[611] Ibid., vol. iii, p. 355.
[612] The spirit of fortitude and patience (ḥamása) is exhibited by both poets, but in a very different manner. Shanfará describes a man of heroic nature. Ṭughrá’í wraps himself in his virtue and moralises like a Muḥammadan Horace. Ṣafadí, however, says in his commentary on Ṭughrá’í's ode (I translate from a MS. copy in my possession): "It is named Lámiyyatu ’l-‘Ajam by way of comparing it with the Lámiyyatu ’l-‘Arab, because it resembles the latter in its wise sentences and maxims."
[613] I.e., the native of Abúṣir (Búṣír), a village in Egypt.
[614] The Burda, ed. by C. A. Ralfs (Vienna, 1860), verse 140; La Bordah traduite et commentée par René Basset (Paris, 1894), verse 151.
[615] This appears to be a reminiscence of the fact that Muḥammad gave his own mantle as a gift to Ka‘b b. Zuhayr, when that poet recited his famous ode, Bánat Su‘ád (see p. [127] supra).
[616] Maqáma (plural, maqámát) is properly 'a place of standing'; hence, an assembly where people stand listening to the speaker, and in particular, an assembly for literary discussion. At an early period reports of such conversations and discussions received the name of maqámát (see Brockelmann, Gesch. der Arab. Litteratur, vol. i, p. 94). The word in its literary sense is usually translated by 'assembly,' or by the French 'séance.'
[617] The Assemblies of al-Ḥarírí, translated from the Arabic, with an introduction and notes by T. Chenery (1867), vol. i, p. 19. This excellent work contains a fund of information on diverse matters connected with Arabian history and literature. Owing to the author's death it was left unfinished, but a second volume (including Assemblies 27-50) by F. Steingass appeared in 1898.
[618] A full account of his career will be found in the Preface to Houtsma's Recueil de textes relatifs à l'histoire des Seldjoucides, vol. ii. p. 11 sqq. Cf. Browne's Lit. Hist. of Persia, vol. ii, p. 360.
[619] This is a graceful, but probably insincere, tribute to the superior genius of Hamadhání.
[620] The above passage is taken, with some modification, from the version of Ḥarírí published in 1850 by Theodore Preston, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, who was afterwards Lord Almoner's Professor of Arabic (1855-1871).