THE EARLY POETRY OF ISRAEL.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1043, 4 February 1911, Page 11

THE EARLY POETRY OF ISRAEL.

> DR. G. A. SMITH'S LECTURES. A benefaction of £10,000 was given, to the British Academy to found a idcliwcicli Lecture dealing freely with some question of Uibiical Archaeology. The third lecturer engaged was Principal George Adam Sn.itn, of Aberdeen University, who chose for Iris subject "The Early Poetry of Israel in its Physical and Social Origins." He divided his subject into three lectures, which were given at Burlington House. At the first Iccture tlio chair was taken by Dr. Jveiiyon, Director of tho British Museum, who said Dr. Smith stood out as a foremost Hebraist, whoso books on ''Isaiah," "Historical Geography of the Holy Land," and "Jerusalem" had placed all Bible'scholars 'under a deep debt of gratitude. Dr. Smith, who was. received with; grpat enthusiasm, devoted his opening, lccturp to an account of the Hebrew:; languago as a. vehicle f.oiu,pqet;;y, . n pnd>, the-Hebrew conception of poetry. llc-J brew poetry lacked much of the charm of construction and musical device that is characteristic of Western poetry; Nor did the Hebrew poets-regard their functions in the same .light as the Western'' poets. They were called everything but poets—minstrels, singers, and what hot. Very interesting was. the explanation and illustration of the parallelism of Hebrew poetry. Tlio Orientals loved to repeat a favourite idea or figure, often with a slight difference. But, ho.said,Western folk-song resorts to the': same device, and he vastly amused ■ the audience with such nursery rhymo analogies to Hebrew parallelism, as Oltl King Cole was a merry old soul, And a merry old so'ul was he. I love a sixpence, I love a sixpence, I love a sixpence Better than my. life. The English audienco rocked with laughter'at the "sixpence" recitation by a Scot, but Dr.' Smith turned the tables by remarking: "I would have you remember that this is not a Scotch song, but an English song." The Hebrews, like all Orientals, disliko rigid symmetry. Some modern critics in their passion for symmetry had falsely reconstructed many passages, so as to make them fit into a rigid symmetrical scheme.. Nothing could be less Oriental. The Hebrews aimedrrather at parallelism of idea than at parallelism of metre or rhyme. The second and third lectures were devoted to the spirit' and substanco of the early Hebrew poetry. Before the timo of Islam, women as well as men were poets and minstrels, and their favourite songs were triumph songs on tho return of victorious warriors, and* taunt songs against tho enemy or tlio cowardly. Woman's gift of sarcasm and satire, ho said amid laughter, was not confined to tho Somites. The rhythmic movenients of camels and horses, on their journeys across tlio desert, without doubt suggested some of tlio measures ,of Semitic poetry. The natural phenomena of tlio desert suggested to the' Semite, not the processes of natural law, but tlio power of tho supernatural. The mysterious . crackling of tlio desert sand at nightfall, which had never been sufficiently explained, accounted for the Semitic belief that tho djinns, or evil spirits, frequented especially tlio 'dry places,' and this, lie believed* explained tho statement in one of our Lord's parables of the evil spirit that went ill search of other spirits to a dry place. One of the most splendid attributes of Semitic poetry was its concrcteness and perspicuity—the Somite disliked vagueness and indefinite-: ness. Tho cause of this was not only the rarefied atmosphere in which every object stood out clear and distinct, but tlio ancestral habit of quick ' decision necessitated by tho conditions of the nomadic life. The great defect was lack, of sustained imagination and of vivid vision of distant tilings. Early Semitic poetry was almost entirely devoid of speculation about events beyond tho grave. Even twelve centuries of Islamic teaching had left the Bedouins unconvinced and indifferent as to tho future life. This was due partly to the horrible pressure of "the present life, but largely to the nomadic life N which made it impossible for tho living ( to abide by their dead, for whom, under the circumstances, they did not provide elaborate family sepulchres. He questioned whether Abraham and his family were •is completely "civilised"—that is. transformed from nomads to city dwellers, from the shepherd life to ail agricultural and industrial life—as had !>cen imagined. The return to a nomadic life might have been easier than had been supposed. In tho concluding lecture, Dr. Smith' dealt with tho influence 011 the early poems of the physical life of the desert: ivhicli had a bearing 011 the age of the poems. Ho showed also tho difference of attitude of tlio earlier, as compared with tho later age, to nature in Palestine —trees, underground waters, hills md the sea. He brought out tho senso -Mown of tho uniqueness of tho people of Israel.