THE LIFE OF SALADIN AND THE FALL OF THE KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM

CHAPTER XXIII

SALADIN IN ROMANCE.

THE most celebrated English romance of the Middle Ages relating to Saladin is the “Romance of Richard Coeur de Lion”, which appears to have taken its present shape about the beginning of the fourteenth century. In this dreary poem we find Richard, lying sick before Acre, demanding pork with an invalid's persistence. His attendants are in despair, because pork is not easily procured in a Mohammedan country. A crafty old knight hits upon a perfect substitute. He kills a plump young Saracen, and Lionheart finds it excellent “pork”. With a refinement of hospitality he tries the new dish on his Saracen prisoners, and bids them to a state banquet, where each man's plate is garnished with the head of a particular friend. Richard himself presides at this Pelopeian feast, and gracefully carves a Saracen's head by way of encouragement. “Friends!” he exclaims, seeing a not unnatural hesitation among the convives:

Frendes, be nought squoymous!

This is the maner of my hons,

To be servyd ferst, God it wot.

With Sarezynes hedes abouten al hot.

The “Romance of Richard Coeur de Lion” is more than satisfying in regard to its hero, but disappointing in its vague account of Saladin. Like the Itinerarium Regis Ricardi on which its more historical — or less unhistorical — incidents are perhaps distantly founded, it is wholly occupied with the heroic deeds of

Kyng Rychard, the werryor best

That men fynde in ony jeste.

When he met Saladin in single combat (which, as we know, he never did) the Sultan was miserably discomfited. At the battle of Arsuf, for example, Richard did not miss the opportunity of personally worsting his “heathen”  antagonist as well as routing his army:

Off a footman a bowe he took,

He drowgh an arwe up to the hook.

And sente it to the Sawdon anon,

And smot hym thorwgh the schuldyr bon.

Whereat Saladin, in great dolour, fled to Cairo:

The cheff Sawdon off Hethenysse

To Babyloyne was flowen, I wysse.

He presently plucked up courage, however, to come back and challenge Richard to single combat. Here the true story of the horse which Saladin sent to Richard, when he saw him fighting on foot at Jafifa, is introduced with variations. Saladin sends for his astrologer, “ a maytyr Negromacien”, who conjures “twoo stronge feendes off the eyr”  into the forms of two chargers. One of these is sent to King Richard, and is warranted to come to the neigh of his mate, the mare whom Saladin was to ride, and thus would the King be snared at the critical moment of the encounter. An angel, it is needless to say, warns Richard of this trick, and instructs him how to manage the strong fiend with a huge pole.

Ther myghte men see, in a throwe.

How Kyng Richard, the noble man,

Encounteryd with the Sawdan

That cheef was told off Damas.

Hys trust upon hys mere was.

Therfoore, as the booke telles,

Hys crouper heeng al full off belles

And hys peytrel, and hys arsoun;

Three myle myghte men here the soun.

The event of the duel was never doubtful: no man could withstand Richard’s arm. He soon

Gaff the Sawdon a dynt off dede.

In his blasoun, verrayment,

Was i-paynted a serpent.

With the spere that Richard heeld.

He bar hym thorwgh and undyr the scheelde.

None off hys armes myghte laste;

Brydyl and peytrel al to-brast,

Hys gerth and hys stiropes also;

and, to make a long story short, the mighty Sultan, transfixed by his adversary's spears, tumbled over his mare's crupper, and lay in the most undignified attitude, his “feet toward the firmament”. Yet Saladin challenged Richard again at Jaffa, to whose ambassador the Lionheart made answer:

God gere the wel evyl pyne!

And Saladyn yowr lorde,

The devyl hym hange with a corde.

Now go and say to Saladyn,

In despyte of his god Appolyn

I wyl abide hym betime

And if the dogge wyl come to me

My pollaz schal hys bane be.

The famous poleaxe, however, the two-handed Danish axe of Ernoul’s story, was less baneful to Saladin than to his sons, two of whom Richard slew offhand, according to the Romance.

