Structural continuity in poetry: A linguistic study of five Pre-Islamic Arabic Odes 9783111558363, 9783111187808

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STRUCTURAL CONTINUITY IN POETRY A Linguistic Study of Five Pre-Islamic Arabic Odes

MARY CATHERINE BATESON

STRUCTURAL CONTINUITY IN POETRY A Linguistic Study of Five Pre-Islamic Arabic Odes

PARIS

MOUTON & CO MCMLXX

THE HAGUE

P U B L I S H E D UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE É C O L E P R A T I Q U E DES H A U T E S É T U D E S , SORBONNE, V I T H D I V I S I O N , ECONOMICS A N D SOCIAL SCIENCES SECTION

© 1970, by Mouton & Co and École Pratique des Hautes Études Printed

in

France

TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements Notation

9 11

Chapter

I.

Chapter

II.

Introduction

13

A Survey of the Form and Background of the Mu'allaqat

23

Chapter III.

The Five Poems

40

Chapter IV.

Phonological Deviation

57

Chapter

Morphological Repetition

69

Chapter VI.

The Criterion of Order

91

Chapter VII.

Conclusions: The Span of Pattern

V.

Appendix A. The Texts Appendix B. The Stylistic Maps

117 131 133

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS As an attempt to develop and apply modern methods to a field already associated with a long scholarly tradition, this study has benefited from many strands of stimulus and counsel. The manuscript was first prepared as a doctoral dissertation in the joint field of Linguistics and Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University, with the support of the Ford Foundation, and during that period I had the benefit of exploring the poems with Professor H. A. R. Gibb and the advice of Professor Joshua Whatmough on the linguistic formulations. Following the thread of my interests in more general terms, I find that I owe much of my concern both with Arabic and with linguistics to Dr. Charles Ferguson, now of the Center for Applied Linguistics, while some aspects of my effort to deal clearly with the concept of pattern were shaped by discussions with Dr. Ray L. Birdwhistell and other members of his research team at the Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute. Both my parents, Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead, have contributed greatly to the theoretical frame work of this study and to the curiosity and excitement with which it has been pursued. I would also like to acknowledge the advice of Professor Andrew Stedry, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, on the selection and application of statistical techniques; the assistance of Seton Stapleton who carried out a portion of the phoneme count; and the pleasure and benefit arising from long discussions of the Mu'allaqat with Roy Mottahedeh. I am grateful to Miss Carol Cross for her help in preparing a very difficult typescript. The revision of my original dissertation was assisted by the comments of Professor Irfan Shahid, Dr. Rhoda M6traux, and Dr. Salih al-Toma, among others. Finally, I would like to thank all those, especially my husband, J. Barkev Kassarjian, who have combined sympathy for my theoretical goals with constant patience and support through the crises of

IO

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research and composition. Remembering the many occasions when I found myself far behind schedule or confronted by problems which seemed insoluble, I find I have great affection for this manuscript which secretly enshrines so much effort and concern on the part of others. M. C. B. Lines from Ars Poetica by Archibald MadLeish are reprinted from his Collected Poems igiy-ig52 (Boston, Mass., 1952) by kind permission of the Hougthon Mifflin Co. Center for Middle Eastern Studies Harvard University Cambridge, Mass. September, 1963.

NOTATION

The following symbols were used in the phonemic transcription of the Arabic texts: bmwf0iha Z'inu waJ'ar^amu yamsina xilfaXan Q L LH D J wa?atla?uAa yanhadna min kulli K N E

m&jdami I

STRUCTURAL

74 4

5

6

w a q a f t u bihä

min

ba'di

M QK

N

fala^yaxi

'araftn

RC

B

CONTINUITY

'isrlns.

