The banks of the Zowrâ.—Zowrâ is a name applied to the Tigris in the neighbourhood of Bagdad, and to the city itself, or the eastern part of it. The general name for the Tigris is , the of Genesis ii. 14 and Daniel x. 4; being prefixed to signify the velocity of the current. Gesenius.

Trotted.—With regard to a horse it is defined as rose in his running.

Some children.—Plural of paucity.

That are kept jealously.— is the most noble and precious part of anything. Compare Ṭarafeh, Mo‘allaḳah, v. 66,—

“If death selects noble spirits, it also chooses and takes away the most precious of the miser’s hoardings.”

The word is also used of a she-camel, at v. 89.

The Heart, i.e., the centre or head-quarters of the army. An army had five divisions , and .

The Arms.— is used of the upper arm between the elbow and shoulder. By a natural transition it came to signify a helper. The genius of the Arabic language, like that of the Hebrew, is to form new ideas by giving a metaphorical signification to material objects, and this character is strongly marked throughout the present passage.

The Limbs.— are the members or limbs of a man by which gain is made, as the hand, the foot, and the eye.

Turned about till back was belly.—This phrase answers to our topsy-turvy, and denotes confusion; but it is also said, he examined the matter “back and belly,” that is, thoroughly. Arab. Prov. II. 243.

Front-tooth nor eye-tooth.— signifies one of the front teeth; that is, one of the central incisors, four in number. As the feminine of it signifies the she-camel that has shed the tooth called , that is, a camel in the sixth year. The name is also applied to a horse in the fourth, or as is otherwise said, in the third year; and to a sheep or goat, or an animal of the bovine kind in the third year (Lane). Similarly signifies the canine tooth, and also an aged camel in which this tooth is conspicuous.

Tarnished.— is explained in De Sacy’s commentary, as falling away and being reft from the possessor. But it is evident that the series of words are all intended to express the idea of colour. I have therefore translated as above. has properly the signification of being discordant and confused in colour.

The Yellow loved one.—Compare the Assembly of the Denar.

My blue-eyed enemy.—This is usually explained to refer to the Greeks, who were the enemies of the Arabs, and a light-eyed race. Thus also , having red moustaches, had the meaning of hostile, as being a mark of the Greeks. It may be that as the Byzantine Court had men of the northern nations in its service, so blue or light eyes, and red or yellow hair, might be found opposed to the Arabs in the field. See further a note on the Tenth Assem­bly. At Koran xx., 102, where it is said, “When the trumpet shall be sounded, and we shall gather together the wicked ,” Bayḍâwi says that the wicked are thus described because this is the most hateful colour of the eye to the Arabs, since the Greeks were distinguished by it; and men in describing an enemy said, “Black of heart, ruddy of moustache, blue of eye.” But it may also be rendered “staring,” or rather “blear-eyed” with terror It appears also to describe a light, wild, glittering eye, in con tradistinction to the soft and languid black which the Arabs admired. Compare Arab. Prov. II. 848, and I. 715. It seems to have been connected with the idea of a piercing sight in the legend of ‘Anz al Yemâmeh, commonly called Zarḳâ ’l Yemâmeh, the first woman who used koḥl. She was a woman of the pri­meval tribe of Jedîs, and when Jedîs had destroyed the tribe of Ṭasm, all but Ribâḥ ibn Murrah, this solitary survivor fled to Ḥassân ibn Tobba‘, king of Yemen, and sought vengeance on Jedîs. The Ḥimyarite army set forth, and, in order that its numbers might be concealed from Jedîs, the king commanded that each soldier should cut down the bough of a tree and bear it before him. This is, perhaps, the original of the story in Macbeth. Zarḳâ ascended an , a fortress or tower, and, though the army was three days’ march distant, she saw it, and called out, “O people, either trees or Ḥimyar are coming against you.” They would not believe her, and she then ex­claimed, in the metre rejez:—

I swear by God that trees creep onward, or Ḥimyar bears something which he draws along.

She then described that she saw a man mending his sandal. The tribe still disbelieved, and in the end were surprised and destroyed. The legend is told in various ways: compare proverb “More keen-sighted than Zarḳa ’l Yemâmeh;” Ar. Prov. I. 192; also De Sacy’s Ḥarîri, commentary to Fiftieth Assembly. For another instance of her keenness of sight see the ḳaṣîdeh of Nâbighah the Thobyâni, in De Sacy’s Chresto-mathie. Queen Zebbâ and Basûs are also described by the Arabs as blue-eyed.

