140 Freytag, Arabum Proverbia, vol. ii, p. 494.

141 Numb. xxi, 17. Such well-songs are still sung in the Syrian desert (see Enno Littmann, Neuarabische Volkspoesie, in Abhand. der Kön. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, Phil.-Hist. Klasse, Göttingen, 1901), p. 92. In a specimen cited at p. 81 we find the words witla yā dlêwēna— i.e., "Rise, O bucket!" several times repeated.

142 Goldziher, Ueber die Vorgeschichte der Higâ-Poesiein his Abhand. zur Arab. Philologie, Part I (Leyden, 1896), p. 26.

143 Cf.the story of Balak and Balaam, with Goldziher's remarks thereon, ibid., p. 42 seq.

144 Ibid., p. 46 seq.

145 Rajazprimarily means "a tremor (which is a symptom of disease) in the hind-quarters of a camel." This suggested to Dr. G. Jacob his interesting theory that the Arabian metres arose out of the camel-driver's song ( ḥidá) in harmony with the varying paces of the animal which he rode ( Studien in arabischen Dichtern, Heft III, p. 179 sqq.).

146 The Arabic verse ( bayt) consists of two halves or hemistichs ( miṣrá‘). It is generally convenient to use the word 'line' as a translation of miṣrá‘, but the reader must understand that the 'line' is not, as in English poetry, an independent unit. Rajazis the sole exception to this rule, there being here no division into hemistichs, but each line (verse) forming an unbroken whole and rhyming with that which precedes it.

147 In Arabic 'al-bayt,' the tent, which is here used figuratively for the grave.

148 Ibn Qutayba, Kitábu ’l-Shi‘r wa-’l-Shu‘ará, 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 Qaṣída 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 principal motive of these poems, namely, to gain a rich reward in return for praise and flattery. Ahlwardt ( Bemerkungen über die Aechtheit der alten Arab. Gedichte, p. 24 seq.) connects it with qaṣada, 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 Rajazverses, as we have seen (p. 74 supra), there is no such break.

152 Kitábu ’l-Shi‘r wa-’l-Shu‘ará, p. 14, l. 10 sqq.

153 Nöldeke ( Fūnf Mo‘allaqát, i, p. 3 sqq.) makes the curious observation, which illustrates 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' ( Ṭawíl) metre of the original, viz.:—

The Arabic text of the Lámiyya, with prose translation and commentary, is printed in De Sacy's Chrestomathie Arabe(2nd. ed.), vol. ii ^e, 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 Nöldeke, Beiträge zur Kenntniss d. Poesie d. alten Araber, p. 200.

156 The poet, apparently, means that his three friends are likethe animals mentioned. Prof. Bevan remarks, however, that this interpretation is doubtful, since an Arab would scarcely compare his friendto a hyena.

157 Ḥamása, 242.

158 Ḥamása, 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 Ḥamása, 82-83. The poet is ‘Amr b. Ma‘díkarib, a famous heathen knight who accepted Islam and afterwards distinguished himself in the Persian wars.

162 Al-Afwah al-Awdí in Nöldeke's Delectus, p. 4, ll. 8-10. The poles and pegs represent lords and commons.

163 Ḥamása, 122.

164 Ibid., 378.

165 Cf. the verses by al-Find, p. 58 supra.

166 Ḥamása, 327.

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

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

169 See p. 45 sqq.

170 Aghání, xvi, 98, ll. 5-22.

171 Aghání, xvi, 97, l. 5 sqq.

172 His Díwánhas been edited with translation and notes by F. Schulthess (Leipzig, 1897).

173 Ḥamása, 729. The hero mentioned in the first verse is ‘Ámir b. Uḥaymir of Bahdala. On a certain occasion, when envoys from the Arabian tribes were assembled at Ḥíra, King Mundhir b. Má’ al-samá produced two pieces of cloth of Yemen and said, "Let him whose tribe is noblest rise up and take them." Thereupon ‘Ámir 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 Aghánixvi, 22, ll. 10-16.

176 Agháni, xviii, 137, ll. 5-10. Freytag, Arabum Proverbia, vol. ii, p. 834.

177 Ancient Arabian Poetry, p. 81.

178 Mufaḍḍaliyyát, ed. Thorbecke, p. 23.

179 See Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien, Part II, p. 295 sqq.

180 Koran, xvi, 59-61.

181 Freytag, Arabum Proverbia, vol. i, p. 229.

182 Koran, xvii, 33. Cf. lxxxi, 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 Ḥamása, 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, Isḥáq b. Khalaf, lived under the Caliph Ma’mún (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 Kámilof 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 Ḥamása, 142. Lyall, op. cit., p. 28.

186 Ḥamása, 7.

187 Ḥamása, 321.

188 See p. 55 sqq.

189 Cf. Rückert's Hamâsa, vol. i, p. 61 seq.

190 Ḥamása, 30.

191 Aghání, 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 entitled to claim their protection. Such a person is called dakhíl. See Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys(London, 1831), vol. i, p. 160 sqq. and 329 sqq.

193 See p. 81 supra.

194 Stuttgart, 1819, p. 253 sqq. The other renderings in verse with which I am acquainted are those of Rückert ( Hamâsa, vol. i, p. 299) and Sir Charles Lyall ( Ancient Arabian Poetry, p. 48). I have adopted Sir Charles Lyall's arrangement of the poem, and have closely followed his masterly interpretation, from which I have also borrowed some turns of phrase that could not be altered except for the worse.