One finds a much richer store of Saladin legends in the French romances. To take but a thread or two of the mythical skein, the “Tales of a Minstrel of Rheims” give a good idea of the recitations which used to delight gentle audiences in courts and castles, the Society of the thirteenth century. Indeed, the very same tales were evidently current two centuries later, as anyone may see by a reference to Pierre Cochon. They are much more artistic than the clumsy English romance of Richard, and as their object was by no means to belaud that hero, or the “caudate” Britons — who were supposed (by French-men) to put their tails between their legs and run, — they had to resort to other characters and incidents to excite and retain the interest of their hearers. In matter of history the Minstrel sticks at nothing. He begins Saladin’s adventures at a precocious age, and connects him in a discreditable manner with Eleanor of Aquitaine, afterwards the Queen of Henry II and mother of Richard I, but at the time of the story wife of Louis le Jeune of France.

Eleanor, he explains, when she went to Palestine on crusade with her husband, was much annoyed at Louis's slothfulness. He stayed at Tyre all winter (1148-9), doing nothing but spend money, while Eleanor became a prey to melancholy. Her wandering thoughts would stray to the gallant person of Saladin, who openly rallied the French king's un warlike luxury, and vainly challenged him to come out and fight. Eleanor was so much impressed with the gossip she heard of Saladin's prowess and generosity, that she fell in love with him durement and, in the good frank medieval way, sent a dragoman to tell him so; offering to have him for her lord, and to change her religion for his sake. Saladin, of course, could only be delighted at such a proposal from so fair a dame, with such a dower — ''la plus gentis dame de crestienté et la plus riche." He straightway sent a swift galley from Ascalon to fetch her. In not going himself he showed more prudence, perhaps, than gallantry; but Saracen lovers, no doubt, had their own canon of etiquette. The galley arrived at Tyre in the dead of night, and the dragoman hastened by a secret passage to the Queen’s chamber. When she heard that the galley was waiting she was in ecstasies: “Parfoi”, quoth she, “c'est bien fait”. Taking two demoiselles, and two coffers well stuffed with gold and silver, she hurried to the strand, when, just as she stood there, “one foot on sea and one on shore”, the King her husband laid hands on her and brought her back. A tale-bearing maid of honor had roused the good man, and told him that his Queen was off to Saladin, and Louis had scrambled into his breeches and armour just in time. Restored to a tête-à-tête in the castle, he naturally asked her what she did it for. “God's name!” cried the Queen, “because of your poltroonery: you are not worth a rotten apple. And I have heard such fine things of Saladin, that I love him better than you”. The enormity of her vice, however, is only fully appreciated when history informs us that, at the date of this amour, Saladin was a good little boy of eleven, going regularly, no doubt, to the mosque school at Baalbekk.

The Treason of Raymond.

The Minstrel is not, it will be observed, very careful of chronology, and he thinks nothing of taking us at a leap from 1148 to 1187, in order to tell the story of Count Raymond’s treason. When Sibylla had crowned her husband Guy King of Jerusalem, there was great discontent among the old nobility of Palestine; and Raymond of Tripolis, it seems, took counsel with the Patriarch and the barons, and plotted against the new King. They appointed a secret interview with Saladin, and proposed to surrender the land to him, “car li rois est nices et mauvais, et n'a point de pouoir se par nous non”. Saladin had no objection to offer: on the contrary, he promised the conspirators immense rewards. “Tell us what pledge you require”, said the Count of Tripolis.

“By Mahom my god”, cried Saladin, “you say well. You shall all of you swear by your religion, and more, for we will be blooded together, and will drink each other's blood in token of amity and union”.

 This was done: all swore by their faith and drank each other's blood, and the plot was settled. When the great battle took place “before Acre”, three leagues from the city, on the day of “Sant Jehan Decollace”, the time came for the pledge to be kept. Saladin called out in the thick of the fight, “Count of Tripolis, Count of Tripolis, fulfill your oath!”. Whereupon Count Raymond vailed his banner, and all the other traitors did the like; so the Christians were defeated, and the King and his knights were sent prisoners to “Babiloine”. But Saladin despised traitors and treachery, and was moved by Guy’s misfortune, finding him indeed to be a “prudhomme and good knight”. So he shortly set him free, with twenty of his knights, all well furnished with arms and provisions, and sent them back to their friends on the Syrian coast.

