This Assembly is well known to students, having been published with a translation and valuable notes by De Sacy in his Chrestomathie Arabe. Ḥârith is at Barḳa‘îd, a place which is described as the chief town of the Diyâr Rabî‘ah, at the distance of seventeen parasangs from Mowṣil. The feast at the end of Ramaḍân is approaching, and being desirous of joining in this solemnity he goes to the public prayer in his best attire. When the congregation has formed itself into rows, after the manner of Moslem worship, he espies an old man with his eyes closed accompanied by an old woman. The man takes out of a bag a number of papers curiously written or illuminated in variously coloured inks; and the old woman, going through the rows, presents them to those whom she guesses from their appearance to be charitably disposed. One of them falls to the lot of Ḥârith, who finds on it some strange verses full of alliterations and plays on words. He keeps it, and when the old woman, being disappointed in her appeal, returns to reclaim it, he offers her a dirhem on the condition that she will tell him the name of the author. She informs him that the old man had composed the verses, and that he was a native of Serûj. Ḥârith then guesses that he must be Abû Zayd, and is much con­cerned to find that he has become blind. When the prayer is over he goes up to him and discovers that he is indeed Abû Zayd, where­upon he presents him with a garment and invites him to his house. No sooner are they in private than Abû Zayd opens his eyes, which are perfectly sound, and Ḥârith discovers that his pretended blind­ness was a trick to excite pity. Abû Zayd makes a good meal, and after he has had enough sends Ḥârith to the closet to fetch alkali to wash his hands after eating, and a toothpick. When the host returns the old man and his companion are gone; Abû Zayd having as usual made his escape, to avoid a lecture on his hypocrisy and the solicita­tion of his friend that he would abandon his vagrant life.

Al Ḥârith, son of Hammâm, related: I had determined on journeying from Barḳa‘îd; but now I noted the signs of the coming feast,—And I disliked to set forth from the city until I had witnessed there the day of adornment.— So when it came on with its rites, bounden or of free will, and brought up its horsemen and footmen,—I followed the tradition in new apparel, and went forth with the people to keep festival.—Now when the congregation of the prayer court was gathered and ranged, and the crowding took men’s breath,—There appeared an old man in a pair of cloaks, and his eyes were closed:—And he bore on his arm what was like a horse-bag, and had for a guide an old woman like a goblin.—Then he stopped, as stops one tot­tering to sink, and greeted with the greeting of him whose voice is feeble.—And when he had made an end of his salutation he circled his five fingers in his wallet,—And brought forth scraps of paper that had been written on with colours of dyes in the season of leisure,—And gave them to his old beldame, bidding her to detect each simple one.—So whenever she perceived of any that his hand was moist in bounty, she cast one of the papers before him. —Said Al Ḥârith: Now cursed fate allotted to me a scrap whereon was written:—

Sure I have become crushed with pains and fears;

Tried by the proud one, the crafty, the assailer,

By the traitor among my brethren, who hates me for my need,

By jading from those who work to undo my toils.

How oft do I burn through spites and penury and wandering;

How oft do I tramp in shabby garb, thought of by none.

Oh, would that fortune when it wronged me had slain my babes!

For were not my cubs torments to me and ills,

I would not have addressed my hopes to kin or lord:

Nor would I draw my skirts along the track of abasement.

For my garret would be more seemly for me, and my rags more honourable.

Now is there a generous man who will see that the lightening of my loads must be by a denar;

Or will quench the heat of my anxiety by a shirt and trousers.

Said Al Ḥârith, son of Hammâm: Now when I had looked on the garb of the verses, I longed for a know­ledge of him who wove it, the broiderer of its pattern.— And my thought whispered to me that the way to him was through the old woman, and advised me that a fee to an informer is lawful.—So I watched her, and she was wending through the rows, row by row, begging a dole of the hands, hand by hand.—But not at all did the trouble prosper her; no purse shed aught upon her palm. —Wherefore when her soliciting was baffled, and her cir­cuit wearied her,—She commended herself to God with the “Return,” and addressed herself to collect the scraps of paper.—But the Devil made her forget the scrap that I held, and she turned not aside to my spot:—But went back to the old man weeping at the denial, complaining of the oppression of the time.—And he said, “In God’s hands I am, to God I commit my case; there is no strength or power but by God,” then he recited:—

There remains not any pure, not any sincere; not a spring, not a helper:

But of basenesses there is one level; not any is trusty, not any of worth.