C

IN

POETRY

hijjatan

D

'

J

ddära. ba'da tawahhuml

A

fi mu'arrasi mirjalin J P GI wanu?yan kajiöwii \bawdi lam yataGallaml D C O

^add fly a. sui'an

F

/«lammä 'araftu ddära. qultu lira&'ihä R B M A C ?alä n'am sabähaw ?ayyuhä rrab'u c J Repeated items

waslaml

Maximum significant interval

3 3 S 1 2 2 3 1 1 o o S 2 2 3 2 o 1

A. root DWR B. root 'RF C. C^aCjCg j unspecialized D. C^CCg I singular E. C^CaCj ) noun forms F. C1aC2aC3iC4, quadriliteral plural G. /mi-/, nominal prefix H. /^a-/, nominal prefix I. -CjCjaCg, noun stem form J. /-an/, indefinite accusative suffix K. /-hä/, 3rd pers. fem. sing. poss. suffix L. definite article M. /-tu/ ist pers. sing. perf. vb. suffix N. /min/, " f r o m " O. /lam/, negative particle P. /fi/, " in, through" Q. /bi/, " in, b y " R. /fa/, " and, s o "

Lines linked

2-6 4-6 4-6 3-5 1-3 2-5 2-5 1-3 2-5 3-6 2-4 1-3 4-6 1-4 1-5 2-5 1-4 4-6

If each instance of anaphora is visualized as forming a link which crosses a certain number of line boundaries, and these crossings are counted, the following figures result: I. Imru'u 1-Qays Lines Anaphora

9

II. Zuhayr Lines Anaphora

6

1

2 7

3 9

4

1

2 12

3 11

4 12

6

5

5

3

6

6

6

MORPHOLOGICAL

REPETITION

75

The figure on the lower left of each line number is a rough index of the extent to which it is related backward, while the figure on the lower right is a rough index of the extent to which it is related forward: each line interval has an anaphoric index, indicated in boldface type, and these points are connected to form a curve on the stylistic maps. An examination of the examples will show that only a small number of these links are directly attributable to semantic content and this is true in most cases. An additional item of interest is that a number of the forms tied by anaphoric links stand in analogous positions in their lines. In the first example, A, C, D, F, G, K, L, and Q are all confirmed as linkages by some other feature of similarity, usually in placing—but note /habb/, " grains " and /hayy/, " tribe ". The complexity involved in dealing systematically with this aspect of the problem, to check on similar positioning in the line or parallel relationships to other recurrent items, is prohibitive, while simply noting these informally involves a great number of subjective and imprecise criteria. It is worth mentioning that a test run, where the anaphoric index of 'Antara was limited to those instances where the repetition was confirmed by at least one additional element of similarity (positional, phonological, semantic, etc.), yielded a graph somewhat erratically lower than that obtained by the standard method and only slightly more illuminating. This was reassuring, but it seemed, in the end, more valuable to adopt the more rigidly defined and objective method, assuming that whatever error crept in would be more or less even throughout the data, and would only result in a slight blurring and a more conservative evaluation of the result. The characteristics of the anaphoric index may, to a great extent, be deduced from the method by which it was obtained. a. When two contiguous lines have each a large number of components similar to those occurring in the other, they will show a high anaphoric index. E.g. /falaw la 0ala0un hunna min 'Isati lfata wajaddika lam ?ahfil mata qama 'uwwidl faminhunna sabqu l'a&ilati bisarbatin kumaytin mata ma tu'la bilma?i tuzbidi/ " For were it not for three (things) that are of the life of the youth, by your fortune, I wouldn't care when my sick-visitors got-up II so among them is anticipating the reproaching (women)

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with a ruddy (morning) drink, which, when it is topped with water, foams." „ , .. 0 Tarafa, lines 57-58 These lines are joined by an index of thirteen, some of which, of course, is provided by the following and preceding lines. They are part of the same thought and it is not surprising that the poet should produce a strong anaphoric continuity between them, but that continuity is not a direct and automatic result of the content. In addition, the syntactic relationship between the lines is very low—their constructions are not particularly parallel, so that the high anaphoric index is not produced by anaphoric links between items in the same order. This next example, by the same poet, with an anaphoric index of fourteen, shows a different situation: /satubdl laka Payyamu ma kunta jahilan waya?tika bil?axbari man lam tuzawwidi waya?tika bil?axbari man lam tabi' lahu batatan walam tadrib lahu waqta maw'idi/ " The days will show you what you were ignorant-of, and there will come to you with the news one whom you did not supply (with travelling-provisions) II and there will come to you with the news one for whom you did not buy provisions, and for whom you did not set a time of meeting. " Tarafa, lines 102-103 In this case a slightly higher anaphoric index joins two lines with strong additional links of order and construction. The differentiation between these two examples belongs to the next order of abstraction and will be examined in the following chapter, but it is important to note that where there is a high anaphoric index this tends to indicate some degree of similarity in construction, since the number of ways in which a given set of elements may be set out is limited. b. When two contiguous lines have very few components in common, the index will be low. However, since the index includes effects occurring across a gap of several lines, discontinuity between two passages will produce a more drastic effect than a single line in which the poet goes off on a tangent. When the poet establishes a pattern of morphological repetitions and then abandons it, ideally the graph of the anaphoric index descends slowly to a low point between the last line of the patterned section and the first line of another section which may be differently