We next hear of Saladin in connection with the Hospital at Acre. Ralph de Diceto ascribes the foundation of this famous house of charity to his own chaplain, one William, who “on his way to Jerusalem vowed that should he come to Acre harbor safe and soon, he would there build, as well as he could afford, a chapel to St. Thomas the Martyr”, and arriving there he did so, and became its prior, and served the sick. The Minstrel makes Saladin its pious benefactor. His authority is an imaginary uncle of Saladin, a venerable man of ruddy face and a great white beard, which reached half-way to his feet, besides a fine long tress hanging down to his waist. In spite of these eccentricities, he looked the thorough gentleman, and was most courteously communicative about his famous nephew, when questioned as a prisoner at Acre in the days of the merry Bishop of Beauvais.

The Hospital at Acre.

Saladin, it appears, had heard of the boundless charity of the Hospital, and resolved to test its generosity. So he put on pilgrim's garb, and took a palmer's staff, “bourdon, escharpe et esclavine”and presented himself in an exhausted condition at the Hospital. They took him in and attended him with assiduous care, but for three days he refused all food. The Master feared he would die, and every means of persuasion was used to tempt him to eat. At last he confessed he had a longing, a sick man's longing, for one special dish. The good brothers gladly promised to gratify his desire. Then he said he must have a dish of the off forefoot of the Grandmaster's horse, and nothing else would he touch. Yet he protested he had rather die, for he knew how choice and rare a steed he was, and how dear to his master, who had given a thousand gold besants for him. But the Grandmaster said the life of a man was worth more than a horse, and at once sent his favorite to the sick man's room. They cast him and tied him down, and a man came with an axe and asked which foot was wanted. “The off forefoot”, they ssiid. Then he swung the axe in both his hands and was bringing it down for the stroke, when Saladin cried out:

“Hold! My wish is satisfied, and now I crave other meat: I would eat sheep's flesh”. So the horse was unbound and led back to the stable, and Saladin ate mutton. Four days later he departed with grateful leave-takings, and coming to his own kingdom he caused a charter to be drawn up, granting a thousand besants of gold, charged on the revenues of Babylon, to be paid to the Hospital at Acre each year on St. John Baptist's Day. Whereat the Grandmaster and the brethren rejoiced, “for they knew that Saladin did not lie”, and the thousand pieces of gold were duly paid each year, and are so paid to this day. At least, so said our Minstrel to his thirteenth-century listeners, and very likely they believed his pretty tale.

Another story of the white-haired prisoner has a family likeness to other legends. The Marquess of Caesarea was a miserly man, who lightened his garrison while he weighted his coffers. Saladin warned him that if he went on in this way, he would lose the city. “Peace!” quoth the Marquess, “I can make a thousand, knights leap out of my coffers when I please!” In due time Saladin took the city by storm, and the miser was brought a prisoner before him. “Marquess, Marquess”, said the conqueror, “where are the thousand knights whom you were to bringout of your chests? By Mahom, your covetousness has misled you. You were never glutted with gold or silver but I will glut you yet more today”. Then gold and silver were melted down in an iron pail and poured down the Marquess's throat, et maintenant le convint mourir.

There is an old legend recorded by Vincent de Beauvais and Pippin, that when Saladin lay dying “he called his standard-bearer to him and charged him, saying: Do thou, who art wont to bear my banner in the wars, carry also the banner of my death. And let it be a vile rag, which thou must bear through all Damascus set upon a lance, crying: 'Lo, at his death the King of the East could take nothing with him save this cloth only'.”

The Minstrel also knows the story, and puts it into the mouth of his confidential prisoner. In this version Saladin is represented as sending a servant through all his cities, with a strip of linen on the point of a lance; the man stood at all the street comers and proclaimed these words: “Of his kingdom and all his treasure, Saladin will carry nothing away, save only these three ells of linen for his shroud”. The idea is in perfect keeping with the devout and humble character of the Sultan, and it is a pity that it finds no confirmation in the Arabic records.

The prisoner gave other details of Saladin's last moments. The dying Sultan, he said, called for water, and they brought it in a silver bowl. He took it in his left hand, and with his right he made the sign of the cross over the water, touching the rim of the bowl in four opposite places, saying the while, “As wide is it from here to there as from here to there”, to mislead those who were looking on. Then he poured the water on his head and body, and said three words in French, which we did not catch, but it seemed as if he baptized himself. “So died Saladin”, the Minstrel concludes, “the best prince that ever was in pagandom, and was buried in the cemetery of my lord Saint Nicholas of Acre, beside his mother, who was there very sumptuously interred. And there is a beautiful tall dome over them, where burns a lamp of olive oil day and night, furnished and lighted by them of St. John of the Hospital of Acre, who hold large revenues which Saladin and his mother bequeathed them”.

