A Jāhilī Generation Conflict

Author(s): Gert Borg

Source: Journal of Arabic Literature, Vol. 25, No. 1 (Mar., 1994), pp. 1-15
Published by: BRILL
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 Journal of Arabic Literature,XXV (1994), © E. J. Brill, Leiden

A JAHILI GENERATION CONFLICT1

One of the wishes a scholar of pre-Islamic literature may have is to

gain insight into the ideas and thoughts of a pre-Islamic poet, actually to
have a look inside the head of an Arab Bedouin poet of the Jdhilh period.
A remarkable and convincing attempt to do this is, in my view, Muiller's
Ich bin Labtd und das ist mein Ziel,2 through which the attentive reader is
introduced to a world of ideas and moral values that have very little to
do with modern Western ways of thinking and feeling: a very forceful
and self-ordained obligation to "achieve great things in life", an attitude
we might nowadays regard as macho behavior.
Poems composed in the Jdhilf period often fail to yield any deep psy-
chological insight into what made a pre-Islamic poet "tick". Much of the
material that is transmitted from this period presents us with a look at
nature, at everyday life, at heroic achievements, real or fictional, but
rarely do we meet a poet who portrays himself as an individual with
preoccupations and concerns, or who represents his endeavor to become
a good poet, restless or depressed.
This problem is referred to by Wagner as "mangelnde Indivi-
dualitait".3 Here I intend to analyze two different but highly intercon-
nected texts by two of the major poets of the Jdhili period. According to
Wagner's view of this-given that he admits that his opinion of the lack
of individuality in early Arabic poetry is related to the problem of the
authenticity of the material-it is imperative that texts that are to be con-
sidered and compated be authentic and, if possible, interrelated.
The texts that will be scrutinized here are highly interrelated, as will
be shown, and are very authentic in the sense that, in contrast to each
other, they convey the idiosyncrasies of these two poets at certain, more
or less definable, stages in their lives.

The arguablemasterpieceand its emulation

When Stoetzer describes the classifications of Arabic metres by Ibn
Sidah and Ibn Jinni, quoting a discussion in the Lisan al-¢Arab,4

1 I am grateful to Prof. Dr. C.H.M.

Versteegh (Nijmegen University) and Dr.
G.J.H. van Gelder (Groningen University) for some valuable comments on an earlier
version of this article.
2 Muller, G., Ich bin Labtd und das ist mein
Ziel, Zum Problemder Selbstbehauptungin der
altarabischenQaside, Wiesbaden, 1981.
3
Wagner, E., Grundziigeder klassischenarabischenDichtung, Darmstadt, 1987, I, 36-7.
t Under the lemma ramal.

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2 A JAHILI GENERATION CONFLICT

classifications clearly not identical with the system ascribed to al-Kalil b.

'Ahmed, he encounters a class of metres called ramal. The term here does
not stand for the metrical sequence
- I- - - - - I- i - - /I- u - - I- %. - - I-

Kalil's description of the metre ramal, but for a kind of poetry which Ibn
Sidah calls mahzzil(emaciated) and gayr mutalif al-bind' (disproportionate
in construction).5
Ibn Sidah then quotes an example of ramal in this sense: the first line
of a poem by 'Abid b. al-'Abras which reads:

'aqfaramin ahlihi Mal.hubufa'l-Qutabrydtufa 'l-Danubu

which Stoetzer analyzes as composed merely in a shortened (majzui) ver-
sion of the metre basit. This, however, does not hold true for the rest of
the poem which is-metrically speaking-in some disarray. A similar
amount of metrical peculiarities is found in a poem by Imru' al-Qays.6
If the individual feet of the metres of these poems are taken into con-
sideration, the following table emerges:
foot 1 CAbid Imru' al-Qays
u- -
^- 18 7
v-u- ^j - 16 6
_- ,- - -_9 , 4
u ,J, - 2 0
foot 2
- v - 35 14
-
v, 9 2
- ,., .,W- 1 0
[absent] 0 1
foot 3
,o- - 21 11
-- v- 7 2
v -v-^-7 0
5 2

5 The translations are by Stoetzer: see Stoetzer, W., Theoryand Practicein ArabicMetrics,
Leiden, 1989, p. 67.
6
Dzwan (ed. M. Abfi 'l-Fal1 Ibrdhim), Cairo, 1958, 189-93. Except for vs. 1, which
reads "damCuhainstead of the "damc uhumd" of this version, I have followed his edition.
Compared to two identical versions, one given by Cheikho in his Shucard)al-Nasrdnfyafji
al-Jdhilfya, I, Cairo (reprint), 1982, 61-2, the other in Sharh Diwdn Imru' al-Qays (ed. Dar
$adir), Beirut, s.d., 159-60, some minor variants can be noted in vss. 3a, 6b, 7a, 9a + b.
lOa, 13a+b, 15a and 17a.