MORPHOLOGICAL

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77

patterned, after which it begins to rise. However, when the poet establishes a pattern, deviates from it for a single line (or even two or three lines) and then returns to it, the graph descends somewhat, but is still high enough to indicate the linkages formed by morphemes rare enough to be anaphoric over gaps of one, two, or three lines— and then rises. In his thirteenth line, Labid digresses from his description of the departing women to go into the detailed construction of the howdahs: /min kulli mahfufin yuSillu 'isiyyahu zawjun 'alayhi killatun waqiramuha/ " eachone in an enclosed (litter) whose staves a pad covers, with a light-cloth and its woolen-cover upon it. " This line has both forward and backward anaphoric indices of two, and intrudes roughly into the anaphoric pattern of the passage. This is often the case of lines in which the poet becomes attracted by a particular technical detail of desert life—when the focus shrinks, the wider pattern tends to fall away. c. At the ends of the poem, the index falls to zero: the first line has no anaphora backwards, and the last line has no anaphora forwards, nor would it be meaningful to mark these indices on the graph. This effect also appears in the first and last three index numbers for each poem since some contribution to the index would have been possible from lines which are not present. Therefore, a rising index at the beginning of a poem and a falling index at the end are relatively inconsequential: they only serve to underline the extreme interest of such falls in the interior of the poem. d. Because the poet must work with a limited inventory of functors, there is always some incidental anaphora within the poem and the noted anaphoric index never falls below two in any of the poems. The average index is slightly below seven, and it never exceeds fifteen. e. Because of this incidental anaphora and because of the fact that there are anaphoric links crossing gaps of three or greater, it is worthwhile to examine the lines in the neighborhood of a dip, on the chance that the effect of a dip in anaphora on the index is hastened or, more commonly, delayed. An examination of the poems one by one shows that the poets differ widely in the extent to which their anaphoric patterns can be

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related to their passage structure. Each map must be examined for the following features: passages within which the graph of the anaphoric index is generally convex, showing a high degree of repetition during the passage and a lesser degree of repetition at the boundaries; single line divisions whose anaphoric index is markedly higher than that of the surrounding line divisions; passages where the anaphoric index fluctuates widely and erratically, as opposed to passages where it is generally even. Imru'u

l-Qays

The graph of the first section of this ode, lines 1-6, is convex, with a slight dip between lines 2 and 3. However, the low point of the passage is reached between lines 5 and 6, when the poet has finished with the more vivid portion, and includes an abstract and rather didactic line at the end; this line is related in content to the preceding section, but has a slightly higher anaphoric index forward, to the less organized romantic reminiscences of the poet. The romantic reminiscences, lines 7-42, begin and end with low anaphoric indices, between 6 and 7 and between 42 and 43, but none of the tentative subdivisions within this long passage show any strikingly low anaphoric index—in fact they tend to be high, as the poet strings his loose anecdotes together by reusing words and phrases. Up to line 30, when he begins a description of one of his mistresses, the graph is erratic but high; afterwards, he adopts a slightly more level pace. Over-all anaphora decreases through the length of the passage. The highest points are reached between 11 and 12 and between 23 and 24: 11 and 12 recount a single anecdote (of killing the poet's riding camel to entertain a group of women) in two lines and might be considered a very brief subsection. Then the preceding lines, 7-10, may be seen as a separate subsection describing the two women, ending, like the nasib itself, with a single summary line, 10, which has a low anaphoric index on both sides, but a slight forward orientation. From this point the curve moves at a high but even level, with a gap between 18 and 19 before the poet begins (in 19) his plea to Fatima. The second high point, at 23-24, connects two closely related lines, but there is no reason why the anaphora should then drop off at 24-25. The next major dip in the graph precedes the poet's description of one of his loves, with an elaboration of imagery not previously employed. However, the break comes, not before line 30 when they come to rest behind a dune and she