Saladin lies buried at Damascus, and assuredly neither gave nor bequeathed a single dirhem to any Christian charity. But the legend of his baptism probably comes from the widely believed story of his having solemnly received the Christian Order of Knighthood. At first sight it seems incredible that a devout Moslem, who carried his religion into his every act, and consecrated the last five years of his life to the Holy War for the faith, could possibly consent to perform the ceremonies involved in the Christian initiation to knighthood, as practiced by the Crusaders. Yet the author of the “Itinerary of King Richard”  states definitely, and without a syllable of surprise or explanation, that when Saladin came to mature years and was fit for bearing arms, “he came to Humphrey of Toron, the illustrious noble of Palestine, to be mantled, and after the manner of the Franks received from him the belt of knighthood”. If this were a solitary instance, it might perhaps be dismissed as fiction, since the chronicler was not then present in Palestine. But later on, at a time when the author of the “Itinerary” was himself probably with the Crusading army, he records, “On Palm Sunday, King Richard, amid much splendor, girded with the belt of knighthood the son of Saphadin, who had been sent to him for that purpose”. Thus it appears that not only did Saladin voluntarily seek knighthood at the hands of Humphrey of Toron, but he (or his brother el-Adil, the "Saphadin" of the chronicles) also voluntarily sent his nephew to be knighted by Richard himself. There is naturally not a word of this in the Arabic contemporary histories: if they knew it, as good Moslems they would feel it their duty to conceal such painful backsliding in their hero and master. But if such doings were to be, Humphrey of Toron was the very man to do them. He had been bound in brotherly pact with a powerful Saracen Emir as early as 1152; he spoke Arabic, and his influence was exerted in 1175 to arrange a truce between the Moslem Sultan and the King of Jerusalem. The friendship may have begun in 1 167, when Saladin was honorably entertained as guest or hostage in the camp of Amalric before Alexandria. Here he may have acquired an admiration for the ideals of chivalry, which he certainly carried into practice. There were also rites of initiation in the East, which may have prepared his mind for the ceremony of knighthood ; and the feudal system of the Turks in which he was brought up, and on which he organized his own empire, may have suggested further assimilation to the military customs of Europe.

The most detailed account of this surprising ceremony is given in the early metrical romance “L'Ordene de Chevalerie”. The knighting is here performed by Hugh the son of Raymond, Count of Tripolis and (through his wife) lord of Tiberias, the same Raymond whose supposed treachery on the field of Hittin has been described. The youthful Hugh of Tiberias, for several reasons, was a much less likely actor than Humphrey of Toron; but the ceremony, and not the officiator, is the point of interest. Hugh of Tiberias had been taken prisoner by Saladin (this actually happened in 1179), and before releasing him on promise of ransom, the Sultan took him aside, and begged him, by his faith towards God and his reign, to show him how knights were made. “Beau Sire”, said Hugh stoutly, “I will not”; and he explained that Saladin being void of baptism and Christianity, it was folly to talk of knighthood. Saladin, however, urged that he could not be blamed for doing it under compulsion, as a prisoner, and Hugh at length gave way. Then the ceremony began. First he arranged the Sultan's hair and beard.

Then he laved him in a bath; for, said he, just as the little child comes forth after baptism pure from sin, so must the knight be purified symbolically, and come forth full of courtesy and goodness.

Saladin, who showed much curiosity to learn the precise meaning of each act in the initiation, was much impressed: “By God most great” he exclaimed, “this beginning is beautiful”. Then, after laying him on a bed, the type of the everlasting rest of Paradise, Hugh clothed him in white raiment, to signify purity, and then in scarlet, in token that he must ever serve and honor God and defend Holy Church. Next he shoed him with dark shoes, “to keep you in memory of death, and the earth in which you must lie, whence you came and whither you must go; for no knight may cherish pride, but must ever strive after humility”. “All this is good hearing”, said the Sultan, who was next girt, standing, with a slender white girdle, a sign of chastity and contempt of luxury .

