Ḥarîri himself accompanies this Assembly with a short commentary on the idioms and Arabic proverbs occurring in it, and his explanations included amongst the following notes are marked with (H.).
In the prime of my life.—Arabic fî rayyiqi zamânî, also râ’iq, which means, in the beginning or early part of it. Another spelling of the word is raiq, without tashdid.—(H.)
The people of the hair-tents.—Wabar means originally “camel-hair,” or as the Arabic lexicographers put it, “that which in the camel corresponds to the wool of the sheep, and is opposed to madar, a clod of clay or mud. Hence ahlu ’l wabar designates the dwellers in tents made of a tissue of camel-hair pitched in the desert, and ahlu ’l-madar, the dwellers within mud-walls, the inhabitants of villages and towns.” By a still bolder metaphor, wabar and madar are used for those dwelling-places themselves, as in the phrase: “the like of this I have not seen in desert or town.”
So that I might take after the bent of their forbidding (lofty) souls, i.e., that I might follow their example. The verbal noun “taking” (here translated by bent) is in Arabic aḥẕ or iḥẕ.—(H.).
A string of the groaning.—Al-hajmah (exclusively applied to camels) is a drove of about a hundred (H.). According to other commentators it is from forty to a hundred, or between ninety and a hundred, while a number beyond this is called hunai‘dah.
A flock of the bleating.—As̤-s̤allah is a herd of sheep (H.). As to “the groaning” and “the bleating,” Ḥarîri quotes the saying: Mâ la-hu râghiyatun wa ta z̤āghiyatun, for “he has neither camel nor sheep.”
Stead-holders of kings, i.e., they took the places of kings in their absence (H.). Ridf, pl. ardâf, is one who rides behind another on the same beast, hence, metaphorically, one next in rank, a successor, or substitute, one who sits at the right hand of the king, a wazîr or minister, and ridâfah in pre-Mohammedan times corresponds to the wizârah, or office of wazîr in Islâm. The phrase means that each of them was worthy of and fit for such dignity.
“Sons of saws,” men who owed their fame to their choice sayings, eloquent speakers, to use the paraphrase of Ḥarîri, who adds: “It is said of a great orator, he is a son of speeches.”
No arrow struck my (smooth) rock, a proverbial expression for “no slander was suffered to injure my fair fame.”
Or throw the halter over her hump, i.e., allow her to wander and graze where she pleased.
So I sprang upon a swift-paced steed.—Tadas̤s̤ur is synonymous with wus̤ûb, to jump or leap upon the back of the horse, and miḥẓâr or maḥẓîr, fleet of course, is taken from ḥaẓr, running with a high step.—(H.)
Exploring every copse and treeless spot.—Iqtirâ = tatabbu‘, following up, travelling from one place to another; shajrâ’, a place grown over with trees, mardâ’, one deprived of vegetation. Hence, amrad, hairless in the face, beardless.—(H.)
When the crier calls to prayer and salvation, in Arabic ḥai‘ala, a verb formed from the initial words of the Muezzin’s call, ḥayya ‘alá ’l-ṣalâti, ḥayya ‘ala ’l-falâḥ. The infinitive is ḥai‘alah, and similar formations are hailalah, saying lâ ilâha illâ ’llâhu, there is no God but the God; ḥamdalah, saying al-ḥamdu li ’llâhi, praise is due to God; ḥauqalah, saying lâ ḥaula wa la quwwata ïllâ bi ’llâhi, there is no power and no strength save in God; see basmalah, saying bi’smi ’llâhi, in the name of God; ḥasbalah, saying ḥasbunâ ’llâhu, God is our sufficiency; sabḥalah, saying subḥâna ’llâhi, adoration be God’s; ja‘lafah saying ju iltu fidâka, may I be made thy ransom.
And its going to the watering-place found no return, i.e., did not obtain its object, as animals return from the water only after having quenched their thirst.
