1877.] 
life of the poet as given in the Kitab-el-Aghani. 
77 
4 Twenty. De Sacy line reads tis l in (ninety) for ‘ ashrin (twenty), which, latter 
reading existed in his MS. as well as in the Bulaq edition : it does not seem necessary 
to do violence to the text. 
5 It will not escape notice that this passage does not agree with the genealogy 
given at the head of the article, inasmuch as it distinguishes between Lebid’s uncle, 
‘Amir son of Malik, and ‘Amir Abu-l-Bera’ or Abu Nizar, Mula‘ib-el-Asinneh. This 
story is told over again (with a different isndd hut in almost the same language) at 
p. 22 of Yol. XVI of the Aghani; this does not appear to have been observed by De 
Sacy. The obscure passages in the text before us have in some cases light thrown 
upon them by variants in the second version. 
6 Zarajun : the second version gives the name as Sarahun. 
7 This enmity was doubtless due to the slaying of Zuheyr son of JetSimeh by 
Khalid son of Jaffar. 
8 In our text the words are ^Jy^ l n the second version they are 
Ijg+sg (Jy$u. I have translated as if stood in place of 
0 In our text the words are In the other text they are ; 
the latter is the more usual spelling of the name : vide Lane s. v. The plant is 
variously described, and according to Lane the name is now applied to what is called 
in Persian i. e., thlaspi. Thlaspi , an insignificant weed of the natural order 
Cruciferce , the well-known “ shepherd’s purse,” suits the passage well. (De Sacy’s MS. 
appears to have read which he renders “ de l’espece qu’on nomme theriyya , 
". ' ‘f 
c’est a dire, humide” ; the word meaning moist is, however, ? fern. <x’jy without 
teshdid.) 
10 This speech of Lebid’s, which naturally loses its chief flavour in a translation, 
is in rhyming prose, each rhyme being three times repeated. The speech is given with 
slight variations, but substantially the same in sense, in the notice of er-Rabi‘ in 
Yol. XYI. 
11 “ Top-knot”, ISu’abetahu : here it is in the singular, and therefore means either 
the top-knot or forelock : in the other version the word is in the dual, and means the 
two curls, one on each side of the head, commonly worn by boys. 
12 Hulleh is the name of a dress consisting of three garments, a shirt, an izdr or 
waist wrapper, and a ridd or wrapper for the whole body. 
13 This address is in the Eejez metre : each line rhymes with all the rest. In 
line 3 “ The Mother of the Four sons” is the wife of Malik ibn Jaffar : she had really 
five sons, v.iz., ‘Amir, Tufeyl, Rabi‘ah, ‘Abideh and Mo‘awiyeh. Ibn Quteybeh thinks 
(Ma‘arif, ed. 'Wustenfeld, p. 43) that the poet has put four instead of five merely for the 
sake of the rhyme : it may be, however, because four only were famous among the five. 
Umm-el-benin “Mother of the Sons” was an honoured title which was borne by many 
Arab mothers ; er-Rabi‘’s own mother Fatimeh was known by it: her sons were called 
el-Jcemelehy “ the perfect.” The last four lines of the piece cannot be decently rendered 
into English, but they will be found in De Sacy’s French. Lebid charges er-Rabi‘ with 
being afflicted by the white leprosy called haras , and puts the charge in a manner cal¬ 
culated to cause extreme disgust in the King. In the notice of er-Rabi‘ in Yol. XYI, 
the piece has two more lines, making fourteen in all, beside other minor variations. 
14 “ Wrote.” That er-Rabi‘ knew how to write is proved by the fact that he, 
with all the other sons of Fatimeh daughter of el-Khurshub, was called Kamil , “ per¬ 
fect,” which in the days of the Ignorance meant “a man who was a poet, valiant, 
