Kitabı oku: «Basque Legends; With an Essay on the Basque Language», sayfa 16

Nevertheless, there are in the world minds so devoted to the worship of their own fixed ideas, so smitten with their own metaphysical dreams, so full of faith in the necessity of the unity of language, that they have acquired the habit of torturing the radical elements of a language, and of making them flexible and variable to an inconceivable degree. They pass their lives in seeking etymologies, such as those which Schleicher calls “Etymologizerungen ins blanc hinein,” and in discovering phonetic miracles—worthy children of those students of the last centuries who, in the general ignorance of the science of language, traced up all languages to Hebrew. The adventurous spirits to whom I allude have invented a theory of languages in which the vocabulary is incessantly renewed, and have formed the great “Turanian” family, in which everything which is neither Aryan, nor Semitic, nor Chinese, must be perforce included. In this olla podrida, where the Japanese elbows the Esquimaux, and the Australian shakes hands with the Turkish, where the Tamul fraternizes with the Hungarian, a place is carefully reserved for the Basque. Many amateurs, more daring still, have wedded the Escuara, or at least those who speak it, to the soi-disant Khamitic tribes of Egypt; others have united them to the ancient Phœnicians; others have seen in them the descendants of the Alans; others again, thanks to the Atlantides, make them a colony of Americans. It is not long since it was seriously affirmed, and in perfect good faith, that the Basques and the Kelts, the Welsh or Bretons, understood each other, and could converse at length, each using his native tongue. I refer these last to the poet Rulhière:

 
“La contrariété tient souvent au langage:
On peut s’entendre moins parlant un même son,
Que si l’un parlait Basque et l’autre Bas-Breton.”
 

The more serious of these foes of negative conclusions, of these refiners of quintessences, assert that the ancestors of the Basques are incontestably the Iberians. In the first place I will remark that, supposing this proved, the Basques, or, if you will, the Iberians, would not be the less isolated; for how could the Iberian, any more than the Basque, be allied to the Keltic or to the Carthaginian? But this Iberian theory is not yet at all proved, and it will be easy to show it to be so in a few words. It reposes first of all on the following à priori—the Iberians have occupied all Spain and the south of Gaul, but the Escuara lives still at the foot of the Pyrénées; therefore the Escuara is a remnant of the language of the Iberians. The error of the syllogism is patent; the conclusion does not follow, and is wrongly deduced from the premises. As to the direct proofs, they are reduced to essays of interpretation, either of inscriptions called Iberian or Keltiberian, or of numismatic legends, or of proper, and especially of topographical names.¹⁸¹ The inscriptions and legends are written in characters evidently of Phœnician origin, but their interpretation is anything but certain. All the readings, all the translations into Basque, proposed by MM. Boudard, Phillips, and others, are disputed by the linguists who are now studying the Basque. The names collected from ancient authors form a more solid basis; but the explanations proposed by W. von Humboldt, and after him by many etymologists without method,¹⁸² are equally for the most part inadmissible. The Iberian theory is not proved, though it is perfectly possible.

The Basques do not present, in an anthropological point of view, as far as we know at present, any original and well-defined characteristic other than their language.¹⁸³ Nothing in their manners or customs is peculiar to them. It is in vain that some writers have tried to discover the strange custom of the “couvade” among them, a custom still observed, it is said, by the natives of South America and in the plains of Tartary. It consists in the husband, when his wife is confined, going to bed with the new-born infant, and there he “couve,” “broods over it,” so to say. No modern or contemporaneous writer has found this custom among the Basques; and as to historical testimony, it is reduced to a passage of Strabo—which nothing proves to be applicable to the ancestors of the present Basques—and to certain allusions in writers of the last two centuries. These allusions always refer to the Béarnais, the dialect whence the word “couvade” is borrowed.

Prince L. L. Bonaparte has discovered that in the Basque dialect of Roncal the moon is called “Goicoa;” Jaungoicoa is the word for “God” in Basque, and would mean “the Lord Moon,” or rather “our Lord the Moon.” He cites, with reference to this, “the worship of the moon by the ancient Basques.” The only evidence in favour of this worship is a passage of Strabo (Lib. iii., iv. 16), where it is said that the Keltiberians, and their neighbours to the north, honour a certain anonymous God by dances before their doors at night during the full moon. But it must be proved that the Keltiberians and their neighbours to the north were Basques.

