South African Love-Poems

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_ As intimated on a preceding page, there are, among Dr. Jakobowski's examples of Hottentot lyrics[139] a few which may be vaguely included in the category of love-poems. "Where did you hear that I love you while you are unloving toward me?" complained one Hottentot; while another warned his friend: "That is the misfortune pursuing you that you love where you ought not to!" A third declared. "I shall not cease to love however much they (_i.e._, the parents or guardians) may oppose me," A fourth addresses this song to a young girl:

My lioness!
Are you afraid that I may bewitch you?
You milk the cow with fleshy hand.
Bite me!
Pour out (the milk) for me!
My lioness!
Daughter of a great man!

[FOOTNOTE 139: Gathered from Hahn's _Tsuni_ and Kroenlein's _Wortschatz der Namaqua Hottentotten._]

It is needless to say that in the first three of these aboriginal "lyrics" there is not the slightest indication that the "love" expressed rises above mere covetous desire of the senses; and as for the fourth, what is there in it besides reference to the girl's fatness (fleshy hand), her utility in milking and serving the milk and her carnal bites? Yet in this frank avowal of masculine selfishness and sensuality Hahn finds "a certain refinement of sentiment"! _

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