orally transmitted from one generation to another of unlettered reciters. Lane, in his " Modern Egyptians/* notices it in this sense, and gives a few specimen lines in translation, though, as it seems to the present translators, not too happily. The original metre, indeed, defies any quite close rendering into EngHsh, as it continues throughout on a single irregular rhyme or assonance beyond the scope of the richest of European languages to reproduce. The double ending adopted in the present translation its writers think is the nearest imitation possible in English of the original cadence. Listened to in an Arab tent, or in the reception room of an Egyptian country Sheykh, when the wandering poet is reciting it to an intelligent audience who knows it well, and who waits the close of each line to repeat after him the final syllable, it has a noble rhythmical effect and is very impressive. Let the English reader imagine this when he is perusing the present pages, and he will appreciate better the nature of this ancient Arabian poem as it sounds to Arabian ears, and will not, the translators hope, turn from it wholly disappointed.
