1881 .] 
133 
C. J. Lyall —Translations from the HamdseJi. 
_O _ |_O |_O _ ||_ \J _ |_O | _ WO _ 
The existence of a metrical foot mafulatu is however very questionable. 
The poem itself exhibits the following scansion :— 
_O_O _ O _ WO _ ||_O__ O _ O _ KJ 
Now, if we compare this with the Besit :— 
_ KJ _ 
__w_ 
W ^ _ I 
_o 
_ o _ 
_ o _ 
o 
i 
C 
c 
o 
we find that the two coincide, except in the third foot of the Besit , which 
in our poem appears as ^ — instead of-^ —. I am therefore in¬ 
clined to regard this metre as a shortened form of the Besit, and to divide it 
thus :— 
_W _ | _ O _ | O _ | O O _ ||_w _ j _ K.J _ | O _ | OU _ 
Although the first syllable of the last foot of each hemistich is short, it is 
considered b}^ Arabian metrists to represent an original long syllable : that 
is, the foot fd'ilun is shortened to fa‘ilun. It therefore receives a stress 
in utterance which makes the foot something more than a mere anapaest. 
The first foot may show the varieties w ^ — and — o o — ? but these 
are not found in this poem. 
The piece is interesting as one of the oldest specimens of Arabic 
poetry that have come down to us. ‘Ainr son of Qami’ah, its author, was 
grandson of Sa £ d son of Malik son of Dubey‘ah son of Qeys son of Thafle- 
beh, of the tribe of Bekr, who was a leader in the war of Basus, and an 
ancestor of the poet Tarafeh. He is claimed as the first of Nizar (that is, 
of the Ma‘addic Arabs as opposed to those of el-Yemen) who made regular 
qasidehs, and as the master in this art of Imra'-el-Qeys. He reached a 
great age, and was the companion of Imra’-el-Qeys in his journey to the 
Court of the Greek Emperor, which 0. de Perceval fixes in 535 A. D. : 
he died, however, on the way in Asia Minor, and was called by the Arabs 
‘Amr ed-da i l , that is, “ ‘Amr the lost.” Two verses of his are quoted by 
et-Tebrizi on p. 131 of the Hamaseli, which are in a form of the Besit 
closely allied to the Munsarih, and quite in the vein of those given above : — 
El-Jca'su mullcun liman ’ a‘malalia 
wa-l-mulku minim saghirun wa-lcebir : 
minha-s-sabuhu-l-lati tetri7cuni 
leytha ‘ijirrina wa-l-mdlu Icelhir. 
“ The cup is a kingdom to him who plies it, 
and his kingdom, though little, how vast it is ! 
Thereout I drink in the morning, and am 
a lion of ‘Ifirrin, my wealth overflowing.” 
i. e ., the morning draught gives me both valour and generosity, so that in 
giving I am as a king. 
