Alan Douglas - "Afloat"

Perceval Gibbon - "Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases"

Frank E. Smedley - "Frank Fairlegh"

John Finley - "The French in the Heart of America"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Tancred

B >> Benjamin Disraeli >> Tancred




'The gods of the Greeks!' exclaimed Tancred.

'The gods of the Ansarey,' said the Queen; 'the gods of my fathers!'

'I am filled with a sweet amazement,' murmured Tancred. 'Life is
stranger than I deemed. My soul is, as it were, unsphered.'

'Yet you know them to be gods,' said the Queen; 'and the Emir of the
Lebanon does not know them to be gods?'

'I feel that they are such,' said Fakredeen.

'How is this, then?' said the Queen. 'How is it that you, the child of a
northern isle----'

'Should recognise the Olympian Jove,' said Tancred. 'It seems strange;
but from my earliest youth I learnt these things.'

'Ah, then,' murmured the Queen to herself, and with an expression of the
greatest satisfaction, 'Dar-kush was rightly informed; he is one of us.'

'I behold then, at last, the gods of the Ansarey,' said Fakredeen.

'All that remains of Antioch, noble Emir; of Anti-och the superb, with
its hundred towers, and its sacred groves and fanes of flashing beauty.'

'Unhappy Asia!' exclaimed the Emir; 'thou hast indeed fallen!'

'When all was over,' said the Queen; 'when the people refused to
sacrifice, and the gods, indignant, quitted earth, I hope not for ever,
the faithful few fled to these mountains with the sacred images, and we
have cherished them. I told you we had beautiful and consoling thoughts,
and more than thoughts. All else is lost, our wealth, our arts, our
luxury, our invention, all have vanished. The niggard earth scarcely
yields us a subsistence; we dress like Kurds, feed hardly as well; but
if we were to quit these mountains, and wander like them on the plains
with our ample flocks, we should lose our sacred images, all the
traditions that we yet cherish in our souls, that in spite of our hard
lives preserve us from being barbarians; a sense of the beautiful and
the lofty, and the divine hope that, when the rapidly consummating
degradation of Asia has been fulfilled, mankind will return again to
those gods who made the earth beautiful and happy; and that they, in
their celestial mercy, may revisit that world which, without them, has
become a howling wilderness.'

'Lady,' said Tancred, with much emotion, 'we must, with your permission,
speak of these things. My heart is at present too full.'

'Come hither,' said the Queen, in a voice of great softness; and she led
Tancred away.

They entered a chamber of much smaller dimensions, which might be looked
upon as a chapel annexed to the cathedral or Pantheon which they had
quitted. At each end of it was a statue. They paused before one. It was
not larger than life, of ivory and gold; the colour purer than could
possibly have been imagined, highly polished, and so little injured,
that at a distance the general effect was not in the least impaired.

'Do you know that?' asked the Queen, as she looked at the statue, and
then she looked at Tancred.

'I recognise the god of poetry and light,' said Tancred; 'Phoebus
Apollo.'

'Our god: the god of Antioch, the god of the sacred grove! Who could
look upon him, and doubt his deity!'

'Is this indeed the figure,' murmured Tancred, 'before which a hundred
steers have bled? before which libations of honeyed wine were poured
from golden goblets? that lived in a heaven of incense?'

'Ah! you know all.'

'Angels watch over us!' said Tancred, 'or my brain will turn. And who is
this?'

'One before whom the pilgrims of the world once kneeled. This is the
Syrian goddess; the Venus of our land, but called among us by a name
which, by her favour, I also bear, Astarte.'




CHAPTER LIII.

_Fakredeen's Plots_

AND when did men cease from worshipping them?' asked Fakredeen of
Tancred; 'before the Prophet?' 'When truth descended from Heaven in the
person of Christ Jesus.'

'But truth had descended from Heaven before Jesus,' replied Fakredeen;
'since, as you tell me, God spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, and since
then to many of the prophets and the princes of Israel.'

'Of whom Jesus was one,' said Tancred; 'the descendant of King David
as well as the Son of God. But through this last and greatest of their
princes it was ordained that the inspired Hebrew mind should mould and
govern the world. Through Jesus God spoke to the Gentiles, and not to
the tribes of Israel only. That is the great worldly difference between
Jesus and his inspired predecessors. Christianity is Judaism for
the multitude, but still it is Judaism, and its development was the
death-blow of the Pagan idolatry.'

'Gentiles,' murmured Fakredeen; 'Gentiles! you are a Gentile, Tancred?'

