1831.] 
0. J. Lyall —Translations from the Hamdseh. 
127 
VII. 
V.o.,2*. t-A.' 
J " 
y^ ' 
y ^ // 
I ♦♦ 
O' 
eJ 1 
✓ ^ ^ 
o 
y 
✓* 
«• 
3 
/ ^ ^ 
AX U 
99, s 
£ 9,, 
r or •• r 
eJAic 
** 
o ^ r> , 
c 
~ or 
jV 
Zxs* 
y 
9 
9 S>9 
9& ss 
y 
, „ *>9 99* 9 $ 
*5 ' 
e Abdeh son of et-Tabih. 
On thee be the peace of God, O Qeys son of ‘Asim, and 
His mercy, the manifold, so long 1 as He will it shew ! 
_The greeting of one whom thou hast left here the mark of Death, 
who went far away, and comes to greet thee though in thy grave. 
When Qeys died, it was not one who went down the way of Death : 
a People it was whose house with his death in ruin fell. 
Ilam.jop. 367-8. 
Notes. 
Metre Tamil , second form (as in Nos. II, IV, and V). 
‘Abdeh son of et-Tabib was a Mulcliadrivi, or a poet who lived both 
before and after the promulgation of el-Islam. He belonged to the family 
of ‘Abbushems son of Sa‘d son of Zeyd-Menah son of Temim, and was an 
object of the bounty of Qeys son of ‘Asim, the great chief of Temim in the 
days of the Prophet, whose death he here laments. The third verse is 
often quoted as the perfection of posthumous praise (Aghani, xviii. 163). 
Qeys belonged to that division of the sub-tribe of Temim, Sa‘d son of 
Zeyd-Menah, called the Benu Muqais. He is first heard of on the Day of 
Sitar (about 606 A. D.), when he defeated Hanifeh and slew Qatadeh son 
of Meslemeh their chief. His wife, Menfuseh, bore him many children, 
and he is said to have been the means of reviving in those days the evil 
custom of female infanticide, which had almost died out among the Arabs, 
by putting to death all his daughters. He fought against MeShij at 
el-Kulab (612 A. D.), when ‘Abd-Yaghuth chief of the Bel-Ilarith was 
slain. In A. H. 9 (A. D. 630) he appeared at el-Medineh at the head of a 
great deputation from the whole tribe of Temim, when a famous contest in 
verse took place before Mohammed between Zibriqan son of Bedr, the poet 
of Temim, and Hassan son of Tliabit, the poet of the Ansar. This ended in 
Temim accepting el-Islam in a body, when Qeys was made receiver of the 
