With the Pleiades, the two Fishes and the Balance.
We find the same figure, of which we have seen Abû-l-ʿAlâ to be so fond, used by Abû-l-Ḥasan ʿAlî b. Isḥâḳ al-Waddânî, a Maġreb [North African] poet, who says of the morning: ‘It is like the greyness which spreads itself over the black hair of youth (the black night):’
Dâna-ṣ-ṣabâḥu wa-lâ ata wa-kaʾannahu * sheybun aṭalla ʿala sawâdi shibâbî.[[436]]
So, inversely, when the hair grows grey it is said ‘The dark night is lighted.’[[437]]
From all these cases it may be gathered that the progress of the sun from the dawn to the full day is treated sometimes as a transition from a whitish to a reddish colour, sometimes as the reverse. Sometimes the redness of morning begins, and turns into white; sometimes the greyness, which passes into red.[[438]] But both conceptions are also found combined in a single idea: thus, for instance, al-ʿArjî the poet says:
Bâtâ bi-anʿâmi leylatin ḥatta badâ * subḥun talawwaḥa ka-l-aġarri-l-ashkari.
They both passed a joyous night, until began
The morning to appear, like a red horse with white forehead-spot (ġurrâ).[[439]]
Some already-cited examples have enabled us to observe that when day is contrasted with night, it is done by calling the night black and the day white. To the former instances I will now add another for clearness’ sake: ‘Till the whiteness of the day became black’ (ḥatta ʿâda bayâḍ al-nahâr sawâdan, Rom. of ʿAntar, XXV. 5. 4). The attribute white, applied to the sun of the advanced day, is especially clear in a passage which I must not omit to mention. The poet al-Mutanabbî says:
Azûruhum wa-sawâdu-l-leyli yashfaʿunî * wa-anthanî wa-bayâḍu-ṣ-ṣubḥi yuġrî bî.