Another passage of Strabo has furnished arguments to the “Iberists.” He says (Lib. iii., iv. 18) that among the Cantabrians the daughters inherited, to the detriment of their brothers. M. Eugène Cordier has endeavoured, after Laferrière (”Histoire du Droit Français”), to establish that this arrangement is the origin of the right of primogeniture without distinction of sex, and which is found more or less in all the “coutumes” of the Western Pyrénées. He has developed this theory in an interesting essay, “Sur l’Organisation de la Famille chez les Basques” (Paris, 1869). But an able lawyer of Bayonne, M. Jules Balasque, has shown in Vol. II. of his remarkable “Etudes Historiques sur la Ville de Bayonne” (Bayonne, 1862–75) that there is nothing peculiar to the Basques in this fact; and we can only recognise in it, as in the opposite custom of “juveignerie” in certain northern “coutumes,” an application of a principle essentially Keltic or Gallic for the preservation of the patrimony.

In conclusion, I beg my readers to excuse the brevity of the preceding notes; but, pressed for time, and overwhelmed with a multitude of occupations, it has not been possible for me to do more. If I am still subject to the reproach which Boileau addresses to those who, in striving to be concise, become obscure, I have at least endeavoured to conform to the precept of the Tamul poet, Tiruvalluva—“To call him a man who lavishes useless words, is to call a man empty straw” (I. Book, xx. chap., 6th stanza).

Bayonne, August 28, 1876.

Basque Poetry

I.—Pastorales

Perhaps there is no people among whom versification is so common, and among whom really high-class poetry is so rare, as among the Basques. The faculty of rhyming and of improvisation in verse is constantly to be met with. Not unusually a traveller in one of the country diligences, especially on a market-day, will be annoyed by the persistent crooning of one of the company, like Horace of old, more or less under the inspiration of Bacchus; and if he enquire what the man is about, he will be told that he is reciting a narrative in verse of all the events of the past day, mingled probably with more or less sarcastic reflections on the present company, and with especial emphasis on the stranger. At the yearly village fêtes, when the great match of Jeu de Paume au Rebot has been lost or won, prizes are sometimes given for improvisation on themes suggested at the moment, and the rapidity of the leading improvisatori¹⁸⁴ is something marvellous. Moreover, there are two species of native Drama. One, the Pastorale, the more regular and important, is now confined to the Vallée of La Saison and the Souletin district. The other, the Charivari, or Mascarade, more unfettered and impromptu, giving free rein to the invention of the actors, is occasionally, but rarely, acted in all districts of the Pays Basque.

The Pastorale, or Tragedy, is certainly a representative and survival of the Mediæval Mystery, or Miracle Play; and in the remoter districts is acted almost as seriously as is the Ammergau Passion Play. It is an open-air performance, which unites in interminable length, and in the same piece, tragedy and comedy, music, dancing, and opera. Though undoubtedly the oldest form in which Basque poetry of any kind is preserved, it can have no claim to be an indigenous product. The subjects of the older Pastorales are drawn from three sources—from the Bible; from the lives of the Saints, or Hagiology; from the Chansons de Geste and Romances of Chivalry. None of the extant Pastorales, even in their earliest form, would, we think, be anterior to the thirteenth century. The anachronisms, the prejudices, the colouring, the state of education evinced, are all those of the date when the Chansons de Geste and the Legenda Aurea were the favourite literature of high and low; the epoch at the close of which flourished the brilliant petty courts of Gaston de Foix at Orthez, and of the Black Prince at Bordeaux. The anachronisms make Charlemagne a contemporary of the Crusaders; Mahomet is an idol, and in the shape of a wooden puppet sits on a cross-bar over one of the stage-entrances, where he is worshipped by all his followers as they pass in and out. The make-up of the characters and the dresses are conventional. But though we cannot assign any higher antiquity even to the original form of any of the extant Pastorales—we say original form, because they have been edited and re-edited generation after generation by almost every prompter at each successive representation—yet several of the accessories and part of the stage-business point to possibly older traditions. The stage, at least in the more inaccessible villages, where alone the Pastorales are now to be seen in anything like their genuine form, may still be described as “modicis pulpita tignis.” It is generally constructed against a house in the “Place” of the village, and is composed of boards resting on inverted barrels; one or more sheets, suspended from cross-bars, hide the house walls, and form the background; to this drapery bunches of flowers and flags are affixed, and thus is formed the whole “scenery”; the rest is open air and sky. Usually behind the sheet, though sometimes in front on a chair, sits the prompter, or stage-director; at the corners and sides of the stage are the stage-keepers, armed with muskets, which are fired off at certain effective moments, and always at the end of a fight. But there are four points in which a Pastorale recalls more ancient traditions: (1) The sexes are never mingled; the Pastorale being played either entirely by men, or entirely by women.¹⁸⁵ (2) The speech is always a kind of recitative or chant, varying in time according to the step of the actors. (3) There is a true chorus. (4) The feet and metre of the verse correspond to the step and march of the actors, and to the dancing of the chorus.

