When he had neared ninety-three years, lit., the fist, al-qabẓah, which, in the method of calculation carried on by the hand and fingers, indicates the said number. Others explain the word by “the grip of death.”
For one like thee it needs no tapping with the staff, nor an awakening by the throw of pebbles.—This alludes to the proverb: “The staff is not knocked to the ground for him, nor are pebbles thrown for him” (Ar. Prov., ii. 343), which is applied to one experienced and wide awake. The first part of it refers to ‘Âmir ibn az̤-Z̤arab, a judge in the time of ignorance, who, when he had reached a great old age, committed errors in his decisions, so that people began to doubt him. This came to the knowledge of his daughter, and she remonstrated with him, whereupon he enjoined on her to tap with his staff on the floor whenever she noticed that his wits were beginning to wander, in order to call his mind back to the point. The throwing of pebbles is originally a kind of vaticination from the figures which they form when shaken and cast on the ground. Here, however, allusion is made to a custom of the Arabs, when they wished to test the fitness of a man for participating in a journey or a raid. They left him by himself, until he had fallen asleep, when one of them took up a small pebble and threw it in his direction. If the faint sound awoke him, they trusted him, but if not, they would have nothing to say to him. More on the subject will be found in the passage of Maydâni, quoted above, and ibid., i. 55, but it would here be out of place as irrelevant for the explanation of the context.
He has been called upon to give warning, allusion to Koran, li. 55: “Yet warn them, for, in truth, the warning will profit the believers.”
That which Seth bequeathed not to Nabat̤, viz., something better than it, a form of expression for which comp. vol. i., 304, the note: “With an earliness beyond the earliness of the crow.”—Nabat̤ is a collective noun for the Nabateans, who, according to the commentators, were the descendants of Seth, thus called because they inhabited the lowlands between the two Iraks, which abounded in water (nabt̤).
Nor Jacob to the tribes (asbât̤), i.e., to the twelve patriarchs, his sons, as the progenitors of the Jewish tribes. His behest to them is recorded as follows in the Koran, ii. 126: “And this to his children did Abraham enjoin, and Jacob also, saying: O my children! truly God has chosen a religion for you; so die not without having become Moslems.”
Thy smoke will arise aloft, i.e., thou wilt be able to kindle the fires of hospitality, and akin to the idiom “he whose ashes are heaped up or plentiful,” for which see p. 274, above, and the opposite of which occurs in the next qarînah but one.
The means of livelihood are ministry (imârah), and commerce (tijârah), and husbandry (zirâ‘ah), and handicraft (ṣinâ‘ah)—a division which broadly coincides with the popular German classification of the four social orders: Wehrstand (order of warding off for civil and military government), Mehrstand (order of making more, for commerce as increasing the wealth of the nation), Nährstand (order of providing nourishment, for agriculture), and Lehrstand (order of teaching, for the learned and technical professions).
Like the entanglements of dreams, allusion to Koran, xii. 44: “They said: They are confused dreams (aẓghâs̤u aḥlâmin, confusions of dreams), nor have we knowledge in interpretation of dreams.”
The bitterness of being weaned therefrom, meaning of being dismissed from office, neatly expressed in the line of a poet:
“The intoxication of power is pleasant, but the state that follows is bitter exceedingly.”
Similarly a proverb says: “Command is sweet to suckle, but bitter to be weaned of” (Ar. Prov., i. 145).
They are subject to risks, in Arabic ‘urẓutun li ’l-mukhât̤arâti, the word ‘urẓah being synonymous with nuṣb, butt, target, object to be aimed at, as Koran, ii. 225: “And swear not by God that ye will be virtuous and fear God,” the lit. translation of which Rodwell gives in a note as: “Make not Allah the scope for your oaths.” As for the dangers to which merchandise is exposed, Tradition records the saying of Mohammed: “Verily the traveller and his goods are at the very brink of destruction (‘alâ qalatin), save that which Allah takes under His protection.”
Easy to win, lit., cold of booty, said of spoil which is obtained without exposing one’s self to the heat of battle or exertion.
