I imagine.—The anomalous form is always used by Ḥarîri as more chaste. It is said to have been originally pecu­liar to the tribe of Ṭay, but to have become of such general use that the regular form was retained only by the Benû Asad.

Thy chamber.— is the curtain by which the sleeping place of a woman is concealed in a tent or room, and is applied generally to a woman’s chamber; a chamber has not this name if a woman be not in it, says Ḥarîri in the Durrah. The word is very old; see Genesis xliii. 30; and, in the strict Arabic sense, Judges xv. 1; xvi. 9, 12; Song of Solomon i. 4; iii. 4.

The master of thy virginity.—Literally the father. This phrase occurs in the Preface, “My mind is the father or lord of its virginity.” With respect to a married woman, it is applied to her first husband.

The will of thy Lord.—Lord here means God and not her husband. The word by itself, and not in connexion with another noun, is applied only to the Deity. You may say, “the lord of the house,” or “the lords of eloquence,” (compare Sixth Assembly) in the sense of “possessor;” but “the Lord,” or “thy Lord” signifies God.

It may be that God will bring victory.—Koran v. 57.

Abû Maryam.—“Father of Mary,” according to Moṭarrezi, is an expression peculiar to certain modern authors, who desig­nate under that name the officers or ushers of a Kadi’s court. The metre of the two lines is , which is formed from the third circle, or , like the hezej and rejez. Its normal measure is twice. The present verses belong to the second , which is ; its second is , and the measure is Of the there enter into this metre and , and , which is the union of the two. They have been already explained.

Followed excess by prayer for pardon.—The excess is the sinful immoderation of laughter.

The latter state is better for him, etc.—Koran xciii. 4.

The repentance of Al Farazdaḳ, when he put away Nawâr, or of Al Kosa‘î, when the daylight appeared.—These are two proverbial instances of repentance; though only the latter is derived from the Arabs of the desert. Farazdaḳ, one of the chief poets of the post-Islamic period, was born about the year 46 of the Hijra, and died about the year 110, under the Khalifate of Hishâm. He belonged to the tribe of Temîm, to which be­longed also the great poets Jerîr and Al Akhṭal; so that it was said that before Islam poetry had set its habitation among the tribe of Ḳays, but that in Islam it had migrated to the sons of Temîm. His grandfather, Ṣa‘ṣa‘ah was known by the honour­able name of , the Reviver of the maidens buried alive; because once, when he was seeking two milch camels which had strayed, he came to a tent where a woman lay in the pains of childbirth, and knowing that if she gave birth to a female child it would be buried alive, according to the barbarous practice of the Arabs, he ransomed it at the price of the two beasts. This act of generosity the poet is said often to have alluded to in his compositions. He was eminent for his eulogis­tic and satirical verses, and was one of the first who introduced antitheses and conceits into poetry, thus setting a bad example, which was afterwards only too largely followed. Farazdaḳ was a nickname which he received on account of his dark com­plexion, the word being, according to De Sacy, a corruption of the Persian , which means a piece of burnt dough. Like other poets of the time, he was a partisan of the House of ‘Ali, and one of his chief poems is in praise of Zayn al ‘Âbidîn, son of Al Ḥosayn. For this composition he was imprisoned in Ḥijâz by Hishâm, son of ‘Abd al Melik. He must have been a dissolute Moslem, for he gave rise to a proverb, “a night of Farazdaḳ and Ḥalfeh,” used to signify a night spent in debauchery. With other rakes he penetrated into a Christian convent, and passed the night with a nun named Ḥalfeh, drinking wine, eating pork, and dressing up in the nuns’ habits. His adven­ture with his wife Nawâr is very celebrated, but is told by different writers with certain discrepancies. She was the daughter of one ‘Ayn ibn Ḍobay‘, and Farazdaḳ had been com­missioned to ask her in marriage; but becoming enamoured of her, he took her for himself. She afterwards forced him to divorce her, and he pronounced the necessary words in the presence of witnesses. When he found that the parting was irrevocable, he exclaimed:

I feel a repentance like that of Al Kosa‘î, now that Nawâr has been put away by me:

She was my Paradise, and I have left her like Adam when Aḍ Ḍirâr drove him forth. (Ḍirar is the angel of Paradise.)

I have been as one who puts out his eyes wilfully; who rises in the morning and the sun shines not to him. (See Ar. Prov. II, 376.)

In the commentary of Sherîshi it is said that in the same year, 110, died Al Farazdaḳ and Jerîr, Al Ḥasan al Baṣrî and Ibn Sîrîn; so that Basra lost at once its two great poets and its two great lawyers.

Al Kosa‘î is said by some to have been a man of the tribe of Kosa‘, in Yemen, whose name was Moḥârib ibn Ḳays; by others he is said to have been of the Benû Sa‘d ibn Thobyân, and to have been named ‘Âmir ibn Ḥârith. His story, and all the verses which he is said to have improvised, are given at length by Sherîshi, and are translated from Moṭarrezi in De Sacy’s Chrestomathy. I have space for only a very brief narra­tive. Al Kosa‘î had found a fine naba‘ tree, of which bows and arrows are made, and had fashioned a bow for himself. He took his stand in the night to shoot wild asses; he shot and pierced one, but the bow was so strong and good that the arrow went through the body, and struck on the rock behind. Al Kosa‘î, hearing the sound in the darkness, thought he had missed his aim. Another troop came by, and he shot again, with the same seeming want of success. At last, after shooting five times, he broke the bow in a rage. When morning dawned he saw that five asses lay dead, pierced with his arrows. His repent­ance at having destroyed so excellent a bow passed into a proverb, and it is said “More repentant than Al Kosa‘î.” Ar. Prov. II. 776. It would appear that Al Kosa‘î was less prudent than Pandarus, who only threatened that he would burn his bow if ever he returned home. Iliad V. 212.