[4] This and the other verses quoted in this chapter are taken from the translations of old Arab poetry contributed by Mr. C. J. Lyall to the _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal (Translations from the Hamâseh and the Aghânî; The Mo`allaqah of Zuheyr)_. They imitate the metres of the original Arabic verse, but are nevertheless as literal as need be. The transliteration of proper names in the verses (and in other quotations) has been assimilated to the system adopted by Mr. Lane, from which in this work I only depart in the case of names which by frequent use have become almost the property of the English language. [5] A tribe. [6] The subject of the poem, mentioned in the second hemistich of the third verse as ‘thou,’ whose death the supposed author (‘one valiant’) avenged. [7] For these and other stories about Ḥátim, see Caussin de Perceval’s _Essai sur l’Histoire des Arabes_, ii. 607-628: a book which is a treasury of Arab life, and abounds in those anecdotes which reveal more of the character of the people than whole volumes of ethnological treatise. [8] The later Arabic poets were mostly incapable of the genius of the old singers: the times had changed, and the ancient poetry appeared almost as exotic to their ideas as it does to our own. No greater mistake can be made than to judge of the old poets by such a writer as Behá-ed-deen Zoheyr, of whom Professor E. H. Palmer has lately given us so beautiful a version. There is nothing in common between El-Behá and ´Antarah—scarcely even the language. [9] Deutsch, _Lit. Remains_, 453, 454: cp. Nöldeke, _Beiträge zur Kennt. d. Poesie d. alten Araber_, xxiii., xxiv. [10] Ezekiel xxvii. 19-24. The identifications of the various names with Arabian towns are partly conjectural, but the general reference is clearly to Arabia. Cf. the ‘Speaker’s’ _Commentary_, vi. 122; and the interpretations of Hitzig, Movers, Tuch, and Ménant. [11] C. P. Tiele, _Outlines of the History of Religion_: tr. J. E. Carpenter, p. 63. [12] Deutsch. _Lit. Remains_, pp. 70-72. [13] R. Bosworth Smith, _Mohammed and Mohammedanism_, 2d ed. p. 131. [14] Or ‘read,’ ‘recite.’ These lines are the beginning of the 96th Soorah of the Ḳur-án. [15] Sir W. Muir,_ Life of Mahomet_, 402. [16] The following is an abridgment: cp. Muir 485, and the _Seeret-er-Rasool_, tr. Weil, ii. 316, 317.