From Lebid's picture of another journey--which the pre-Islamic poet undertook to the coast lands of Hajar on the Persian Gulf--we learn that when they entered a village he and his party were greeted by the crowing of cocks and the shaking of wooden rattles (_quatrain_ 95), which in the Eastern Christian Churches are substituted for bells. . . . And the mediæval leper, in his grey gown, was obliged to hold a similar object, waving it about and crying as he went: "Unclean! unclean!" An ambitious man desired, regardless of expense, to hand down his name to posterity (_quatrain_ 99). "Write your name in a prayer," said Epictetus, "and it will remain after you." "But I would have a crown of gold," was the reply. "If you have quite made up your mind to have a crown," said Epictetus, "take a crown of roses, for it is more beautiful." In the words of Heredia: Déjà le Temps brandit l'arme fatale. As-tu L'espoir d'éterniser le bruit de ta vertu? Un vil lierre suffit à disjoindre un trophée; Et seul, aux blocs épars des marbres triomphaux Où ta gloire en ruine est par l'herbe étouffée, Quelque faucheur Samnite ébréchera sa faulx. Would we write our names so that they endure for ever? There was in certain Arab circles a heresy which held that the letters of the alphabet (_quatrain_ 101) are metamorphoses of men. And Magaira, who founded a sect, maintained that the letters of the alphabet are like limbs of God. According to him, when God wished to create the world, He wrote with His own hands the deeds of men, both the good and the bad; but, at sight of the sins which men were going to commit, He entered into such a fury that He sweated, and from His sweat two seas were formed, the one of salt water and the other of sweet water. From the first one the infidels were formed, and from the second the Shi'ites. But to this view of the everlasting question you may possibly prefer what is advanced (_quatrains_ 103-7) and paraphrased as an episode: Whatever be the wisdom of the worms, we bow before the silence of the rose. As for Abu'l-Ala, we leave him now prostrated (_quatrain_ 108) before the silence of the rolling world. It is a splendour that was seen by Alfred de Vigny: Je roule avec dédain, sans voir et sans entendre, A côté des fourmis les populations; Je ne distingue pas leur terrier de leur cendre. J'ignore en les portant les noms des nations. On me dit une mère et je suis une tombe. Mon hiver prend vos morts comme son hécatombe, Mon printemps n'entend pas vos adorations. Avant vous j'étais belle et toujours parfumée, J'abandonnais au vent mes cheveux tout entiers. . . . Footnotes [1] _Cf_. Lyall, _Ancient Arabian Poets_. [2] _Cf_. Whittaker, _The Neo-Platonists_. [3] Of course I use Professor Margoliouth's superb edition of the letters. [4] _Cf_. Thielmann, _Streifzüge im Kaukasus, etc_. [5] _Cf_. Ambros, _Geschichte der Musik_, 1862. [6] _Cf_. Pliny, _Nat. Hist._, vii. 174.