The Ḳaṭa would not find its way.—It is related of the bird Ḳaṭa that it will leave its chicks at dawn and go to drink at a place a night’s march off, and will return, bringing water to the chicks, in the forenoon; that again in the early afternoon it will fly to the place once more, returning to bring water a second time in the evening; in doing this it never loses its way to the nest.

The domain of the Khalifate.—The original meaning of is a place of pasture or of water taken by some chief or power­ful person, and prohibited to others. Thus Kolayb Wâ’il, the powerful chief of the Nejd, had his in the district of Ḳaṣîm, and would allow no cattle to be pastured where the sound of his dog’s bark could be heard (see note to Sixteenth Assembly). According to the authors cited in Lane’s Lexicon, others did this: “It was a custom of the noble among the Arabs in the time of the Ignorance, when he alighted in a district that pleased him, to incite a dog to bark, and to prohibit for his own special friends or dependents the space throughout which the bark of the dog was heard, while he shared with the people in the other places of pasture around it. But the Prophet for­bade this and said, ‘There shall be no except for God and his Apostle,’ meaning except for the horses employed in war against the unbelievers, and the camels taken for the poor rate.” In the present passage it signifies merely the Imperial domain or Court, that is, the city of Bagdad.

The Precinct.— is an open space round a castle, in which horses are exercised and the public meet; or it may be a space round a city.

Sitting squarely. That is, he sat upon his buttocks with his legs equally crossed, which is a dignified position, as distin­guished from , he sat with his knees on the ground and his buttocks resting on his heels, or on the left foot bent sideways beneath, which is the position of those who argue together, as the plaintiff and defendant in a suit; and also as distingnished from , he sat on his buttocks, leaning back, and having his feet on the ground and his knees raised.

Set his foot on high.—Set his , or ankle, on high, so that the lowest part of him may be higher than the highest part of his companions. The word also has received the significa­tion of honour by which a man is established and made firm, as on his ankle; thus it is said, “God exalt his ka‘b,” and “The ka‘b of the tribe is gone,” that is their fortune and reputation.

Made fruitful: fecundated by instruction, as the female palm tree is fecundated by the spadix of the male, which is bruised and sprinkled upon it, or “by the insertion of a stalk of a raceme of the male tree into the spathe of the female, after shaking off the pollen of the former upon the spadix of the female.” (Lane on ). But according to Sherîshi it means “he drank the milk of my ,” that is, “of my milch camel.”

Broken the staff.—It was said of one who became a heretic or introduced discord that he “broke the staff of the Moslems,” and shuḳḳ al ‘aṣa became a synonym for schism. When one quarrelled with his tribe, and left it, he was said “to break its staff.” Ḥarîri uses the phrase more literally here in the sense of injuring, since one is injured when his staff, which is his strength, is broken.

The white and yellow: silver and gold coin.

Did he flay, or transform, or copy.—Plagiarism, , forms a division of the Arabic rhetoric, since the critics have sought to lay down rules strictly defining how far it is admissible. A sufficient exposition of the subject is given in the Mukhtaṣar al Ma‘âni (Calcutta, 1813), p. 651. M. Garcin de Tassy’s trans­lation of the Persian treatise ḥadâ’iḳ al balâghah, Paris, 1844, may also be advantageously consulted. In this and the follow­ing notes I have referred to the Mukhtaṣar, or shorter com­mentary, instead of the Muṭawwal, or longer commentary, of which I have a printed edition, because the former is more accessible, and quite sufficient for the purposes of the student. Plagiarism is divided into apparent and hidden; the former being that which one will detect by having the two passages before him, the other that which conceals itself in an apparent variety of thought; or, as it is defined in the Mukhtaṣar, the apparent is that which borrows the whole meaning, whether it uses all the words of the original or not. When the entire passage is taken without a change, even in the disposition of the words, this is blameable, for it is pure stealing, and is called copying, or , the arrogation to one’s self of another’s verse. ‘Abdallâh ibn Az Zobayr did this with two verses of Ma‘n ibn Ows, reciting them in the presence of Mu‘âwiyeh; but before he had left the Khalif’s presence, Ma‘n came in and recited a ḳaṣîdeh of his composition, in which these very verses occurred. The Khalif turned to ‘Abdallâh and said, “Didst thou not say that they were thine?” upon which ‘Abdallâh was forced to make a weak excuse. If the plagiary change some or all of the words of a verse into words of corresponding meaning and measure, this is also blameable, being still pure stealing. This act, according to De Sacy’s commentary, is called or flaying, and the same verse of Al Ḥaṭi’eh is quoted both in the commentary and in the Mukhtaṣar; but, as we shall see, the latter work gives the definition of “flaying” to the mere borrowing of the author’s meaning, without any imitation of words. If then, according to the Mukhtaṣar, the plagiary uses corresponding words, or if he takes all the original author’s words, merely changing their disposition, or if he takes some of his words, this is called , making foray, or transforma­tion , a word used of metamorphosis into a lower form, as of a man into a beast. In the two latter cases it is not essentially blameable, and may be atoned for if the new verse be better than the old one. In the Mukhtaṣar there follow examples from the poems of Abû Temmâm, Al Boḥtori, and Al Mutenebbi. Finally, if the plagiary takes the meaning alone, this is occupation, because he, as it were, comes and takes possession of the idea; or flaying, because he strips off the skin of diction which clothed the idea, and gives it a new one of his own. Similarly, this may be excusable or blameable, according as a better or worse verse is produced. The species of borrowing called , which consists in introducing phrases of the Koran or the Traditions, which are well known, is not blameable; nor is or the insertion of verses or hemistiches from other poets, if it be done honestly, and without an intention to claim them as one’s own. I may here observe that and have a cor­respondence in meaning, which is shared by and According to Sherîshi, the first means to change from lower to higher, the second from higher to lower, as the metamorphosis of a man into a beast; the third signifies the changing of an animal into an inanimate object, while the fourth is absolute corruption or wasting away. Of the verses quoted in De Sacy’s commentary as an instance of , Fâris ash Shidyâḳ, who criticises the work very severely, says that the word at the end of the first line should be , and at the end of the second, from , he ate voraciously. He is probably right, though in the Mukhtaṣar it is written , as by De Sacy. See “La vie et les aventures de Fariak,” p. 16 of last chapter. According to Sherîshi, the divisions of plagiarism mentioned by Ḥarîri are according to the system of Abû Moḥammed al Ḥosayn ibn Wakî‘, who wrote on the plagiarisms of Al Mutenebbi, and divided them into twenty classes, ten of which are excusable. These classes Sherîshi gives, with instances of each, but the matter is too long to be treated in these notes.

Poetry the register of the Arabs.—This was a saying of Ibn ‘Abbâs, the cousin of the Prophet, and the greatest of the early expounders of the Koran. He was accustomed to quote passages of the ancient poets in support of his explanations, and to say, “When ye have a difficulty in the Koran, look for its solution to the poems, for these are the registers of the Arabs.” It was also attributed to Mohammed, perhaps by the relation of Ibn ‘Abbâs himself, who desired to maintain the study of poetry amid the early fanaticism of Islam. It is said, “God distinguished the Arabs by four things: they have turbans for crowns, and , loops, (see 16th Assembly, ‘they loosed their loops to me’) for walls, that is as supports for their backs; and swords for scarves, and poetry for their registers.” This was said because they were in the habit of referring to poems when they differed about genealogies, wars, and the like.