Opening the text

The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East, Volume 6 (of 14): Medieval Arabic, Moorish, and Turkish

Religion

The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East, Volume 6 (of 14): Medieval Arabic, Moorish, and Turkish

Oriental literature -- Translations into English

Trust not the gleam of its lightning, for it is a deceitful gleam.

 But be patient if it hounds calamities against thee, and drives them
 on.

 For there is no disgrace on the pure gold when it is turned about in
 the fire.

Then he rose and departed from his place, and carried away our hearts
with him.


THE THIRD ASSEMBLY

(CALLED "OF KAYLAH")[17]

Al Harith, son of Hammam, related: I was set with some comrades in
a company wherein he that made appeal was never bootless, and the
rubbing of the fire-shafts never failed, and the flame of contention
never blazed. And while we were catching from each other the cues of
recitations, and betaking ourselves to novelties of anecdote, behold
there stood by us one on whom was a worn garment, and in whose walk
was a limp. And he said, O ye best of treasures, joys of your kindred:
Health to you this morning; may ye enjoy your morning draught. Look
on one who was erewhile master of guest-room and largess, wealth and
bounty, land and villages, dishes and feasting. But the frowning of
calamities ceased not from him, and the warrings of sorrows, and
the fire-flakes of the malice of the envious, and the succession of
dark befallings, until the court was empty, and the yard was bare,
and the fountain sank, and the dwelling was desolate, and the hall
was void, and the chamber stone-strewed. And fortune shifted so that
the household wailed; and the stalls were vacant, so that the rival
had compassion; and the cattle and the goods they perished, so that
the envious and malignant pitied. And to such a pass did we come,
through assailing fortune and prostrating need, that we were shod with
soreness, and fed on choking, and filled our bellies with ache, and
wrapped our entrails upon hunger, and anointed our eyes with watching,
and made pits our home, and deemed thorns a smooth bed, and came to
forget our saddles, and thought destroying death to be sweet, and the
ordained day to be tardy. And now is there any one generous to heal,
bountiful to bestow? For by him who made me to spring from Kaylah,
surely I am now a brother of penury, I have not a night's victual.

Said Al Harith, son of Hammam: Now I pitied his distresses, and
inclined to the eliciting of his rhymes. So I drew forth for him a
denar, and said to him, to prove him, "If thou praise it in verse it
is thine, full surely." And he betook himself to recite on the spot,
borrowing nothing:

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

Religion

The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East, Volume 6 (of 14): Medieval Arabic, Moorish, and Turkish

Oriental literature -- Translations into English

Trust not the gleam of its lightning, for it is a deceitful gleam.

 But be patient if it hounds calamities against thee, and drives them
 on.

 For there is no disgrace on the pure gold when it is turned about in
 the fire.

Then he rose and departed from his place, and carried away our hearts
with him.


THE THIRD ASSEMBLY

(CALLED "OF KAYLAH")[17]

Al Harith, son of Hammam, related: I was set with some comrades in
a company wherein he that made appeal was never bootless, and the
rubbing of the fire-shafts never failed, and the flame of contention
never blazed. And while we were catching from each other the cues of
recitations, and betaking ourselves to novelties of anecdote, behold
there stood by us one on whom was a worn garment, and in whose walk
was a limp. And he said, O ye best of treasures, joys of your kindred:
Health to you this morning; may ye enjoy your morning draught. Look
on one who was erewhile master of guest-room and largess, wealth and
bounty, land and villages, dishes and feasting. But the frowning of
calamities ceased not from him, and the warrings of sorrows, and
the fire-flakes of the malice of the envious, and the succession of
dark befallings, until the court was empty, and the yard was bare,
and the fountain sank, and the dwelling was desolate, and the hall
was void, and the chamber stone-strewed. And fortune shifted so that
the household wailed; and the stalls were vacant, so that the rival
had compassion; and the cattle and the goods they perished, so that
the envious and malignant pitied. And to such a pass did we come,
through assailing fortune and prostrating need, that we were shod with
soreness, and fed on choking, and filled our bellies with ache, and
wrapped our entrails upon hunger, and anointed our eyes with watching,
and made pits our home, and deemed thorns a smooth bed, and came to
forget our saddles, and thought destroying death to be sweet, and the
ordained day to be tardy. And now is there any one generous to heal,
bountiful to bestow? For by him who made me to spring from Kaylah,
surely I am now a brother of penury, I have not a night's victual.

Said Al Harith, son of Hammam: Now I pitied his distresses, and
inclined to the eliciting of his rhymes. So I drew forth for him a
denar, and said to him, to prove him, "If thou praise it in verse it
is thine, full surely." And he betook himself to recite on the spot,
borrowing nothing:

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East, Volume 6 (of 14): Medieval Arabic, Moorish, and Turkish

The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East, Volume 6 (of 14): Medieval Arabic, Moorish, and Turkish

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