[95]. For the Seven Ages of womankind (on the Irish model) see vol. ix. 175. Some form of these verses is known throughout the Moslem East to prince and peasant. They usually begin:—
From the tenth to the twentieth year ✿ To the gaze a charm doth appear;
and end with:—
From sixty to three score ten ✿ On all befal Allah’s malison.
[96]. [Here I suppose the word “kál” has been dropped after “bi ’l-shi’r,” and it should be: He (the youth) replied, that was our common sire, Adam, etc.—St.]
[97]. “Hábíl” and “Kábíl” are the Arab. equivalent of Abel and Cain. Neither are named in the Koran (Surah v. “The Table,” vv. 30–35), which borrows a dialogue between the brothers derived from the Targum (Jeirus. on Gen. iv. 8) and makes the raven show the mode of burial to Cain, not to Adam as related by the Jews. Rodwell’s Koran, p. 543.
[98]. Sit venia verbo: I have the less hesitation in making Adam anticipate the widow Malone from a profound conviction that some Hibernian antiquary, like Vallancey who found the Irish tongue in the Punic language of Plautus, shall distinctly prove that our first forefather spoke Keltic.
[99]. In text “Ríh,” wind, gust (of temper), pride, rage. Amongst the Badawín it is the name given to rheumatism (gout being unknown), and all obscure aching diseases by no means confined to flatulence or distension. [The MS. has: “ilà an káta-ka ’l-’amal al-rabíh,” which gives no sense whatever. Sir Richard reads: “kátala-ka ’l-’amal al-ríh,” and thus arrives at the above translation. I would simply drop a dot on the first letter of “káta-ka,” reading “fáta-ka,” when the meaning of the line as it stands, would be: until the work that is profitable passed away from thee, i.e., until thou ceasedst to do good. The word “rabíh” is not found in Dictionaries, but it is evidently an intensive of “rábih” (tijárah rábihah = a profitable traffic) and its root occurs in the Koran, ii. 15: “Fa-má rabihat Tijáratuhum” = but their traffic has not been gainful.—St.]
[100]. Arab. “Badrah”: see vol. iv. 281. [According to the Kámús, “Badrah” is a purse of one thousand or ten thousand dirhams, or of seven thousand dínárs. As lower down it is called “Badrat Zahab,” a purse of gold, I would take it here in the third sense.—St.]
[101]. In text “Zardiyá,” for “Zaradiyyah” = a small mail-coat, a light helmet.