LITERATURE OF THE ARABS. 61 



of the desert go to Constantinople, and thus a picturesque 

 contrast of Greek culture and nomadic ruggedness is intro- 

 duced. The small space occupied in the earliest Arabic 

 poems by natural delineations of the country will excite but 

 little surprise when we remember, as has been remarked by 

 my friend Freytag of Bonn, who is so celebrated for his knowl- 

 edge of this branch of literature, that the principal subjects 

 of these poems are narrations of deeds of arms, and praise of 

 hospitality and fidelity, and that scarcely any of the bards 

 were natives of Arabia Felix. A wearying uniformity of 

 grassy plains and sandy deserts could not excite a love of na- 

 ture, except under peculiar and rare conditions of mind. 



Where the soil is not adorned by woods and forests, the 

 phenomena of the atmosphere, as winds, storms, and the long- 

 wished-for rain, occupy the mind more strongly, as we have 

 already remarked. For the sake of referring to a natural im- 

 age of this kind in the Arabian poets, I would, especially no- 

 tice Antar's Moallakat, which describes the meadows ren- 

 dered fruitful by rain, and visited by swarms of buzzing in- 

 sects ;* the fine description of storms in Amru'l Kais, and in 

 the seventh book of the celebrated Hamasa;] and, lastly, the 

 picture in the Nabegha Dliohyani of the rising of the Eu- 

 phrates, when its waves bear in their course masses of reeds 

 and trunks of trees.^ The eighth book of Hconasa, inscribed 

 " Travel and Sleepiness," naturally attracted my special at- 

 tention ; I soon found, however, that " sleepiness"§ was lim- 

 ited to the first fragment of the book, and that the choice of 

 the subject was the more excusable, as the composition is re- 

 ferred to a night journey on a camel. 



* Antara cum schol. Sunsenii, ed. Menil., 1816, v. 15. 



t Amrulkeisi Moallakat, ed. E. G. Hengstenberg, 1823; Hamasa, ed. 

 Freytag, Part i., 1828, lib. vii., p. 785. Compare, also, the pleasing 

 work entitled Amrilkais, the Poet and King, translated by Fr. Riickert, 

 1843, p. 29 and 62, where southern showers of rain are twice described 

 with exceeding truth to nature. The royal poet visited the court of 

 the Emperor Justinian, several years before the birth of Mohammed, 

 to seek aid against his enemies. See Le Divan d] Amro Hka'is, accom- 

 pagne d'une traduction par le Baron MacQuckin de Slane, 1837, p. HI. 



X Naheghah Dhohyani. in Silvestre de Sacy's Chrestom. Arabe, 1806, 

 t. iii., p. 47. On the early Ai'abian literature generally, see Weil's Die 

 Poet. Litteratur der Araber vor Mohammed, 1837, s. 15 and 90, as well 

 as Frey tag's Darstellung der Arabischen Verskunst, 1830, s. 372-392. 

 We may soon expect an excellent and complete version of the Arabian 

 poetiy, descriptive of nature, in the writings of Hamasa, from our 

 great poet, Friedrich Ruckert. 



$ Hamasce Carmina, ed. Freytag, Part i., 1828, p. 788. "Here fin- 

 ishes," it is said in p. 796, " the chapter on travel and sleepiness." 