MORPHOLOGICAL

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79

inclines over him in the manner he goes on to describe, but between 30 and 31, where the description goes into full swing; grammatically, of course, line 30 belongs to this passage, but the anaphoric patterning applies to the description itself, not to the sentence or episode within which that description occurs. After a dip to an index of 5 between 38 and 39, the passage ends after 42, with another dip to 5. The index 5 is in fact the lowest point reached after the romantic reminiscences are launched with a dip to 4 between lines 6 and 7. This string of anecdotes and metaphors is not highly organized and the graph of anaphoric linkage is only related to content on a very short range and only in some cases. However, the general high tendency of the index may have some function in making this passage slightly more coherent than might otherwise appear. Lines 43-47, where the poet lapses into melancholy and all his dreams of glory in the curtained chambers are dispelled, is a perfect example of a completely convex passage; it starts from an index of 5 at 42-43 and ends at 4, reaching a peak of 12 in the center. This extreme convexity may be related to the emotion expressed in the passage. Lines 52 through 62 show a moderately convex anaphoric curve, starting at 4 and descending to 7 between 61-62 and 62-63 (and 63-64 as well). There is also a dip to 7 between 59 and 60, following line 59 which is composed of a series of noun phrases and is a break in the texture of the passage (instead of saying the camel is quick, strong, etc., the poet says the camel has such and such gaits). The anaphoric curve is jagged in this passage; it does not descend particularly at the end, as the poet goes on to another closely related aspect of the description of his horse in 63-69. The curve of 63-69, is convex, climbing slowly from 7 to 12, and then dropping to 7 again at the end, but this drop continues all the way down to 4 in the next passage, between lines 72-73. The storm scene, lines 70-81, does not develop an anaphoric pattern until the poet moves from discussing his own position as observer to the storm itself, in lines 73-81. There is no anaphoric break as the poet shifts from the action of the storm to the signs of its activity apparent the next day. There is a dip at 76, after which the curve rises again, and it is at 76 that the poet increases his emphasis on the storm's effect on particular places, rather than its motion. To summarize, all the major shifts in theme in Imru'u 1-Qays are characterized by low anaphoric indices and within all tightly organized

8o

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sections the curve on the graph has a generally convex character. However, within longer passages the poet varies the texture by introducing lines which cause moderate dips and rises in the basically convex configuration. Where the poet ends a passage with some didactic summary, the index falls off early and the summarizing line may have a slightly stronger linkage to the following than to the preceding passage. Over the long, undisciplined stretch where the poet recounts his romantic prowess, the anaphoric index reflects short-range patterns and a general tendency on the part of the poet to rely on a relatively small inventory of forms, especially in the beginning, giving the passage a general but not highly patterned continuity. Tarafa

The anaphoric curve for Tarafa is considerably less informative. It moves up and down across the stylistic map and it is only by detailed examination that any relevant configurations may be observed. The naslb, lines i-io, may be analyzed as two subsections, each of which has a convex anaphoric curve. The break comes between 7 and 8, where the poet drops the metaphor of a gazelle and shifts to that of a blossom nurtured by sun and rain; however this is not the most drastic thematic shift in the naslb, which the original analysis located at io-ii, and the drop is all the way down to an index of 4, whereas the drop between io and ii is only to 6. In the next section, the curve continues low, reaching 4 again between 13 and 14. From here it moves erratically through the whole of the camel passage, with a peak of 12 at 38-39, indicating the parallelism of these two lines at the end of the passage, but only descending to 9 after 39. In the main body of the poem the thematic motion is itself erratic. The graph begins to rise after the break, but the poet is distracted by the detail of his camel's walk (in line 44) and in the following lines he moves swiftly from subject to subject. In 55-61 he achieves a convex pattern, reaching a low of 6 after 61, and 62-67 is also convex, with 63 and 64 very closely related—two lines comparing the graves of the profligate and the miser. From 69 through 81 the curve moves in a pattern reflecting doublets and triplets loosely strung together, with only one relatively sharp break occurring at 76. The curve descends to 5 between 81 and 82. 82-86 is convex; 87-92 is

