1878.] 
C. J. Lyall —The Mo‘allaqah of Zuheyr. 
9 
Argument. 
In vv. 1—15 the poet, after the fashion of his fellows, strives to touch the hearts 
of his hearers and to prepare them to receive kindly what he has to say on his real 
theme by the mention of women and the deserted pasture-grounds which the tribes¬ 
men leave at the end of Spring ; Umm Aufa was his wife : she bore him, we learn, 
many children, who all died young, and one day in an angry mood he divorced her. 
Afterwards he * repented of his deed, and prayed her to return to him, but she 
would not. 
Then he turns to praise the two who made the peace and bore the burden of the 
price of blood (vv. 16—25). After that he exhorts the two tribes (vv. 26—33) to keep 
faithfully their pact of peace, and after what they have known of War, to stir her not 
up again. Then he tells of the deed of Hoseyn son of Damdam, how he slew his enemy 
while the two peoples were making ready the peace (vv. 34—39). Then by a figure 
he relates how the senseless war broke out afresh, and more blood was spilt ; for which 
again the House of Ghey (5 paid from their herds, though themselves without blame 
(vv. 40—46). 
What follows would seem to be a store of maxims of life and conduct, some of 
which are wanting in certain recensions of the poem, and all do not appear to be here 
appropriate ; nevertheless many of them seem clearly to touch upon the generous deed 
of the Peace-makers, and to be meant to praise them and to set them as an example to 
men. In the last verse he warns those who heard him that though noble men may 
pay for misdoers once and again, the time will come when the thankless shall find none 
to bear the burden of his guilt. 1 ' 
I. 
1 Are they of Umm Aufa’s tents—these black lines that speak no word 
in the stony plain of el-Mutathellem and ed-Darraj ? 
2 Yea, and the place where her camp stood in er-Raqmatan is now 
like the tracery drawn afresh by the veins of the inner wrist. 
3 The wild kine roam there large-eyed, and the deer pass to and fro, 
and their younglings rise up to suck from the spots where they lie 
all round. 
4 I stood there and gazed : since I saw it last twenty years had flown, 
and much I pondered thereon : hard was it to know again—■ 
5 The black stones in order laid in the jflace where the pot was set, 
and the trench like a cistern’s root with its sides unbroken still. 
6 And when I knew it at last for her resting-place, I cried— 
‘ Good greeting to thee, O House—fair peace in the morn to thee !’ 
7 Look forth, O Friend—canst thou see aught of ladies camel-borne 
that journey along the upland there above Jurthum well P 
8 Their litters are hung with precious stuffs, and thin veils thereon 
cast loosely, their borders rose, as though they were dyed in blood. 
9 Sideways they sat as their beasts clomb the ridge of es-Suban 
—in them were the sweetness and grace of one nourished in wealth 
and ease. 
B 
