A Literary History of the Arabs Part 47

[148] Ibn Qutayba, _Kitabu 'l-Shi'r wa-'l-Shu'ara_, p. 36, l. 3 sqq.

[149] Already in the sixth century A.D. the poet 'Antara complains that his predecessors have left nothing new for him to say (_Mu'allaqa_, v.

1).

[150] _Ancient Arabian Poetry_, Introduction, p. xvi.

[151] _Qa?ida_ is explained by Arabian lexicographers to mean a poem with an artistic purpose, but they differ as to the precise sense in which 'purpose' is to be understood. Modern critics are equally at variance. Jacob (_Stud. in Arab. Dichtern_, Heft III, p. 203) would derive the word from the princ.i.p.al motive of these poems, namely, to gain a rich reward in return for praise and flattery. Ahlwardt (_Bemerkungen uber die Aechtheit der alten Arab. Gedichte_, p. 24 seq.) connects it with _qa?ada, to break_, "because it consists of verses, every one of which is divided into two halves, with a common end-rhyme: thus the whole poem is _broken_, as it were, into two halves;" while in the _Rajaz_ verses, as we have seen (p. 74 _supra_), there is no such break.

[152] _Kitabu 'l-Shi'r wa-'l-Shu'ara_, p. 14, l. 10 sqq.

[153] Noldeke (_Funf Mo'allaqat_, i, p. 3 sqq.) makes the curious observation, which ill.u.s.trates the highly artificial character of this poetry, that certain animals well known to the Arabs (_e.g._, the panther, the jerboa, and the hare) are seldom mentioned and scarcely ever described, apparently for no reason except that they were not included in the conventional repertory.

[154] _Ancient Arabian Poetry_, p. 83.

[155] Verses 3-13. I have attempted to imitate the 'Long' (_?awil_) metre of the original, viz.:--

The Arabic text of the _Lamiyya_, with prose translation and commentary, is printed in De Sacy's _Chrestomathie Arabe_ (2nd. ed.), vol. ii, p.

134 sqq., and vol. ii, p. 337 sqq. It has been translated into English verse by G. Hughes (London, 1896). Other versions are mentioned by Noldeke, _Beitrage zur Kenntniss d. Poesie d. alten Araber_, p. 200.

[156] The poet, apparently, means that his three friends are _like_ the animals mentioned. Prof. Bevan remarks, however, that this interpretation is doubtful, since an Arab would scarcely compare his _friend_ to a hyena.

[157] _?amasa_, 242.

[158] _?amasa_, 41-43. This poem has been rendered in verse by Sir Charles Lyall, _Ancient Arabian Poetry_, p. 16, and by the late Dr. A.

B. Davidson, _Biblical and Literary Essays_, p. 263.

[159] Mahaffy, _Social Life in Greece_, p. 21.

[160] See pp. 59-60 _supra_.

[161] _?amasa_, 82-83. The poet is 'Amr b. Ma'dikarib, a famous heathen knight who accepted Islam and afterwards distinguished himself in the Persian wars.

[162] Al-Afwah al-Awdi in Noldeke's _Delectus_, p. 4, ll. 8-10. The poles and pegs represent lords and commons.

[163] _?amasa_, 122.

[164] _Ibid._, 378.

[165] _Cf._ the verses by al-Find, p. 58 _supra_.

[166] _?amasa_, 327.

[167] Imru'u 'l-Qays was one of the princes of Kinda, a powerful tribe in Central Arabia.

[168] _Aghani_, xix, 99. The last two lines are wanting in the poem as there cited, but appear in the Selection from the Aghani published at Beyrout in 1888, vol. ii, p. 18.

[169] See p. 45 sqq.

[170] _Aghani_, xvi, 98, ll. 5-22.

[171] _Aghani_, xvi, 97, l. 5 sqq.

[172] His _Diwan_ has been edited with translation and notes by F.

Schulthess (Leipzig, 1897).

[173] _?amasa_, 729. The hero mentioned in the first verse is 'amir b. U?aymir of Bahdala. On a certain occasion, when envoys from the Arabian tribes were a.s.sembled at ?ira, King Mundhir b. Ma' al-sama produced two pieces of cloth of Yemen and said, "Let him whose tribe is n.o.blest rise up and take them." Thereupon 'amir stood forth, and wrapping one piece round his waist and the other over his shoulders, carried off the prize unchallenged.

[174] Lady Anne and Mr. Wilfrid Blunt, _The Seven Golden Odes of Pagan Arabia_, Introduction, p. 14.

[175] _Aghani_ xvi, 22, ll. 10-16.

[176] _Aghani_, xviii, 137, ll. 5-10. Freytag, _Arab.u.m Proverbia_, vol.

ii, p. 834.

[177] _Ancient Arabian Poetry_, p. 81.

[178] _Mufa??aliyyat_, ed. Thorbecke, p. 23.

[179] See Goldziher, _Muhammedanische Studien_, Part II, p. 295 sqq.

[180] Koran, xvi, 59-61.

[181] Freytag, _Arab.u.m Proverbia_, vol. i, p. 229.

[182] Koran, xvii, 33. _Cf._ lx.x.xi, 8-9 (a description of the Last Judgment): "_When the girl buried alive shall be asked for what crime she was killed._"

[183] Literally: "And tear the veil from (her, as though she were) flesh on a butcher's board," _i.e._, defenceless, abandoned to the first-comer.

[184] _?amasa_, 140. Although these verses are not Pre-islamic, and belong in fact to a comparatively late period of Islam, they are sufficiently pagan in feeling to be cited in this connection. The author, Is?aq b. Khalaf, lived under the Caliph Ma'mun (813-833 A.D.).

He survived his adopted daughter--for Umayma was his sister's child--and wrote an elegy on her, which is preserved in the _Kamil_ of al-Mubarrad, p. 715, l. 7 sqq., and has been translated, together with the verses now in question, by Sir Charles Lyall, _Ancient Arabian Poetry_, p. 26.

[185] _?amasa_, 142. Lyall, _op. cit._, p. 28.

[186] _?amasa_, 7.

[187] _?amasa_, 321.

[188] See p. 55 sqq.

[189] _Cf._ Ruckert's _Hamasa_, vol. i, p. 61 seq.

[190] _?amasa_, 30.

[191] _Aghani_, ii, 160, l. 11-162, l. 1 = p. 13 sqq. of the Beyrout Selection.

[192] The Bedouins consider that any one who has eaten of their food or has touched the rope of their tent is ent.i.tled to claim their protection. Such a person is called _dakhil_. See Burckhardt, _Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys_ (London, 1831), vol. i, p. 160 sqq. and 329 sqq.