The portion of Ar Rabî‘.—A large and populous quarter or suburb of Bagdad was known by the name of the Portion of Ar Rabî‘, because the ground had been given by Al Manṣûr to his ḥâjib or chamberlain, Abû ’l Faḍl ar Rabî‘ ibn Yûnus. The life of this personage, who enjoyed the greatest power during the reigns of his patron and of Al Mahdi, is to be found in Ibn Khal-likân. He was of low origin, though something was known of his pedigree, since it was said that his ancestor, Abû Farwat al Ḥaffâr, had been a slave of the Khalif ‘Othmân ibn ‘Affân, and, having received his freedom, had become a grave-digger, whence his surname. Ibn Khallikân relates that “Ar Rabî‘ died towards the beginning of the year 170 (a.d. 786), but Aṭ Ṭabari places his death in 169. Some say that he was poisoned by the Khalif Al Hâdi.” Ar Rabî‘ was an able but unscrupulous man. There s reason to believe that he was concerned in the death of Al Manṣûr’s nephew, ‘Abd al Wahhâb, whose rivalry the Khalif feared for his own son Mahdi. Under Mahdi’s reign Ar Rabî showed himself a military commander of ability in Asia Minor, but his treachery towards the wazîr Abû ‘Abd allah, whose destruction he accomplished by persuading the Khalif that the wazîr had brought up his son Moḥammed as a zindîḳ, or free­thinker, shows him to have been capable of the worst means to gain his ends. For a full account of him, see Weil, Geschichte der Chalifen.

The two boon-companions of Jathîmeh.—This was Jathîmet al Abrash, son of Mâlik the Azdi, the famous king of the Arabs of Irak, and celebrated for his pride and grandeur in the popular legends. It was the custom of the Arabs to associate by threes in their feastings, so that each man had two boon-companions. But such was the pride of Jathîmeh that he would drink with none of mortal race; but declared that the F̣arḳadân alone should be his boon-companions; and to these stars cups were filled whenever the king caroused, and the liquor was poured out as if they had indeed drunk. But it came to pass at last that the king’s nephew ‘Amr ibn ‘Adî was lost in the Semâweh, or Syrian desert. This ‘Amr was son of ‘Adî ibn Naṣr and Raḳâsh the king’s sister, whose adventure has been mentioned in the Introduction. It will be remembered that ‘Adî, a youth of princely blood, was one of the king’s pages, and that he and Raḳâsh having mutually fallen in love, she had persuaded him to ask the king’s consent after he had well drunken, and then to consummate the marriage at once. ‘Adî the next day found Jathîmeh so angry at what had passed, that he sought safety in flight. Raḳâsh gave birth to a son whom Jathîmeh adopted, since he was himself childless. The boy ‘Amr used to go out with the king’s servants to gather mushrooms, and it happened that whenever the servants found fine mushrooms they ate them, and brought back only the worse kind to the king. But ‘Amr brought back the best he could find, and one day in presenting them he uttered this verse:—

These are my gathering, and they are the best, though truly every gatherer has his hand to his mouth.

These last words became proverbial. At last ‘Amr, who was eight years old, was lost in the desert. Some say that he was carried off by Jinn, by whom he was enchanted a long time. At last two brothers, named Mâlik and ‘Oḳayl, the sons of Ḳârij, men of Balḳayn, who were journeying to the king with presents, met a young man with his hair and nails grown long. They said to him, “Who art thou?” He said, “A son of the Tanûkhîyeh.” (Jathîmeh reigned over the Tanûkhites of Ḳoḍâ‘ah, who had founded the city of Hira, under Mâlik ibn Zohayr). The adventure which followed is not worth relating; it will be found at Arab. Prov. II. 319, and in De Sacy’s commentary to the Thirty-ninth Assembly. In the end they brought him to the king, who offered them whatever reward they chose to ask. They asked that Jathîmeh should take them as his boon-companions as long as he lived. The king con­sented, and the three dwelt together for forty years, until death separated them. ‘Amr was called ‘Amr of the Collar, for when he was brought back his mother left on him the collar he had worn in infancy, on which Jathîmeh said, “‘Amr has outgrown the Collar,” which became proverbial in speaking of a thing that is no longer fitting. This phrase, “the guests of Jathîmeh,” is taken by Ḥarîri from some verses of Mutemmim, son of Nuwayrah, on his brother Mâlik, who, having espoused the cause of the prophetess Sajâḥ, at the head of the tribe of Yarbû‘, was cruelly put to death by order of Khâlid ibn Al Welîd. For this passage in early Moslem history, see the commentary to some verses of Mutemmim, p. 370 of Ḥamâseh. It is to this Mâlik that people allude when they say, “A man, but not like Mâlik:” Arab. Prov. II. 213.

Assumed its gilding and adorned itself.—These words are from Koran x. 25. is explained to be primitively , by an idghâm of frequent occurrence in the Koran. But it is also read with the treated as a sound letter, and like .

The headstrong ruddy wine.— is an epithet of a horse, meaning “of a dark bay colour.” The word , therefore, is fitly coupled with it. For the former word compare Mo‘alla-ḳah of Ṭarafeh, v. 59: “Of the things that I love one is to be beforehand with the women who would blame me, and to drink the dark-red wine, that foams when thou mix it with water.”

There intruded on us.—At the proverb, “More intrusive than Ṭofayl,” Arab. Prov. II. 838, Maydâni remarks that the Arabs of the desert called him who came unbidden to eat , and him who came unbidden to drink ; but that the people of towns called the former also . Ḥarîri, however, uses the word here in its legitimate meaning, since the party were engaged in drinking.

How long, Su‘âd.—The metre of these lines is , which is a metre of the second circle, or , so called because the feet of all the metres it contains are seven-lettered. The two metres of this circle which are in use are the wâfir and kâmil. which differ only by the respective positions of the two com­ponent parts of the foot, the wâfir having the radical foot , made up of a , followed by a , while the kâmil has the derivative foot , in which the order is reversed. The normal measure of the wâfir is , three times in each hemistich, but this is seldom used. The measure of the present verses belongs to the first , which is , and which has one similar to itself. The called consists in the dropping the at the end of a foot, and quiescing the moved letter before the , so that becomes , which forms the last foot of each hemistich. Of the there enters most frequently into this metre , which is the quiescing of the fifth moved letter of the foot, by which becomes . Examples of this will be found in the verses. There also enters , which is the dropping the fifth moved letter, so that becomes . Another of these licenses, , which is a , made up of and , is less common.

Su‘âd is a name applied by the Arabs to a cruel and capricious beauty: see a note to the Introduction. As the metre shows, it is imperfectly declined, the reason being that it unites the qualities of a proper name and of feminineness, and consists of more than three letters: see Alfîyeh of Ibn Mâlik, v. 664 and commentary.