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 A JAHILI GENERATION CONFLICT 3

- v- 4 2

-1 0
foot 4
v -v^ - 21 9
v- -
^- 14 5
-, ^ <v- 8 2
^v vv^/- 2 0
foot 5
- v - 40 16
J u- 5 1
foot 6
-- 34 12
- -- 10 5

v - -- 1 0

The feet numbers 1, 4, 5 and 6 represent normal variations to the basit

metre. Statistically speaking they are used similarly by both poets, with
roughly comparable numbers of variations. The second and third feet,
however, show remarkable deviations and seem seriously defective when
measured against the "normal" feet (of the shortened basft) in this
position.
If one were to deduce a theoretical scheme from this table in order to
quantify the maximum and minimum possible number of syllables in this
anomalous basit, the fluctuations would be quite considerable, but in
reality the number of seriously defective verses is small. Apart from that,
in some cases missing syllables in one foot are compensated for by addi-
tional syllables in another as for example in Imru' al-Qays v. 13 where
an absent foot 2 is compensated for by an extra syllable in foot 4. In fact
the variation in the number of syllables in each line is limited: between
20-22 in CAbid's poem and between 19-21 in the poem by Imru' al-Qays.
These fluctuations may not seem to be very spectacular, but it is usual
in the basft, whether shortened or complete, for all lines in one poem to
have the same number of syllables, as opposed to the kdmil and wdfir
where a considerably different number of syllables can be counted from
line to line, depending on the number of times the poet chose to use the
metrical element [ . u ] instead of [ - ] or vice versa.
Both of these poems are composed in the same shortened basit-metre
and show some metrical irregulalrities. These features would make them
correspond to the definition of the category ramal as referred to by Ibn

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4 A JAHILI GENERATION CONFLICT

Sidah: they are shortened (mahzuzlor majzui) and disproportionate in con-

struction (gayr mu'talif al-binad).
One would be wrong, however, to suppose that such metrically
irregular poems were criticized throughout as "bad" poetry: in fact
CAbid's poem received the widest possible range of appreciation. Ibn
Qutaybah quotes "some" authorities who include it among the Seven
Mu'allaqdt, whereas there are others who wonder whether this poem can
be called poetry at all.7
The metrical irregularity is not the only phenomenon that these two
poems have in common: some lines or parts of lines show striking
similarities.8 In fact in the text of Imrul al-Qays a considerable number
of lines were borrowed from ¢Abid's qafida, except that Imrul al-Qays
chose a different rhyme (rdwi), -dlu instead of -u/tbu. Some examples:
IQ 1: Cayndkadam'uhumdssjdlu ka anna sha nayhimd 'awshdlu
Ab 7: 'ayndka dam'uhumdsarubu ka'anna sha'nayhimdsha'ibu
IQ 2: 'aw jadwalun ji zildli naklin li 'l-madi min tahtihi majdlu
AB 10: 'aw jadwalun fi zaldli naklin li 'l-md'i min tahtihi qasibu
IQ 4b: .... wa-sdhibi bdzilun shimldlu
Ab 27b: .... wa-sdhibi bddinunkabuibu
IQ 5b: ..... ka'anna hdrikahd'utdlu
Ab 28b: .... ka'anna hdrikahdkatibu
IQ 9b: ..... Ii '1-qalbimin kawfihi 'ijldlu
Ab 26b: .... Ii 'l-qalbi min kawfihi wajibu
IQ 11 a: .... taqdumuninahdatunsabihun
AB 32b: .... tahmiluni nahdatunsurhuTbu
IQ 12a: ka annahd liqwatun taluibun
Ab 35a: ka'annahd liqwatun talubu