The gilt spurs were next put on, that he might be spurred to ardor in the service of God, and then Hugh girded him with the sword, which stood for Uprightness, Trustiness, and Loyalty, and signified that a knight must hold his own against the powerful, and succor the weak. A pure, white coif completed the dress, the symbol of a white soul, pure of great sins and fleshly follies, fit to appear before God at the Last Day.

Saladin at each step cheerfully assented, and now he asked whether there was no more. “Yes, Sire”, was Hugh’s answer, “but I dare not do it”. “What is it then?”  “T’ is the accolade”. The prisoner could not give a blow, even of knighthood, to a king.

Though too respectful to dub him, Hugh instructs Saladin in the four devoirs of a true knight. First, he shall never take part in injustice or treason: if he cannot turn away wrong, he must at least turn himself away from it. “The next thing is very beautiful: he shall on no account deceive matron or maid, but if they have need of him, shall aid them to the utmost of his power, if he would win glory and regard; for women one must honor, and adventure great deeds in their cause”. Fasting and hearing Mass were the last duties enjoined upon the new knight. All this much delighted Saladin. If he entered upon the ceremony merely out of curiosity, he was now evidently impressed, and romance and history are at one in the main point, that Saladin became a Knight.

It would be interesting to trace the effect of these medieval tales upon the two great writers who have introduced Saladin among the dramatis personae of European classics. Scott, of course, had read the chronicles and romances, as far as they were readily accessible, and incidents in “The Talisman”  may be plausibly traced to the legends of the minstrels. Saladin’s visit to Richard’s camp in the disguise of a hakim may have been suggested by the Minstrel's tale of the equally imaginary visit to the Hospital of St. John at Acre. The quarrel over the banner of Austria is found in the “Romance of Richard Coeur de Lion”, published at Edinburgh, in Weber's “Metrical Romances”, fifteen years before “The Talisman”. But his main source was clearly not the romances but the chronicles, which he used as far as they suited him, and very properly threw over whenever they did not fit his scheme. As he wrote himself in the Preface of 1832:

“One of the inferior characters introduced was a supposed relation of Richard Coeur de Lion; a violation of the truth of history, which gave offence to Mr. Mills the author of the History of Chivalry and the Crusades, who was not, it may be presumed, aware that romantic fiction naturally includes the power of such invention, which is indeed one of the requisites of the art”.

Scott boldly asserts that he “had access to all which antiquity believed, whether of reality or fable”, about Richard I; but he can hardly have gone very thoroughly into the Oriental sources, although some were even then easily accessible in Latin. It is obvious, however, that when he sins against “the truth of history”, in regard to his European characters, it is of malice prepense. He admits that he knowingly killed Conrad of Montferrat in the wrong way, and the wrong time, and the wrong place, and his other deviations from history are probably no less intentional. He places the scene of the novel at Jaffa, in the autumn of 1192, as various indications prove; and he must have known that Philip of France and Leopold of Austria had both left the Holy Land after the surrender of Acre more than a year before. He sets “the Diamond of the Desert”  close to the Dead Sea, on the road to Jerusalem, half way between the camps of the Crusaders and the Saracens; which would place Saladin's camp, “over against Jaffa”, somewhere in Moab on the other side of the Mare Mortuum. Nor could Ilderim have been deceived for a moment by the notion that the Knight of the Leopard could possibly find himself beside that inhospitable water if he was riding from Jaffa to Jerusalem, since he must have left the Holy City directly behind him. At that time, moreover, no “pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre” was to be thought of. But a crusading tale without a desert, no sand, no oasis, no Dead Sea, no pilgrimage, would lack the essential local color, and Scott very properly put it in. And so all the quarrelling between the rival nations, which was true enough of the French and English, is infinitely more interesting when the absent King of France himself leads his knights; no novel-reader would care a rush for the jealousy of a Duke of Burgundy — unless, of course, he were Charles the Bold.