MORPHOLOGICAL

8l

REPETITION

also more or less convex, although the curve does not really begin to rise until line 90 (having started from a low of 6, it remains at 7 for three intervals). In lines 93-97, as the poet describes the kind of man he does not resemble, the curve does not represent any consistent configuration, but does indicate strong ties between 95, 96 and 97. From here it moves erratically until it rises abruptly to indicate the close parallelism between the final two lines of the poem. On the whole, Tarafa's inconsistency as he strikes here and there among his relatives, first advancing arguments as to his innocence and then boasting of his high moral character, prevents him from committing himself, in the final section, to any coherent passages. The divisions represent, for the most part, breaks, but not breaks between consistent and well-knit units of thought. These breaks are simply slight increases in inconsistency on one level or another. However, four of these brief passages may be considered more or less convex. It is surprising that the travel theme is not more clearly regular at this level, but most of its continuity evidently stems from patterns more readily analyzable on other levels. Zuhayr Zuhayr's nasib, which is in two sections, contains two convex curves of anaphora, but the first extends beyond the ending of the first section (at 6-7) to line 9. However, it has already declined from a high of 13 to 9 when it crosses the boundary between 6 and 7 at the end of the first section; the decline simply continues, to end at a point of much less obvious thematic change. The second convex curve runs from 10 to 15. 16-24, when the poet states the purpose of the poem and his praise of the peacemakers, is also convex, except for a strong dip in the index between 19 and 20. The admonition in 25-27 is convex and so is 28-32, the vivid and intense description of war. In 33-38 and the following couplet, 39-40, however, the curves become concave: these two sections have less anaphora linking member lines in the center than they have near the boundaries and in the case of 33-38 the descent to a low point at 36-37 is smooth enough so that it cannot be attributed to a single line. However, at 37 the poet suddenly introduces the sharp image of the lion of war and the passage gathers both intensity and anaphoric involution. Up to 37, the narrative describing the plotting of Husayn ibn Damdam is more a recital than a poeticizing of events. 6

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The next passage, 41-45, describing the guiltlessness of the peacemakers, starts high (at 9), continuing the rise begun after 36, and goes to 15 between 41 and 42. I t dips between 42 and 43, rises again, and then declines to 7 at the junction at 45-46. The decline continues for one more line and then 47 and 48 make a couplet. The next passage, in which the poet cites a long series of proverbs, has a convex curve with some hesitations, beginning at 49-50. These hesitations result from the introduction of slightly different constructions, intended, perhaps, to give the passage variety, as in line 53 where the poet adds an " even if " clause to his original flat statement. The downward slope of this curve continues to 59-60; 60 a n d 61 are strongly linked, and the final line addressed to a patron is almost independent, with a backward anaphoric index of only 3. An examination of these patterns shows t h a t Zuhayr tends t o run along for a line or two in a new subject before he really begins to weave the patterns necessary to impart intensity to the new theme. Thus, the downward motion of the anaphoric curve towards the end of the preceding passage is continued through t h e junction between the first and second lines of the new passage in three cases, 42-43 to 45-46, 46-47 to 48-49, a n d 49-50 to 58-59; in t h e case of 1 through 6-7, the decline continues for two more lines. This is partly due to Zuhayr's tendency to open passages with special formulas, filling portions of the first line with elements which are linked neither forward nor back: an imperative and a question in line 7, /tabassar xalili hal t a r a min 5a'a?inin .../, " Look, m y friend, do you see some litter-bornewomen...? "; an oath in line 46. Another oath, of a more expanded sort, m a y be responsible for the delayed rise of the anaphoric curve in 16 and 17. However, the pattern which is produced is in almost every case slightly more strongly linked to the preceding lines, at the end of t h e past section, t h a n to the following ones, and there is no apparent explanation for this. I n general, the anaphoric curve runs high in Zuhayr—his portentious style tends to be consistent and repetitive throughout, and varied only by excursions into elaborate and intense imagery, of which t h e description of war is t h e most expanded. Even this, however, is not strongly set off from surrounding lines—the anaphoric indices at t h e junctions on either side are 6 and 8, and most of the other low points of passages in Zuhayr are equally high.

