The purpose of this Assembly is to exhibit Abû Zayd in the per­formance of an extraordinary feat of scholarship, the recitation of some lines of poetry, each of which may be read forwards or backwards without change of sense. Ḥârith meets with four scholars in a mosque and takes seat with them. The conversation falls upon sen­tences which preserve their identity when reversed; and some one pro­poses that they should try their powers of composing them. This is agreed to, and the first man produces a sentence of three words, the next a sentence of four, the next a sentence of five, the next a sentence of six. It then comes to the turn of Ḥârith to compose a sentence of seven words, which shall be the same whether read forwards or backwards. This he is unable to do; but an old man who had joined them not only performs the feat, but actually improvises five lines of poetry, each of which has the same extra­ordinary property. Of course this is Abû Zayd, and when Ḥârith discovers him, he introduces him to his friends, who invite him to spend the night with them in conversation. He pleads that his hungry children are expecting him; but assures them that if they will let him go and give them a meal he will return forthwith. They accede to this, and send a servant with him to carry his wallet. After some time the servant comes back alone, and relates that Abû Zayd had refused to return, and had dismissed him with some moral verses.

Al Ḥârith, son of Hammâm, related: I was present at the prayer of sunset in one of the mosques of the West:—And when I had performed it with completeness and joined to it what was optional, my eye fell on a company who had set themselves down aside and had drawn apart, friends pure in friendship;—And they were taking from each other the cup of talk and rubbing the fire-staves of discussion.—And I desired to converse with them for the sake of some maxim that might be acquired, or of scholarship that might be gotten in increase;—So I advanced to them as one who would play Ṭofayl upon them,—And said to them, “Will ye receive a comer who seeks to gather of night-talkings, and seeks not the newly-gathered of fruits; and who desires the beauties of dialogue, not the choice of the young camel’s hump?” —Then they loosed their loops to me, and said, “Welcome, Welcome!”—And I had not sat longer than the flash of the blinding lightning or the sip of the timid bird, when there came upon us a wanderer; on his shoulder was a wallet;—And he greeted us with the two words, and he greeted the mosque with the two saluta­tions;—And he said, “O ye men of understanding and choice excellence!—Know ye not that the most precious of offerings is the relieving of sorrows, and the firmest cord of salvation is the imparting to those who have need?—Now, by Him who hath set me down in your precinct, and destined to me the asking alms of you, truly I am the stray of a distant abode, the messenger of lank-bellied children;—And is there in the company any that will cool down for us the heat of hunger?”— Then they said to him, “O stranger, thou hast come after the even-tide, and there remained over only the leavings of our supper.—But if thou art content with these thou wilt find among us none to forbid thee.”—He said, “Surely the brother of afflictions, he is content with the scraps of tables and the shakings of provision bags.”—Then each of them bade his servant to victual him with what he had.—And the kindness pleased him and he thanked for it, and took seat and watched what was brought him.—And we, we returned to mooting the beauties of scholarship and its choice points, and drawing forth its rill from its founts,—Until we engaged in the subject of language which does not become absurd by being reversed, as the phrase (the pourer out of the cup).—Then we challenged each other that we should make our thoughts yield an offspring in it, that we should originate virgin phrases in it,—On the condition that he who began should string three beads on his necklace, and that the additions should advance by degrees after him;—So that the man on his right should place four in his series, and his neighbour of the left should place seven perforce.

Said the narrator: And we were ranged to the num­ber of the hand’s fingers, and we were set together with the union of the men of the Cave.—Then to the great­ness of my vexation, hastened he on my right, and said: , (Blame him who wearies of thee).—And the one on his right said: , (Make great thy hope of the recompense of thy Lord).—Said he who was next: , (He who completes the kind­ness which he renders, gains increase.)—Said the last: , (Silence every one who blabs to thee, and thou wilt be wise.)—Then the turn came to me, and to string a seven-beaded thread was incumbent on me.—And my thought ceased not to mould and break, to be fertile and barren; and all the while I seek food and find none to feed me;—Until my breeze fell, and my submission was manifest.—And I said to my companions “If the Serûji were present here, he would heal this cureless malady.”—They said, “If this came before Iyâs he would certainly stop in despair.”—Then began we to be profuse in declaring that it was hard, and that its door was shut.—But that visitor who had come upon us glanced at us with the glance of the contemptuous; and he was joining pearls together, and we knew it not.— And when he had noticed our ignominy, and the drying up of our pool, he said “O people! truly a great trouble is it to make the barren bring forth, or to get a cure by the sick; and ‘there is One learned above all the learned.’”—Then he turned to me and said, I will take thy place, and free thee from what has fallen on thee:—Now if thou desire to speak in prose, and yet not to trip, say, addressing him who blames avarice, and is large in his reproach, , (Take refuge with every trusty patron, who, when he has col­lected and possesses, gives freely).—But if thou prefer to versify, say to him whom thou esteemest:

