In the National Library at Madrid is a poem of twelve hundred and twenty lines, composed in the same system of quaternion rhymes that we have already noticed as settled in the old Castilian literature, and with irregularities like those found in the whole class of poems to which it belongs. Its subject is Joseph, the son of Jacob; but there are two circumstances which distinguish it from all the other narrative poetry of the period, and render it curious and important. The first is, that, though composed in the Spanish language, it is written wholly in the Arabic character, and has, therefore, all the appearance of an Arabic manuscript; to which should be added the fact, that the metre and spelling are accommodated to the force of the Arabic vowels, so that, if the only manuscript of it now known to exist be not the original, it must still have been originally written in the same manner. The other singular circumstance is, that the story of the poem, which is the familiar one of Joseph and his brethren, is not told according to the original in our Hebrew Scriptures, but according to the shorter and less interesting version in the eleventh chapter of the Koran, with occasional variations and additions, some of which are due to the fanciful expounders of the Koran, while others seem to be of the author’s own invention. These two circumstances taken together leave no reasonable doubt that the writer of the poem was one of the many Moriscos who, remaining at the North after the body of the nation had been driven southward, had forgotten their native language and adopted that of their conquerors, though their religion and culture still continued to be Arabic.[152] [152] Other manuscripts of this sort are known to exist; but I am not aware of any so old, or of such poetical value. (Ochoa, Catálogo de Manuscritos Españoles, etc., pp. 6-21. Gayangos, Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain, Tom. I. pp. 492 and 503.) As to the spelling in the Poem of Joseph, we have _sembraredes_, _chiriador_, _certero_, _marabella_, _taraydores_, etc. To avoid a hiatus, a consonant is prefixed to the second word; as “cada _g_uno” repeatedly for _cada uno_. The manuscript of the Poema de José, in 4to, 49 leaves, was first shown to me in the Public Library at Madrid, marked G. g. 101, by Conde, the historian; but I owe a copy of the whole of it to the kindness of Don Pascual de Gayangos, Professor of Arabic in the University there. The manuscript of the “Poem of Joseph” is imperfect, both at the beginning and at the end. Not much of it, however, seems to be lost. It opens with the jealousy of the brothers of Joseph at his dream, and their solicitation of their father to let him go with them to the field. Then up and spake his sons: · “Sire, do not deem it so; Ten brethren are we here, · this very well you know;-- That we should all be traitors, · and treat him as a foe, You either will not fear, · or you will not let him go.