This Assembly is the first of a remarkable series of compositions which, though they may be set down by Europeans as merely exam­ples of laborious trifling, are highly esteemed by the Orientals as works of ingenuity and scholarship, and have found in every suc­ceeding age numerous imitators. The incident is that Ḥârith, being once on a visit to Merâghah, in Azerbijan, the north-west province of the present Persian monarchy, found a number of literary men lamenting the decline of learning, and depreciating all contemporary authors in comparison with their predecessors. Sitting in a humble place in the outskirts of the company was an elderly man, who showed by his glances and scornful gestures that he did not value highly the opinions of these critics. When they paused in their fault-finding he took up the conversation, and declared that one person, at least, of the present age was capable of rivalling any who had gone before in scholarship and the arts of composition. He is asked who is this genius, and answers that it is himself. The company are sceptical, but as the stranger persists in asserting his great ability, they determine to test him, and one of them proposes to him a most difficult task. He tells the company that he is a pro­fessional writer attached to the Governor, who though a man of generosity, had declared that he would help him no further, till he had composed an address in which the alternate words should consist entirely of pointed and unpointed letters; that is, that the first, third, fifth words, and so forth, should consist of letters without a point, while the second, fourth, sixth, and so forth, should have only pointed letters. He adds that he had been striving a whole year to produce such a composition, or to find some one who could produce it. The stranger, on hearing this, accepts the task with alacrity, and instantly dictates an address in praise of the Governor, fulfilling the conditions that had been imposed. The company are delighted, and inquire his family and abode: he an­swers in some plaintive verses that he is of the tribe of Ghassân, and the city of Serûj. His fame having reached the Governor, he is offered the place of a public writer, but declines it. Ḥârith, who had discovered that he was Abû Zayd, asks him the reason of this unwillingness to accept office. Abû Zayd again replies in verse, and tells his friend that a life of freedom and poverty is better than dependence on the great.

Al Ḥârith, son of Hammâm, related: I was present in the Court of Supervision at Merâghah when the talk ran of eloquence.—Then agreed all who were there of the knights of the pen, and the lords of genius;—That there remained no one who could select his diction, or use himself freely in its as he willed:—And that since the men of old were gone, there was none now left who could originate a brilliant method, or open a virgin style.— And that even one marvellous among the writers of this age, and holding in his grasp the cords of eloquence, is but a dependent on the ancients, even though he possess the fluency of Saḥbân Wâ’il.—Now there was in the assembly an elderly man, sitting on the outskirts, in the places of the attendants:—And as often as the com­pany overran in their career, and scattered fruit, good and bad, from their store,—The side-glance of his eye and the up-turning of his nose showed that he was one silent to spring, one crouching who would extend his stride:—That he was a twanger of the bow who shapes his arrows, one who sits in wait desiring the conflict.—But when the quivers were empty, and quiet returned; when the storms had fallen, and the disputer was stayed,—He turned to the company and said, Ye have uttered a grievous thing, ye have wandered much from the way:—For ye have magnified mouldering bones, ye have been excessive in your leaning to those who are gone; ye have contemned your generation, among whom ye were born, and with whom your friendships are established.—Have ye forgotten, ye skil­ful in testing, ye sages of loosing and binding,—How much new springs have given forth; how the colt has surpassed the full-grown steed;—In refined expressions, and delightful metaphors, and ornate addresses, and admired cadences?—And, if any one here will look diligently, is there in the ancients aught but ideas whose paths are worn, whose ranges are restricted; which have been handed down from them through the priority of their birth, not from any superiority in him who draws first at the well over him who comes after?—Now truly know I one who when he composes colours richly; and when he expresses, embellishes; and when he is lengthy, finds golden thoughts; and when he is brief, baffles his imitator; and when he improvises, astonishes; and when he creates, cuts the envious.

Then said to him the President of the Court, the Eye of those Eyes: “Who is it that strikes on this rock, that is the hero of these qualities?”—He said, “It is the adversary of this thy skirmish, the partner of thy dispu­tation: Now, if thou wilt, rein a good steed, call forth one who will answer, so shalt thou see a wonder.”—He said to him, “Stranger, the chough in our land is not taken for an eagle, and with us it is easy to discern between silver and shingle.—Rare is he who exposes himself to the conflict, and then escapes the mortal hurt; or who stirs up the dust of trial, and then catches not the mote of contempt.—So offer not thy honour to shame, turn not from the counsel of the counsellor.”— He answered, “Each man knows best the mark of his arrow, and be sure the night shall disclose its morn.”—

Then whispered the company as to how his well should be fathomed, and his proving undertaken.—Said one of them, “Leave him to my share, that I may pelt him with the stone of my story; for it is the tightest of knots, the touch-stone of testing.”—Then they invested him with the command in this business as the Rebels invested Abû Na‘âmeh.—Whereupon he turned to the elder and said, Know that I am attached to this Governor and maintain my condition by ornamental elo­quence.—Now, in my country, I could rely for the straightening of my crookedness on the sufficiency of my means, coupled with the smallness of my family.—But when my back was weighted, and my thin rain failed, I repaired to him from my home with hope, and besought him to restore my comeliness and my competence.—And he looked pleasantly on my coming, and was gracious, and served me morn and even.—But when I sought per­mission from him to depart to my abode, on the shoulder of cheerfulness,—He said, “I have determined that I will not provide thee with supplies, I will bring together for thee no scattered means;—Unless, before thy departure, thou compose an address, setting in it an exposition of thy state;—Such, that the letters of one of every two words shall all have dots, while the letters of the other shall not be pointed at all.”—And now have I waited for my eloquence a twelvemonth, but it has returned me not a word; and I have roused my wit for a year, but only my sluggishness has increased.—And I have sought aid among the gathering of the scribes, but each of them has frowned and drawn back.—Now, if thou hast dis­closed thy character with accuracy, Come with a sign if thou be of the truthful.