Now, as to (1), the effect is not unpleasing; the boy-lady or the boy-angel is often one of the most successful actors, and makes an excellent substitute for the real lady. There is no coarseness in his acting; on the contrary, there is a certain reserve of movement caused by the unwonted dress, which looks like a pleasing modesty, and makes the boy appear really lady-like. His get-up is generally unexceptionable.

We have once only had an opportunity of seeing a girl’s Pastorale, “Ste. Helène,” at Garindein, in April of the present year, 1879. Unfortunately it was interrupted, almost as soon as commenced, by violent rain. The costumes were very modest and pretty. The heroines of the piece wore blue or scarlet-jackets, with long white skirts; the lady-heroes had shorter skirts and white unmentionables. The Pastorale of “Ste. Helène” has nothing to do with the mother of Constantine the Great, or with the Invention of the Cross. It is an olla podrida of old legends. The opening scene is taken from “The King who wished to marry his own daughter” (see above, p. 165.) A King Antoina wishes to marry his daughter Helène, and for that purpose procures a dispensation from the Pope, who appears on the scene, attended by an angel. Helène, however, still refuses, and escapes; she embarks for England, but the captain of the vessel falls outrageously in love with her (cf. “Juan Dekos,” p. 148). A shipwreck saves her from his persecutions; she lands alone in England, is seen by Henry, King of England, who falls in love with her and forthwith marries her, in spite of his mother’s objections. He is forced to go to the wars; Helène gives birth to twin boys, but the queen-mother changes the letter, and sends word to the King that she is confined of two puppies (cf. “The singing tree, the bird which tells the truth, and the water that makes young,” p. 177). Ste. Helène is condemned to death; Clarice, her maid, offers to die in her stead, but both escape; the boys, who were supposed to have been murdered, at last reappear, and all ends happily as in the legends. The part of the “Satans” was taken by three middle-aged men, in buff breeches and white stockings, who danced very well. The preliminary procession on horseback, and the opening scene on the stage, were exceedingly pretty.

(2) The recitative is always accompanied by music; generally a violin or two, a flute, the chirola, and the so-called Basque tambourine, a species of six-stringed guitar, beaten by a short stick, or plectrum. The tune is almost a monotone, but differs in time, being faster or slower according to the action of the piece; with the exception of those parts in which the chorus alone has possession of the stage, when the Saut Basque or other lively dancing airs are played. The strong, clear chant of the actor accompanying this music, which is never overpowering in its loudness, is heard much better and to a greater distance in the open air than any mere speaking would be; and, moreover, it prevents rant, without altogether effacing vivacity. For (3) there is a singular idea running through all these Basque Pastorales, according to which sanctity and nobility of character are associated with calmness of demeanour and tone, and villany and devilry of all kinds with restlessness and excitement. The angels and saints, the archbishops and bishops, move with folded hands and softly gliding steps; the heroes walk majestically slow; the common soldiers are somewhat more animated and careless in their gestures; the Saracens, the enemies, the villains, rush wildly about; but the chorus, or “Satans,” are ever in restless, aimless, agitated movement, except when engaged in actual dancing. It is on these last, the chorus—of whom there should be three, or two at least—that the great fatigue and burden of the acting weighs. None but the most active and well-knit lads can play the part, and even them it tries severely. This chorus is invariably called “Satans;” their dress is always rigidly the same, and a pretty one it is—red beret or cap, red open jacket, white trousers with red stripes, red sashes, spartingues (hempen sandals) bound with red ribands; and they carry a little wand ornamented with red ribands and terminating in a three-forked hooked prong.¹⁸⁶ Blue is the colour consecrated to the good and virtuous; red to the enemy and the vicious, to the English, Saracens, and “Satans.” The task of the “Satans” is not only to take part among the actors, but the difficulty of their utterance is much heightened by the compelled rapidity of their movements, while at intervals, when the stage is empty of other actors, they occupy the front corners of it, and dance the wild Saut Basque, singing at the same time some reflections on, or anticipations of, the action of the piece played, much like the chorus of a Greek tragedy; but, in addition to this, there is generally a comic interlude, more or less impromptu, and very slightly, if at all, connected with the main piece, wherein the “Satans” take the principal rôle, together with the best comedian of the other actors. This is done to relieve the tedium of the heavy tragedy, and, oddly enough, is often spoken partly in Gascon or in French, while only Basque is used in the Pastorale proper. (4) As will be judged from the above remarks, there is, perhaps, no spectacle in Europe from which the original relations of feet, line, pause, metre, verse, strophe, antistrophe, and rhythm in music, dance, and poetry can be better studied than at a Basque Pastorale. It will be seen there at a glance how far these terms are from being mere metaphors.

