Chapter 2

The grammarian Moad Ibn Muslim Al-Harra left some good poetry, which he gave as having been uttered by genii, demons and female demons. The caliph Ar-Raschid once said to him: "If thou sawest what thou hast described, thou hast seen wonders; if not, thou hast composed a nice piece of literature."

An-Nahhas the grammarian who, on being given a turban-cloth, would cut it into three from avarice, met his death, in 950, in an unfortunate manner--being, although living in so remote a period, mistaken for a "profiteer." I quote Ibn Khallikan's words: "He had seated himself on the staircase of the Nilometer, by the side of the river, which was then on the increase, and began to scan some verses according to the rules of prosody, when a common fellow who heard him said: 'This man is pronouncing a charm to prevent the overflow of the Nile, so as to raise the price of provisions.' He then thrust him with his foot into the river and nothing more was heard of him."

Not all these learned men were philosophical, even though they were philosophers. Abu Nizar Ibn Safi Malik An-Nuhat assumed the title "Prince of Grammarians," but if any other name was given to him by those addressing him he would fly into a passion.

The old fellows could be superstitious too. It is amusing to read that Abu Obaida, when repeating passages of the _Koran_ or relating Traditions, made mistakes designedly: "For," said he, "grammar brings ill luck."

V.--THE FIRST PROSODIST

After grammar, prosody. That a falling apple should lead Sir Isaac Newton's thoughts to the problem of gravity is not so remarkable, but that the laws of prosody should result from an equally capricious occurrence strikes one as odd. I mention the discoverer's name partly that schoolboys may remember him, or not, in their prayers. It was Al-Khalil Ibn Ahmad who, at Mecca, had besought Allah to bestow upon him a science hitherto unknown. Allah being in a complaisant mood, it followed that not long after, walking in the bazaar, Al-Khalil invented prosody as he passed a coppersmith's and heard him hammering a basin.

Once started on his career as an inventor, he continued; but a later discovery cost him dear, for having resolved on devising "a method of calculation so simple that any servant girl who knew it could go to a shopkeeper's without incurring the least possible risk of being deceived by him in the sum she would have to pay, he entered the mosque with his thoughts occupied on the subject, and he there struck against a pillar, which his preoccupation hindered him from perceiving. The violence of the shock threw him on his back, and death was the result."

Al-Khalil used to remark that a man's reason and intelligence reached perfection when he attained the age of forty, the age of the Prophet when God sent him forth on his mission; but that they undergo alteration and diminution when the man reaches sixty, the age in which God took the Prophet's soul to himself. He said, again, that the intelligence is clearest at the dawn of day.

VI.--A GROUP OF POETS

No matter what the profession or calling of these Persians--whether they were lawyers or lawgivers, grammarians or warriors--they all, or almost all, adored verbal felicity and tried their hands at verse. Poetry may be called the gold dust on their lives.

Ibn Nubata the poet knew how to say thank you. Saif Ad-Dawlat Ibn Hamdan having given him a horse, this is how he acknowledged it: _O prince! thou whose generous qualities are the offspring of thy natural disposition, and whose pleasing aspect is the emblem of thy mind, I have received the present which thou sentest me, a noble steed whose portly neck seems to unite the heavens to the earth on which he treads. Hast thou then conferred a government upon me, since thou sendest me a spear to which a flowing mane serves as a banner? We take possession of what thou hast conferred and find it to be a horse whose forehead and legs are marked with white, and whose body is so black that a single hair extracted from that colour would suffice to form night's darkest shades. It would seem that the morning had struck him on the forehead and thus made it white, for which reason he took his revenge by wading into the entrails of the morning, and thus whitening his legs. He paces slowly, yet one of his names is Lightning; he wears a veil, having his face covered with white, as if to conceal it, and yet beauty itself would be his only rival. Had the sun and the moon a portion only of his ardour, it would be impossible to withstand their heat. The eye cannot follow his movements, unless you rein him in and restrain his impetuosity. The glances of the eye cannot seize all his perfections, unless the eye be led away captive by his beauty and be thus enabled to follow him._--I like the extravagance of that. So should the friend of man be extolled.