Then answered the elder, “Thou hast put a good steed to the pace; thou hast sought water at a full stream; thou hast given the bow to him who fashioned it; thou hast lodged in the house him who built it.”—And he thought a while till he had let his flow of wit collect, his milch camel fill her udder:—And then he said: Wool thy ink-flask, and take thy implements and write:—

Generosity (may God establish the host of thy suc­cesses), adorns; but meanness (may fortune cast down the eye-lid of thy enviers), dishonours; the noble re­wards, but the base disappoints; the princely entertains, but the niggard frights away; the liberal nourishes, but the churl pains; giving relieves, but deferring torments; blessing protects, and praise purifies; the honourable re­pays, for repudiation abases; the rejection of him who should be respected is error; a denial to the sons of hope is outrage; and none is miserly but the fool, and none is foolish but the miser; and none hoards but the wretched; for the pious clenches not his palms.

But thy promise ceases not to fulfil; thy sentiments cease not to relieve; nor thy clemency to indulge; nor thy new moon to illumine; nor thy bounty to enrich; nor thy enemies to praise thee; nor thy blade to destroy; nor thy princeship to build up; nor thy suitor to gain; nor thy praiser to win; nor thy kindness to succour; nor thy heaven to rain; nor thy milk-flow to abound; nor thy refusal to be rare.—Now he who hopes in thee is an old man like a shadow, one to whom nothing remains.— He seeks thee with a persuasion whose eagerness leaps onward; he praises thee in choice phrases, which merit their dowries.—His demand is a light one, his claims are clear; his praise is striven for, his blame is shunned.— And behind him is a household whom misery has touched, whom wrong has stripped, whom squalor involves.—And he is ever in tears that come at call, and trouble that melts him, and care that is as a guest, and growing sadness:—On account of hope that has dis­appointed him, and loss that has made him hoary, and the enemy that has fixed tooth in him, and the quiet that is gone.—And yet his love has not swerved, that there should be anger at him; nor is his wood rotten, that he should be lopped away; nor has his breast spit foulness that he should be shaken off; nor has his intercourse been froward that he should be hated.—Now thy honour admits not the rejection of his claim, so whiten his hope by the lightening of his distress: then will he publish thy praise throughout the world.—So mayest thou live to avert misfortune, and to bestow wealth; to heal grief and to care for the aged:—Attended by affluence and fresh joyousness; as long as the hall of the rich is visited, or the delusion of the selfish is feared. And so Peace.

Now when he had ceased from the dictation of his address, and showed forth his prowess in the strife of eloquence—The company gratified him both by word and deed, and made large to him their courtesy and their bounty.—Then was he asked from what tribe was his origin, and in what valley was his lair; and he answered:

Ghassân is my noble kindred, and Serûj my ancient land:

There my home was like the sun in splendour and mighty rank;

And my dwelling was as Paradise in sweetness and pleasantness and worth.

Oh, excellent were the life I led there and the plenteous delights,

In the day that I drew my broidered robe in its meadow, sharp of purpose.

I walked proudly in the mantle of youth and looked upon goodly pleasures;

Fearing not the visitations of time and its evil haps.

Now if grief could kill, surely I should perish from my abiding griefs;

Or if past life could be redeemed my good heart’s blood should redeem it.

For death is better for a man than to live the life of a beast,

When the ring of subjection leads him to mighty trouble and outrage,

And he sees lions whom the paws of assailing hyænas seize.

But the fault is in the time: but for its ill luck character would not miss its place:

If the time were upright, then would the conditions of men be upright in it.

After this his story reached the Governor, who filled his mouth with pearls,—And bade him join himself to his followers, and preside over his court of public writing.— But the gifts sufficed him, and unwillingness restrained him from office.—Said the narrator: Now I had recog­nized the wood of his tree before the ripening of his fruit: —And I had nigh roused the people to the loftiness of his worth before that his full moon shone forth.—But he hinted to me by a twinkle of his eyelid that I should not bare his sword from its sheath.—And when he was going forth, full of purse, and parting from us, having gotten victory,—I escorted him, performing the duty of respect, and chiding him for his refusal of office.—But he turned away with a smile and recited with a chant:

Sure to traverse the lands in poverty is dearer to me than rank:

For in rulers there is caprice and fault-finding, Oh what fault­finding!

There is none of them who completes his good work, or who builds up where has laid foundation.

So let not the glare of the mirage beguile thee; undertake not that which is doubtful:

For how many a dreamer has his dream made joyful; but fear has come upon him when he waked.