The Inspiration of Songs

On a distant day, over which centuries and generations have since passed, the first man opened his eyes to find a chorus of birds playing their music and singing the song of morning... That was the first melody ever to strike the ear of the first man; he listened, moved by the singing, and it inspired him to join the birds in their song, so he bowed down and gave praise...

Song is the language of the emotions the world over, east and west, north and south; there is no difference between the dweller of Paris and the dweller of the mountains of Tibet or the forests of Africa. Man is man: wherever he may be, he breathes out his emotions as melody.

The emotions of youth ripen, and behold, they pour from his mouth as melodies filled with hope and whispered confidences, or with moaning and complaint.

A man goes abroad, far from his homeland, and longing for it shakes him, and he repeats its songs, filled with sweet memories. He returns to it, and scarcely does he glimpse its sky from afar before longing turns to rapture, crowding onto his lips as a beloved tune.

Misfortune strikes a family and sorrow settles over it, and behold, the fires burning in its heart arrange themselves into a mournful elegy with a melody that shakes hearts with anguish.

Yes. It is the language of the emotions in the whole world — so much so that you would imagine the animals themselves understand it and take comfort in it. The camels walk in the desert, and they walk delighted to hear the voice of the camel-driver's chant, brisk to the beat of its melodies... The sheep leave the pasture when the shepherd calls them with his flute, and gather around him, ears pricked for his music... And the nightingales, the masters of song, are those that sing even in their cages... Everything sings, even inanimate things... The sea has its anthems, now clamorous, now calm, and the winds have their songs, now stormy, now gentle... Everything — even the angels used to come down to earth singing whenever they brought one of heaven's glad tidings to earth.

Songs are the pressed essence of the soul's hopes: they are a speaking picture of the hopes and pains that surge in the breast — so much so that psychologists have agreed that judging a nation's character becomes easy if we observe the kind of songs it sings... And now, have you seen the drunkard leaving the tavern at midnight, crooning as he sways right and left?... Have you then heard his voice in the stillness of the night repeating a song filled with corrupt passion? What he repeats is an echo of the desires surging in his breast... Have you seen the soldier — no sooner does the trumpet of war sound than he charges forward chanting his stirring patriotic songs? These chants are an echo of the ardor surging in his breast, and of the desire to sacrifice himself for the sake of his homeland... Have you heard the worshipper singing his prayers from the depths? He is repeating the echo of the faith and piety stirring within his soul...

And songs have their inspiration... A child may cry and grow restless; his mother takes him in her arms and sings to him, and behold, tranquility steals into his soul and he dozes off smiling, as if he had understood the meaning of the singing... The nerves of some wretch may be shaken until his mind is unsettled and the world grows confused before him — and behold, a sweet musical strain calms what ails him... We all remember how David would play his flute for Saul and soothe what ailed him... In every state and circumstance, a man scarcely hears an angelic voice without feeling that he is rising on two wings toward the heights, as though the voice had whispered to him that there is a better world...

And all people, knowing the effect of songs on the soul, gave every school its anthems — indeed, they gave every nation an anthem to repeat always, drawing from it its strength, its unity, and its patriotism.

The Arabs grasped the effect of song and its inspiration — perhaps they were, after the Greeks, the first to grasp it. And the Arab woman, foster-daughter of the rhymes, knew that effect... Do you not see her beating the tambourines behind the ranks, chanting, promising and threatening, as she sings:

If you advance, we embrace;
if you turn back, we part.

And behold, the blood boils in the men's veins; the fleeing man wheels and charges again, and the beaten man is victorious.

Do you not see her rocking her child in the cradle, breathing greatness into him as she sings to him:

You shall be glorious and noble
when the north wind blows by night

She makes him understand his mission in life before he has opened his eyes to the light — the mission of glory and nobility...

Do you not see her sending him out to herd the camels at eight years of age, and he walks along repeating to the rhythm of their steps:

The camels — sweet is their milk, the camels —
behind the camels stand their people

Raiders may surprise him and drive off the camels as easy spoils, the little one able to do nothing. He hurries to the encampment — but he does not go in to his mother weeping and saying: they have taken the camels from me. No — he stands at the edge of the encampment crying out: "The camels, O gallant men!" And the gallant men, the young men of the tribe, rise as one man and march behind the little one as he shows them the place where the raiders surprised him and the direction in which they went. An hour or two, no more, and the camels are brought back, the aggressor gets his due, and the tribe returns, the camels before it, and the little one once more chanting to the rhythm of their steps — his chant full of resolve and self-confidence, the chant his mother taught him: behind the camels stand their people.

Yes, singing has its inspiration. It may inspire the purest of thoughts, and it may inspire the foulest... It inspires boldness or holding back, pride or humiliation, dignity or servility. So what have we inspired in our children?

In the schools they teach the rising generation to sing the splendid national anthems. But what has the home, the first school, done? Have we, I wonder, repeated in our children's hearing the flabby, insipid songs, so that they repeated them after us, and we made of them a generation whose spirits are limp and whose ambitions are lukewarm? A generation of no use to its homeland, its society, or itself?... Do you suppose we have made of our homes cabarets where corrupt songs are repeated — or have we begun, from the cradle, to plant greatness in souls?