Now, when we add that many of the actors in these Pastorales cannot—scarcely any could before the present generation—read or write; that the Pastorales extend from three to seven thousand lines, distributed in ballad verses of four lines each, the second and fourth rhyming; and that the representations last from six to eight hours, our readers may imagine the amount of serious preparation required where every sentence has to be learned by heart from repetition of a reader or reciter. Consequently, to get up a Pastorale, a whole winter is not too long. The task is generally performed at home in the actor’s family, or in a house where two or three meet together for the study, if neighbours. We have seen some pleasing instances of the pride the whole family take in the success of the actor. Asking once a pretty boy where he could have learnt to play his part of lady in so very ladylike a manner, he answered, “From my father and my mother in the winter.” At another time we had as companion in a long day’s walk a man upwards of sixty, who had been a “Satan” in his youth. He explained how very trying it is both to dance well and to sing at the same time so as to be clearly heard. His father had been a “Satan” before him, and had trained him for the occasion, and had made him eat two raw eggs before commencing. He spoke of the joy of the whole family when his performance was successful, though he lost his voice for several days afterwards. To show what his former agility must have been, he cleared every fence and obstacle in our path gallantly, despite his sixty years. These Pastorales are seldom, if ever, acted as a money speculation, but during the acting of them one or two young men, accompanied by a pretty girl, make the round of the spectators, offering a glass of wine, in quasi-payment for which you are expected to place a coin in the plate which the maiden carries. The amount collected is seldom much beyond what is required for the necessary expenses; more often it is below, but if anything remains it is spent on a grand feast to all the actors. The number of Pastorales in existence is variously stated at from seventy to two hundred. The former number we believe to be the nearer to the fact. The names of those best known are as follows:—

From the Bible and Hagiology.

Classical.

Chansons de Geste, etc.

[4] An account of the acting of Richard Sans Peur, at Larrau, in June 1864, is given in Macmillan’s Magazine, January, 1865.

[5] Cf. Legends above, p. 151.

Modern.

We will now give a brief epitome of “Abraham” as a specimen, not of the best, but of the only one which we have at hand in MS.,¹⁸⁷ for none of the Pastorales, we believe, have ever been printed in extenso. The dramatis personæ are:

Abraham is the model of a Christian, and Abraham and Pharaon both address their followers as “barons.” Satan flatteringly addresses the shepherds by the Spanish title “Caballeros” when he wants to lead them into mischief. The actors are by no means so numerous as the “rôles”; one takes several successive parts, often without change of dress, a custom which heightens not a little the difficulty of following an acted Pastorale.

There is more dramatic unity in “Abraham,” and the main plot is more skilfully conducted than might be expected from its title. The key-note of the action is given at once when Satan and Bulgifer appear on horseback in the “Place” in front of the stage, and announce their project of “tormenting Abraham,” and of “weakening the Christian Faith.” The plot then follows pretty closely the Bible narrative. Only it is Satan and Bulgifer who are the authors of all Abraham’s misfortunes and vexations; although the angels constantly appear to save him when matters are at their worst. It is the “Satans” who inflame Pharaon in Egypt with the report and sight of Sara’s beauty; it is they who stir up strife between Abraham’s and Lot’s herdsmen; they are delighted with the wickedness of the inhabitants of Sodom, which they direct to suit their own purposes; they stir up war against Abraham and Lot in the persons of the Turkish kings with Biblical names. These at first conquer Lot, and one by one slay all his partisans, including the good giants Chavoq and Chorre, whose corpses are carried off by Satan to be feasted upon, with the licorish exclamation: “O what cutlets! what a fine leg!!” Then they tempt Agar, and make her quarrel with Sara. In the scene preceding the destruction of Sodom, although the angels are present, the inhabitants round Lot’s door are blinded, not by them, but “by some magician.” Lot’s wife, Uxor, when to be changed into a pillar of salt, ingeniously falls under the stage, and there the transformation takes place unseen. When Isaac is born, he is forthwith baptised. Agar and Ismael are driven into the desert, and are saved by the angel Gabriel. The play then gradually works up to the climax, the sacrifice of Isaac—the last and terrible temptation—in which the “Satans” tempt the “two Christians,” Abraham and Isaac, to unbelief and disobedience, and are foiled as ever. After this, the action languishes, Abraham dies, and the Pastorale comes to an end. All the actors appear on the stage and chant the De Profundis, then the angels sing, and all unite in a concluding chant. We give a few verses from the scene of the sacrifice as a specimen of the whole:—

Satan and Bulgifer; Abraham and Isaac.