Red death.—By red death, death in war is said to be meant. Arab. Prov. II. 670. White death is a natural and quiet death, with forgiveness of sins; and black death is a violent and dreadful death, as by strangling. It is to be noticed that in this address Ḥarîri abandons rhyme; the parts of the body, and the series of the form , giving enough of rhythm to the composition. Com­pare Forty-ninth Assembly, where names compounded of Abû are introduced.

Their look is a sufficient examining.—“The eye of the horse is as good as a look in his mouth,” is a proverb used of any one whose aspect plainly shows his real condition. In the Thirty-third Assembly, Abû Zayd says, “To you who are clear-sighted the looking on me suffices for a description.”

A mess.— is a mess of crumbled bread, moistened with broth, and generally having small pieces of meat cut up in it,— a mess resembling pillaw, but made with bread instead of rice. In the thirteenth Assembly of Naṣîf al Yazaji are some verses recording the principal dishes of the Arabs; and in the com­mentary to these it is said that tharîd is made of meat, milk, and bread. Hâshim, the ancestor of Moḥammed, received that name because he crumbled the bread for the tharîd of the pilgrims; that is, because he was the first to distribute to them necessary provisions. When prepared luxuriously with eggs and marrow, as was the tharîd of Ghassân, it was the food of the wealthy, and esteemed above every other. It is said of ‘Âyisheh that she excelled all other women, as tharîd excels other kinds of food. The word is given as synonymous with tharîd.

The soul that dwells in me.—For a similar use of com­pare the Thirty-fourth Assembly.

Sets a mote.—The figure of a mote in the eye is used commonly to express any trouble or humiliation. In the Twenty-second Assembly it is said of a company who are convicted of behaving ungenerously, “Each one drooped his eyelid over his mote.” So also in the Thirty-seventh, “The noble-minded man, if his eye have caught a mote, conceals it even from the pupils of his own eyes.” The metaphor is ancient, for in the Mo‘al-laḳah of Ḥârith it is said, “If ye will be silent we will be as those who close the eye when the motes are under their eyelids.” Line 32.

Among thy Reciters.—In the early days of Arab poetry, when writing was almost unknown, the reputation of a poet depended on the number of persons whom his genius induced to commit his poems to memory, and to recite them in public gatherings, or in the houses of great men. Such a reciter was called ; and many stories are current of the marvellous powers of memory displayed. In these Assemblies Ḥârith is supposed to be the Râwi of Abû Zayd, as is stated by Ḥarîri in the Preface. Sometimes a poet was the Râwi of another; the last who was so is said to have been Kothayyir Ṣâḥib ‘Azza, or “the Lover of ‘Azza,” who died in the year of the Hijra 105. His life is given by Ibn Khallikân. One of the most celebrated of these reciters was Abû ’l Ḳâsim Ḥammâd, who flourished at the close of the first and the beginning of the second century, and was in high favour with Welîd ibn ‘Abd al Melik and Hishâm. He was called Ar Râwiah , for the multiplicity of his knowledge of Arab poetry, anecdotes, and traditions. Ibn Khallikân gives a life of him, and speaks of his wonderful powers. He is said to have first collected the Seven Mo‘allaḳât, which probably owe to him their present form. Ibn Khallikân relates that the Khalifs of the House of Omayyeh treated him with much distinction, and tells of him the anecdote which will be found in my Introduction. In the Durrah of Ḥarîri (Anthologie Gram. Arabe) is the story of his being sent for from Irak to Syria by the Khalif Hishâm to inform him of the origin of a verse of an ancient poet. Ḥammâd was famous for his knowledge of the Days, or battles and adventures of the desert Arabs, and all that related to their history, poetry, genealogy, and idioms; but in the Arabic language he was not very skilful, for having learnt the Koran by heart from a written copy, he mistook the pronunciation of three hundred or words which may be variously pronounced. As manuscripts increased the profession of Râwi declined, but it still continued one of the chief accomplishments of the learned to know by heart vast quantities of verse. There is a play on the verb , which I have passed over in the translation.