THE FORTY-THIRD ASSEMBLY.

As one who shakes two divining arrows, i.e., divided between de­spondency and hope, like one who shakes the two arrows of success and failure (comp. p. 80 above). According to others, it alludes to the popular saying: “Either booty or loss, either dominion or destruction.”

And the onslaught of the host of Ḥâm, equivalent to the preceding words, “the downfall of darkness,” Ḥâm, son of Noah, being the father of blackamoors, and therefore his army a simile for the black­ness of night.

Whether to gather my skirt, and tether or face the night and grope my way, meaning whether I should tuck my garments round me for taking my night’s rest, after having tied up my travelling beast, or continue my journey at all hazards and in spite of all difficulties and obstacles. In the above translation I use the infinitives of the verbs, for the sake of conciseness, but in the original the aorist is employed, “or face the night,” for instance, is expressed by am a‘tamidu ’l-laila, “or should face the night.” This is the reading of the native prints, which I adopt in my own edition. De Sacy has aghtamadu, which is explained by: “should make the night my scabbard” (ghimd), in a similar sense as it is said in Assembly XXIX.: “I made night my shirt.” But while the latter compari­son graphically pictures a state of utter denudation and penury, the simile of the scabbard, seems somewhat far-fetched and in­appropriate.

Now while I was revolving in my mind for what I should decide myself, lit., while I was turning about my deliberation and churning my resolve, the Arabic for which latter verb is imtikhâẓ, explained as istikhrâju ’z-zubdati mina ’l-labani, the bringing out of the butter from the milk.

Drowned in sleep, in Arabic aktaḥala bi-ruqâdi-hi (he had applied koḥl by his sleep), where the sleep which had taken possession of him is likened to koḥl, or antimony applied to the eyes. In the next line these eyes are called “his two lamps,” lit up again on his recovery from unconsciousness, which, as it were, had extinguished them.

Thy brother or the wolf, a proverb which also takes the form “the brother or the night,” and applies to one who is in doubt and per­plexity. The meaning is that Abû Zayd was frightened by the other’s sudden appearance, and asked himself, Is he whom I see a friend or foe, but as the words are spoken in the hearing of Al Ḥârith, they are addressed at the same time to him, implying the question: Dost thou approach me with friendly or hostile intention? Wherefore he replies: No, I am but a casual comer, who has lost his way in the darkness of night (comp. Ar. Prov., i. 75).

So give me light, that I also may strike it for thee, another proverb, in the explanation of which the commentators exercise their in­genuity, as is so frequently the case, to little purpose. Some take objection to it on the ground that he who has the means of striking a light for himself applies not for a light to another. Maydâni (Ar. Prov., ii. 8) says it means: “be for me, then I shall be for thee,” i.e., I shall prove towards thee, as thou provest towards me, and a further explanation is: “be more for me than I can be for thee,” since giving light is more than merely striking it. It seems to me that Abû Zayd’s reply, in connection with what had gone before, makes the matter sufficiently clear. In apostrophizing him­self audibly to Al Ḥârith with the words, “Thy brother or the wolf,” he admitted implicitly that the latter had an equal right to suspect the intentions of a stranger whom he had met accidentally. Al-Ḥarith therefore says, Enlighten me as to thy own disposition towards me, and I will model mine accordingly towards thyself. To this Abû Zayd answers, in allusion to the first-quoted proverb: “Let thy anxiety be at rest, for thou hast many a brother whom thy mother bore not,” thereby clearly indicating that he was animated only by feelings of a most friendly kind. The appropriateness of this second proverb (Ar. Prov., i. 529, 549) lies more in the sense which it derives from the context than in its original purport, which, far from removing suspicion, expresses such. It is attributed to Lok-mân ibn ‘Âd, who, it is told, found in a house to which he had come to quench his thirst a woman engaged in dalliance with a man, and on asking her, “Who is this youth at thy side, for I know that he is not thy husband,” was answered, “He is my brother,” whereupon he uttered the above rejoinder.

