126 
[No. 2, 
C. J. Lyall— Translations from the Hamdseh. 
The poet represents himself as addressed by a woman, who blames him 
for not shewing sorrow for the death of his brethren. This “blaming 
woman,” ‘aftileh, is a stock figure in old Arab poetry, whether her office be 
to reprove a man for his extravagance and excess in wine, to cast doubt on 
his courage, to question the nobility of bis race, or any other of the kind. 
Instances will be found on almost every page of the Ilamaseh. In later 
poetry this usage disappears, the seclusion of women under el-Islam hav¬ 
ing made it inconsistent with the manners of the time. 
Dureyd, as stated in the notes to No. Y, had four brothers, all of whom 
fell in fight, as he did himself. The three here mentioned are ‘Abdallah, 
the circumstances of whose death have just been told, Qeys, who was slain 
in a combat with the men of Abu Bekr ibn Kilab, a branch of the Benu 
‘Amir, and ‘Abd-Yaghuth, who died in battle with the Benu Murrah of 
Ghatafan. 
v. 2. The licence by which, for the sake of the metre, Belter is 
written for Bekr is one admissible and frequently used in the original 
Arabic. 
v. 3. ‘Abd-Yaghuth : Yaghuth, “ The Helper,” was the name of an 
idol worshipped by the Yemenite tribes of Me<5hij, who bordered Hawazin 
on the south. Most probably the real name of the other brother, called in 
the text ‘Abdallah, was l Abd-el-Bdt, “ Servant of el-Lat.” That many such 
pagan names mentioned in the old poems were changed when el-Islam became 
prevalent is certain. 
v. 4. Et-Tebrizi states that not only Dureyd’s father, Mo‘awiyeh son 
of el-Harith, was called es-Simmeh, “The Serpent,” but also his uncle 
Malik : the latter was known as “ es-Simmeh the greater,” and Dureyd’s 
father as “ es-Simmeh the less.” 
• • 
v. 7. “ Hearts are cured of rancour-sickness” : yushtafa bind. The 
desire for vengeance is represented in old Arab verse as a burning fever, 
and the satiating of it as recovery from a disease. So one says ishtefeytu bihi — 
“ I was cured by means of him,” meaning “ I wreaked my vengeance on 
him and assuaged my desire thereof.” The idiom is of constant occurrence. 
The whole poem is considered by the old critics (Aghani, ix. 3) a 
splendid example of what the Arabs call sabr , endurance, hardihood, heroic 
temper ; and Dureyd’s life was not unworthy of it. For his death, see the 
account of the Battle of Honeyn in Caussin de Perceval, Bssai, iii, pp. 245— 
253, which in this incident follows the Aghani, ix, 14-16. 