Emirs did not disdain to be poets. Majd Ad-Din Al-Mubarak Ibn Munkid, although at once "The Sword of the Empire" and "The Glory of Religion," wrote poetry, and not always on the most exalted themes. Among his poems, for example, is one on fleas, in which those insects, of which Emirs should know nothing, are thus described: _A race whom man is permitted to slay, and who profane the blood of the pilgrim, even in the sanctuary. When my hand sheds their blood, it is not their own, but mine, which is shed._ "It is thus," says Ibn Khallikan gravely, "that these two verses were recited and given as his, by Izz Ad-Din Abu 'l-Kasim Abd Allah Ibn Abi Ali Al-Husain Ibn Abi Muhammad Abd Allah Ibn Al-Husain Ibn Rawaha Ibn Ibrahim Ibn Abd Allah Ibn Rawaha Ibn Obaid Ibn Muhammad Ibn Abd Allah Ibn Rawaha Al-Ansari, a native of Hamat."

Ibn Khallikan's greed for poetry led him, as I have said, not only to quote most things that he could remember of each poet, but to cite also the poems of which those reminded him. Sometimes he quoted before he was sure of the author; but it made no difference. Thus, of Al-Farra the grammarian he says: "No verses have been handed down as his excepting the following, which were given by Abu-Hanifa Ad-Dinauri on the authority of Abu Bakr At-Tuwal: _Lord of a single acre of ground, you have nine chamberlains! You sit in an old ruin and have door-keepers who exclude visitors! Never did I hear of a door-keeper in a ruined dwelling! Never shall the eyes of men see me at a door of yours; a man like me is not made to support repulses from door-keepers._" Having got his quotation safely into print, Ibn Khallikan adds: "I since discovered that these verses are attributed to Ibn Musa 'l-Makfuf. God knows best!" It is a charming way of writing biography. The grass does not grow upon the weir more easily. With such a rectifying or excusatory phrase as "God knows best" one can hazard all. And how difficult it is to be the first to say anything!

Here is a poem by an Emir's vizier, Al-Wazi Al-Maghribi: _I shall relate to you my adventure, and adventures are of various kinds. I one night changed my bed and was abandoned by repose; tell me then how I shall be on the first night which I pass in the grave?_

Another vizier, Ibn Al-Amid, the katib, who lived in the eleventh century, wrote as follows: _Choose your friends among strangers, and take not your near relations into favour. Relations are like scorpions or even more noxious._ Asked which was the worse of his two recurring maladies, gout or colic, he replied: "When the gout attacks me I feel as if I were between the jaws of a lion devouring me, mouthful by mouthful; when the colic visits me, I would willingly exchange it for the gout."

Poetry in those days ran in families. The family which had the greatest skill in the art was that of Hassan Ibn Abi Hafsa, for it produced six persons, in succession, all of them poets. These were: Said, his father Abd Ar-Rahman, his father Hassan, his father Thabit, his father Al-Mundir, and his father Hizam. Abd Ar-Rahman began very young. It is related that having been stung by a wasp, he went crying to his father, who asked what was the matter. He replied: "I have been stung by a flying thing, dressed, as it were, in a double cloak of striped cloth."

"By Allah!" exclaimed the delighted father, recognizing a chip of the old block, "thou hast there pronounced a verse."

The family of Abi Hafsa came next to that of Hassan in poetical gifts. The reason was, according to one statement, that they could "all touch the point of their nose with their tongue, and this denotes a talent for speaking with elegance and precision." "God knows," Ibn Khallikan adds, "how far that may be true!"

It was Marwan Ibn Abi Hafsa, of this family, who made such a mistake (in a poet depending on the beneficence of the exalted) as to commit himself to the sweeping statement, in his elegy on the death of Maan, the Emir, that patronage had died with him. "It is said," Ibn Khallikan relates, "that Marwan, after composing this elegy, could never gain anything by his verses, for, as often as he celebrated the praises of a khalif or of any other person less elevated in rank, he to whom the poem was addressed would say to him: 'Did you not say, in your famous elegy: _Whither should we go, since Maan is dead? Presents have ceased and are not to be replaced?_' So the person he meant to praise would not give him anything nor even listen to his poem."

But once--having the persistency of the needy--Abi Hafsa scored. The story goes that, entering into the presence of the khalif Al-Mahdi with a number of other poets, he recited to him a panegyric.

"Who art thou?" said the khalif.

"Thy humble poet, Marwan, the son of Abi Hafsa."

