The mother of Ṣakhr is not weary in her attendance; but Sulayma is weary of my bed and my seat;

Whosoever esteems a wife as a mother, let him not live but in misery and scorn.

Then, resolved to linger no longer, he bade them cut out the ring, which they did, and he shortly afterwards died.

It was on Ṣakhr that the principal elegies of Al Khansâ were composed. Her Dîwân is still extant, but only in manuscript. Fragments of it may be found at p. 516 of De Sacy’s Ḥarîri, and in Nöldeke’s Beiträge. The courage, generosity, and hospitality of the warrior are praised in impassioned verse. “With one hand he was strong to smite, with the other free to bestow.” When the lance-points crossed he handed round the cup of death, he was a defence when his people were dismayed. Who now is there to entertain guests when the north-wind blows, while the echo replies, and the cold forces the camels to seek the pens? Thus lamented Al Khansâ for many years; so as, at last, to incur the reproaches of those who thought her grief too long-lived. In the eighth year of the Hijra the Benû Sulaym made their submission to the Prophet, and joined his forces to the number of a thousand warriors, at the head of whom was ‘Abbâs ibn Merdâs, the son of Khansâ. She came with her son, and was received with great respect by Moḥammed, to whom she recited her poetry. It now remains to give some account of the personal history of this heroine. Though her poetry was elegiac, she was, if the Arabs are to be believed, proud and masculine in temper, and with little delicacy, even if judged by the standard of her own primitive age. At the fair of ‘Okâẓ, the poet An Nâbighat ath Thobyâni erected for her a red leather tent in token of honour; and in the contest of poetry gave her the highest place, above all but Al A‘sha (Maymûn al A‘sha the Great, son of Ḳays). “If I had not heard him,” said Nâbighah to her, “I would say that thou didst surpass every one in poetry. Verum confiteor te omnes mamillis prœditas (scilicet fœminas) superare.” Cui illa superbissimè, “Nec minus omnes testiculis prœditos.” She was first married to Rawâḥat ibn ‘Âbd al ‘Azîz of her own tribe of Sulaym, and afterwards to Merdâs ibn ‘Âmir of the same tribe. She was probably a widow for the second time when she attracted the admiration of Durayd ibn Aṣ Ṣimmah, one of the most celebrated heroes and poets of the time, and held by the Arabs to be the equal of ‘Antarah in genius and knightly prowess. But he was about sixty years old when he beheld the young poetess in a light undress applying pitch to the sores of her camels. He fell in love with her at once, and sang—

Greet ye Tumâḍir, O my companions; halt here and dwell; your halting here is all I seek.

I have ne’er seen or heard till to day that one anointing scabby camels

In common garb should be beautiful, putting the pitch on the sore places;

With bare arms smearing the pitch, as the perfume is smeared on a striped vest of Yemen.

Khansâ, however, was not inclined to wed him, and refused him, after ascertaining, by an indelicate expedient, that he had lost the strength of youth. Caussin de Perceval, Essai, II. 549. In her later years, after the establishment of Islam, she knew ‘Omar and ‘Âyisheh, who rebuked her for persisting in her grief for Ṣakhr. From an anecdote told of her behaviour at her daughter’s marriage in Hammer-Purgstall’s life of her (Vol. I., p. 550) she appears to have been of an imperious and unamiable character when advanced in years. It may be noticed that the words of Durayd, “putting the pitch on the sore places,” became proverbial to express the putting of anything in the right place, or making an apposite observation: compare Thirty-eighth Assembly, near the beginning.

In the commentary to the proverb “The wild ass is stopped in his rush” the full legend of Ṣakhr and his wife is given. It is there said, “Alii referunt virum quendam uxorem Sachri, quæ e marito tædium cepisset, interrogâsse Num podex venditur? (erat enim pulchra et magnis coxis prædita mulier) eamque respondisse Certè! brevi tempore,” by which she meant that she was only waiting for her husband’s death to marry again. When Ṣakhr heard these words he swore that he would kill her; and when she entered he said, “Give me my sword.” She gave it to him, and he tried to strike her with it, but his strength failed him. He then recited the verses of which the first two have been translated above. In these verses occurs the phrase “The wild ass is stopped in his rush” or “leap,” which became proverbial. Arab. Prov. II. 251. In the Forty-fifth Assembly Ḥarîri makes Al Khansâ proverbial for contentious eloquence. The judge says to Abû Zayd’s wife, “If Al Khansâ were to dispute with thee she would be silenced.” Some eulogistic words on Ṣakhr are given at Arab. Prov. I. 31. Some verses by Ṣakhr are to be found at Ḥamâseh, p. 489.