[FN#251] Strong perfumes, such as musk (which we Europeans dislike and suspect), are always insisted upon in Eastern poetry, and Mohammed's predilection for them is well known. Moreover the young and the beautiful are held (justly enough) to exhale a natural fragrance which is compared with that of the blessed in Paradise. Hence in the Mu'allakah of Imr al-Keys:—
Breathes the scent of musk when they rise to rove, *
As the Zephyr's breath with the flavour o'clove.
It is made evident by dogs and other fine-nosed animals that every human being has his, or her, peculiar scent which varies according to age and health. Hence animals often detect the approach of death.
[FN#252] Arab. "Kahlá." This has been explained. Mohammed is said to have been born with "Kohl'd eyes."
[FN#253] Hawá al-'uzrí, before noticed (Night cxiv.).
[FN#254] These lines, with the Názir (eye or steward), the Hájib (Groom of the Chambers or Chamberlain) and Joseph, are also repeated from Night cxiv. For the Nazir see Al-Hariri (Nos. xiii. and xxii.)
[FN#255] The usual allusion to the Húr (Houris) from "Hangar," the white and black of the eye shining in contrast. The Persian Magi also placed in their Heaven (Bihisht or Minu) "Huran," or black-eyed nymphs, under the charge of the angel Zamiyád.
[FN#256] In the first hemistich, "bi-shitt 'it wády" (by the wady-bank): in the second, "wa shatta 'l wády" ("and my slayer"— i.e. wády act. part. of wady, killing—"hath paced away").
[FN#257] The double entendre is from the proper names Budúr and Su'ád (Beatrice) also meaning "auspicious (or blessed) full moons."
[FN#258] Arab. "Házir" (also Ahl al-hazer, townsmen) and Bádi, a Badawi, also called "Ahl al-Wabar," people of the camel's hair (tent) and A'aráb (Nomadic) as opposed to Arab (Arab settled or not). They still boast with Ibn Abbas, cousin of Mohammed, that they have kerchiefs (not turbands) for crowns, tents for houses, loops for walls, swords for scarves and poems for registers or written laws.