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She goeth round midst younglings, to whom Fate bows, submiss, And none with aught betideth, save that he hath in gree;
And say to who pretendeth to excellence in love, “One thing thou’st learnt, but many are still concealed from thee.”
But best of all is the saying of Ibn El Mutezz:[1]
God water the tree-shaded island[2] and the convent Abdoun[3] that hight With a constant dropping of rain-clouds, that cease not, day or night!
How oft for the draught of the morning awakened me there of yore, In the forefront of dawn, when the swallow had not yet taken to flight,
The voice of the monks of the convent, indeed, and the sound of their chant, As they crooned o’er their prayers in the gloaming, with their tunics of black bedight!
How many a loveling among them, eye-painted with languor,[4] abode, Whose eyelids on eyes shut that glittered with lustrous black and white,
- ↑ Abdallah ibn el Mutezz, a prince of the house of Abbas, son of El Mutezz Billah, the 13th Khalif of that dynasty, and great-great-grandson of Haroun er Reshid. He was one of the most renowned poets of the third century of the Hegira and died A.D. 908, being strangled by the partisans of his youthful nephew El Muctedi Billah, 18th Khalif of the Abbaside dynasty, against whose authority he had revolted, at the instigation of the powerful and turbulent house of the Benou Hemdan (see antè, note, p. 47). As the nominee of the latter, he was proclaimed Khalif, under the title of El Murteza Billah, but only enjoyed the dignity for twenty-four hours, at the end of which time El Muctedi was reinstated by his supporters.
- ↑ Jeziret ibn Omar, an island and town on the Tigris, about a hundred and fifty miles north of Mosul. Some versions of the poem, from which these verses are quoted, substitute El Mutireh, a village near Samara (a town on the Tigris, 60 miles north of Baghdad), for El Jezireh, i.e. Jeziret ibn Omar.
- ↑ The convent of Abdoun (long since disappeared) was situate on the east bank of the Tigris, whose waters alone separated it from the island. It was so called from a celebrated statesman of the same name, who caused it to be erected and whose favourite place of recreation it was.
- ↑ Lit. kohled with languor or voluptuous grace (ghunj), i.e. naturally possessing that liquid, languorous softness, which it is the aim of the use of kohl to simulate.
