The Seven Golden Odes of Pagan Arabia; Known Also As the Moallakat

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 edition. Excerpt: ... SEVENTH ODE. EL HARITH. OF El Harith Ibn Hfliza of the B6ni Bekr, little is told us by the commentators except what has been already related, of his pleading the cause of his tribe, before Amr Ibn Hind, against that of Taghleb. Like all the rest of the Moallakit poets, he was of noble birth and a warrior. He was also long-lived, for it is said of him that he was already a hundred years old when he made his Golden Ode. If this can be taken as exact, it would make him by many years the earliest in point of birth of all these poets, for the pleading referred to took place about the year 560 A.d. Beyond the facts, however, connecled with his Ode nothing definite is recorded of him. His Ode is from first to last a piece of special pleading on a political subject, and for this reason will be found the least generally interesting of the seven. It is almost unadorned with those wild natural descriptions of beast and bird and tree, which make the chief charm of the others, nor is there much of originality or passion in its opening loveverses. These are introduced clearly as a matter of convention, and were in all probability borrowed in old age for the occasion from the poetry of his younger time. They have nothing in common with the rest of the Ode, and there is no echo of them in the body of the piece. The whole poem is a long argument vigorously expressed and not without a beauty of its own, but with more of flattery towards the prince addressed than was common among the pre-Islamic poets. Hind herself, the prince's mother, is said to have been pleased at the introduction of her name in the opening verses, and to have influenced Amr in El Harith's favour. With regard to this, the commentator El Tabrfzi gives some interesting details. El...