Though I am, ʿAblâ, a black slave, And the blackness of night is one of my qualities, Yet it is my boast that on the day of encounter The Dawn bows before my bow and spear. As a black man is compared to night, so, inversely, the latter is likened to a black gipsy. Abû-l-ʿAlâ al-Maʿarrî, who is remarkable for accurate pictures of nature, says of the sky dazzling with stars, ‘This night is a Gipsy’s bride, decked out with pearls:’[419] Leylatî hâḏihi ʿarûsun min az-zan- * ji ʿaleyhâ ḳalâʿidu min jumâni.[420] On another occasion the same poet (II. 106. 4) compares the night to black _ink_: Katabnâ wa-aʿrabnâ bi-ḥibrin min ad-duja * suṭûra-s-sura fî ẓahri beyḍâʾa balḳaʿi. And one of the most ordinary descriptions of _darkening_ is that ‘Night put on her _black_ adornments.’[421] From all this it is seen that it is perfectly usual and matter-of-course to associate Night with the colour _Black_.[422] Indeed, by the Black the poet understands _par excellence_ Night. Abû-l-ʿAlâ al-Maʿarrî, the poet so frequently quoted in this section, says at one place (_ibid._ I. 131.2): ‘The _Black_ one, whose father is unknown to men, has shrouded me in clothes from himself (i.e. in black or dark ones).’ Nevertheless, we can convince ourselves here too, that even this point of the conception of colour is not devoid of fluctuation. For the blackness of night is not nearly so distinct a conception as ours when we speak of a black night. On the contrary, it is not yet separated from the general category of _dark colour_, to which green and blue also belong. When the land of the Banû Madhij was visited with drought, the tribe sent out three explorers (ruwwâd, from the singular râʾid), to look for suitable pasturage. One of them says in his report in praise of the splendid green meadows of the land he recommends, that the surface of the land is _like night_, so green is it.[423] Al-Afwah, a Preislamite Arabic poet and sage,[424] in a verse quoted by the lexicographer al-Jauharî (under the root _sds_), associates Night with the colour of _sudûs_. So also Abû Nucheylâ,[425] a later poet who lived under the Abbasid dynasty as their laureate, says ‘Put on as thy shirt Night, black and dark like the colour of _sundus_’: Waddariʿî jilbâba leylin daḥmasi * aswada dâjin mithli launi-s-sundusi.[426] Another anonymous poet, or rather verse-monger, says in the same sense ‘Among the nights a dark night, when the sky is like the colour of _sundus_’: Waleylatin min-al-layâlî ḥindisi * launu ḥawâshîhâ kalaimi-s-sundusi.[427]