With the approach of morning people praise night-faring, proverbial for bearing hardships in the hope of ensuing rest (Ar. Prov., ii. 70). The saying originates with Khâlid ibn al-Welid, when Abû Bekr bade him go from Yemâmeh, where he happened to be, to Irak. He proposed to travel by the waterless desert, when Râfi‘ aṭ-Ṭâ’î said to him: “I have traversed it in the time of ignorance. It allows of watering the camels only on the fifth day, and I think thou wilt not be able to cross it unless providing thyself with water.” So he bought a hundred generous camels, which he let grow thirsty, and after having watered them, he sewed up their pudenda and muzzled them. After two days’ travel in the desert he feared the effects of thirst on his men and horses, and that the water in the bellies of the camels might be absorbed. He therefore drew it off, and made the men and horses to drink, whereupon he continued his march. In the fourth night Râfi‘ said: “Look out whether you can see some lofty Lotus-trees; if so, all is well; if not, we are doomed to perish.” The men did so, and having got sight of the trees, brought him the tidings, when he exclaimed, “God is great!” and the people shouted with him, “God is great!” and rushed towards the water. But Khâlid, recited the following lines:

“How doughty a wight is Râfi‘, when rightly guided he has crossed the waterless desert from Qurâqir to Suwá,

A five days’ journey; when the craven travels it, he weeps; no man is to be found that performed it before him;

With the approach of morning, people praise night-faring, and all that drowsiness had concealed from them reveals itself in brightness.”

The Arabic for “a five days’ journey” of my translation is khims-an, objective case of the noun khims, a desert in which water is so scarce that the camels can only be watered at an interval of five days, and its nominative has occurred above in Râfi‘’s address to Khâlid. Qurâqir and Suwá are the names of two watering-stations.

While his saddle-beast flitted along (stepped hurriedly, taziffu) with the speed of the young ostrich, allusion to Koran, xxxvii. 92: “Then his tribesmen rushed on him with hurried steps (yaziffûna).

I had her exhibited to me for sale at Ḥaḍramowt.—Ḥaḍramowt is as mentioned in the Epitome, an important town on the south coast of Arabia Felix, noted for its camel breed and its cord­wainery, from which the Arabic titles of this Assembly are derived, Bakrîyah being the noun of relation of bakr, a young camel, and ḥaḍramîyah being that of Ḥaḍramowt, applied both to a camel bred in that locality and to a peculiar kind of shoes or sandals manufactured there.

And I endured death-pangs to acquire her, an idiom which, as far as energy of expression goes, is an improvement on the English, I was dying to obtain possession of her.

Until I found her proof for travels and a provision for the time of stay, meaning that her strength and power of endurance were equal to the most fatiguing journeys, and that her milk and foals provided means of support when I was staying at home. My translation follows the reading of the Beyrout edition: wa‘uddata qarâr-in, although in my text revision I had adopted that of De Sacy, and of my own MS., ‘uddata firâr-in, which would signify “an equipment for flight.”

Who knew not what pitch is, i.e., who never suffered from scab, which would require the application of pitch to the affected places (comp. the note to Assembly XXXVIII., p. 234, above).

Now it happened that she had strayed some little while since, in Arabic muẕ muddatun, where the student should notice the nominative of the depending noun, in accordance with the rule, stated by Ḥarîri himself in his grammatical treatise “Mulḥatu ’l-i râb,” on the govern­ment of the two synonymous particles munẕ and muẕ. Both are equivalents of , in, with regard to the present, and of min, from, for, meaning since, with regard to the past; but while the former governs the oblique case in either sense, the latter governs the oblique case with the present, and requires the nominative of the noun with the past. “I have not seen him to-day” would therefore be mâ ra’aitu-hu munẕ al-yaumi, or muẕ al-’yaumi, but “I have not seen him for two days (two days since)” would be munẕ yaumaini (oblique case), or muẕ yaumâni (nominative). This, at least, is, in Ḥarîri’s opinion, the more elegant construction, although the lexico­graphical authorities have a great deal more to say on the subject.