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Labid The Mu'allaqa of Labid is almost completely unsatisfactory for this type of analysis, since unlike the other poems (whose rhyme could be supplied by many different types of words so that only the final inflection, on verbs or nouns at the end of the line, might be distorted), the Mu'allaqa of Labid has a rhyme which, besides repeating the nominative ending and the feminine pronominal suffix, can only be filled by a very small group of noun types (of which the most common are C1iC2aC3, CxaC2aC3, and ? aC 1 C 2 aC 3 ). The inclusion of links formed by repetitions of these forms across intervals based on their usual frequencies (since a reduction of these intervals would have destroyed relevant links in other poems), would have blurred the data very badly; on the other hand, omitting them means that the graph of anaphoric linkage runs low throughout the stylistic map of Labid. However, this is a valid reflection of the poet's own position: by adopting a difficult rhyme (surprisingly, much of the difficulty stems from the /-amu-/, not the /-ha/), he sacrificed, for the sake of a strong continuity running throughout the poem, much of the flexibility which would have allowed him to produce continuity on the passage level. An examination will show that Labid has sufficient flexibility in his choice of morphemes to produce occasional high anaphoric indices, but an effort to maintain these over long stretches would have produced a very stilted effect. As a result, the poet can only obtain anaphoric continuity over short stretches and the curve dips constantly. In 1-9, the first part of his naslb, the curve is generally convex, but there is a sharp dip between 4 and 5, and the curve falls off a line early. The break between 4 and 5 is attributable to the listing of different types of cloud in line 5—a specialized expansion of an idea put forward in the preceding line. The second part of the naslb, 10-19, dips at 12-13 (when the poet goes into the details of the litters), and at 16-17, s o that the dominant effect is concave. However, the poet does bring out the transitions at 9-10 and at 19-20 by following the first with an ascending index to 11-12 and preceding the second with a high index at 18-19. The transitional passage which introduces the travel theme, in which the poet praises the ability to break ties, lines 20-24, is convex. The two extended metaphors which make up the travel theme, the comparison of the camel first to a wild ass (lines 25-35) and then

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to a bereaved wild cow (lines 36-43, including lines 45-46 inserted after 39), who is afterwards hunted by archers with dogs (43-52), show very little anaphoric patterning. As in 10-19 the over-all concave pattern of 25-35 is reversed one line from the boundaries, but the passage is dominated by the dip between 27 and 28, when the poet shifts his focus from the male to both members of the pair of wild asses. The anaphoric line continues to decline slightly after 35-36 and then rises slightly and almost levels off, so that until it dips at 43-44 for the beginning of the hunt scene it may be considered virtually level. In the hunt scene, 47-48 has a high anaphoric index linking two lines describing the wild cow's initial fear and flight and this drops to 4 at 48-49 when the narrative suddenly shifts to the climax of the chase—when the archers have already despaired. The curve is convex from 54 to 56 for the transition from the travel theme to the third section of the poem. Lines 57-77 present three separate sections which might be described as convex and the low points between them correspond to shifts in the content of the poet's boasting, several of these occurring at points where the poet introduces the new boast with /wa-....-in/, " and-many-a... ". The first of these, beginning at 57, consists mainly of a boast of carousal and then declines through lines 62 and 63 and levels off, as he meanders through vague boasts of courage, but this suggests the thought of his horse and in 66-69 a second convex pattern emerges, as the description of the horse is integrated. The index at 69-70 dips all the way down to 3 and then forms a third, less well articulated curve, as the poet shifts his focus to thoughts of tribal assemblies, first for parley and then for gaming and feasting. The final passage of the poem, 78-88, in which he praises his clan, has an opening index of 4 at 77-78, and 3 at 78-79, and ends with 5 at 87-88, going relatively high in the middle. However, there are conspicuous dips at 82-83 and 84-85, and the discontinuities in the text which these reflect may be the result of some disordering of these lines; on the other hand, they may be simple variations in texture, none of them so extreme that they produce a major disruption. On the whole, the anaphoric index in this passage is lower than in the preceding one. Because of the impoverishment of the data produced by excluding the rhyme from consideration, it is worth including here a description of the distribution of /-ha/, " (of) her, it, them " throughout the poem, on the assumption that its importance in the rhyme would enhance all