'Alas! I am,' he answered, 'sprung from a horde of Baltic pirates, who
never were heard of during the greater annals of the world, a descent
which I have been educated to believe was the greatest of honours. What
we should have become, had not the Syro-Arabian creeds formed our minds,
I dare not contemplate. Probably we should have perished in mutual
destruction. However, though rude and modern Gentiles, unknown to the
Apostles, we also were in time touched with the sacred symbol, and
originally endowed with an organisation of a high class, for our
ancestors wandered from Caucasus; we have become kings and princes.'

'What a droll thing is history,' said Fakredeen. 'Ah! if I were only
acquainted with it, my education would be complete. Should you call me a
Gentile?'

'I have great doubts whether such an appellation could be extended to
the descendants of Ishmael. I always look upon you as a member of the
sacred race. It is a great thing for any man; for you it may tend to
empire.'

'Was Julius Caesar a Gentile?'

'Unquestionably.'

'And Iskander?' (Alexander of Macedon.)

'No doubt; the two most illustrious Gentiles that ever existed, and
representing the two great races on the shores of the Mediterranean, to
which the apostolic views were first directed.'

'Well, their blood, though Gentile, led to empire,' said Fakredeen.

'But what are their conquests to those of Jesus Christ?' said Tancred,
with great animation. 'Where are their dynasties? where their
subjects? They were both deified: who burns incense to them now? Their
descendants, both Greek and Roman, bow before the altars of the house of
David. The house of David is worshipped at Rome itself, at every seat of
great and growing empire in the world, at London, at St. Petersburg,
at New York. Asia alone is faithless to the Asian; but Asia has been
overrun by Turks and Tatars. For nearly five hundred years the true
Oriental mind has been enthralled. Arabia alone has remained free and
faithful to the divine tradition. From its bosom we shall go forth and
sweep away the moulding remnants of the Tataric system; and then,
when the East has resumed its indigenous intelligence, when angels and
prophets again mingle with humanity, the sacred quarter of the globe
will recover its primeval and divine supremacy; it will act upon the
modern empires, and the faint-hearted faith of Europe, which is but
the shadow of a shade, will become as vigorous as befits men who are in
sustained communication with the Creator.'

'But suppose,' said Fakredeen, in a captious tone that was unusual with
him, 'suppose, when the Tataric system is swept away, Asia reverts to
those beautiful divinities that we beheld this morning?'

More than once, since they quitted the presence of Astarte, had
Fakredeen harped upon this idea. From that interview the companions
had returned moody and unusually silent. Strange to say, there seemed
a tacit understanding between them to converse little on that subject
which mainly engrossed their minds. Their mutual remarks on Astarte
were few and constrained; a little more diffused upon the visit to the
temple; but they chiefly kept up the conventional chat of companionship
by rather commonplace observations on Keferinis and other incidents and
persons comparatively of little interest and importance.

After their audience, they dined with the minister, not exactly in
the manner of Downing Street, nor even with the comparative luxury of
Canobia; but the meal was an incident, and therefore agreeable. A good
pilaff was more acceptable than some partridges dressed with oil and
honey: but all Easterns are temperate, and travel teaches abstinence
to the Franks. Neither Fakredeen nor Tancred were men who criticised a
meal: bread, rice, and coffee, a bird or a fish, easily satisfied them.
The Emir affected the Moslem when the minister offered him the wine of
the mountains, which was harsh and rough after the delicious Vino d'Oro
of Lebanon; but Tancred contrived to drink the health of Queen Astarte
without any wry expression of countenance.

'I believe,' said Keferinis, 'that the English, in their island of
London, drink only to women; the other natives of Franguestan chiefly
pledge men; we look upon both as barbarous.'

'At any rate, you worship the god of wine,' remarked Tancred, who never
attempted to correct the self-complacent minister. 'I observed to-day
the statue of Bacchus.'

'Bacchus!' said Keferinis, with a smile, half of inquiry, half of
commiseration. 'Bacchus: an English name, I apprehend! All our gods
came from the ancient Antakia before either the Turks or the English
were heard of. Their real names are in every respect sacred; nor will
they be uttered, even to the Ansarey, until after the divine initiation
has been performed in the perfectly admirable and inexpressibly
delightful mysteries,' which meant, in simpler tongue, that Keferinis
was entirely ignorant of the subject on which he was talking.

