13 
1878.] C. J. Lyall —The Mo‘allaqah of Zuheyr. 
58 Who seeks far away from his kin for housing, takes foe for friend : 
who honours himself not well, no honour gains he from men. 
59 Who makes of his soul a beast of burden to bear men’s loads, 
nor shields it one day from shame, yea, sorrow shall be his lot. 
60 Whatso be the shaping of mind that a man is born withal, 
though he think it lies hid from men, it shall surely one day be 
known. 
61 How many a man seemed goodly to thee while he held his peace, 
whereof thou didst learn the more or less when he turned to 
62 The tongue is a man’s one half, the other his valiant heart: [speech ! 
besides these two nought is left but a semblance of flesh and blood. 
63 If a man be old and a fool, his folly is past all cure : 
but a young man may yet grow wise and cast off his foolishness. 
VII. 
64 We asked, and ye gave : we asked once more, and ye gave again ; 
but the end of much asking must be that no giving shall follow it. 
Notes to the Introduction. 
1 This story is taken from the Aghani, ix. pp. 149—150 ; it rests on the 
following isnad : —el-Hasan ibn ‘All, who heard it from Mohammed ibn el-Qasim ibn 
Mahraweyh, who heard it from ‘Abdallah ibn Abi Sa‘d, who heard it from Mohammed 
ibn Ishaq el-Museyyibi, who heard it from Ibrahim ibn Mohammed ibn ‘Abd-el-‘Aziz ibn 
‘Omar ibn ‘Abd-er-Rahman ibn ‘Auf, who had it from his father. ‘Abd-er-Rahman 
son of ‘Auf was one of the first converts to el-Islam, and must have known well el- 
Harith son of ‘Auf of Bubyan, who in his old age became a Muslim. There is some 
uncertainty as to the names of those who bore the bloodwit at the peace between ‘Abs 
and Bubyan : but the great majority of the authorities recognize el-Harith as the 
leader in the peace ; some join with him Kharij eh son of Sinan, his first cousin, and 
others Kharij eh’s brother Herim. That two were foremost in the noble work is ap¬ 
parent from v. 18 of the Mo‘allaqah, as also that they were of the house of Grhey<5 son of 
Murrah. If Herim had been one, it Seems probable that this glory would have been 
claimed for him by name by Zuheyr, whose chief patron he was ; but though Herim 
is praised in a large number of poems by Zuheyr, this particular deed is never claimed 
for him. It is observable that, while two are spoken of in vv. 17 — 22 of the poem 
(where the dual number is used throughout), afterwards, when speaking of the second 
payment made necessary by the murder committed by Hoseyn (vv. 42—44), Zuheyr 
uses the plural, as if many of the family of Ghey<5 had taken part in it. 
2 This tale rests on the authority of the famous Abu ‘Obeydeh, and is also in 
the Aghani (ix. pp. 148-9). It is told in substantially the same terms by et-Tebrizi 
and Ibn Nubateh. In el-Meydani’s Proverbs (Freytag’s edn., ii. pp. 275 sqq.) it is 
said that it was Kharijeh son of Sinan who offered his son and two hundred camels to 
the men of ‘Abs in satisfaction for the murder of the man slain by Hoseyn ; and the 
curious fact is added that of the two hundred camels only one hundred were paid, for 
el-Islam came and diminished the amount of the bloodwit to that number. If this were 
