1877.] 
83 
life of the poet as given in the Kitab-el-Aghdni. 
And. every mother’s son, though his life he lengthened out 
to the utmost hound, comes home at last to the Grave : 
And every man shall know one day his labour’s worth 
when his loss or gain is cast up on the Judgment-Day.” 
These verses have, however, a suspicious islamic tone, and their genuineness seems 
very doubtful. The “ bleaching of the fingers” | in v. 4 is death. 
34 Esh-Sha‘bi. His name was ‘ Amir ibn Sharahil ibn ‘ Abd-esh-Sha‘bi; he be¬ 
longed to the Himyerite race, and was born in the 6th year of ‘ Othman’s Khalifate ; 
he was a Kdtib (secretary or scribe) to successive governors of el-Kufeh. According 
to el-Waqidi he died in 105 A. H. at the age of 77 : others say 104 A. IT. This 
anecdote therefore gives an authority for the attribution to Lebid of the verses referring 
to his great age which extends to a period only about 60 years after the poet’s death. 
(Ibn Quteybeh, Ma‘arif, p. 229). 
35 “ Seventy.” As the verses were given before, they were uttered when Lebid’s 
age was ninety. 
36 En-Nabighah of Bubyan was one of the foremost poets of the Ignorance: 
much of his verse is still extant, and has been printed in Ahlwardt’s “ Diwans of the 
six Ancient Arabic poets.” 
37 According to Ibn Qnteybeh Lebid had sons : but when he became a townsman 
and settled in el-Kufeh, they returned to their desert life and left him (Ma‘arif, p. 169). 
33 The Seldm is uttered at the end of the prayers by the imam and his fellow wor¬ 
shippers ; if the worshipper be alone, it is addressed to the angels : if he be praying 
with others, it is addressed to men and angels together. 
39 “ Branches”: : so in the Bulaq edition. De Sacy reads the folds 
or wrinkles of the body, and understands that these are flattened out by the heavy flags 
laid over them : but this is not in accordance with the method of burial in use among 
the Arabs. 
40 These verses are not rendered by De Sacy. “ The Mother of the Sons” has 
been explained before in note (13). The second couplet accords with the renown of 
RabPah as the “ Rabi‘at-el-Mo‘tarrin” of which we are told at the beginning of the Notice. 
Who the Abu Shureyk mentioned in the third couplet is I do not know, nor the event 
(apparently some famous encounter) to which it refers : perhaps it is the great “ Day of 
the Defile of Jebeleh.” Both this poem and that which follows it must be understood 
as belonging to the days of the Ignorance, before Lebid (already aged) ceased to 
compose verse. 
The Mo'allaqah of Lebid. 
ARGUMENT. 
In verses 1 to 11 the Poet describes the deserted abode of his Beloved, where in 
the Spring her tribe and his had pastured their flocks together; verses 12 to 15 tell of 
her departure thence for distant fields, named in vv. 17—19. Then the Poet sets forth 
his view of friendship and the duties of friends when their love cools (vv. 20—21) ; 
mentioning his camel as the means of cutting short an acquaintance which has become 
a burthen, he first describes her hardy frame; then (v. 24) he likens her in her eager¬ 
ness to start on her way to a cloud heavy with rain, the out-lying portions of which, 
having emptied themselves of their watery burthen, have hurried away on the moist 
wings of the South wind. Then follow two other comparisons : the first of the camel 
to a wild she-ass, driven far away into the wilds by her jealous mate ; how these two 
lived together is told at length (vv. 25—35). The second compares her to a wild cow 
