1877.] C. J. Lyall —Translations from the Hamdseh and the Aghdni. 151 
We give thee greeting, 0 Selma : do thou give us greeting beach:! 
and if thou givest the cup to the noblest, reach it to us. 
And if thou callest one day to a mighty and valiant deed 
the chiefest of noble men, let thy call go forth to us. 
Sons of Nahshal are we : no father we claim hut him, 
nor would he sell us for any other sons. 
When a goal of glory is set and the runners rush forth thereto, 
of us shalt thou see in the race the foremost and the next. 
5 And never there comes to die a mighty man of our line 
hut we wean among us a hoy to be mighty in his stead. 
Cheap do we hold our lives when the day of dread befalls, 
hut if we should set them for sale in peace, they would cost men 
[dear. 
White are our foreheads and worn : for ever our cauldrons boil: 
we heal with our rich store the wounds our hands have made. 
I come of a house whose elders have fallen one by one 
as they sprang to the cry of the fighters—‘ Where are the helpers 
[now ?* 
If there should be among a thousand but one of us, 
and men should call—‘ Ho ! a knight!’ he would think that they 
[meant him. 
10 When the fighters blench and quail before the deadly stroke 
of the sword-edge, we leap forth and catch it in our hands. 
Never shalt thou see them, though their loss be great and sore, 
weeping among the weepers over him that is dead ! 
Many a time we bestride the steed of peril and death, 
but our valour bears us back safe, and the swords that help us well. 
Notes. 
The metre of this piece is the same as that of No. I. 
The tribe of Nahshal was a sept of Temim, of the division of D&rim. This poem 
is also attributed to a poet (some say the elder Muraqqish, but most mention no name) 
of the Benu Qeys ibn Tha‘lebeh, a sub-tribe of Bekr ibn Wa’il: those who follow this 
theory read in v. 3, instead of inna bent Nahshalin , inn a bent MdliJcin , Malik of Qeys, 
the head of the family to which Tarafeh the poet belonged, being meant. 
v. 4. The usual number of horses run in a race among the pagan Arabs was 
ten ; the one that came in first was called es-subiq , “ the out-stripper,” or el-mujelU , 
“ he who makes [his owner] conspicuous”: the second, el-musalli , “ he whose head is at 
the tail (mla) of the foremost” : the third, el-muselli , “ he who renders [his owner] con¬ 
tent” : the fourth, et-tuli, “the follower” : the fifth, el-murtah, “the agile”: the sixth, 
el^atif, “he who bends his neck”: the seventh, el-mu''ammal, “he from whom much 
had been hoped” : the eighth el-Jiattty “the fortunate” (apparently by an euphemism): 
the ninth, el-latim , “ the cuffed,” because he is driven away with blows from the paddock ; 
and the tenth, es-sukeyt , “ the silent,” because he is covered with confusion. 