"Art thou," said the khalif with great presence of mind, remembering the poet's useful indiscretion, "not he who said: _Whither should we go, since Maan is dead?_ and yet thou hast come to ask gifts from us! _Presents have ceased_; we have nothing for thee. Trail him out by the leg!"

They trailed him out by the leg, but, twelve months later, Marwan once more contrived to gain admittance with the other poets, who, at that time, were allowed to enter into the khalif's presence once a year. He then stood before him and recited the kasada which begins thus: _A female visitor came to thee by night; salute her fleeting image._

Al-Mahdi at first listened in silence, but as the poet proceeded, he became gradually more and more agitated, till at length "he rolled on the carpet with delight."

He then asked how many verses were in the poem and, on being answered, "One hundred," he ordered the author a--present of one hundred thousand pieces of silver.

The poet Ibn Ar-Rumi met his necessary end with composure. Al-Kasim Ibn Obaid Allah Ibn Sulaiman Ibn Wahb, the vizier of Al-Motadid, dreading to incur the satirical attacks of this writer and the outbursts of his malignant tongue, suborned a person called Ibn Firas, who gave him a poisoned biscuit whilst he was sitting in company with the vizier.

When Ibn Ar-Rumi had eaten it, he perceived that he was poisoned, and he rose to withdraw; on which the vizier said to him: "Where are you going?"

"To the place," replied Ibn Ar-Rumi, "where you sent me."

"Well," observed the vizier, "you will present my respects to my father."

"I am not taking the road to hell," retorted the poet.

Another poet, Ibn Sara As-Shantarini, falling upon evil days, became a bookbinder. As such he wrote the following poem: _The trade of a bookbinder is the worst of all; its leaves and its fruits are nought but disappointment. I may compare him that follows it to a needle, which clothes others but is naked itself!_

VII.--POETRY'S REWARDS

The Patron was a very real factor in the poetical life of Baghdad.

Here is a story told by the poet Abu Bakr Ibn Al-Allaf. "I had passed a night at the palace of Al-Motadid with a number of his other companions, when a eunuch came to us and said: 'The Commander of the Faithful sends to tell you that, after you withdrew, he did not feel inclined to sleep, and composed this verse: _When the vision of my mistress, fleeting through the shades of night, awoke me, behold! my chamber was deserted, and far off was the place of our meeting_. He says also,' continued the eunuch, 'that he cannot complete the piece, and will give a rich present to anyone who adds to it a second couplet to his satisfaction.'

"Those who were present failed in accomplishing the task, although they were all poets of talent, on which I," says Abu Bakr, "hastened to pronounce the following verse: _On this I said to my eyes: 'Sleep again; perhaps the vision, in its night visits, may return to me!'_"

The eunuch then retired, bearing Abu Bakr's not very remarkable effort with him, and having come back, said: "The Commander of the Faithful declares that your verse is perfect, and he has ordered you a present."

Sometimes the passion for verse enjoyed and encouraged by these courtly gentleman seems to reach absurd lengths. Thus Abu Tammam At-Tai, the poet, once recited to the Emir Abu Dolad Al-Ijli the following lines: _At the sight of dwellings abandoned like these, and places of joyous meetings now deserted, our tears, long treasured up, were shed in torrents!_

Abu Dolad so admired the piece that he gave the poet fifty thousand dirhems, saying: "By Allah! it is less than your poem is worth; and that idea is only surpassed in beauty by your elegy on the death of Muhammad Ibn Hamid At-Tusi."

"Which," asked Abu Tammam, "does the Emir mean?"

"Why," said Abu Dolad, "your poem commencing thus: _Now let misfortune do its worst, and time inflict its evils! There is no excuse for eyes which have not shed their tears._ I wish, by Allah! that this elegy had been composed by you on me."

"Nay!" said the poet, "may I and my family die to save the Emir, and may I leave the world before you!"

To this Abu Dolad replied: "He whose death is deplored in verses like those is immortal."

Surely the palmy days of poetry have passed away. How one would like to think of Mr. Kipling, say, being summoned to Buckingham Palace to speak a piece and retiring with a cheque for £1025, which is what fifty thousand dirhems come to.

