188 ([return])
[ This obedience to children is common in Eastern folk-lore: see Suppl. vol. i. 143, in which the royal father orders his son to sell him. The underlying idea is that the parents find their offspring too clever for them; not, as in the "New World," that Youth is entitled to take precedence and command of Age.]
189 ([return])
[ In text "Fa min tumma" for "thumma"—then, alors.]
190 ([return])
[ Such as the headstall and hobbles the cords and chains for binding captives, and the mace and sword hanging to the saddle-bow.]
191 ([return])
[ i.e. not a well-known or distinguished horseman, but a chance rider.]
192 ([return])
[ These "letters of Mutalammis," as Arabs term our Litteræ Bellerophonteæ, or "Uriah's letters," are a lieu commun in the East and the Prince was in luck when he opened and read the epistle here given by mistake to the wrong man. Mutalammis, a poet of The Ignorance, had this sobriquet (the "frequent asker," or, as we should say, the Solicitor-General), his name being Jarír bin 'Abd al-Masíh. He was uncle to Tarafah of the Mu'-allakah or prize poem, a type of the witty dissolute bard of the jovial period before Al-Islam arose to cloud and dull man's life. One day as he was playing with other children Mutalammis was reciting a panegyric upon his favourite camel, which ran:—