Both of these observations-the metrical pattern and the borrowed

lines-would point to some kind of relationship between the two poems.
We might even assume that both poets knew each other personally, or

7 Diwan CAbid(ed. Lyall), 5

(Arabic text); Ibn Qutaybah, K. al-ShiCrwa 'I-ShuCard(ed.
Dar al-Taqafa), Beirut, s.d., I, 188. Furthermore both al-Tibrizi (Sharh al-QadCaidal-
cAshar, Beirut, 1987, 364-75) and al-Shanqiit (Sharh al-MuCallaqdtal-cAshar, Beirut, s.d.,
217-25) include CAbid's qafida in their collections.
8
My attention to some of these similarities was first drawn by my friend Mr. Hashim
El-Swifi, teacher in the Arabic Depatment at Cairo University, to whom I gladly credit
it. Dr. G.J. van Gelder drew my attention to a passage in the Hilyat al-Muhdaara by al-
Hatimi, ed. J. al-Kattani, Baghdad, 1979, II, 45-6, in which these poems are mentioned
as similar and both poets as contemporaries; he quotes the grammarian Abu Sa'id
Muhammad b. Hurayra who says he can hardly believe that this similarity is coin-
cidental.

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 A JAHILI GENERATION CONFLICT 5

at least each other's poetry. Imru' al-Qays may even have been a rawi
of CAbid.9 This can be ascertained by having a closer look at both poems.

cAb£d'selegy
The introduction is a lament to the desolateness of a very large region:
all the places that cAbid mentions are uninhabited, they are left to wild
animals and to Death: its former inhabitants have either been killed or
have died from disease or starvation (1-6a). Quite perfunctorily the poet
introduces himself as part of the same misery: his grey hair is a disgrace
(6b). His weeping eyes are first compared to a withered watersack, but
then more vivid images emerge: streams of water in wadis or in the shade
of palm-trees (7-10).
This first part is an 'atldl introduction, but mention of a love theme
(nasib) is missing. The poet seems to realize this, if line 11 is meant so
to be understood: "You are still young, they say, at least try to pretend
that you are young, by giving us a nasib; but in fact old age has made
me weary". In fact so weary, that for him there is nothing new and
nothing blissful in these dry and deserted places (12-13).
Lines 14-24 illustrate CAbid's view on the "condition humaine": all
the wealth you may gather will end in someone else's hands; all hope is
deceived; one may go for a short time and return, but the dead will never
return; anyone trying to become wealthy ultimately keeps nothing in his
hands; wealth may be gathered by the fool while the intelligent man is
deceived; if someone is not warned by Fate then people will not succeed
in doing so, even if they were to grab him by his clothes; hearts are whim-
sical organs, loved ones easily turn into haters; take things as they are
and try to make the best of it; man's behavior is unpredictable; there is
nothing to be expected from people, only from God; as long as a man
lives in lies (maybe: tries to deny these truths) he will live in punishment.
Nothing much to cheer you up. But then a new tune is set by "bal"
in line 25: once more the poet describes himself as the courageous man
he used to be, travelling through wadis that would frighten any man
(probably because one would loose sight of the surrounding area); there
are beasts of prey present judging from the sandgrouse feathers lying
around, his only companion a reliable camel. There follow comparisons
to the wild ass and the oryx bull (25-31).
"That was quite a time: I see myself sometimes on the horse that was
carrying me" (32).

9 See
Sezgin, F., GAS II, 123.

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6 A JAHILI GENERATION CONFLICT

And now the poet comes to the point where he is really going to excel
in what he already proved to be good at: description (wasJ). He picks up
the theme of his well built horse again (33-34), and then compares it to
the eagle. The remaining part of the poem is a vivid, almost breathtaking
description of the eagle, hunting and catching a fox (35-45).