Satan.

 
Abraham, art thou ignorant?
What art thou thinking of?
Leave him in life;
Thou hast some wise hairs.
 
 
I tell thee to return
To the house with the child;
And there you shall live
With very great joy.
 

Abraham.

 
Ah! alas! wretched torment!
Always thus on this earth
Satan doth vex me
In all my doings.
 
 
Nevertheless, I take courage;
Yes, even now
To slay Isaac
I am ready on the instant.
 
 
He has given me the order,
The good God Himself,
That I sacrifice Isaac
On this mountain myself.
 

Bulgifer.

 
He who gave you this order
Was not God. No!
Go off to your house,
And take your young son.
 

Abraham.

 
My only son Isaac,
If I sacrifice him,
All of my race
I quickly destroy.
 
 
The good God had told me
That he would marry;
But if he dies now,
How can that be?
 
 
I trust, nevertheless,
On our Lord God;
I am willing to offer to Him,
To Him alone, my son.
 

At last Satan and Bulgifer go off, exclaiming:—

 
O, you accursed one!
You always overcome us;
To confusion always
You do put us.
 
 
But, if we no more tempt you,
We will tempt some one else;
And we will even take down
To hell some soul.
 
 
In despair we depart
For ever from thee;
And we leave you now
In a very sad case.
 

After a few words between father and son, Isaac then offers himself, and prays as follows:—

 
People, I pray you, look
On this poor innocent child;
I am about to leave the world,
And have done harm to none. (Music.)
 
 
O Lord! our Saviour!
Unjustly crucified!
Lord, I must also
Soon leave this world. (Music.)
 
 
O King of Heaven!
Who art powerful
Above all other,
Wise and triumphant. (Music.)
 
 
I ask pardon of Thee
For all my sins,
Wherewith I oft have offended
Thee from my birth.
 

He binds himself, and goes on:—

 
All those, O Lord!
Blot from remembrance;
To Thy glory, I pray,
Receive me immediately.
 
 
King of the Angels,
Prince of the Heaven,
May’st Thou grant me,
I pray Thee, Thy rest.
 
 
I ask Thee pardon
From my whole heart;
Succour me, O Lord!
With Thy holy hand.
 
 
I have not enough wit
To thank Thee therewith;
But if to Heaven I should go,
There will I praise Thee.
 
 
O Lord! I pray Thee, have pity!
Thou shouldest grant it me;
For to leave this world
I am determined.
 
 
Angel of the Lord,
Grant me strength,
Since Thou art
My Guide!
 
 
Lord, I commend
To Thee my spirit;
It is Thou Who first
Hast created me.
 
 
And O! great God! I pray,
If it be Thy will,
In the repose of the blessed
Place my soul.
 
 
Father,—whenever You will,—
Sacrifice me now;—
To find my God
I would depart.
 

Abraham is in the act of sacrificing when the Angel Gabriel seizes him from behind, and bids him not do it, &c., &c. Any foreigner who, unless he has a most charming interpreter or interpretress, can sit out a whole Pastorale would surely deserve the first prize in the school of patience.

The other kind of dramatic performance is much more irregular, and may assume various forms according to the circumstances which give occasion to it. It may be only a wild kind of carnival procession, the Mascarade, where each gesticulates as the character he represents; or a charivari in honour (?) of a dotard’s marriage, wherein the advantages of celibacy over married life are sarcastically set forth; or it may take the form of a really witty impromptu comedy played on a tiny stage in honour of the marriage or the good fortune of the most popular persons of the village. One of the first kind is excellently described in Chaho’s “Biarritz, entre les Pyréneés et l’Océan,” vol. ii. pp. 84–121, to which we refer the reader. One of the last kind was acted at Louhossoa about 1866, on the double occasion of some marriages, and of the return of some young men from South America. There were three actors; the piece was witty and well played, and seemed to give the greatest satisfaction to the audience.