To the sons of dust, i.e., the poor, in Arabic li-banî ghabrâ’a, so called because the ground is their bed, without pillow or cover. In the 55th verse of Ṭarafeh’s Mo‘allakah they are opposed to the “owners of the wide-spread leather tent,” meaning the rich, who enjoy every comfort and luxury (see Arnold’s edition, p. 54).
Who rises and sits down again, i.e., who demeans himself with impotent and uncontrollable anger.
Wheresoever they alight they pick up, a proverb, for which see May-
Thou hast stitched together, but not ripped open, in the vernacular idiom rataqta wa mâ fataqta, for thou hast summarised in thy speech, but not entered into details or particulars.
From which end the shoulder is to be eaten, allusion to the proverb:
“He knows from where the shoulder is eaten,” applied to the sharp-
“I know, in spite of what you see in me of old age, from which end the shoulder must be tackled,”
i.e., I am in the full possession of my senses.
Be more on the move than the Qut̤rub.—For this and the following
popular sayings as far as “more aggressive than the wolf that plays
the tiger,” see the proverbs: ajwalu min qut̤rubin (Ar. Prov., i. 329;
i. 643); asrá min jarâdin (ibid., i. 463); anshat̤u min z̤abyin muq-
Let down thy bucket into every fountain, taken from the proverb adli dalwa-ka fî ’l-dilâ’i, let down thy bucket among the buckets, for which see l.c., ii. 436, and the note in vol. i., p. 402.
With the earliness of the raven, and the boldness of the lion.—The raven, or crow, is called in the text abû zâjir, father of the scarer, because he is roused by shouting, to take augury from the direction of his flight, and he is proverbial for earliness (see vol. i., p. 304). The name given to the lion is abû ḥâris̤, father of the prey-winner, because he is the most powerful of wild beasts for securing his prey, and he has given rise to the proverb: “Bolder than the bearer of the mane” (Ar. Prov., i. 329, 334, 335).
The caution of the chameleon, here called abû qurrah, father of coolness, with reference to the proverb “Colder than the eye of the chameleon,” for which see p. 273, above. The reason for its being proverbial for cautiousness has been mentioned in a note to Assembly XXXVI., on p. 222. The kinyehs, or nicknames, used in the sequel of the passage are abû ja‘dah for wolf, which is explained in various ways, the most probable being that ja‘dah is here synonymous with rakhl, lamb, the wolf’s favourite tit-bit; the proverbs concerning him are to be found in the Majma‘, i. 464, 637; ii. 151, 191. Abû ‘uqbah, father of (numerous) progeny, for pig, concerning whose greed the following anecdote is recorded of Buzurjmirh (see Kalilah wa Dimnah, p. 9): he was asked “By what means hast thou obtained thy successes?” and answered, “By earliness like the earliness of the crow, and eagerness like the eagerness [covetousness] of the pig, and patience like the patience of the ass.” Abû was̤s̤âb, father of the leaper, for gazelle, the proverb with regard to whose nimbleness has been quoted on the preceding page. Abû ’l-ḥuṣain, father of the little castle, for fox, on account of his elaborately-constructed hole, or the cunning manner in which he protects himself, proverbial for deceitfulness, stealth, and craftiness (Ar. Prov., i. 577). Abû aiyûb, father of Job, for camel, proverbial for endurance (Ar. Prov., i. 737). Abû ghazawân, father of warfare, viz., against rats and mice, for cat, anent whom De Sacy’s commentary here quotes again the proverb recorded p. 293, above, “More affectionate than the cat,” and mentions the following saying of Ibn al-Muḳaffa‘: “I have adopted from everything that which is most beauteous in it, as from the pig its eagerness for that which is good for it and its earliness in providing for its needs, from the dog his sensibleness and watchfulness, from the cat the insinuating gentleness of its purr, its quickness in seizing its opportunity for game, and its pretty ways of asking,” the last of which accomplishments Sherîshi describes with all the glee of an appreciative observer and connoisseur. Abû barâqish, for a bird, probably of the heron kind, for which I substitute the hummingbird, because it is the variegation of its plumage which forms its characteristic, and has occasioned its figurative use to designate a person of variable disposition (see Ar. Prov., i. 409, and comp. vol. i., bottom of p. 477).