Until the heat waxed blinding, lit., until there came the time of the little blind one’s stroke or knock, a most idiomatical expression which sorely taxes the ingenuity of the interpreters. Grammatically ‘umaiy is the diminutive of a‘má, blind, and the Ḳâmûs says that it means by itself the noonday heat, in which case the effect would stand for the cause, the blind for the blinding. Other explanations are (1) that ‘Umay is the name of a famous depredator, who used to strike by his inroads upon people at mid-day, when they were too languid to offer much resistance. (2) That the word is applied to the young of the gazelle, which by the excess of the heat becomes frantic, and butts at or knocks against anything near it. In the Arabic Dictionary Muḥit̤, I find the statement that in poetry the form ṣakkatu ‘umyin (pl. of a‘má) is used, the stroke or knock of the blind, either with the same reference to the gazelle, or to people blinded by the heat and groping their way by knocking their sticks on the ground. I conclude this note, Arabic fashion, with “God knows best.”
Would have made Ghailân oblivious of Maiyah.—Ghailân was a renowned poet of the Bedouin Arabs, whose nickname ẕû ’l-rummah, “the one with the rope,” was given to him by Maiya or Maiyah, daughter of Kays, when he first saw her, carrying a rope on his shoulder, and asked her for a draught of water to drink, whereupon she said, “O thou with the rope,” which simple words, falling from lovely lips, forthwith enslaved him for life.
Longer than the shadow of a lance.—A long day is compared with the shadow of a lance, which by the Arabs is considered as the longest thrown by the setting sun, probably on account of its accompanying slenderness, as a short day is likened to the claw (lit., thumb) of the Ḳata bird. A poet, quoted in Ḥarîri’s commentary, says: “Many a day, like the shadow of the lance, has been shortened for us by the blood of the wine-bag and striking the strings of lutes.”
Hotter than the tears of the bereft mother.—It is said that the tear of grief is hot, and the tear of joy is cool, whence the prayer: “May Allah cool his eye”; and the imprecation: “May Allah heat his eye,” for: May He make him shed tears of joy or of sorrow respectively. —(H.)
Sha‘ûb would grip me.—Sha‘ûb, a diptote, not taking the article, is a name of death, meaning the “Separator.”
My boon-companion a booklet.—The Arabic juzâzah, a scrap, is used both for scrolls, in which beggars state their case, to enlist the sympathy of the charitable, and leaves of paper containing information. Adopting the latter meaning, I translate it by booklet, in accordance with the saying of an Arabic poet, that a book is the best companion for a man to while away the time, as the saddle of a fleet horse is the best resort for him to make him independent of space.
For some end Ḳoṣayr mutilated his nose.—Ḳoṣayr bin Sa‘d was a freedman of the King of Irak Jathîmet al Abrash, and after his master had been treacherously murdered by Queen Zebbâ, resolved to revenge his death on her. This he accomplished by having the tip of his nose cut off by his master’s nephew ‘Amr, pretending that the latter had done so because he suspected him of eomplicity in the betrayal of Jathîmet, and thereby gaining her confidence, which soon procured him an opportunity of putting his purpose into execution. Abû Zayd means that Ḥârith must have a good reason for his lonely journey in the desert during the noonday heat.
In the two months when the camels ail from thirst, lit., the two months of the thirst-stricken camel, meaning the hottest summer months, as we would say the dog-days, when the skin of camels and sheep dries up in consequence of their excessive thirst.
A night such as Nâbighah sings of, alluding to the following line of this poet: “I passed a night as though one of the spotted snakes had assailed me, the poison of whose fangs is piercing.”
Like Ash‘ab, a servant of the Khalif ‘Othmân, proverbial amongst the Arabs for his covetousness, which according to his own confession was surpassed only by that of his equally proverbial sheep. The latter had mounted on his roof, and on seeing a rainbow took it for a rope of the plant qatt (apparently a favourite dainty with sheep), jumped at it and broke its neck.
Donning the leopard’s skin, a proverbial expression for insolent and bold, the leopard (namir) being considered as the boldest of animals and the least patient of injury. Hence the verb tanammara is derived, he became like a leopard.—(H.)
Of the two good things, allusion to Koran, ix. 52.
One woe is lighter to bear than two, meaning that it is easier for Ḥârith to put up with the loss of his horse than to lose both horse and camel together.
After hap and mishap.—Thus I translate, in order to maintain the alliteration of the original, the words ba‘da ’llataiyâ wa ’llatî, which it is impossible to render literally. Allataiyâ is the diminutive of allatî, fem. of the relative pronoun allaẕî. Their idiomatical import in this place is, according to Ḥarîri’s own commentary, either to serve as synonyms of calamity (dâhiyah), or to signify misfortunes small and great.