Foes are vanquished.—Literally, “the forelocks are mastered.” The Arabs, when they took prisoners, were accustomed to cut off the front hair and carry it in their quivers. Hence, at Koran xi. 59, “to take by the forelock” means, to have absolute authority. Nobles also are called the forelocks, or chiefs of the people.

Enriches the overseer—wearies the eye.—This use of in a double sense is to be found in the opening address of the Thirteenth.

Fraud would endure to the Day of Judgment.—This is an allu­sion to Koran lxiv. 9, where the Day of Judgment is called the “Day of Mutual Defrauding,” since then men will defraud or supplant one another, the just taking the place that the wicked have had, and conversely.

The pen of accounting interprets.— like is the expounding of the real essential meaning of a thing, that to which it comes or may be reduced.

An Abû Barâḳish.—This is a bird of gaudy and changing plumage, and is therefore used as a similitude for a clever but unsteady writer. M. de Sacy, in his Chrestomathie Arabe, Vol. III. p. 499, sec. ed., says that it is probably a species of heron. He then gives the following description from Ḳazwîni: “The Abû Barâḳish is a bird with a pleasant voice; its neck and feet are long, its beak red, and it is about the size of a stork; its plumage changes every instant to the eye, showing red, yellow, green, and blue. So that a poet has said, ‘He is like the Abû Barâḳish, he can take all colours.’” In Lane’s Lexicon it is said to be a small wild bird, like a lark, which, when it is provoked, ruffles its feathers, and becomes variously changed in colour. The Abû Barâḳish is used figuratively, like the lizard Abû Ḳalamûn, to express a person of variable disposi­tion: compare the Latin term stellionatus, a fraud or swindle, from stellio. A kind of shot silk also had these names from its changes of colour. Barâḳish is an ancient Arab name. In the proverb, “Barâḳish sins against her people” (Arab. Prov. II. 89), the name is variously explained as that of a bitch, which betrayed the place of a tribe’s retreat by her barking; as the wife of a king who allowed her damsels needlessly and in jest to kindle the signal-fire for the assembling of the troops; and, thirdly, as a wife of Loḳmân of ‘Âd who persuaded her husband to eat the flesh of the camel, so that by the voracity of himself and his people the camels of her own tribe were destroyed. This and numberless similar appellations of animals among the Arabs are of the nature of proper names, and may be compared with the Renard the Fox, Ysengrin the Wolf, Chantecler the Cock, of our medieval fables.

Save those that believe, etc.—Koran xxxviii. 23. is a word corresponding with , and signifies the making one’s self secure and trustful in God. is augmentative to express indefiniteness or wonder.

After a time I recollected him.—Koran xii. 45. For the meanings of , see Lane. The various readings and inter­pretations given by Bayḍâwi at the above passage of the Koran cannot apply to xi. 11, where the meaning is clearly a certain time.

After whose fashioning.—Arab. Prov. I. 314. Compare Koran, xix. 28.

Whose sprite.—The place named was a residence of the Jinn, so that whoever does a thing wonderfully or beautifully is said to be ‘Abḳarî, i.e., a sprite of ‘Abḳar. The Jinn were supposed to haunt desolate regions, particularly those which had been the home of wicked races of men destroyed by God. Such was the region called Yabrîn, and the region called Wabâr, which lay between it and Yemen, and was named after Wabâr, son of Irem son of Shem. ‘Abḳar is said to have been in the region of Yemâmeh. The ‘Abḳar spoken of by Imr al Ḳays (Dîwân, p. 26 Ar. Text), seems to have no connection with the home of the Jinn. The poet compares the sound of the pebbles scattered by the hoofs of his camel to the sound of coin examined on a table in ‘Abḳar. The Arabs used the word Jinn to express the spirit or energy of a man: compare Ḥamâseh, p. 182, where a poet says, “My Jinn have not fled, my file is not blunted, my birds have not drooped from fear.” In the com­mentary to this verse it is said that according to Abû ‘Ala the Arabs compare an energetic man to a Jinnî or a Shayṭân. This and the foregoing expression are taken from a Tradition of the Prophet which is given by Sherîshi as follows;—Said the Prophet, “I saw in a dream is if I stood by a well, and looked at the people; then came Abû Bekr, and drew a bucket or two, and grew weak with it, and God forgave him; then came ‘Omar, and the bucket () turned into larger bucket () in his hand, and I never saw such an ‘Abḳarî among men, working as he worked, until the people were watered and at rest. The original meaning of is a cut or stroke, as you say of a strong man who severs a bar of wood with his sword, “No one can strike his stroke.”

A heated eye—a ship’s companionship.—The first of these expressions denotes anger, dislike, or contempt; the second is a modern phrase, meaning a short-lived acquaintance, such as is made during a voyage, and ceases at the end of it.

The sewer, the latrina.—For the various names of this place see what Sherîshi is pleased to call a pretty story, in De Sacy’s commentary to the Forty-seventh Assembly. The original meaning is a garden. The metre of these verses is kâmil.

Drooped his eyelid over his mote. Was silent in shame and repentance.