Any discussion of the poet Chafic Maalouf has the right to go further than a short talk, for in this artistic field "The Woman's Voice" allows only a fixed and limited space; I shall therefore do my best and make of these swift strokes a faithful picture — however short it may fall — of one of Lebanon's glories beyond the seas.

Khalil Mutran once described a woman of bewitching genius, and gathered into half a verse everything that passes through the minds of the lovers of charm and splendor when he said:

". . . . . . . Scattered fragments of beauty gathered into a single mold"

And you would say the very same thing if fate one day gave you a hearing and you moved in the orbit in which Chafic Maalouf moves: scattered fragments of nobility, gallantry, magnanimity, and proud self-respect gathered into a single man.

A great character, from whose radi-ance comes a marvelous refinement which, you feel, goes beyond what people have agreed to call "the manners of good company." You meet him and feel that a tender soul of deep stillness accompanies the lively glance, the offered hand, and the welcoming word. And there is his jealous devotion to the Arabic language, Lebanon's treasure and the object of its pride: to keep it alive across the seas he neither rests nor wearies. Arabic letters are his passion and his intimate converse, claiming the greatest share of all that God has given him — of his effort, his strength, and his money.

And the people of letters are his brothers and the members of his clan! Here is a sick poet, coming to the capital from afar: no sooner has he set down his bags than this brother of chivalries appears, takes the place of the distant mother, and follows the course of the treatment day by day — say rather, hour by hour. But why should I not let him show you his transparent soul in his great poetry? He said — and

perhaps this is the finest thing ever said of fidelity:

My grief for our nights whose cup was shattered before I had drunk my fill; I was born to fidelity — how many a dear one shall I weep in my heart as long as I live. So many have been my bereavements that I wished I could exchange those I remember for those I have forgotten. The houses round about reopen my heart's wound, and the scattered company wakens my tears. I saw in my life's companion a part of my life, and by what remains I measured what is slipping away; And now, whenever a faithful friend dies, I feel as though a part of me were dying.

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Our poet set down his baggage at the door of legend, flung open in the face of the writers of Arabic — for leg-ends were never an art standing by itself like the other literary arts; they are scattered fragments, and what is known of them is rare and scanty and satisfies no hunger. Thus Chafic Maalouf created for us the Arabic legend in verse, as Salah Labaki created for us the Lebanese legend in prose. And here I present to my

women readers in "The Woman's Voice" the legend of "Anahid."

Have you heard this name, ladies, before today? As for me, I heard it for the first time in the city of São Paulo, the day I was introduced to a lady called "Alayid," who told me at once that she was Spanish in origin and that her name was Arabic. I doubted then that it was Arabic — and the riddle was unlocked the day Chafic Maalouf took up a line handed down by al-Jahiz about Anahid and built upon it an enchanted palace.

By this, then, "Alayid" is "Anahid," the nun having been turned into a lam and the ha into a ya. How great is our ignorance of what is beautiful in our literature, and how great was our crime against that literature the day we confined it to boasting, love poetry, panegyric, satire, and elegy.

"Anahid," then, according to al-Jahiz's account, is the "Venus" of the Arabs: to them she was the succoring goddess. Why then — on al-Jahiz's view — was she transformed into a star, and who performed this wonder?

Let us follow the imagination of Chafic Maalouf, who has opened for

us in Arabic literature, ever since "Abqar," a new door from which we shall profit much and take much delight.

Here is Khurafa (1), the dweller in caves: he mutters, then comes forward to tell us the tale of Anahid. He said:

(1) Khurafa was a man of the 'Udhra tribe. They claimed that the jinn carried him off; then he returned to his people and told what he had seen, and they called him a liar, until people said, "Even Khurafa's tale is not to be believed."