Lights up my morning.— According to Sherîshi there is a double meaning in the word , which also signifies “redness of the hair,” used by the author like “blackness” to typify youth. The colour , according to the Ḳâmûs (cited by Freytag), is akin to , that is the colour of white mixed with red, which was the colour attributed by the Arabs to the hair of their Christian enemies. If this be so the verse in the text may be also rendered “whitens my fair hair.”

I swear that.— after a formula of swearing is often followed by the mâḍi in a future sense: compare the Fifth Assembly, “I will not taste of your meal.”

Deck itself.— Compare the Forty-sixth Assembly (the first set of verses), “Who has not decked or clothed his palms with the cup of wine.”

Mixed drink.—Compare Mo‘allaḳah of ‘Amr ibn Kulthûm, v.2.

Cooled of the north wind.—I have translated thus on the authority of the commentary to v. 32 of the Mo‘allaḳah of Lebîd. Compare the Burdeh of Ka‘b ibn Zohayr, v. 4.

Gray hair is a guest to whom honour is due.—The meaning is that if he did not behave with sobriety in his old age he would not be treating his own gray hair with respect, and that, conse­quently, those who prided themselves on receiving their guests with courtesy would blame and contemn him.