438 C. J. Lyall— Translations from the Hamaseh and the Aghani. [No. 4, 
Had I been a man of Mazin, there had not plundered my herds 
the sons of the Child of the Dust, Buhl son of Sheyban ! 
There had straightway arisen to help me a heavy-handed kin, 
good smiters when help is needed, though the feeble bend to the 
blow : 
Men who, when Evil bares before them his hindmost teeth, 
fly gaily to meet him, in companies or alone. 
They ask not their brother, when he lays before them his wrong 
in his trouble, to give them proof of the truth of what he says. 
5 But as for my people, though their number be not small, 
they are good for nought against evil, however light it be. 
They requite with forgiveness the wrong of those that do them wrong, 
and the evil deeds of the evil they meet with kindness and love ; 
As though thy Lord had created among the tribes of men 
themselves alone to fear Him, and never one man moke. 
Would that I had in their stead a folk who, when they ride forth, 
strike swiftly and hard, on horse or on camel borne ! 
Notes. 
The measure is the second form of the besit, and is thus scanned :— 
KJ _W _ | ^ W _ |__ | WW _ || W _ W _ | |_ KJ _ |_ 
This poem is the first of the Hamaseh, and fitly holds that place : no better epi¬ 
tome of the national character of the ancient Arab could he found than its third verse. 
v. 1. The Benu Mazin and the Benu-l-‘Ambar (or Bel-‘Ambar) were both sub¬ 
tribes of Temim. Buhl son of Sheyban was the family name of a great sub-division 
of the tribe of Bekr son of Wa’il. 
“ The Child of the Dust,” el-laqitah , that is, a foundling’: the mother of the tribe 
of Buhl appears to be meant, but the commentators give no very certain information 
on the point. Another reading is esh-Shaqiqah, the name of the mother of a family 
in Buhl. 
v. 8. “ Strike swiftly and hard,” sheddu-l- ighurata : another reading is shenmt - 
Vigliarata , “ pour down on their enemies from every side.” This verse is the locus 
classicus for the use of the preposition hi in the sense of “ instead of”: a sense arising 
out of its use with verbs of paying, buying, &c., for the price ; and that again arises 
out of one of its original senses, that of the instrument. 
II, III, IY, and Y, four songs of the Benu-l-Harith ibn Ka £ b. 
The Benu-l-Harith ibn Ka‘b dwelt in Nejr&n, a fertile valley of el-Yemen ; they 
were the chiefest of the tribes of Mafthij (although probably themselves of Ma'addio 
origin*), and in the time of the Prophet were the acknowledged leaders of that stock. 
* This would appear from a poem in the Hamaseh (pp. 160-1, Freytag’s Edn.), 
where a man of ‘Abs claims the Benu-l-Harith as his brothers ; but the author of the 
Aghani, in the genealogies he gives of Harithis, knows only their traditional descent 
from Kahlan. 