Scott's treatment of the Oriental side of the picture is marked by fewer liberties, because there was less occasion. He has exercised a judicious caution in bringing practically only one Eastern figure, that of Saladin himself, upon his canvas, and avoiding the temptation to dwell upon anything but his personality. He says nothing definite of the Sultan's history, and by substituting him for his brother “Saphadin”  in the story of the proposed marriage, he gets rid of the necessity for individualizing a second important Moslem character; but Scott knew very well that it was to be an alliance between “Saphadin”, not Saladin, and Joan of Sicily, not Edith. To avoid crowding the canvas with '”inferior characters”, to say nothing of lowering the dignity of the alliance, a stroke of the pen abolished both Joan and her proposed bridegroom. No one can deny that the story is all the better for it; and a footnote easily propitiates complaisant history.

But if Saladin was to marry Edith there must be a meeting; and so the ordeal by battle and the unhistorical slaughter of Conrad and the Master of the Temple (whose name was not “Sir Giles Amaury”) serve also most conveniently to make the chief actors acquainted. It is possible that Scott was really unaware of the fact — somewhat singular, considering their close relations, both hostile and diplomatic — that Richard and Saladin never actually met face to face. The King twice proposed an interview, but in each case Saladin declined. It was Saphadin  who really met Richard and exchanged much cordial hospitality, and who conducted all negotiations. Equally fictitious are Saladin’s visit in the disguise of a hakim, and his solitary rides about the plains. The Sultan never travelled unattended; he generally had his guard of mamelukes when he was anywhere near the enemy; and the chance encounter with Kenneth, the disguise and the talisman belong to the category of the “Thousand and One Nights”. Nor can Scott honestly be justified in his description of Saladin’s appearance. He says he was “in the very flower of his age”, but Oriental flowers at fifty-four are apt to be faded; and he ventures to paint his portrait, which, to our loss, no contemporary Eastern attempted. All we know definitely about his face is that at fifty he wore a beard, and we only know this because he happened to tug at it during the battle of Hittin. Sir Walter has got the beard right, “a flowing and curled black beard”, to boot, “which seemed trimmed with peculiar care”; but when he goes on to work in the nose, eyes, teeth, and forehead, he trusts to that admirable source, his own invention.

Setting aside these natural licenses of the romancer, the portrait of Saladin is drawn with remarkable insight and accuracy. His gentleness, courtesy, and nobility of character, his justice, truthfulness, and generosity, which “The Talisman” has made familiar to so many readers who know nothing else in Mohammedan history, are set forth in every contemporary record. His rare bursts of passion, which Scott has finely rendered, were also historically part of his disposition. Unfortunately he seems to have never heard of Saladin's knighthood, and thereby we have probably lost a magnificent chapter. The general manner, dress, and so on are sufficiently Eastern, but show no minute study of the subject.

The hatred of the Templars is another true touch. The two Military Orders were the only Christians to whom, as a class, Saladin showed no mercy: and he had his reasons. On the other hand, Scott is altogether wrong when he says that the Sultan “has been ever found” in “the front of battle”, “nor is it his wont to turn his horse's head from any brave encounter”. Saladin reveled in the sight of battle; “there was nothing he loved so much as a good knight”, says Ernoul — witness his hearty admiration of the Green Knight of Spain — but he did not fight in person. He would fearlessly expose himself between the lines of battle, attended only by a groom with a spare horse, whilst the bolts and arrows whistled about his head; he would even make his chaplains read prayers under fire; and he would be seen in all parts of the field. But his duty as general, he conceived, was to lead, encourage, restrain and order the disposition of the troops, not to engage in personal encounters; and so far as fighting went, a marshal's bâton or Gordon's cane, would be his proper weapon. Conversing with the Bishop of Salisbury, after peace was made, he censured the rashness of the “Inkitar” Richard in mixing personally in the fray. That Scott played tricks with history is really nothing to the point; but that he was able, through the confused and imperfect records he used, to see and depict the true character of Saladin with remarkable accuracy, is but another proof of his genius.

Lessing, in Nathan der Weise had drawn a portrait of the chivalrous Sultan half a century before “The Talisman” was written, and the play shows signs of a German's serious study of Quellen. Lessing may have read Marin's Histoire de Saladin (1758), or even Schultens' Latin translation (1732) of the contemporary Arabic biography by Baha-ed-din. He falls into historical errors like Scott, but, unlike Scott, he does not do so on purpose, in deference to the requirements of romantic fiction. There is no artistic object served, for instance, in making Saladin's father act as his treasurer in 1192 in the Lebanon, an inconvenient centre for the paymaster of an army at Jerusalem; besides, the father had been dead nearly twenty years. But the very blunder shows that Lessing had read somewhere that Saladin's father was once governor of Baalbekk, and was afterwards his son's treasurer at Cairo, both of which are historical facts.

