their swiftest ones, at the two thickets near (the campingground of) Ma'di son of Barraq, it was as though they were scaring (a bird) whose primaries had fallen out (in moulting), or a doe gazelle with her fawn, at Dhū-Shathth and at Dhū-Tabbiāq; there being nothing more fleet than a young bustard[1] with an infirmity, or with one sole wing (uninjured), that flutters convulsively along, on the brink of a mountain ledge."
Accepting, then, the supposition that Shanfarà the poet, the exterminator of his foes, the rapid runner, and Shanfarà the confederate of Ta'abbata-Sharran, were one and the same individual, having died ere Muhammad appeared on the scene, we have to inquire why his poem has been entitled the L-Poem of the Arabs.
I do not know by whom this splendid piece of verse was rescued from obscurity, perhaps from impending oblivion; nor where, nor at what date, it was dug out from its native desert home. Neither can I say from whom or why it has received its special designation; who was the first known to have written a commentary on it, at what date, where, and by what title it was first mentioned? Was that title from the first the now well-known "L-Poem of the Arabs"; or was it originally distinguished, as is so usual, by its opening words?
If these questions cannot be answered (though I merely avow my own ignorance on the points), the circumstance may be taken as a glaring instance of the imperfect methods of the native commentators. They write page after page of mere verbal exegesis, or of prosodial technicalities, but they seldom afford the student a guide by which to understand the allusions of their author. Here and there, at rare intervals, such a light is vouchsafed; but generally it may be said of the Arabian scholiasts, as of the old astrologer: "They can scan the distant orbs of heaven; they cannot perceive what lies at their feet."
The name of L-Poem is given to any piece of verse the rhyme of which is based on the letter L. There are numerous such poems preserved to us of the ante-Muhammadan period. In the "Six Diwāns," edited by Ahlwardt, I find that Nābiga has left four L-poems; 'Antara, two; Tarafa, three; Zuhayr, five; 'Alqama, only one fragment; but Irara'u-'lQays has fifteen, among which is his Mu'allaqa, with seventy-six distichs. Other "L-poems" and fragments are doubtfully attributed to each of these great songsters of the desert.
But all those ancient "L-poems," with the exception of the masterpiece of Imra'u-'l-Qays, are of less magnitude than the poem of Shanfarà. The second longest, by Imra'u'l-Qays, has but fifty-nine distichs to weigh against the sixty-eight in that of Shanfarà. 'Antara's longest has but thirty-one, and Nābiga's two longest, thirty distichs each; all the rest being shorter. The masterpiece of Imra'u-'lQays, with its seventy-six distichs, being distinguished as his Mu'allaqa, it would appear that the commentators have perceived in this circumstance a plausible reason to glorify Shanfara's poem by the proud title of "The L-Poem of the Arabs."
D'Herbelot (Bibliothèque Orientale), under the sadlydegraded word "Lamiat" (by which the Arabic Lamāya (
Arabic characters) , is rather hinted at than indicated), explains that "there are three such poems, rhyming in L, much esteemed in the East. The first bears the name of Lamiat al Arab, and was composed by Schafari. The second, entitled Lamiat al Agem, . . . had for author . . . al Thograi ... Of all these four poems (he has discovered a fourth since he first wrote three), that of Thograi is the most famous, and the most elegant. . . Pococke has translated this poem into Latin, and has illustrated it with learned notes."
Whatever may have been, or is, in the east, or in the west, the relative degree of celebrity of the two "L-poems," by Shanfarà and Tugrā'l, the date of the latter being about A.D. 1120—five hundred years posterior to the former— I may venture, having recently made a new English prose
- ↑ De Sacy has (
Arabic characters) , where I have conjecturally used (Arabic characters) He found (Arabic characters), without rowels, and translates quite differently; but avows himself dissatisfied.