Imru' al-Qays. great expectations

After a short introduction which describes the poet's crying, he quite
perfunctorily mentions the reason why: Layla and her tribe have left.
The best one can wish for is unobtainable (1-3). Line 3 mentions the
theme of love so concisely, that it can hardly be considered to establish
an elaborate nasfb. Even the name of the beloved seems so arbitrarily
chosen that one may wonder whether it refers to a real person at all.
Breaking away from this sad description, the poet opens new perspec-
tives by pointing to his travelling ("qad `aqtaCu")through empty deserts
with his camel as his only companion; it is briefly described and com-
pared to an oryx bull (6) and a brisk gazelle (7-8).
The poet travels through frightening wadis full of water. His horse
walks in front of him, well fed and solid because it has been scarcely used
(11). It is compared to an eagle that feeds its young (12-14). Many a bat-
tle did the poet enter, spreading the enemy like locusts. He has led the
tribe to raid them in the morning, the men putting them in distress
(15-17).
If one were to compare these two poems, once the relationship between
them is established on the basis of the common and-as far as I can
see-unique metrical features and the borrowed lines, what greater con-
trast could be imagined: CAbid is a weary old man who has seen it all
before, who is disappointed by Man and by Life itself. Imru' al-Qays,
however, still sees things in a harmonious perspective: nature is move-
ment, even competition. His oryx stands in the wind and the soft rain.
The poet is not riding his horse, but easily walks behind it. His eagle
feeds her hungry young. There is, of course, the occasional dangerous
wadi to go through, but then a well prepared raid makes up for a lot of
things.
CAbid is very explicit and precise about all the places left by people,
where he cannot expect to find anyone. In fact he strikes us as very
lonely, misanthropic even. Death is all around him while his youthful
pride has been shattered. He does not even want to keep up appearances
anymore, because there is no one there to do it for and, besides, Man
and Life itself are treacherous. The only pride he can think of is imagin-
ing himself riding his horse once more, but then: he is riding it, not walk-

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 A JAHILI GENERATION CONFLICT 7

ing behind it. When he starts boasting-though only for a few verses
(25-27)-of his courageous ranging through dangerous wadis in the past,
he admits that his heart trembled, but only because of the sight of the
feathers lying there, indicating that animals of prey were in the vicinity.
Imru' al-Qays admits that he does not go through wadis without fear,
but this fear causes him to respect them; it does not make his heart
tremble.

The structureof the poems

CAbid's'atlal (1-13).
CAbid begins with a quite elaborate 'atldl section, in which the exten-
sive enumeration of proper names is probably meant to convey the idea
that his country is utterly abandoned. Note that it is not the tribe that
decided to travel to other pastures, but that Death itself has swept them
away, which is not the usual motive behind the 'atldl section (1-6a).
He easily moves on to the elegiac section in the middle of line 6 and
then loses himself somewhat in the description of his tears, in which the
first simile is quite striking, but in elaborating which he loses his way a
little (6b-10). In verses 11-13 the themes hitherto mentioned follow
almost in reverse order: old age, the people have gone and the places are
deserted and dry. In 12b the next part of the poem is anticipated in a sub-
tle way.

The assessmentof life (14-24)

Formally speaking the second part of this poem is still a part of the
opening section. It consists of a splendid and mature assessment by 'Abid
of the "condition humaine". In length and-to a limited extent-in
structure it counterbalances the 'atldalsection: the enumeration of proper
names is paralleled by a section of negative assessments of life that are,
so to speak, hammered in by their parallel construction (14-16). From 17
onward the same subject matter-futility, unreliability, vanity and
spleen-is structured in an unpredictable pattern of rhetorical questions,
statements and advice. This renders it all the more convincing as a genu-
ine interpretation of life as a mess.
Such negative judgments of life, constructed as parallels, may not be
uncommon: in a martiya by Januib (or: Rayta) bint al-Ijlan on her
brother CAmr Dui 'l-Kalb the opening section runs: 10
10 Riyd al-'Adab
fi Mardig ShawaCiral-CArab, Cheikho, L., Beirut, 1897, I, 75-9. A
slightly different version in: al-Sukkari, Sharh 'AshCdral-Hudalfyin, (ed. A.A. Farraj and
M.M. Shikir), Cairo, s.d., II, 578-81.

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8 A JAHILI GENERATION CONFLICT

kullu 'mrizin bi-mahadli'l-dahri makduzbu

wa-kullu man gdlaba 'l- 'ayydmamaglubu
"Every man is deceived by the fraud of Fate
and everyone who tries to stand against the mishaps of Time, will
(in the end) be vanquished (by them)"
wa-kullu qawmin wa-'in 'azzu wa-\in katuru
yawman tar£quhumu fj 'l-sharriduCbuTbu
And for every tribe, even if they are powerful and great in number,
one day the road will clearly lead to evil

The rahil section(25-34)

This part of the poem strikes me as somewhat static: the only travelling
cAbid mentions is in 25 (implicitly), 27 and 32 where it is framed in the
past. There is hardly any movement in the images and similes and as we
proceed to the end of this section the animals are described in a more
static manner. As a prelude, however, to counterbalance the action in the
famous "eagle-hunts-fox"-section, this static section functions very well.