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other occurrences. Appearances of /-ha/ were examined both for the final position in the first hemistich and throughout the line, /-haI closes the first hemistich in approximately one-half the lines of the naslb and in 71, 72, and 73, during the poet's boasting. In the rest of the poem, this occurs in one-eighth of all lines, /-ha/ occurs outside the rhyme in half of all lines of the poem, averages more than one occurrence per line in the naslb, and occurs six times in 70-73. Evidently, then, Labld produces a special sing-song regularity, exploiting his conspicuous rhyme. 70-73 is not an autonomous section (it should continue to 75 or 78) but the disappearance of /-ha/ may accompany a shift from the thought of gambling to the thought of hospitality. Lines 20-21, the first two lines of the camel passage, are set off from the naslb since neither contains /-ha/. 'Antara

This naslb has two sections, the first, lines 1-12, discussing the campsite and the poet's longing for his beloved and the second describing her kiss (13-19); both of these have indices which descend to 4 at the boundaries and rise to 10 in the center, with only slight discontinuities at 4-5 and at 15-16. The first of these discontinuities may be related to the poet's abruptly adressing the campsite, while the second has no immediately obvious relation to the content. The travel passage, however, does not form as interesting a configuration. The anaphoric curve gives no indication at all of being influenced by the hypothetical break at 21-22 following the anomalous couplet about a horse, or by the shift from description to narration at 27-28 after the poet has completed his involuted comparison of the camel to an ostrich, although there is a dip to 5 when he initiates the comparison. The indices at the boundaries are low (4 and 3), but the center is not consistently high, although never going below 5; thus the pattern through the whole of the travel theme is slightly convex, with a number of discontinuities which do not correspond to major thematic breaks. The next section, containing a number of different boasts, from 34 (where it opens with a reprise of the naslb) to 43 (which returns to complete the idea expressed in 34), is roughly convex, with a dip at 38-39 continuing through 39-40. This dip occurs one line before the shift from the boast of generosity to the boast of valor. 44-56, in which the poet describes his prowess as a warrior from subtly shifting points of view including a flattering description of his

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opponent, is v e r y nearly level, after rising slightly from a low point of 6 at the junction, until 53-56 when the poet describes his encounter with the enemy and slaughters him and leaves him on the battlefield. T h e lines describing the actual violence h a v e very little anaphora — a r e abrupt, with few morphological echoes to m a k e them more harmonious—but the index of anaphora rises slightly between the t w o lines t h a t sum u p the encounter and the poet's victory. T h e index at 56-57, the end of the passage, is 4. T h e next major section, 57-71, contains another reprise of the naslb, followed b y another battle scene. T h e anaphoric index rises steeply through the reprise of the naslb, to reach a height of 14 between 59 and 60, the two lines of the slave-girl's report on the result of her spying. From here on the curve declines, without any particular dip before the poet's comments about his kinsmen in 61 and 62 or between this and the battle scene itself, until it reaches 3 at the junction of 66 and 67. A f t e r 67, the poet turns his attention to the horse's response to the battle and the curve rises until it reaches 10 at 70-71 and then drops to 7 at the end of the passage. In effect, this gives t w o convex configurations with the second slightly skewed, but the division between them does not come at the point of greatest shift in content; it comes just before the poet shifts to close concentration on a particular image, which is strikingly set off as a result. A l t h o u g h line 72 does not seem particularly closely related to the poet's final words of wrath against the sons of D a m d a m , it is not part of the preceding picture either; if it is included in a single passage with the last three lines, a convex configuration results. Anaphora between lines seems to play an important role in this poem, but the poet readily departs from configurations which might be said to characterize a whole passage as coherent, using anaphora to create mood as well. In conclusion, the rises and falls of the anaphoric index in a m a j o r i t y of the passages seem to be related to the passage unit, falling near the boundaries and rising at the center. However, the poets differ in the speed with which they determine new anaphoric regularities after taking up a new subject, sometimes going several lines deep into the passage before an accumulation of echoes begins to swell the index and sometimes introducing lines in the middle of a passage which disperse the echoes and v a r y the pattern. One of the major weaknesses of the anaphoric index is that it