Bestow on the needy when he comes to thee, and show regard even when a man injures thee.

Have dealings with him that is noble, but put afar from thee the base.

Withdraw from the side of the unjust, the mischievous, when he sits by thee.

When contention rouses itself put it off from thee, and cast it away when it confirms itself.

Be still, and thou shalt grow strong; for it may be that time that was perverse to thee shall aid thee.

Said Al Ḥârith: Now when he had bewitched us with his verses, and fatigued us by the remoteness of his goals—We praised him until he begged to be spared, and we gave to him until he said it was enough.—Then he gathered up his garment, and loaded on his wallet, and rose to go, reciting:

Excellent are this company, who are true of speech, princes in bounty.

They surpass mankind in far-famed virtues, they surpass them in their gifts.

I have talked with them, and found that Saḥbân in their presence would be as Bâḳil:

And I alighted among them begging, and met with a rain that poured.

I swear that if the generous are a shower they are a flood.

Then he stepped two lances’ space, but returned com­mending himself to God from death,—And said, “O strength of him that is without kindred, treasure of him that is reft of wealth!—The glooming has now set in, and the face of the highway is veiled;—And between me and my house is the dark night and a razed out path.—And have ye a lantern that will secure me from stumbling, and make plain the tracks?”—Said Al Ḥârith: And when there was brought what was sought for, and the light of the brand disclosed men’s faces,—I saw that he who hunted us was our Abû Zayd; and I said to my friends, “This is he of whom I indicated that when he speaks he hits the point, and when he is asked for rain he pours.”—And they stretched towards him their necks, and they made the blacks of their eyes surround him.—And they begged him that he would pass his night in talk with them, on the condi­tion that they should mend his poverty.—He said, “My desire is yours! Welcome to you since ye have wel­comed!—Nevertheless when I came to you my children were writhing with hunger, and calling to me for a quick return.—And if they find me tardy, distraction will possess them, and my life will be no more serene.— Now suffer me to go that I may fill their emptiness, and relieve their choke; then return to you straightway, prepared for night-talking till the dawn.”—So we said to one of the lads, “Follow him to his people, that he may be the quicker to come again.”—And the boy set out with him, carrying his wallet under his arm, hastening his return:—But he delayed a delay exceeding bounds; then the lad came back alone.—We said to him, “What story hast thou of the knave?”—He said: He took me along wearying ways and branching paths, until we came to a ruined hut.—Then he said, “Here is my station, the nest of my chicks.”—And he bade open to him the door, and he pulled away from me his wallet, and said, “By my life! thou hast lightened a load off me, and deserved fair treatment from me.—Now here is a counsel for thee which is among the most precious of counsels, the seed-plots of advantages;” then he recited:

When thou hast got the plucking of the palm, defer it not to the coming year:

And if thou lightest on a treading-floor, fill thy crop with the ears that are there;

And stay not when thou hast picked them up, lest thou stick in the net of the snarer;

And go not far in when thou swimmest, for safety is on the bank.

Accost with “Give now,” and answer with “Bye and bye;” and sell what is postponed from thee for what comes at once.

And exceed not upon a friend in thy visiting, for no one was ever wearied of save the clinging guest.

Then he said, “Treasure these lines in thy heart, and follow them in thy conduct.—And now hasten to thy fellows in the keeping of thy Lord;—And when thou hast reached them, bring them my greeting, and re­hearse to them my commandment.—And say to them from me that full sure night-watching spent in tales is among the greatest of harms; and that I fail not to care for myself, nor will bring dryness into my head by vigils.”—Said the narrator: Now when the argument of his poem had put us in view of his cunning and fraud, we upbraided each other for leaving him, and for deceiving ourselves with his lie.—Then we separated with frowning faces and a losing bargain.