tative of the last period of Arabic poetry, was the son of a water-carrier, and is said to have picked up much of the literary knowledge for which he was afterwards famous by haunting the book-stalls of his native city. He spent too, some years of his youth among the nomads of the Syro-Arabian desert, learning their purer dialect, and becoming imbued with their self-reliant spirit. Thus he grew up a brave proud man, a gallant warrior as well as a poet, not easily satisfied either with wealth or honours, indifferent to the Korān and to the fasts and prayers of Islām, but untainted by the looseness of morals common to the poets of those days. At first he essayed a perilous road to distinction, appearing in the character of a prophet in the desert between the Euphrates and Syria, where he formed a considerable party, but was arrested by the governor of Emesa (Homs). A prison cooled his enthusiasm. The name of al-Mutanabbī clung to him, however, and is that by which he is still commonly known. Regaining his liberty, he had to struggle for a time with poverty and neglect. But his poetical talents at length found him patrons, and in 948 he became attached to the court of the famous warrior and patron of letters, Saif ad-daulā, prince of Aleppo, to whom many of the best fruits of his muse were dedicated, and by whose side he approved his valour in the field. But he had rivals who knew how to inspire jealousy between him and the prince, and an angry scene with the grammarian Khālawaih, in which the latter closed a philological dispute by striking Motanabbī, in the very presence of the prince and without rebuke from him, led the poet to leave the court and seek a new career in the realm of the Ikshīds (957). He now took as his patron and the object of his eulogies Kāfūr, the regent of Egypt—a black eunuch who knew how to open the poet’s lips by great gifts and honours. Motanabbī, however, sought a higher reward, the government of Sidon, and at length broke with Kāfūr, wrote satires against him, and had to fly for his life to Kufa (961). His next great patron was ʽAḍod ad-daulā of Shirāz, and on a journey from Shirāz to Kufa he was waylaid and slain by a chieftain of the Asad, whose kinsfolk he had satirized (September 965).
The poetry of Motanabbī is to European taste much less attractive than the verses of the ancient Arab poets, being essentially artificial and generally unreal, though it has great technical merits and displays lively fancy and considerable inventive power.
Oriental taste places him on a very high pedestal, as may be judged from the fact that more than forty commentaries were written on his Dīwān (H. Khal., iii. 306). Dieterici’s edition of the poet (Berlin, 1858–1861), gives the commentary of Wāḥidī (d. 1075); the Egyptian edition of 1870 has the commentary of ʽUkbarī (d. 1219). A convenient edition is that published with a commentary of Nāṣīf ul-Yazījī at Beirut (1882). See R. A. Nicholson, A Literary History of the Arabs (London, 1907), pp. 304–313.
MOTET, a musical art-form of paramount importance in the
16th century. The word is of doubtful etymology, and probably
its various uses and forms in the 13th and 14th centuries connect
with more than one origin. Thus motulus suggests modulus or
melody; and probably represents the notion underlying the
use of the term motetus or motellus to designate one of the
middle parts in a vocal combination. On the other hand the obvious connexion between the Italian word mottetto (diminutive
of motto) with the French mot (in the sense of bon mot) is in conformity with the use of a profane art-form contemporary with the conductus and rondel of these early epochs of music.
The only really definite and mature art-form denoted by the word motet is that of the 16th-century pieces of ecclesiastical music in one or two (rarely more) continuous movements, for the most part on Biblical or other ecclesiastical prose texts. The word is, however, used for any single Latin-text composition in continuous form, not set sectionally verse by verse, and not forming a permanent part of the mass. Thus Palestrina’s Stabat mater is included among his motets; though the text is metrical and rhymed, and the style, though continuous, is far from being that of the typical polyphonic motet. The title of motet is also occasionally loosely used for non-ecclesiastical works, such as many of the numbers in the Magnum opus musicum of Orlando di Lasso and the dedicatory motet at the beginning of Palestrina’s fifth book. And in this way it is sometimes applied to compositions not to Latin text; as in Josquin’s Déploration de Jehan Okenheim, where all except the canto fermo is in French.
The most important kind of motet is that which is intimately connected with the solemn mass for a particular holy day. Such motets are sung between the Credo and the Sanctus of the mass. They are, in typical cases, founded on the Gregorian tones of their texts, and the mass is founded on the same themes, thus giving the whole service a musical unity which has never since been approached in any church music even under Bach. When a motet was not founded on Gregorian tones it was still possible for the composer to design a mass on the same themes, and most of the titles of 16th-century masses, when they do not indicate a secular origin, indicate either the motet or the Gregorian tones on which they are founded. Thus Palestrina’s masses Assumpta est Maria; O admirabile commercium; Dum complerentur ; Hodie Christus natus est; Dies sanctificatus; Veni sponsa Christi, and the second Missa Tu es Petrus, are magnificent examples selected almost at random from the masses which the composer has founded on his own motets of the same name. When such masses are performed, whether in a concert-room or church, it is indisputable that the motet ought always to be included. Sometimes one composer founded a mass on another composer’s motet; thus Soriano’s fine Missa, Nos autem gloriari, is based upon a motet by Palestrina. When a motet was in two movements the second movement almost always ended with the last clauses of the first, both in text and in music, thereby sometimes producing a distinctly modern impression of da capo form.
In later times the term motet is little more than a name for any choral composition of clearly single design; and the fact that such compositions have often been sung, like the 16th-century motet, between the Credo and Sanctus of High Mass, has nothing to do with their character as an art-form. Bach’s motets are great German choral works in several movements, with no written accompaniment, though there is internal and external evidence that they were accompanied from score by the organ. Handel’s motets belong to his Italian period and are simply Latin cantatas of various kinds, with instrumental accompaniment. The later meanings attached to the word are quite indefinite, and have no common idea, except that the motet is nowadays the shortest kind of sacred choral music. (D. F. T.)
MOTH, in entomology, any lepidopterous insect belonging to
the division Heterocera, as distinguished from the Rhopalocera,
or butterflies; formerly confined to the small nocturnal insect
(belonging to the genus Tinea), which breeds in fur, clothes,
&c. (see Lepidoptera). The word in O. Eng. is moþþe, and
corresponds to Ger. Motte.
MOTHER, the term for the female parent of a child. The word, like father, is common to Indo-European languages, cf. in Teutonic languages, Ger. Mutter, Du. moeder, Swed. and Dan. moder; Gothic is the exception in Teutonic languages, the word being aithei, cf. atta, father; from Lat. mater come, in Romanic, Fr. mère, Ital., Span. and Port., madre. Greek has μήτηρ, (Attic and Ionic), μάτηρ (Doric). The Russian word is mat. The Sansk. mata points to an original derivation from a stem ma, to measure, or make. Of the many transferred applications of “mother” may be mentioned those to the church, to nature, to the earth, and to a city or nation, as the parent of other cities, nations, colonies, &c. As a title “mother” is particularly applied to the head of a religious community of women. For “mother-of-pearl” see Pearl. There is a particular application of “mother” to the scum which rises to the surface of a liquor during the process of fermentation, and also to a mass of gummy stringy consistency formed in vinegar in the process of acetous fermentation, hence known as “mother of vinegar” (see Vinegar). This is usually, however, taken to be another word altogether, and connected with Du. modder, mud, mire.