After their meal, Keferinis, proposing that in the course of the
day they should fly one of the Queen's hawks, left them, when the
conversation, of which we have given a snatch, occurred. Yet, as we have
observed, they were on the whole moody and unusually silent. Fakredeen
in particular was wrapped in reverie, and when he spoke, it was always
in reference to the singular spectacle of the morning. His musing forced
him to inquiry, having never before heard of the Olympian heirarchy, nor
of the woods of Daphne, nor of the bright lord of the silver bow.

Why were they moody and silent?

With regard to Lord Montacute, the events of the morning might
sufficiently account for the gravity of his demeanour, for he was
naturally of a thoughtful and brooding temperament. This unexpected
introduction to Olympus was suggestive of many reflections to one so
habituated to muse over divine influences. Nor need it be denied that
the character of the Queen greatly interested him. Her mind was
already attuned to heavenly thoughts. She already believed that she
was fulfilling a sacred mission. Tancred could not be blind to the
importance of such a personage as Astarte in the great drama of divine
regeneration, which was constantly present to his consideration. Her
conversion might be as weighty as ten victories. He was not insensible
to the efficacy of feminine influence in the dissemination of religious
truth, nor unaware how much the greatest development of the Arabian
creeds, in which the Almighty himself deigned to become a personal
actor, was assisted by the sacred spell of woman. It is not the Empress
Helene alone who has rivalled, or rather surpassed, the exploits of the
most illustrious apostles. The three great empires of the age, France,
England, and Russia, are indebted for their Christianity to female lips.
We all remember the salutary influence of Clotilde and Bertha which bore
the traditions of the Jordan to the Seine and the Thames: it should not
be forgotten that to the fortunate alliance of Waldimir, the Duke of
Moscovy, with the sister of the Greek Emperor Basil, is to be ascribed
the remarkable circumstance, that the intellectual development of all
the Russias has been conducted on Arabian principles. It was the fair
Giselle, worthy successor of the softhearted women of Galilee, herself
the sister of the Emperor Henry the Second, who opened the mind of her
husband, the King of Hungary, to the deep wisdom of the Hebrews, to the
laws of Moses and the precepts of Jesus. Poland also found an apostle
and a queen in the sister of the Duke of Bohemia, and who revealed to
the Sarmatian Micislas the ennobling mysteries of Sinai and of Calvary.

Sons of Israel, when you recollect that you created Christendom, you may
pardon the Christians even their _autos da fe!_

Fakredeen Shehaab, Emir of Canobia, and lineal descendant of the
standard-bearer of the Prophet, had not such faith in Arabian principles
as to dream of converting the Queen of the Ansarey. Quite the reverse;
the Queen of the Ansarey had converted him. From the first moment he
beheld Astarte, she had exercised over him that magnetic influence
of which he was peculiarly susceptible, and by which Tancred at once
attracted and controlled him. But Astarte added to this influence a
power to which the Easterns in general do not very easily bow: the
influence of sex. With the exception of Eva, woman had never guided the
spirit or moulded the career of Fakredeen; and, in her instance, the
sovereignty had been somewhat impaired by that acquaintance of the
cradle, which has a tendency to enfeeble the ideal, though it may
strengthen the affections. But Astarte rose upon him commanding and
complete, a star whose gradual formation he had not watched, and whose
unexpected brilliancy might therefore be more striking even than
the superior splendour which he had habitually contemplated. Young,
beautiful, queenly, impassioned, and eloquent, surrounded by the
accessories that influence the imagination, and invested with
fascinating mystery, Fakredeen, silent and enchanted, had yielded his
spirit to Astarte, even before she revealed to his unaccustomed and
astonished mind the godlike forms of her antique theogony. Eva and
Tancred had talked to him of gods; Astarte had shown them to him. All
visible images of their boasted divinities of Sinai and of Calvary with
which he was acquainted were enshrined over the altars of the convents
of Lebanon. He contrasted those representations without beauty or grace,
so mean, and mournful, and spiritless, or if endued with attributes of
power, more menacing than majestic, and morose rather than sublime, with
those shapes of symmetry, those visages of immortal beauty, serene
yet full of sentiment, on which he had gazed that morning with a holy
rapture. The Queen had said that, besides Mount Sinai and Mount
Calvary, there was also Mount Olympus. It was true; even Tancred had
not challenged her assertion. And the legends of Olympus were as old as,
nay, older than, those of the convent or the mosques.