Again, Lessing adheres to the historical version of the projected marriage, but adds a wholly unauthentic plan of a marriage between Saladin's sister Sittah (really Sitt esh-Sham, or “The Lady of Syria”) and Richard's brother — presumably the bastard William Longsword. The whole story of the marriage is so bizarre, even in the Oriental authorities, that one can hardly wonder at any extravagance in the modern glosses.

Saladin exclaims to Sittah. What a house indeed! The notion of Richard putting Joan of Sicily into "Saphadin's harim, and the couple reigning jointly in Palestine, under the affectionate patronage of their Christian and Moslem brothers of England and Egypt, is delightful enough to tempt the poorest imagination to run riot.

There are many true touches, no doubt, in Lessing's portrait of Saladin: such as his love of kindred and his generosity and contempt for money; though gives an impression of knight-errantry, which was not in the real character. The main defect, however, of Lessing's delineation (considered historically), is that it is too European. His Saladin is no real Saracen, as Scott's is. The set purpose of  Nathan the Wise, as a motive-drama, to preach toleration, and to silence the bigoted criticism of worthy pastor Goetze, compels Lessing to hold up Saladin as a type not only of a good Moslem, but a tolerant.

The former he was, beyond question; but tolerance was not his virtue; his chivalry and clemency were in act, not in thought. He could be kind to Christians, but he never doubted that they must eventually go down into the Pit. He had a holy horror of philosophy, free-thought, broad views, and all manner of heterodoxy. The only cruel act recorded against him, outside the retaliations of war, was the deliberate execution of a philosopher — a mystic Sufi. Like many fanatics, he could better tolerate the flat opposition of other religions than heresy within the pale of his own creed. His chivalry to crusaders was the good-breeding of a gentleman; it did not touch his intellectual appreciation of their errors. He had a gentle soul and a soft heart, but they did not dispel his conviction that Christians were "fuel for Hell". He is a type of a true Moslem of the purest breed; but Lessing gives him a theological latitude which he would have indignantly disowned. Of course, all this has nothing to do with the drama as a drama, any more than historical criticism of "The Talisman" touches in any way its merits as a novel. To the student of the widespread Saladin myth, both works have the great interest that they preserve, amidst some historical truth and some romantic legend, the general character which opinion in all times has ascribed to the great Sultan.

It is singular that the East, the birthplace of Saladin, which has been the mother of so many admirable tales, has almost wholly neglected him in its fiction.

The Thousand and One Nights  do not disdain crusading stories, witness the Tale of King Omar ibn en-Noaman and his sons Sharrkan and Zau el-Mekan; but Saladin's name is not once introduced. The omission is the more singular when it is remembered that the "Nights" probably received their latest form at Cairo, where the founder of the Citadel has always been a favorite hero. Doubtless he has formed the subject of many popular tales, told in the coffee-houses and in the bazars of Egypt, but so far un- published. One such romance, indeed, has come to light in an Arabic manuscript at Berlin, but it is poor stuff. Richard's sister Rumina is brought captive before Saladin. Saphadin falls in love with her on the spot, strikes off her fetters, and leads her to his tent. There she promises to adopt his religion, but only to gain time. Whilst he sleeps, she escapes, dressed in men's clothes. Saphadin writes to Richard to demand her in marriage, but meanwhile is captured by guile. Rumina comes forth on horseback, clad in a knight's coat of mail, to do battle with Saladin. She is again made prisoner, Saphadin is rescued, Rumina embraces Islam — and Saphadin, and the wedding takes place with great pomp. The interest in the story is the repetition of the original idea of a Christian-Moslem marriage between el-Adil and some relation of Richard I, which seems to be the most permanent and universal detail in the Saladin myth. It is strange, however, that no better example of Arabic romance should be connected with the subject. The character of the great Sultan, however, appeals more strongly to Europeans than to Moslems, who admire his chivalry less than his warlike triumphs. To us it is the generosity of the character, rather than the success of the career, that makes Saladin a true as well as a romantic hero.

THE END