Answer VVLVA. Very interesting to the anthropological student is this excursus of Hasan, who after all manner of hardships and horrors and risking his life to recover his wife and children, breaks out into song on the subject of her privities. And it can hardly be tale-teller’s gag as both verse and prose show considerable art in composition.
[135]. Egyptian and Syrian vulgar term for Mawálíyah or Mawáliyah, a short poem on subjects either classical or vulgar. It generally consists of five lines all rhyming except the penultimate. The metre is a species of the Basít which, however, admits of considerable poetical license; this being according to Lane the usual “Weight,”
¯ ¯ ˘ ¯ ¯ / ˘ ¯ ˘ / ¯ ¯ ˘ ¯ / ¯ ¯.
The scheme is distinctly anapæstic and Mr. Lyall (Translations of Ancient Arabic Poetry) compares with a cognate metre, the Tawíl, certain lines in Abt Vogler, e.g.
“Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told.”
[136]. i.e. repeat the chapter of the Koran termed The Opening, and beginning with these words, “Have we not opened thy breast for thee and eased thee of thy burden which galled thy back? * * * Verily with the difficulty cometh ease.!”—Koran xciv. vol. I, 5.
[137]. Lane renders Nur al-Hudà (Light of Salvation) by Light of Day which would be Nur al-Hadà.
[138]. In the Bresl. Edit. “Yá Salám” = O safety!—a vulgar ejaculation.
[139]. A favourite idiom meaning from the mischief which may (or will) come from the Queen.
[140]. He is not strong-minded but his feminine persistency of purpose, likest to that of a sitting hen, is confirmed by the “Consolations of religion.” The character is delicately drawn.