The wasf section (35-45)

The comparison between the mare and the eagle may seem a bit far
fetched, their only point in common being "swiftness". It is, however,
an introduction to an impressive description. This description starts as
a static one, in accordance with the end of the rahfl section, but from 39
onwards we see more and more motion in this "hunting"-scene until,
finally, the fox is brutally killed.
Because of the feebleness of the connection of the elements of com-
parison, the mare and the eagle, one may wonder whether this final wasf
section holds another, hidden meaning within the structure of the poem.
Although the phenomenon of allegory seems to be missing in pre-Islamic
Arabic poetry, one may be tempted to interpret this last section of
CAbid's qas£da as a poignant allegorical description in which the eagle
stands for destructive Destiny or Time (dahr) and the fox for the poet
himself.

Imru' l-Qays's naslb (1-3)

The poet is very straightforward in the 'atldl opening where he
describes his gloomy mood. But when he comes to the reason for his
sorrow-the point where we would expect some kind of love-story-he

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 A JAHILI GENERATION CONFLICT 9

ushers in Layla, of whom we learn nothing except that the poets romantic
efforts towards her seem to have been unsuccessful. As has been said
before, v. 3a can hardly be considered as more than a minimal nasTb.

The rahil section (4-14)

This consists of two parts. The first seems to function as a breaking
away from sad circumstances, a kind of "don't-fence-me-in" statement:
qad )aqtaCu, "(but enough of that:) many a time I travel".'1 This part is
very nicely structured as we encounter more and more motion, starting
from 5 and increasing through to 8, where we witness swiftly running
gazelles, a passage which ends-practically speaking-in almost pure
motion.
The second part starts with a short mention of the poet himself, but
he leaves the scene immediately. The wadi is flowing as it should; the
horse is stepping in front of him as it should; the eagle is looking after
its young as it should and even humans behave the way you would expect
them to: they feed their young. This part of the rahil is not exactly static,
but it almost conveys the image of a "pastoral", of fine harmony in
nature.

The fakr section (15-17)

Compared to the rahil, this is relatively short and insignificant.

Although it starts with the poet himself, boasting of his courage in raids,
the real job is said to be done by the other men of the tribe.

The interrelationship
If, from the evidence presented here, that is: comparable and unique
anomalies in the use of the same metre and the occurrence of "bor-
rowed" expressions, we may conclude that these two poems are inter-
related, the next step is to assess what this interrelationship means. In
order to do this, we first have to evaluate the personalities which express
themselves in these poems.

11 I prefer to interpret "qad" with the imperfect tense here as qad li 'I-taktfr as in
Reckendorf, ArabischeSyntax, Leipzig, 1921, 302: "qad )atlunu l-taCnata'l-najldaa, gar man-
chmal versetze ich einen breiten Stich", rather than taking it as an alternative to the past
continuous tense as in W. Wright's reference (A Grammarof the Arabic Language, Cam-
bridge ... (reprint) 1975, I, 286, z, footnote) to N6oldeke's Delectus: "qad lard in poetry
may stand for qad kuntu hard"; also in Fischer, W., Grammatik des klassischen Arabisch,
Wiesbaden, 1972, 95 Anm. 2. My reason for this is that qad 'aqta'u at this particular
passage is not as yet part of an enumeration of heroic deeds.

