article · Issue No. 2, February 1952 · p. 22
The Story of Literature
حكاية الادب · فؤاد سليمان
... Literature dies on the earth, but it does not die among us, in Lebanon.
For color — we have wiped the letters with it, wiped them well, and the letter has risen shining in the radiance of color.
And we have rubbed this Arabic letter with perfume, so that the letter sprouts from our pens as the rose sprouts, red and velvet.
... And the mind — we have spread its sail over the sea, and toward the moon, and we have gathered up from its path the nets of illusions, and the mind has stretched its wing, hovering over the land of men... and the land of men was barren...
... And poetry among us has stretched the rhyme to the very edge of heaven... and the roads of the stars have opened wide in the rhymes of our poets.
Meter with us no longer has a limit, nor has rhyme; the word has become a summit, and the summit a mountain, and the mountain a sky — and the sky, with all that is in it, has become one with all that is in us.
★★★
That is the story of the Lebanese — our own story, we who write literature in Lebanon... a beautiful story, like all our stories in this country...
Literature dies on the earth, and it does not die among us.
... يموت الادب في الارض ، ولا يموت عندنا ، في لبنان .
فاللون ، نحن ، مسحنا به الحروف مسحاً ، فاشرق الحرف في ضياء اللون .
ومرغنا هذا الحرف العربي ، بالطيب ، فنبت الحرف من اقلامنا ، مثلما تنبت الوردة حمراء مخملية .
... والعقل مددنا شراعه فوق البحر ، وفي القمر ، ولمنا من دربه شباك الاوهام ، فشد العقل جناحه يهوّم على ارض الناس ... وكانت ارض الناس جدباء ...
... والشعر عندنا ، مد القافية الى حد السماء ... فانفسحت دروب النجوم في قوافي شعرائنا .
ولم يعد للوزن عندنا حد ولا للقافية ، فصارت اللفظة قمة ، والقمة جبلاً والجبل سماء ، واتحدت السماء بكل ما فيها بكل ما فينا .
★★★
تلك حكاية اللبنانيين ، حكايتنا نحن ، الذين نكتب الادب في لبنان ... حكاية جميلة كجميع حكاياتنا في هذا البلد ...
يموت الادب في الارض ، ولا يموت عندنا .
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