rom God, as reward,
a double measure of health, wealth, and descendants, so that all men
may know he has not sinned and that his unshaken faith found favor in
the eyes of God.

Some Jewish writers quote Ecclesiastes as their best sample of
didactic epic, and others would fain rank as epics the tales of Naomi
and Ruth, of Esther and Ahasuerus, and even the idyllic Song of Songs
by Solomon. Early Christian writers also see in Revelations, or the
Apocalypse, by St. John, the Seer of Patmos, a brilliant example of
the mystical or prophetic epic.

ARABIAN AND PERSIAN EPICS

"The long caravan marches across the monotonous deserts, when the
camel's steady swing bends the rider's body almost double, taught the
Arab to sing rhymes." But the poems thus sung by camel-drivers are
generally short and never reach epic might or length. None of those
older poems now exist, and it was only when travellers applied the
Syrian alphabet to the Arabic tongue in the sixth century that written
records began to be kept of favorite compositions. Poets were then
looked upon as wise men, or magicians, and called upon, like Balaam,
in times of danger, to utter spells or incantations against the foe.

The most ancient pre-Islamic poems were written in golden ink,
suspended in the Kaaba at Mecca, and are known in Arabia as the
"necklace of pearls."

Many of these poems--which replace epics in the East--follow fixed
rules, the author being bound to "begin by a reference to the forsaken
camping grounds. Next he must lament, and pray his comrades to halt,
while he calls up the memory of the dwellers who had departed in
search of other encampments and fresh water springs. Then he begins to
touch on love matters, bewailing the tortures to which his passion
puts him, and thus attracting interest and attention to himself. He
recounts his hard and toilsome journeying in the desert, dwells on the
lean condition of his steed, which he lauds and describes, and
finally, with the object of obtaining those proofs of generosity which
were the bard's expected meed and sole support, he winds up with a
panegyric of the prince or governor in whose presence the poem is
recited."

Throughout the East, professional story-tellers still spend their
lives travelling about and entertaining audiences in towns and tents
with poems and legends, many of the latter treating of desert feuds
and battles and forming part of a collection known as the Arab Days.
With t