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10 A JAHILI GENERATION CONFLICT

We seem to meet 'Abid personally, a weary, lonely, almost misan-

thropic, old man who has seen the perversity of life and has nothing more
to hope for, while-in contrast-Imru' al-Qays sounds like a poet at the
beginning of his career, still not self assured enough to do without some
of his master's material, but also confident enough to expect much from
life. His experience in love and warfare seems, as yet, to be limited. All
the more, therefore, will he use his recently discovered talents to give a
fine description of a natural environment in harmony and of which much
can be expected.
Assuming that the image we receive of Imru' al-Qays in his poem is
that of a young and inexperienced poet, we could locate the poem in the
beginning of his career. The chosen form and wording of the poem
strongly suggest that he knew CAbid's qasida and that he may well have
been aware of its pessimistic and misanthropic inclinations.
Seen in this light, I think we can understand Imru3 al-Qays's short
qasida as a deliberate attempt to break away gently but decisively from
CAbid's gloomy preoccupation with the less friendly side of life.
The relationship enjoyed by these two poets does not seem to be com-
pletely clear according to Sezgin,'2 but I think what has become clear by
the comparison of these interrelated poems is that Imru' al-Qays was
probably a rdwi/pupil of CAbid. In sum, we have three arguments for this
thesis:
the metre and the unique metrical anomalous that both poems share;
a considerable part of the qayidaof Imru' al-Qays is borrowed directly
from cAbid;
both poems seem to counterbalance one another in their contradictory
assessment of life.
That CAbid borrowed from Imru' al-Qays seems improbable because
of the maturity of the former's qai-da and the relatively undeveloped
features of the qasida by Imru' al-Qays.

Authenticity

Together with Muf. LIV, by Muraqqish al-'Akbar, the two poems dis-
cussed above are identified by Lyall as being anomalous to the normal use
of metres in Arabic poetry.13 Noldeke, in a remark in Lyall's edition of
CAbid's Diwdn,'4 claims that the anomalies in the qasidas of CAbid and

12
Sezgin., F., GAS II, 123.
13 Lyall,
C.J., TheMufadIalfydt,
Oxford, 1918, II, XXV.
14 Lyall, C.J., TheDiwdnsof 'Abfdb. al-Abrasand 'Amirb. at-Tufayl,Leiden/London,
1913, 11 n.D (Arabic text).

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 A JAHILI GENERATION CONFLICT 11

Imru' al-Qays do not represent an earlier state in the genesis of the

Arabic metres.
What has to be stressed, however, is that, apparently, the expected
phenomenon of normalization of metrical irregularities during the pro-
cess of transmission did not take place. From this, I think, two conclu-
sions can be drawn:

1. The occurrence of exceptional metrical anomalies in these particular

poems is a positive indication of their authenticity;
2. Persistence of metrical anomalies in the transmission of a poem can be
considered to be a positive indication of the reliability of transmission.

What I consider to be important is the high level of idiosyncrasy, of

authentic feelings and genuine, personal reflections, with which these two
ancient poets express themselves: their individuality becomes all the
more clear and realistic by comparing their literary achievements: the
masterpiece by CAbidand its emulation by his apprentice, the great poet-
to-be, Imru' al-Qays.
Whatever the relationship may have been in the stages of their lives
as represented here, at a certain point something must have gone wrong,
because CAbid remarks in another poem of his: 15
tamanndMuray)u 'l-Qaysi mawti wa- in amut
fa-tilka sabilun lastufihd bi 'awhadi
laCalla 1lladfyarjuraddyawa-maytati
safdhan wa-jubnan 'an yakuznahuwa '1-rad£
That young rascal, Imru) al-Qays (Muray'u '1-Qays), *longs for my
death-and if I die
verily that is a road on which I journey not alone.
*Mayhap he that longs for my destruction and sudden death
in his folly and cowardice-shall himself be the first to die.
In generation conflicts the younger party usualy wins, if only because
of the extra span of life it has in which to work on its victory. Imru) al-
Qays used it well to become the more lauded poet of the two.

15 D£wdn (ed. Lyall), 80 1. 29-30 (Arabic text).

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12 A JAHILI GENERATION CONFLICT

TRANSLATIONS

(Passages marked with an * in the qasidaof CAbid have been taken from
Lyall's translation). 16
Imru' al-Qays
1. Your eyes are streaming with tears
as though their tear-ducts are rivulets,
2. Or a streamlet under the shade of date-palms
the water running from under them,
3. for the clan of Layla; where is Layla?
The best you wished for will not be given.
4. Many a time I travel through a country being empty,
my only companion a well built, swift camel,

