"How glows mine heart for him whose heart to me is cold,Who liketh ill my case and me in fault doth hold!Why should I hide a love that hath worn thin my frame?To Sayfu ’l-Dawla all the world avows the same.Tho' love of his high star unites us, would that weAccording to our love might so divide the fee!Him have I visited when sword in sheath was laid,And I have seen him when in blood swam every blade:Him, both in peace and war the best of all mankind,Whose crown of excellence was still his noble mind. Do foes by flight escape thine onset, thou dost gainA chequered victory, half of pleasure, half of pain.So puissant is the fear thou strik'st them with, it standsInstead of thee, and works more than thy warriors' hands.Unfought the field is thine: thou need'st not further strainTo chase them from their holes in mountain or in plain.What! 'fore thy fierce attack whene'er an army reels,Must thy ambitious soul press hot upon their heels?Thy task it is to rout them on the battle-ground;No shame to thee if they in flight have safety found.Or thinkest thou perchance that victory is sweetOnly when scimitars and necks each other greet? O justest of the just save in thy deeds to me! Thouart accused and thou, O Sire, must judge the plea. Look, I implore thee, well! Let not thine eye cajoledSee fat in empty froth, in all that glisters gold!566What use and profit reaps a mortal of his sight,If darkness unto him be indistinct from light? My deep poetic art the blind have eyes to see,My verses ring in ears as deaf as deaf can be.They wander far abroad while I am unaware,But men collect them watchfully with toil and care.Oft hath my laughing mien prolonged the insulter's sport,Until with claw and mouth I cut his rudeness short.Ah, when the lion bares his teeth, suspect his guile,Nor fancy that the lion shows to you a smile.I have slain the man that sought my heart's blood many a time,Riding a noble mare whose back none else may climb,Whose hind and fore-legs seem in galloping as one;Nor hand nor foot requireth she to urge her on.And O the days when I have swung my fine-edged glaiveAmidst a sea of death where wave was dashed on wave!The desert knows me well, the night, the mounted men,The battle and the sword, the paper and the pen!"567

Finally an estrangement arose between Mutanabbí and Sayfu ’l-Dawla, in consequence of which he fled to Egypt and attached himself to the Ikhshídite Káfúr. Disappointed in his new patron, a negro who had formerly been a slave, the poet set off for Baghdád, and afterwards visited the court of the Buwayhid ‘Aḍudu ’l-Dawla at Shíráz. While travelling through Babylonia he was attacked and slain by brigands in 965 a.d.

The popularity of Mutanabbí is shown by the numerous commentaries568 and critical treatises on his Díwán. By his countrymen he is generally regarded as one of the greatest of Arabian poets, while not a few would maintain that he ranks absolutely first. Abu ’l-‘Alá al-Ma‘arrí, himself an illustrious poet and man of letters, confessed that he had sometimes wished to alter a word here and there in Mutanabbí's verses, but had never been able to think of any improvement. "As to his poetry," says Ibn Khallikán, "it is perfection." European scholars, with the exception of Von Hammer,569 have been far from sharing this enthusiasm, as may be seen by referring to what has been said on the subject by Reiske,570 De Sacy,571 Bohlen,572 Brockelmann,573 and others. No doubt, according to our canons of taste, Mutanabbí stands immeasurably below the famous Pre-islamic bards, and in a later age must yield the palm to Abú Nuwás and Abu ’l-‘Atáhiya. Lovers of poetry, as the term is understood in Europe, cannot derive much æsthetic pleasure from his writings, but, on the contrary, will be disgusted by the beauties hardly less than by the faults which Arabian critics attribute to him. Admitting, however, that only a born Oriental is able to appreciate Mutanabbí at his full worth, let us try to realise the Oriental point of view and put aside, as far as possible, our preconceptions of what constitutes good poetry and good taste. Fortunately we possess abundant materials for such an attempt in the invaluable work of Tha‘álibí, which has been already mentioned.574 Tha‘álibí (961-1038 a.d.) was nearly contemporary with Mutanabbí. He began to write his Yatímaabout thirty years after the poet's death, and while he bears witness to the unrivalled popularity of the Díwánamongst all classes of society, he observes that it was sharply criticised as well as rapturously admired. Tha‘álibí himself claims to hold the balance even. "Now," he says, "I will mention the faults and blemishes which critics have found in the poetry of Mutanabbí; for is there any one whose qualities give entire satisfaction?—

Kafa ’l-mar’a faḍl ^anan tu‘adda ma‘áyibuh.

'Tis the height of merit in a man that his faults can be numbered.

Then I will proceed to speak of his beauties and to set forth in due order the original and incomparable characteristics of his style.

The radiant stars with beauty strike our eyesBecause midst gloom opaque we see them rise."

It was deemed of capital importance that the opening couplet ( maṭla‘) of a poem should be perfect in form and meaning, and that it should not contain anything likely to offend. Tha‘álibí brings forward many instances in which Mutanabbí has violated this rule by using words of bad omen, such as 'sickness' or 'death,' or technical terms of music and arithmetic which only perplex and irritate the hearer instead of winning his sympathy at the outset. He complains also that Mutanabbí's finest thoughts and images are too often followed by low and trivial ones: "he strings pearls and bricks together" ( jama‘a bayna ’l-durrati wa-’l-ájurrati). "While he moulds the most splendid ornament, and threads the loveliest necklace, and weaves the most exquisite stuff of mingled hues, and paces superbly in a garden of roses, suddenly he will throw in a verse or two verses disfigured by far-fetched metaphors, or by obscure language and confused thought, or by extravagant affectation and excessive profundity, or by unbounded and absurd exaggeration, or by vulgar and commonplace diction, or by pedantry and grotesqueness resulting from the use of unfamiliar words." We need not follow Tha‘álibí in his illustration of these and other weaknesses with which he justly reproaches Mutanabbí, since we shall be able to form a better idea of the prevailing taste from those points which he singles out for special praise.

In the first place he calls attention to the poet's skill in handling the customary erotic prelude ( nasíb), and particularly to his brilliant descriptions of Bedouin women, which were celebrated all over the East. As an example of this kind he quotes the following piece, which "is chanted in the salons on account of the extreme beauty of its diction, the choiceness of its sentiment, and the perfection of its art":—

"Shame hitherto was wont my tears to stay,But now by shame they will no more be stayed,So that each bone seems through its skin to sob,And every vein to swell the sad cascade.She uncovered: pallor veiled her at farewell:No veil 'twas, yet her cheeks it cast in shade.So seemed they, while tears trickled over them,Gold with a double row of pearls inlaid.She loosed three sable tresses of her hair,And thus of night four nights at once she made;But when she lifted to the moon in heavenHer face, two moons together I surveyed."575

The critic then enumerates various beautiful and original features of Mutanabbí's style, e.g.—

1. His consecutive arrangement of similes in brief symmetrical clauses, thus:—

"She shone forth like a moon, and swayed like a moringa-bough,And shed fragrance like ambergris, and gazed like a gazelle."