This was no mythic fantasy of the beautiful Astarte; the fond tradition
of a family, a race, even a nation. These were not the gods merely of
the mountains: they had been, as they deserved to be, the gods of a
great world, of great nations, and of great men. They were the gods of
Alexander and of Caius Julius; they were the gods under whose divine
administration Asia had been powerful, rich, luxurious and happy. They
were the gods who had covered the coasts and plains with magnificent
cities, crowded the midland ocean with golden galleys, and filled the
provinces that were now a chain of wilderness and desert with teeming
and thriving millions. No wonder the Ansarey were faithful to such
deities. The marvel was why men should ever have deserted them. But
man had deserted them, and man was unhappy. All, Eva, Tancred, his own
consciousness, the surrounding spectacles of his life, assured him that
man was unhappy, degraded, or discontented; at all events, miserable. He
was not surprised that a Syrian should be unhappy, even a Syrian prince,
for he had no career; he was not surprised that the Jews were unhappy,
because they were the most persecuted of the human race, and in all
probability, very justly so, for such an exception as Eva proved
nothing; but here was an Englishman, young, noble, very rich, with every
advantage of nature and fortune, and he had come out to Syria to tell
them that all Europe was as miserable as themselves. What if their
misery had been caused by their deserting those divinities who had once
made them so happy?

A great question; Fakredeen indulged in endless combinations while he
smoked countless nargilehs. If religion were to cure the world, suppose
they tried this ancient and once popular faith, so very popular in
Syria. The Queen of the Ansarey could command five-and-twenty thousand
approved warriors, and the Emir of the Lebanon could summon a host,
if not as disciplined, far more numerous. Fakredeen, in a frenzy
of reverie, became each moment more practical. Asian supremacy,
cosmopolitan regeneration, and theocratic equality, all gradually
disappeared. An independent Syrian kingdom, framed and guarded by a
hundred thousand sabres, rose up before him; an established Olympian
religion, which the Druses, at his instigation, would embrace, and
toleration for the Maronites till he could bribe Bishop Nicodemus to
arrange a general conformity, and convert his great principal from the
Patriarch into the Pontiff of Antioch. The Jews might remain,
provided they negotiated a loan which should consolidate the Olympian
institutions and establish the Gentile dynasty of Fakredeen and Astarte.




CHAPTER LIV.

_Astarte is Jealous_

WHEN Fakredeen bade Tancred as usual good-night, his voice was different
from its accustomed tones; he had replied to Tancred with asperity
several times during the evening; and when he was separated from his
companion, he felt relieved. All unconscious of these changes and
symptoms was the heir of Bellamont.

Though grave, one indeed who never laughed and seldom smiled, Tancred
was blessed with the rarest of all virtues, a singularly sweet temper.
He was grave, because he was always thinking, and thinking of great
deeds. But his heart was soft, and his nature most kind, and
remarkably regardful of the feelings of others. To wound them, however
unintentionally, would occasion him painful disturbance. Though
naturally rapid in the perception of character, his inexperience of
life, and the self-examination in which he was so frequently absorbed,
tended to blunt a little his observation of others. With a generous
failing, which is not uncommon, he was prepared to give those whom
he loved credit for the virtues which he himself possessed, and the
sentiments which he himself extended to them. Being profound, steadfast,
and most loyal in his feelings, he was incapable of suspecting that his
elected friend could entertain sentiments towards him less deep, less
earnest, and less faithful. The change in the demeanour of the Emir
was, therefore, unnoticed by him. And what might be called the sullen
irritability of Fakredeen was encountered with the usual gentleness and
total disregard of self which always distinguished the behaviour of Lord
Montacute.

The next morning they were invited by Astarte to a hawking party,
and, leaving the rugged ravines, they descended into a softer and
more cultivated country, where they found good sport. Fakredeen was an
accomplished falconer, and loved to display his skill before the Queen.
Tancred was quite unpractised, but Astarte seemed resolved that he
should become experienced in the craft among her mountains, which did
not please the Emir, as he caracoled in sumptuous dress on a splendid
steed, with the superb falcon resting on his wrist.

The princes dined again with Keferinis; that, indeed, was to be their
custom during their stay; afterwards, accompanied by the minister,
they repaired to the royal divan, where they had received a general
invitation. Here they found Astarte alone, with the exception of Cypros
and her companions, who worked with their spindles apart; and here, on
the pretext of discussing the high topics on which they had repaired
to Gindarics, there was much conversation on many subjects. Thus passed
one, two, and even three days; thus, in general, would their hours be
occupied at Gindarics. In the morning the hawks, or a visit to some
green valley, which was blessed with a stream and beds of oleander, and
groves of acacia or sycamore. Fakredeen had no cause to complain of
the demeanour of Astarte towards him, for it was most gracious and
encouraging. Indeed, he pleased her; and she was taken, as many had
been, by the ingenuous modesty, the unaffected humility, the tender and
touching deference of his manner; he seemed to watch her every glance,
and hang upon her every accent: his sympathy with her was perfect; he
agreed with every sentiment and observation that escaped her. Blushing,
boyish, unsophisticated, yet full of native grace, and evidently gifted
with the most amiable disposition, it was impossible not to view with
interest, and even regard, one so young and so innocent.

