[561] In one of his poems (Díwán, p. 160, l. 11), he says that he has lived ninety years, but if this is not a mere exaggeration, it needs to be corrected. The words for 'seventy' and 'ninety' are easily confused in Arabic writing.

[562] Tha‘álibí, Yatimatu ’l-Dahr (Damascus, 1304 a.h.), vol. i, p. 8 seq.

[563] See Von Kremer's Culturgeschichte, vol. ii, p. 381 sqq.; Ahlwardt, Poesie und Poetik der Araber, p. 37 sqq.; R. Dvorak, Abú Firás, ein arabischer Dichter und Held (Leyden, 1895).

[564] Mutanabbí, ed. by Dieterici, p. 493. Wáḥidí gives the whole story in his commentary on this verse.

[565] Mutanabbí, it is said, explained to Sayfu ’l-Dawla that by surra (gladden) he meant surriyya; whereupon the good-humoured prince presented him with a slave-girl.

[566] Literally, "Do not imagine fat in one whose (apparent) fat is (really) a tumour."

[567] Díwán, ed. by Dieterici, pp. 481-484.

[568] The most esteemed commentary is that of Wáḥidí († 1075 a.d.), which has been published by Fr. Dieterici in his edition of Mutanabbí (Berlin, 1858-1861).

[569] Motenebbi, der grösste arabische Dichter (Vienna, 1824).

[570] Abulfedæ Annales Muslemici (Hafniæ, 1789, &c.), vol. ii, p. 774. Cf. his notes on Ṭarafa's Mu‘allaqa, of which he published an edition in 1742.