Were the blood of the two brothers saffron and red.
The dawn poured its waters over the latter,
And changed into white its deep red.[[432]]
At its very first appearance the morning-dawn is of saffron colour, then a bright red comes, and the further the day advances, the whiter it becomes. The two daybreaks (al-fajrân), as the scholiast observes on this passage, are al-kâḏib wa-l-ṣâdiḳ—the lying or supposed one, which precedes the true dawn, and the latter itself. The very poet, however, from whom I quote this fragment, at another place exactly inverts the order of colour: representing the white or grey colour as appearing first, and then passing into the reddish or saffron. In a poem to a friend, in which he gives a beautiful description of night, he brings forward Night as in love with the stars. But she grows old—
Thumma shâba-d-duja wa-châfa min al-haj- * ri faġaṭṭa-l-mashîba bi-z-zaʿfarâni.
And Night grew grey, and feared the desertion [of her lover, the starry heaven]:
So she dipped her grey hair into saffron.[[433]]
The idea that the poet intends to express here is, that Night at its latter end becomes grey, when the grey morning begins to appear, and that to preserve the appearance of youth and be still acceptable to her lover she must put on red paint. But even the brightness of the sun by day (ḍiâ al-nahâr) is compared by the same poet to the grey hairs of an old man (II. 226. 2), as is also the brightness of the stars:[[434]]
Raʾâhâ salîlu ṭ-ṭîni wa-sh-sheybu shâmilun * lahâ bith-thureyyâ wâ-s-simâkeyni wa-l-wazni.[[435]]
He that was brought out of clay [Adam] saw it [the world], when its hair was all grey,