16 In one
passage I totally disagree with Lyall: it is unclear to me why 20a. should be
vocalized 'illd sajfyatima 'l-qulubi instead of qulubu. By assuming this to be the correct inter-
pretation, I am opposing a chain of authorities ranging from al-Tibrizi (A Commentaryon
Ten Ancient Arabic Poems by al-Tibrlzi, edited by Charles J. Lyall, Calcutta, 1894,
republished New Jersey, 1965; or: Beirut, 1987, 369; in another edition, Beirut, s.d.,
328: qulubq) through al-Shanqiti (Sharh al-MuCallaqdtal-aAshar, Beirut, s.d., 222 who reads
qulubu but generally reiterates al-Tibrizi's explanation) and Lyall to Van Gelder. This
not only calls for some courage but for a few arguments as well. Lyall's translation follows
al-Tibrizi's explanation of md in vs. 20 as md sila(tin). Consequently sajfydthas to perform
as a second subject to yanfaCu in 19 (talbfbu being the first) and so creating a Id ... 'illd
... construction.
There are some disadvantages: 1. It would mean that we have enjambement here,
which is not impossible, but unnecesary and avoidable. 2. If vss. 19 and 20 would be con-
nected in a ld ... 'illd construction talbfbu would have to have the same semantic range
as sajfydtu. Ullmann, WorterbuchderklassischenarabischenSprache, II, 1 (Lam), 75-6, 92, how-
ever, only lists the translation "to grab ... by the chest, by the throat" as a denominative
of labba. Later on the meaning may well have developed to "talking sense into someone",
but on p. 92 in the Worterbuchthis passage is translated: "und es fruchtet auch nichts,
wenn man (ihn) am Kragen packt". According to most dictionaries the synonyms of
sajtya seem to be tabia, khuluq, ganza, "innate disposition or temper". As a prelude to
20b, on the unstableness of friendship, it functions quite well, whereas in Lyall's transla-
tion "There help only natural gifts of judgement" I fail to see any meaningful connection
to the second part of the verse. 3. Qudama b. JaCfar quotes this qasfda by cAbid as one
of the poems in which tasric (that is the rhyming of a sadr to the monorhyme of the poem)
occurs quite often (Qudama b. JaCfar, Naqd al-Shi'r, ed. Bonebakker, 22 (Arabic text)).
In this poem we have this tasrit 5 times already, including the matlac. If we were to read
qulubu, it would give us an additional case of ta4ri<. Dr. G.J. van Gelder, provided me
with an extra argument for this reading: Bonebakker in his "Hamza al-Isfahanl's Recen-
sion of the Kitdb Naqd ash-ShiCr..." in Rivista degli Studi Orientali 51, 1977, 111, quotes
this supplementary text to his edition:
... tumma 'ata bi-'abydt 'aydan wa-qal:
'illd sajfydti md 'l-qulubu kam yatrukan shdni'an habibu
Because of these considerations I propose to read a shortened and inverted al-qulubu
md hiya 'illd ... sentence as a rhetorical question. The case ending of sajfydt may arguably
be -u or -i (acc.).

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 A JAHILI GENERATION CONFLICT 13

5. easy going, with supple legs,

as if her withers were the sand-hills of 'Utal;
6. as if she was an oryx on his own
surrounded by wind and soft rains,
7. or a gazelle at the bottom of a valley,
running, having left the other gazelles behind;
8. running you see it making jumps of two armlengths,
driven forward by swift legs.
9. Many a valley did I travel through, on my own,
my heart feeling respect out of fear for its dangers.
10. An early rain of spring flowing through it,
as if its passages were large channels.17
11. Walking in front of me is a striding mare,
made strong by its fodder and by sufficient rest.
12. As if she were an eagle, looking for prey,
with her beak like a bended knife.
13. She feeds her hungry young,
harmed by famine and bad food,
14. She feeds them hearts of young hares from the hills
as food, just as infants are fed.
15. Many a raid have I plunged into
as if its herds of people were large crowds.
16. As if they were locusts, spreading
in the valley, the hard grounds glistening.
17. I led the tribe to these raids in the morning;
our men caused them great distress.

'Abid b. al-'Abra?
1. *Malhuib is desolate, all its folk gone,
and al-Qutabiyat and al-Danuib,
2. *And Rikis and Tucaylibat,
and Dat-Firqayn and al-Qalib,
3. *And CArdah and Qafa Hibirr-
no soul is left of them there.
4. Instead of their inhabitants, there are wild animals now
and the mishaps of Fate have changed them for the worse.

