The learned rabbis say, according to their belief, among the sons of Israel it was not required that women should wear a dress, and Sarmed said that Ishâiá, the prophet, himself used to go naked in his last days. Sarmeda was a good master of poetry. Here follow some of his verses: RABAAI, QUATRAIN: “Sarmed, whom they intoxicated from the cup of love, Whom they called, exalted, and depressed, Asked for wine, worship of God, and wisdom: (But) they intoxicated him, and made him a worshipper of idols.” In the praise of the prophet, we find what follows: QUATRAIN: “O thou, by whose cheek is wounded the mind of the red rose, Internally is the whole blood of the heart, externally the red rose; Thou camest so late after Joseph, who was in the garden expecting thee, That the rose (of his cheek) became first yellow (from vexation) and at last (from pleasure) a red rose.” ANOTHER QUATRAIN: “This existence has, without the azure sphere, no reality, This existence is confined; for, except the absolute being, nothing has reality. Is God ever in vain? No! God is not in vain. This existence is real only with respect to its origin, but whatever is derived has no reality.” ANOTHER QUATRAIN: “When God weighed in the balance of destiny with the sun, The being endowed with every excellence, _Muhammed_, This was so heavy that it moved not from its place; The other was so light that it flew up to heaven.” A DISTICH. “Sarmed, who is a nightingale, has no desire of gold; (But) his friend is the rose, and the rose has need of a handful of gold.” ANOTHER DISTICH. “In the Kâbah and in the idol temple is his stone _the symbol of male energy_, and his is _the symbol of female productiveness_;[485] In one place it is the black stone _of the temple of Mecca_; in another place an idol of the Hindus.” In the eulogy of Shaikh Mohammed Khan, who was the chief minister of the illustrious Dara, Sultan Abed Ullah Kat´eb, we find the following quatrain: “O thou, who art the circumference of greatness to the centre of the throne!―― Thou, to whose service a hundred persons are devoted, as is the firmament _to the universe_―― Make thou to me, who am a stranger, my evening equal to midday, If at the side of Kateb[486] thou art as happy as at midday.”