How, then, art thou averse to the ordinance of the sent ones, refers to the traditional saying of Mohammed: “Four are the ordinances of the apostles, the use of scents (for hygienic purposes), the cleansing of the teeth by the miswâk, matrimony, and a bashful behaviour” lastly, “the advantages enjoyed by the owners of a household” alludes to another tradition by which Mohammed is recorded to have said: “Two inclinations (in prayer) of those who possess a family are better than eighty-two of a celibate.”

And darted aside as the locust darts, an allusion to the proverb anzá mina ’l-jarâdi, more given to darting off than locusts (Ar. Prov., ii. 791).

So that thou mayst indulge thyself a bit, and dispense with a damsel thou wouldst have to endower.—Here again I am obliged to tone down the terse literalness of the original, while trying to preserve the idiomatical force of its two diminutives, at least in form, ‘umairah, a name given here to the hand, as instrumental in a vice severely denounced by Mohammed, and muhairah, diminutive of mahîrah, a woman of noble birth, and therefore exacting a large dowry.

And not let thy generation grow to man’s estate, i.e., mayst thou die young, for if Allah shortens the lives of those who belong to the same generation with him, his own life will be but short.

By Him who has planted the forests, in Arabic bi-man anbata ’l-aika, the final word being a plural, the singular of which occurs in Koran, xxvi. 176, and passim.

Lick up the honey and ask no questions, viz., ask not where it comes from, or as a modern proverb has it: kuli ’l-baqla wa lâ tasal ‘ani ’l-maqbalah, eat the cabbage, and ask not for the cabbage-field (comp. Ar. Prov., ii. 393).

That the goal of his talk was distant, and that the Shaykh was a mighty sharp one.—The former idiom, in Arabic ash-shaut̤u bat̤înun (for which comp. Ar. Prov., iii., P. 1, p.262) is taken from a race­horse, whose course up to the goal is called shaut̤. The second, in the original ash-shaikhu shuwait̤înun, means literally the Shaykh is a devilkin, the epithet being the diminutive of shait̤ân, Satan, which, as a note in my MS. remarks, “is fai‘âl of shut̤ûn, being distant, on account of his remoteness from the Mercy of Allah.” But shait̤ân, applied to men and Jinn, has also the meaning of haughty, mis­chievous, cunning, and the diminutive is explained as ṣâḥibu adabin wa dahâ’-in, possessed of learning and sagacity.

And see clearly thy quiddity, in Arabic istabantu inna-ka, which may be interpreted: “I fully perceive what inna-ka means, when thou art concerned.” It will be remembered that the inchoative particle inna, behold, is placed before a nominal sentence, governing the accusative of the subject, which of course may be an affixed pronoun, and the nominative of the predicate, for instance, inna Zayd-an (inna-hu) la-‘âlimun, behold Zayd (behold he) is learned indeed, which is more emphatical than the simple sentence, Zaydun âlimun (huwa ‘âlimun) Zayd is learned (he is learned). The youth, therefore, intends to say, I know perfectly what kind of a man thou art, and am not at a loss how to complete my speech when I begin it with inna-ka, “behold thou art.” The word quiddity, as an abstract noun derived from another part of speech, seems a fair equivalent.

In this place poetry fetches not a barley-corn, etc.—The satire, con­tained in this and the preceding passage, is a favourite theme with the poets. One, for instance, says:

“If the eloquence of Sahbân, and the caligraphy of Ibn Muklah, and the intellect of the Benû Kand, and the piety of Ibn Adham

Were collected in one man, and that man poor, though free-born withal, he would not be worth a dirhem,”

where the attribute “free-born,” besides implying that he has en joyed a liberal education and is highly cultivated, at the same time suggests that he is of no value, even if he is sold as a slave, because such a sale would be invalid, as amusingly illustrated in Assembly XXXIV.