17 The explanation of rihdl which the commentary offers, seems unsatisfactory:

"carpetsfrom al-Hira". For my translationI suggestto read rijaluas an alternative
plural to rijla(pl. rijal), because it makes more sense: the ri'la is likened to the qari(here
with its pluralquryain):
"it is wide and peoplealightin it" (Lane, Lexicon,1984, 1046).

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14 A JAHILI GENERATION CONFLICT

5. A land that is inherited by Death's Fate;

everyone who lived there has been plundered,
6. Either killed or dead and gone;
grey hair is a disgrace for the one who has it.
7. Your eyes are flooding with tears,
as though its tear-ducts were a wretched watersack,
8. *Old and worn out, or a torrent swiftly flowing,
from a hill which high cliffs gird round about,
9. *Or a brook at the bottom of a valley
with water rushing along between its banks,
10. *Or a runnel under the shade of date-palms
-its water murmuring as it hurries along.
11. You're acting youthful and silly, but why pretend to be youthful;
why, now that old age has already distressed you.
12. If these places have changed and with it their inhabitants vanished,
there is nothing new to that and nothing spectacular,
13. Or if the wide plain is destitute of them,
and drought and famine have returned there
14. *All that is pleasant must be snatched away,
and every one that hopes must find his hope belied;
15. *Every master of camels hands them on to an heir,
and every one that gathers spoil is spoiled in turn.
16. *Every one that is absent may come again,
but the absent in death returns no more.
17. *Is the barren like to the fruitful womb,
or the lucky raider like him that gets no spoil?
18. Be happy with whatever you want: sometimes it may be obtained by
weakness, sometimes the skilful will be cheated.
19. Men will not warn him who does not let himself be warned by
Fate and it will not help if you grab him by his collar.
20. What else are hearts if not self-willed,
and how easily does a loved one become a hater?
21. Be of help in any country if you happen to be there
and don't say "I'm a stranger here".
22. *Oft times the stranger from afar becomes the nearest:
often the nearest kinsman is cut off and becomes strange.
23. Who asks for things from mankind meets refusal,
but who asks from God will not be refused.
24. As long as a man lives and deceives himself in these things,
he will be punished for his lifetime.
25. Many a foul water-stream did I drink from,
The road to which was frightening and dry;

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 A JAHILI GENERATION CONFLICT 15

26. *The feathers of doves lay about its borders:

there the heart fluttered in its fear.
27. *I have passed on to it swiftly at dawn,
my comrade a great she-camel, fleet of foot,
28. *Swift as a wild ass, strongly knit her back-bone,
with withers rounded and smooth like a sand-hill;
29. *Her seven-year tooth has given way to a nine-year tusk,
she is not too young, nor yet too old;
30. *She is like one of the wild asses of Ghab,
dark-hued, with scars of fight on the sides of his neck;
31. *Or a young wild bull that digs up the rukdma(-plants),
wrapped round by the North-wind blowing shrilly.
32. That was a fine time; I can still see myself
*borne along on a tall long-backed fleet mare:
33. *Her frame closely knit joint to joint,
her fore-lock parting broadly to show her forehead.
34. Olive-coloured, with soft veins,
smooth and tractable.
35. *She is like an eagle, swift to seize her quarry-
in her nest are the hearts of her victims gathered.
36. *Night-long she stood on a way-mark, still, upright,
like an old woman whose children are all dead;
37. *And at dawn she was there in the piercing cold,
the hoar-frost dripping from her feathers.
38. *Then she spied on the moment a fox far off-
between him and her was a droughty desert:
39. *Then she shook her feathers and stirred herself,
ready to rise and make her swoop.
40. *He creeps, as he hears(!) her coming, on his belly:
his eyes show the whites as they turn towards her.
41. She rises swiftly towards him,
* gliding down, making for him her prey.
42. He rises and fears because of this hissing sound-
*so behaves his kind when fright possesses them:
43. *Then she swoops with him aloft, and casts him headlong,
and the prey beneath her is in pain and anguish,
44. *She dashes him to earth with a violent shock,
and all his face is torn by the stones.
45. *He shrieks-but her talons are in his side:
no help! with her beak she tears his breast.

Nijmegen University GERT BORG

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