He who cut off his nose with his own hand.—This is, per­haps, an allusion to Ḳoṣayr, who thus avenged the death of his master, Jathîmet al Abrash on Queen Zebbâ. An account of this stratagem will be given in the notes to the Twenty-seventh Assembly, under the words, “It was for a cause that Ḳoṣayr cut off his nose.” Another explanation is that it refers to a man who, having a razor in his hand, wished to wipe his nose, and cut it off by accident.

The chief losers, etc.—A quotation from Koran, xviii. 103.

Fables which relate to brutes and lifeless objects.—Fables, like those of Æsop and Loḳmân, or the fables of Bidpai, known under the name of Kalîleh wa Dimneh. Such writings, which belong to an order of great antiquity in the East, as may be learnt even from the Old Testament, were always highly esteemed, even by the strictest professors of religion, as conveying wise morals, and were distinguished by them from idle poetry, and stories of love or adventure. An instance of the application of this kind of fable to the highest and most mystical doctrines is to be found in the Mantiḳ Aṭ Ṭayr of the Persian poet Farîd ad Dîn ‘Aṭṭâr, who wrote in the age succeeding Ḥarîri. Sherîshi gives instances of the use of fables by eminent men, one of them being the Prophet himself. The beautiful moral allegories of Azz ad Dîn al Muḳaddasi, edited by M. Garcin de Tassy, under the name of “Les Oiseaux et les Fleurs,” are fine specimens of this kind of composition.

Yet am I content.—Metre ṭawîl, as in the preceding lines.