[140] Freytag, Arabum Proverbia, vol. ii, p. 494.
[141] Numb. xxi, 17. Such well-songs are still sung in the Syrian desert (see Enno Littmann, Neuarabische Volkspoesie, in Abhand. der Kön. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, Phil.-Hist. Klasse, Göttingen, 1901), p. 92. In a specimen cited at p. 81 we find the words witla yā dlêwēna—i.e., "Rise, O bucket!" several times repeated.
[142] Goldziher, Ueber die Vorgeschichte der Higâ-Poesie in his Abhand. zur Arab. Philologie, Part I (Leyden, 1896), p. 26.
[143] Cf. the story of Balak and Balaam, with Goldziher's remarks thereon, ibid., p. 42 seq.
[144] Ibid., p. 46 seq.
[145] Rajaz primarily means "a tremor (which is a symptom of disease) in the hind-quarters of a camel." This suggested to Dr. G. Jacob his interesting theory that the Arabian metres arose out of the camel-driver's song (ḥidá) in harmony with the varying paces of the animal which he rode (Studien in arabischen Dichtern, Heft III, p. 179 sqq.).
[146] The Arabic verse (bayt) consists of two halves or hemistichs (miṣrá‘). It is generally convenient to use the word 'line' as a translation of miṣrá‘, but the reader must understand that the 'line' is not, as in English poetry, an independent unit. Rajaz is the sole exception to this rule, there being here no division into hemistichs, but each line (verse) forming an unbroken whole and rhyming with that which precedes it.
[147] In Arabic 'al-bayt,' the tent, which is here used figuratively for the grave.
[148] Ibn Qutayba, Kitábu ’l-Shi‘r wa-’l-Shu‘ará, p. 36, l. 3 sqq.
[149] Already in the sixth century a.d. the poet ‘Antara complains that his predecessors have left nothing new for him to say (Mu‘allaqa, v. 1).