Gratitude, even when it is excessive, is always a good theme. In the following case the proportions were respected with more fitness. Al-Wazir Al-Muhallabi was both vizier and poet. He was also a very poor vegetarian, and once, on a journey, being unable to obtain flesh-food, he recited extempore these verses: _Where is death sold, that I may buy it? for this life is devoid of good. Oh! let death, whose taste to me is sweet, come and free me from a detested life! When I see a tomb from afar, I wish to be its inhabitant. May the Being who granteth tranquillity have compassion on the soul of the generous man who will bestow death, as a charity, upon one of his brethren!_ These verses being heard by a person who was travelling in the same caravan with him, and whose name was Abd Allah As-Sufi (or, by another account, Abu 'l-Hasan Al-Askalani), he bought for Al-Muhallabi a dirhem's worth of meat, cooked it, and gave it to him to eat.

"They then," says Ibn, "separated, and Al-Muhallabi having experienced a change of fortune, became vizier to Moizz Ad-Dawlat at Baghdad, while the person who had travelled with him and purchased the meat for him was reduced to poverty. Having then learned that Al-Muhallabi was a vizier, he set out to find him and wrote to him these lines: _Repeat to the vizier, for whose life I would sacrifice my own--repeat to him the words of one who reminds him of what he has forgotten. Do you remember when, in a life of misery, you said: 'Where is death sold, that I may buy it?'_ The vizier on reading the note recollected the circumstance, and, moved with the joy of doing a generous action, he ordered seven hundred dirhems to be given to the writer, and inscribed these words on the paper: _The similitude of those who lay out their substance in the service of God is as a grain of corn which has produced seven ears and in every ear a hundred grains; for God giveth many-fold to whom He pleaseth._ He then prayed God's blessing on him, and clothed him in a robe of honour, and appointed him to a place under government, so that"--the corollary seems hardly worth adding--"he might live in easy circumstances."

Poetry was, you see, worth practising in Baghdad in those days; nor had the poets any shame in accepting presents. What princes liked to give it was not for poets to analyse or refuse. Al-Moizz Ibn Badis, sovereign of Ifrikya and the son of Badis, was a patron indeed. "Poets," says Ibn Khallikan, "were loud in his praise, literary men courted his patronage, and all who hoped for gain made his court their halting-place."

To the modern mind he was too easily pleased, if the following story is typical. He was sitting, one day, in his saloon with a number of literary men about him, when, noticing a lemon shaped like a hand and fingers, he asked them to extemporize some verses on that subject. Abd Abu Ali Al-Hasan Ibn Rashik Al-Kairawani at once recited the following lines: _A lemon, with its extremities spread out, appears before all eyes without being injured. It seems to hold out a hand towards the Creator, invoking long life to the son of Badis._

Al-Moizz declared the verses excellent and showed more favour to the author than to any other literary man in the assembly.

Ready wit not less than poetical ingenuity could always win the respect of these gentlemen, whose cynical cold-bloodedness and implacability were ever ready to be diverted, provided that the diversion was intellectual. For instance, it is related that Al-Hajjaj said to the brother of Katari: "I shall surely put thee to death."

"Why so?" replied the other.

"On account of thy brother's revolt," answered Al-Hajjaj.

"But I have a letter from the Commander of the Faithful, ordering thee not to punish me for the fault of my brother."

"Produce it."

"I have something stronger than that."

"What is it?"

"The book of Almighty God, wherein He says: 'And no burdened soul shall bear the burden of another.'"

Al-Hajjaj was struck with his answer, and gave him his liberty.

Among the lavish patrons of poets Saif Ad-Dawlat stands high. It is related that he was one day giving audience in the city of Aleppo, and poets were reciting verses in his praise, when an Arab of the desert, in squalid attire, stepped forward and repeated these lines: _My means are spent, but I have reached my journey's end. This is the glory of all other cities, and thou, Emir! art the ornament whereby the Arabs surpass the rest of men. Fortune, thy slave, has wronged us; and to thee we have recourse against thy slave's injustice._

"By Allah!" exclaimed the prince, "thou hast done it admirably." He then ordered him a present of two hundred gold pieces.

Abu 'l-Kasim Othman Ibn Muhammad, a native of Irak and kadi of Ain Zerba, relates as follows: "I was at an audience given by Saif Ad-Dawlat at Aleppo, when the kadi Abu Nasr Muhammad Ibn Muhammad An-Naisapuri went up to him, and having drawn an empty purse and a roll of paper out of his sleeve, he asked and obtained permission to recite a poem which was written on the paper. He then commenced his kasada, the first line of which was: _Thy wonted generosity is still the same; thy power is uncontrolled, and thy servant stands in need of one thousand pieces of silver._

"When the poet had finished, Saif Ad-Dawlat burst into a fit of laughter and ordered him a thousand pieces of gold, which were immediately put into the purse he had brought with him."

