 1587, from which edition we now copy.
"Who are the Gitanos? I answer; these vile people first began to show themselves in Germany, in the year 1417, where they call them Tartars or Gentiles; in Italy they are termed Ciani. They pretend that they come from Lower Egypt, and that they wander about as a penance, and to prove this, they show letters from the king of Poland. They lie, however, for they do not lead the life of penitents, but of dogs and thieves. A learned person, in the year 1540, prevailed with them, by dint of much persuasion, to show him the king"s letter, and he gathered from it that the time of their penance was already expired; he spoke to them in the Egyptian tongue; they said, however, as it was a long time since their departure from Egypt, they did not understand it; he then spoke to them in the vulgar Greek, such as is used at present in the Morea and Archipelago; SOME UNDERSTOOD IT, others did not; so that as all did not understand it, we may conclude that the language which they use is a feigned one, (67) got up by thieves for the purpose of concealing their robberies, like the jargon of blind beggars."
Still more abundant, however, than the mixture of Greek, still more abundant than the mixture of Sclavonian, is the alloy in the Gypsy language, wherever spoken, of modern Persian words, which circ.u.mstance will compel us to offer a few remarks on the share which the Persian has had in the formation of the dialects of India, as at present spoken.
The modern Persian, as has been already observed, is a daughter of the ancient Zend, and, as such, is ent.i.tled to claim affinity with the Sanscrit, and its dialects. With this language none in the world would be able to vie in simplicity and beauty, had not the Persians, in adopting the religion of Mahomet, unfortunately introduces into their speech an infinity of words of the rude coa.r.s.e language used by the barbaric Arab tribes, the immediate followers of the warlike Prophet. With the rise of Islam the modern Persian was doomed to be carried into India. This country, from the time of Alexander, had enjoyed repose from external aggression, had been ruled by its native princes, and been permitted by Providence to exercise, without control or reproof, the degrading superst.i.tions, and the unnatural and b.l.o.o.d.y rites of a religion at the formation of which the fiends of cruelty and l.u.s.t seem to have presided; but reckoning was now about to be demanded of the accursed ministers of this system for the pain, torture, and misery which they had been instrumental in inflicting on their countrymen for the gratification of their avarice, filthy pa.s.sions, and pride; the new Mahometans were at hand - Arab, Persian, and Afghan, with the glittering scimitar upraised, full of zeal for the glory and adoration of the one high G.o.d, and the relentless persecutors of the idol-worshippers. Already, in the four hundred and twenty-sixth year of the Hegeira, we read of the destruction of the great Butkhan, or image-house of Sumnaut, by the armies of the far-conquering Mahmoud, when the dissevered heads of the Brahmans rolled down the steps of the gigantic and Babel-like temple of the great image -
[Text which cannot be reproduced - Arabic?]
(This image grim, whose name was Laut, Bold Mahmoud found when he took Sumnaut.)
It is not our intention to follow the conquests of the Mahometans from the days of Walid and Mahmoud to those of Timour and Nadir; sufficient to observe, that the greatest part of India was subdued, new monarchies established, and the old religion, though far too powerful and widely spread to be extirpated, was to a considerable extent abashed and humbled before the bright rising sun of Islam.
The Persian language, which the conquerors (68) of whatever denomination introduced with them to Hindustan, and which their descendants at the present day still retain, though not lords of the ascendant, speedily became widely extended in these regions, where it had previously been unknown. As the language of the court, it was of course studied and acquired by all those natives whose wealth, rank, and influence necessarily brought them into connection with the ruling powers; and as the language of the camp, it was carried into every part of the country where the duties of the soldiery sooner or later conducted them; the result of which relations between the conquerors and conquered was the adoption into the popular dialects of India of an infinity of modern Persian words, not merely those of science, such as it exists in the East, and of luxury and refinement, but even those which serve to express many of the most common objects, necessities, and ideas, so that at the present day a knowledge of the Persian is essential for the thorough understanding of the princ.i.p.al dialects of Hindustan, on which account, as well as for the a.s.sistance which it affords in communication with the Mahometans, it is cultivated with peculiar care by the present possessors of the land.
No surprise, therefore, can be entertained that the speech of the Gitanos in general, who, in all probability, departed from Hindustan long subsequent to the first Mahometan invasions, abounds, like other Indian dialects, with words either purely Persian, or slightly modified to accommodate them to the genius of the language. Whether the Rommany originally const.i.tuted part of the natives of Multan or Guzerat, and abandoned their native land to escape from the torch and sword of Tamerlane and his Mongols, as Grellmann and others have supposed, or whether, as is much more probable, they were a thievish caste, like some others still to be found in Hindustan, who fled westward, either from the vengeance of justice, or in pursuit of plunder, their speaking Persian is alike satisfactorily accounted for. With the view of exhibiting how closely their language is connected with the Sanscrit and Persian, we subjoin the first ten numerals in the three tongues, those of the Gypsy according to the Hungarian dialect. (69)
Gypsy. Persian. Sanscrit. (70)
1 Jek Ek Ega 2 Dui Du Dvaya 3 Trin Se Treya 4 Schtar Chehar Tschatvar 5 Pansch Pansch Pantscha 6 Tschov Schesche Schasda 7 Efta Heft Sapta 8 Ochto Hescht Aschta 9 Enija Nu Nava 10 Dosch De Dascha
It would be easy for us to adduce a thousand instances, as striking as the above, of the affinity of the Gypsy tongue to the Persian, Sanscrit, and the Indian dialects, but we have not s.p.a.ce for further observation on a point which long since has been sufficiently discussed by others endowed with abler pens than our own; but having made these preliminary remarks, which we deemed necessary for the elucidation of the subject, we now hasten to speak of the Gitano language as used in Spain, and to determine, by its evidence (and we again repeat, that the language is the only criterion by which the question can be determined), how far the Gitanos of Spain are ent.i.tled to claim connection with the tribes who, under the names of Zingani, etc., are to be found in various parts of Europe, following, in general, a life of wandering adventure, and practising the same kind of thievish arts which enable those in Spain to obtain a livelihood at the expense of the more honest and industrious of the community.
The Gitanos of Spain, as already stated, are generally believed to be the descendants of the Moriscos, and have been a.s.serted to be such in printed books. (71) Now they are known to speak a language or jargon amongst themselves which the other natives of Spain do not understand; of course, then, supposing them to be of Morisco origin, the words of this tongue or jargon, which are not Spanish, are the relics of the Arabic or Moorish tongue once spoken in Spain, which they have inherited from their Moorish ancestors. Now it is well known, that the Moorish of Spain was the same tongue as that spoken at present by the Moors of Barbary, from which country Spain was invaded by the Arabs, and to which they again retired when unable to maintain their ground against the armies of the Christians. We will, therefore, collate the numerals of the Spanish Gitano with those of the Moorish tongue, preceding both with those of the Hungarian Gypsy, of which we have already made use, for the purpose of making clear the affinity of that language to the Sanscrit and Persian. By this collation we shall at once perceive whether the Gitano of Spain bears most resemblance to the Arabic, or the Rommany of other lands.