But while the Emir had no cause to be dissatisfied with the demeanour of
Astarte to himself, he could not be unaware that her carriage to Tancred
was different, and he doubted whether the difference was in his favour.
He hung on the accents of Astarte, but he remarked that the Queen hung
upon the accents of Tancred, who, engrossed with great ideas, and full
of a great purpose, was unconscious of what did not escape the
lynx-like glance of his companion. However, Fakredeen was not, under any
circumstances, easily disheartened; in the present case, there were many
circumstances to encourage him. This was a great situation; there was
room for combinations. He felt that he was not unfavoured by Astarte; he
had confidence, and a just confidence, in his power of fascination. He
had to combat a rival, who was, perhaps, not thinking of conquest; at
any rate, who was unconscious of success. Even had he the advantage,
which Fakredeen was not now disposed to admit, he might surely be
baffled by a competitor with a purpose, devoting his whole intelligence
to his object, and hesitating at no means to accomplish it.

Fakredeen became great friends with Keferinis. He gave up his time and
attentions much to that great personage; anointed him with the most
delicious flattery, most dexterously applied; consulted him on great
affairs which had no existence; took his advice on conjunctures which
never could occur; assured Keferinis that, in his youth, the Emir
Bescheer had impressed on him the importance of cultivating the friendly
feelings and obtaining the support of the distinguished minister of the
Ansarey; gave him some jewels, and made him enormous promises.

On the fourth day of the visit, Fakredeen found himself alone with
Astarte, at least, without the presence of Tancred, whom Keferinis had
detained in his progress to the royal apartment. The young Emir had
pushed on, and gained an opportunity which he had long desired.

They were speaking of the Lebanon; Fakredeen had been giving Astarte,
at her request, a sketch of Canobia, and intimating his inexpressible
gratification were she to honour his castle with a visit; when, somewhat
abruptly, in a suppressed voice, and in a manner not wholly free from
embarrassment, Astarte said, 'What ever surprises me is, that Darkush,
who is my servant at Damascus, should have communicated, by the faithful
messenger, that one of the princes seeking to visit Gindarics was of our
beautiful and ancient faith; for the Prince of England has assured me
that nothing was more unfounded or indeed impossible; that the faith,
ancient and beautiful, never prevailed in the land of his fathers; and
that the reason why he was acquainted with the god-like forms is, that
in his country it is the custom (custom to me most singular, and indeed
incomprehensible) to educate the youth by teaching them the ancient
poems of the Greeks, poems quite lost to us, but in which are embalmed
the sacred legends.'

'We ought never to be surprised at anything that is done by the
English,' observed Fakredeen; 'who are, after all, in a certain sense,
savages. Their country produces nothing; it is an island, a mere rock,
larger than Malta, but not so well fortified. Everything they require
is imported from other countries; they get their corn from Odessa, and
their wine from the ports of Spain. I have been assured at Beiroot that
they do not grow even their own cotton, but that I can hardly believe.
Even their religion is an exotic; and as they are indebted for that to
Syria, it is not surprising that they should import their education from
Greece.'

'Poor people!' exclaimed the Queen; 'and yet they travel; they wish to
improve themselves?'

'Darkush, however,' continued Fakredeen, without noticing the last
observation of Astarte, 'was not wrongly informed.'

'Not wrongly informed?'

'No: one of the princes who wished to visit Gindarics was, in a certain
sense, of the ancient and beautiful faith, but it was not the Prince of
the English.'

'What are these pigeons that you are flying without letters!' exclaimed
Astarte, looking very perplexed.

'Ah! beautiful Astarte,' said Fakredeen, with a sigh; 'you did not know
my mother.'

'How should I know your mother, Emir of the castles of Lebanon? Have I
ever left these mountains, which are dearer to me than the pyramids of
Egypt to the great Pasha? Have I ever looked upon your women, Maronite
or Druse, walking in white sheets, as if they were the children of ten
thousand ghouls; with horns on their heads, as if they were the wild
horses of the desert?'

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