Then said he to her, “Cheer thy soul and promise it good; collect the papers and count them.”—She said, “Truly I counted them when I asked them back, and I found that one of them the hand of loss had seized.”— He said, “Perdition on thee, Wretch; shall we be hindered, alas, both of the prey and the net, both of the brand and the wick? surely this is a new handful to the load.”—Then did the old woman hasten back, re­tracing her path to seek her scroll; and when she drew near to me I put with the paper a dirhem and a mite: —And said to her, “If thou hast a fondness for the polished, the engraved (and I pointed to the dirhem) shew me the secret, the obscure;—But if thou willest not to explain, take then the mite and begone.”—Then she inclined to the getting of that whole full moon, the bright-faced, the large.—So she said, “Quit con­tention and ask what thou wilt.”—Whereupon I asked her of the old man and his country, of the poem, and of him who wove its mantle.—She said, “Truly, the old man is of the people of Serûj, and he it was who broidered that woven poem.”—Then she snatched the dirhem with the snatch of a hawk, and shot away as shoots the darting arrow.—But it troubled my heart that perchance it was Abû Zayd who was indicated, and my grief kindled at his mishap with his eyes.—And I should have preferred to have gone suddenly on him and talked to him, that I might test the quality of my discernment upon him.—But I was unable to come to him save by treading on the necks of the congregation, a thing for­bidden in the law:—And, moreover, I was unwilling that people should be annoyed by me, or that blame should arrive to me.—So I cleaved to my place, but made his form the fetter of my sight, until the sermon was ended, and to leap to him was lawful.—Then I went briskly to him and examined him in spite of the closing of his eyelids.—And, lo! my shrewdness was as the shrewdness of Ibn ‘Abbâs, and my discernment as the discernment of Iyâs.—So at once I made myself known, and presented him with one of my tunics, and bade him to my bread.— And he was joyful at my bounty and recognition, and acceded to the call to my loaves;—And he set forth, and my hand was his leading cord, my shadow his conductor;—And the old woman was the third prop of the pot; yes, by the Watcher from whom no secret is hidden!—Now, when he had taken seat in my nest, and I had set before him what hasty meal was in my power, he said, “Ḥârith, is there with us a third?”— I said, “There is none but the old woman.”—He said, “From her no secret is withheld.”—Then he opened his eyes and stared round with the twin balls, and, lo! the two lights of his face kindled like the Farḳadân.— And I was joyful at the safety of his sight, but mar­velled at the strangeness of his ways.—Nor did quiet possess me, nor did patience fit with me, until I asked him, “What led thee to feign blindness; thou, with thy journeying in desolate places, and thy traversing of wildernesses, and thy pushing into far lands?”—But he made show as if his mouth were full, and kept as though busied with his meal:—Until when he had ful­filled his need, he sharpened his look upon me and recited:

Since Time (and he is the father of mankind) makes himself blind to the right in his purposes and aims,

I too have assumed blindness, so as to be called a brother of it;—what wonder that one should match himself with his father!

Then said he to me, Rise, and go to the closet, and fetch me alkali that may clear the eye, and clean the hand, and soften the skin, and perfume the breath, and brace the gums, and strengthen the stomach:—And let it be clean of box, fragrant of odour, new of pounding, delicate of powdering;—So that one touching it shall count it to be eye paint, and one smelling it shall fancy it to be camphor.—And join with it a toothpick choice in material, delightful in use, goodly in shape, that invites to the repast:—And let it have the slimness of a lover, and the polish of a sword, and the sharpness of the lance of war, and the pliancy of a green bough.— Said Al Ḥârith: Then I rose to do what he bade that I might rid him of the trace of his food:—And thought not that he purposed to deceive by sending me into the closet; nor suspected that he was mocking of his mes­senger when he called for the alkali and toothpick.—But when I returned with what was asked for, in less than the drawing of a breath, I found that the hall was empty, and that the old man and woman had sped away.—Then was I extreme in anger at his deceit, and I pressed on his track in search of him;—But he was as one who is sunk in the sea, or has been borne aloft to the clouds of heaven.