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Arba’atun má ’jtama’na kattu siwà
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Alà azá mujhatí wa safki damí
Four things which ne’er conjoin unless it be ✿ To storm my vitals and to shed my blood (vol. iii. [237]).
The Mutakárib, the last of the metres employed in The Nights, has gained a truly historical importance by the part which it plays in Persian literature. In the form of trimetrical double-lines, with a several rhyme for each couplet, it has become the “Nibelungen-” stanza of the Persian epos: Firdausí’s immortal “Book of Kings” and Nizámi’s Iskander-námah are written in it, not to mention a host of Masnawis in which Sufic mysticism combats Mohammedan orthodoxy. On account of its warlike and heroical character, therefore, I choose for an example the knightly Jamrakán’s challenge to the single fight in which he conquers his scarcely less valiant adversary Kaurajan, Mac. N. iii. 296:
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Aná ’l-Jamrakánu kawiyyn ’l-janáni
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Jamí’u ’l-fawárisi takhshà kitálí.