460 C. J. Lyall —Translations from the Hamdseh and the Aghani. [No. 4> 
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Fortune lias brought me down (her wonted way) 
from station great and high to low estate ; 
Fortune has rent away my plenteous store : 
of all my wealth honour alone is left; 
Fortune has turned my joy to tears : how oft 
did Fortune make me laugh with what she gave ! 
But for these girls, the Qata’s downy brood, 
unkindly thrust from door to door as hard— 
5 Far would I roam and wide to seek my bread 
in Earth that has no lack of breadth and length ; 
Nay, but our children in our midst, what else 
but our hearts are they walking on the ground ? 
If but the wind blow harsh on one of them, 
mine eye says no to slumber all night long. 
Notes. 
The metre is the third form of the Sari‘, and consists of two diiambs (each commu- 
table to-^ — and — ^ —) followed by a cretic ( — ^ —) ; in the second 
hemistich, which is catalectic, the cretic becomes a spondee :— 
\J __ 
W _ \J _ 
_ yj> _ 
_ KJ _ 
w _ V-/ _ 
_ W 
_ KJ 
_ kj 
_ kj 
Of the poet I have ascertained nothing. 
v. 4. The Qata is the sand-grouse ; it is most probably identical with the Hebrew 
Qu’ath (A. Y. “ pelican”). 
The second hemistich of this verse has strangely perplexed the commentators. The 
following is a translation of et-Tebrizi’s note upon it. “ Jtudidna min ba'-din ild ba l di 
means—‘ They were gathered together to me in a brief space of time, one born of a 
second wife after another born of the first, one by the side of another.’ Another read¬ 
ing is rededna min bed din ild ba l di, with the active form of the verb and the personal 
pronoun joined to the second ba'-d ; the meaning of this would be ‘ they have bowed me 
and bent one part of my back towards another.’ Or, if we adopt the first reading, the 
line may mean that these daughters of his had been wedded, and were turned away 
together with their little girls ; mardudeh is used in the sense of a divorced woman, and 
ild is sometimes equivalent to mad (together with) : you say hdid ild Mica (‘this with 
that’) meaning ma l a (taka; taking it in this way, min ba'-din ild ba'-di will be in the 
place of the accusative of condition to rudidna , i. e. f they have been divorced together 
