I complain to God.—The metre of these lines is
In the ashy year.—A year of drought and barrenness, when all vegetation is dried up to the appearance of ashes.
Choking hinders me.—The full proverb is, “Choking hinders
the verse,” i.e., “stops the way of the verse.” In Arab. Prov.
I. 340, two explanations of this proverb are given. One is that
a father forbad a poetical son to recite, until the youth saddened,
and fell into an illness. The father then relented, but it was too
late, and the son, in his last moments, uttered the words of the
proverb. The more popular tradition ascribes the words to the
poet ‘Obayd ibn Al Abraṣ. The King of Hira, Munthir ibn Mâ’ as
Semâ, had, in a fit of drunkenness, ordered his two boon-companions,
named Khâlid and ‘Amr to be buried alive. When he
returned to his senses he was filled with grief, and constructed
two mausoleums over his friends, at which he determined to
spend two days in mourning every year. He further made a
vow that one day should be called the Day of Good, and the
other the Day of Evil. The first person whom he should meet
on the Day of Good he would present with a hundred camels,
and the first he should meet on the Day of Evil he would put to
death. Ill fate brought one year to the spot the poet ‘Obayd, on
the morning of the Day of Evil. Munthir told him that he
must die, but bade him first repeat his poem, beginning “Mal-
The forelocks shall bow down.—God is called the Master
of thy forelock, in the First Assembly. In Koran xi. 59, it is
said “There is no creature but he holds it by the forelock,” and
in lv. 41, “The wicked shall be known by their mark; they
shall be taken by the forelocks and the feet.” These expressions
may owe their origin to the usage of the Arabs, who
gloried in possessing the forelocks of their enemies, as an
American Indian glories in his scalps. They were said to cut off
the hair of prisoners before they released them, and to carry it
home in their quivers, as a token of their own victory and the
abasement of their adversaries. See the proverb, “More unlucky
than Khowta‘ah.” Arab. Prov. I. 687. In the life of Imr al
Ḳays, from the Kitâb al Aghâni, it is said that when Hojr, the
father of the poet, was slain, he bade that his arms, camels, and
goods should be given to the one of his sons who did not afflict
himself at his death. The messenger came to Nâfi‘, the eldest,
and told him what had happened, on which Nâfi‘ threw dust on
his head. The messenger came then to another, who did likewise;
and so he came to all, and found none who did not afflict
himself. At last he came to Imr al Ḳays, the youngest, whom
he found drinking and playing with a friend at
The faces of the assemblage shall be black and white.— God has said that in the day of judgment there shall be faces white and black; that is, the faces of the believers shall be lighted with joy, and those of the infidels black with despair. Koran iii. 102.
Cleft our hearts in pieces.—Compare commentary on Mo‘al-
A-stretch.—
Her cloak.—The
Oh! would I knew.—The metre of these lines is
One mind by vinegar and another by wine,—i.e., each mind in one way or another.—Compare Arab. Prov. II. 628, and Ḥamâseh 558, Arab. Text. It may also mean “with good or bad,” since the Arabs of the desert figured these two qualities by wine and by vinegar, which is the corruption of wine.
Being at one time Ṣakhr, at another time the sister of Ṣakhr.
—The most celebrated female name in Arab poetry is that of Al
Khansâ, the sister of the warriors Ṣakhr and Mu‘âwiyeh, and
famous for her elegies on the two brothers. Her name was
Tumâḍir, and she was the daughter of ‘Amr, son of Ḥârith, son of
Sherîd . . . . . son of Sulaym. The name Khansâ, (having a
turned-up nose like the gazelle or the wild cow), was given her,
as some say, by Durayd ibn Aṣ Ṣimmah, her rejected lover.
Mu‘âwiyeh and Ṣakhr, her brothers, were two of the chief men
of the tribe of Sulaym. In their childhood their father ‘Amr
had shown them to the assembled Arabs at the fair of ‘Okâẓ, and
proclaimed them, amid the assent of all, to be the two noblest
boys of the posterity of Moḍar. Years after, Mu‘âwiyeh had met at
‘Okâẓ a certain Hâshim son of Ḥarmalah, of the tribe of Murrah
of Ghaṭafân; and a quarrel had arisen between them. When
the sacred truce was at an end, Mu‘âwiyeh determined to attack
the Benû Murrah. A battle was fought which is known in
tradition as the first Day of Ḥowrâ, and Mu‘âwiyeh was killed by
Durayd, brother of Hâshim. Hâshim himself was thought to
have been killed, as he had been unhorsed and his mare had
galloped into the ranks of the Benû Sulaym; but Ṣakhr having
during the ensuing sacred month of Rejeb gone among the Benû
Murrah, discovered that he was still alive, and was informed that
he and Durayd had killed Mu‘âwiyeh. “Have ye buried him?”
asked Ṣakhr. “Yes,” said the brothers, and in costly stuff
of Yemen, which was purchased for five-and-twenty young
camels.” “Show me his tomb,” said Ṣakhr. When he was
conducted to it he wept, so as to excite the scorn of the Arabs,
who held it not good that a hero should show signs of sorrow.
“I weep thus every night,” said Ṣakhr, “and know no repose
since Mu‘âwiyeh is dead.” This passionate affection for each
other distinguished the family. Khansâ bewailed her brother in
elegies, and Ṣakhr prepared to avenge him. When the sacred
month was over he penetrated into the camp of the sons of
Murrah, slew Durayd, and then escaped by the fleetness of his
mare, which was that which had formerly belonged to Hâshim.
Some of Durayd’s kindred pursued, but were repulsed by the
Benû Sulaym. This is called the second Day of Ḥowrâ. In the
Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Poesie der alten Araber, of Theodor
Nöldeke, some verses are to be found composed by Al Khansâ
on the death of Mu‘âwiyeh. They have all the spirit of ante-