Here is a delightful account of the relations between a crafty poet and a patron who was not wholly a fool. Abu Dulaf was a spirited, noble, and generous chief, highly extolled for his liberality, courage, and enterprise, noted for his victories and his beneficence. Men distinguished in literature and the sciences derived instruction from his discourse, and his talent was conspicuous even in the art of vocal music. His praises were celebrated in kasadas of the greatest beauty. Bakr Ibn An-Nattah said of him: _O thou who pursuest the study of alchemy, the great alchemy consists in praising the son of Isa. Was there but one dirhem in the world, thou wouldst obtain it by this means._

It is stated that, for these two verses, Abu Dulaf gave Ibn An-Nattah ten thousand dirhems. The poet then ceased visiting him for some time and employed the money in the purchase of a village or estate on the river Obolla. He afterwards went to see him, and addressed him in these words: _Thanks to thee, I have purchased an estate on the Obolla, crowned by a pavilion erected in marble. It has a sister beside it which is now on sale, and you have always money to bestow._

"How much," said Abu Dulaf, "is the price of that sister?"

The poet answered: "Ten thousand dirhems."

Abu Dulaf gave him the money, and said: "Recollect that the Obolla is a large river, with many estates situated on it, and that each of these sisters has another at her side; so, if thou openest such a door as that, it will lead to a breach between us. Be content with what thou hast now got, and let this be a point agreed on."

The poet then offered up prayers for his welfare and withdrew.

VIII.--A BRAVE POET

The end of the munificent and splendid Ibn Bakiya was tragic, and it leads to so fine and characteristic a story that I must tell it here: partly in Ibn Khallikan's words and partly in my own. During the war which was carried on between the two cousins Izz Ad-Dawlat and Adud Ad-Dawlat, the former seized on Ibn Bakiya and, having deprived him of sight, delivered him over to Adud Ad-Dawlat. That prince caused him to be paraded about with a hood over his head, and then ordered him to be cast to the elephants. Those animals killed him, and his body was exposed on a cross at the gate called Bab At-Tak, near his own house.

On his crucifixion, an adl of Baghdad, called Abu 'l-Hasan Muhammad Ibn Omar Ibn Yakub Al-Anbari, deplored his fate in a beautiful poem, of which this is one line: _I never saw a tree, before this, enabled to sustain all that was generous._

Abu 'l-Hasan, on composing his elegy, copied it out and threw it into one of the streets of Baghdad.

It fell into the hands of the literati, who passed it one to another, till Adud Ad-Dawlat was at length informed of its existence. He caused it to be recited in his presence, and, struck with admiration at its beauty, he exclaimed: "O that I were the person crucified, not he! Let the poet be brought to me!"

During a whole year strict search was made for the author, and the Sahib Ibn Abbad who was then at Rai, being informed of the circumstance, wrote out a letter of protection in favour of the poet. When Abu 'l-Hasan heard of this, he went to the court of the Sahib and was asked by him if it was he who had composed the verses. He replied in the affirmative, on which the Sahib expressed the desire to hear them from his own mouth. When Abu 'l-Hasan came to the verse, _I never saw a tree, before this, enabled to sustain all that was generous_, the Sahib rose up and embraced him, kissing him on the lips; he then sent him to Adud Ad-Dawlat.

When he appeared before Adud Ad-Dawlat, that prince said to him: "What motive could have induced thee to compose an elegy on the death of my enemy?"

Abu 'l-Hasan replied: "Former obligations and favours granted long since; my heart therefore overflowed with sorrow, and I lamented his fate."

There were wax-lights burning, at the time, before the prince, and this led him to say to the poet: "Canst thou recollect any verses on wax-lights?" and to this the other replied by the following lines: _The wax-lights, showing their ends tipped with fire, seemed like the fingers of thy trembling foes, humbly stretched forth to implore thy mercy._

On hearing these verses, Adud Ad-Dawlat clothed him in a pelisse of honour and bestowed on him a horse and a bag of money.

IX.--A WESTERN INTERLUDE