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generally does not indicate linkages which are accompanied by increases in morphological repetition within the single lines, so that it seemed worthwhile to measure these and see if they are in any way related to the configurations of the anaphoric index. The measurements were made without introducing any additional assumptions beyond those found necessary in determining the anaphoric index, lacking even the differential weighting introduced by the assumption that repetitions might be significant across gaps of different magnitudes. Using the original census, all repetitions within the line were noted, each repeated item being rated .5, so that if a certain item occurred twice in a line it would be rated 1., if three times, it would be rated 1.5. Accordingly, this is a computation of individual items, but all items appearing only once were omitted. B y this means, a figure was obtained for each line, referred to as the internal anaphoric index and indicated in Italic type, to distinguish it from the interlinear anaphoric index (in boldface) and the numbers of the lines themselves (in plain type). An example may clarify the application of this technique. of Tarafa has an internal anaphoric index of 8.

Line 31

jwaxaddun Âaqirtâsî Ssa^âmï wamisiaxun F A C G D E B H F C &«sibti lyamäni qaddxûm lam yuxarradi/ G D EB HA A. ß( C. D. E. F. G. H.

C 1 aC 2 C 3 , where C 2 = C 3 CjâCgâCj /-un/, nom. indef. suffix /-i/, gen. def. suffix definite article /wa-/, " a n d " /ka-/, " like, as " /-I/, a syncopated form of the suffix /-iyy/ which, added to nouns, produces adjectives, and the gen. def. suffix /—i/.

2X 2X 2X 2X 2X 2X 2X

I. I. I. I. I. I. I.

8 index of internal anaphora

" And (my camel has) a cheek like the parchment of the Syrian and an upper-lip like the leather of the Yemeni whose form is not distorted (by age). " An attempt to graph the index of internal anaphora, for comparison with the graph of interlinear anaphora, was completely unrewarding, showing no long-range configurations. However, when the lines

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with the highest internal anaphora were indicated in relation to the graph of interlinear anaphora, some pattern did emerge. The mean internal anaphora of the total corpus was estimated at 4.3, and the standard deviation at 1.4, so that X + 2s = 7.1, so 7 was taken as the minimum significant level for internal anaphora and lines with indices of internal anaphora of 7 or greater (going as high as 13) are noted on the stylistic maps. Forty-four lines are so indicated. The pattern which emerged may be described as follows : lines with high internal anaphora appear singly in twenty-six cases—that is, where the lines on either side of them have internal indices lower than 7. In all but five cases, the outstanding lines occurred at a point where the graph of interlinear anaphora was either descending or, in a few cases, level. That means that these lines were characterized by an interlinear index of anaphora backward which was greater than, or equal to, their index of anaphora forward. Examples (from 'Antara): Line number Interlinear index Internal index

3

9

Line number Interlinear index Internal index

26

Line number Interlinear index Internal index

73

9

10

4 8.5 27 7.5 74 8

5

7

8

5

28

75

The five exceptions to this rule occur at Imru'u 1-Qays, line 73, Tarafa, lines 38 and 41, Zuhayr, line 38, and 'Antara, line 58. In the case of Imru'u 1-Qays, there is another high index in 75, after an interval of only one line, so this may be considered almost a pair, but in other cases no obvious reason for the exceptions was found. The remaining instances were grouped in six groups of two lines each and three groups with three lines each, and in each case the grouped lines were closely related in content and occurred at the high point of a convex curve in the graph of the index of interlinear anaphora, the first line showing a higher index forward than backward, and the last reversing this. In the triplets, the center line sometimes resembled the first, and sometimes the second. The following examples are from Zuhayr;

MORPHOLOGICAL

REPETITION

Line number Interlinear index Internal index Line number Interlinear index Internal index Line number Interlinear index Internal index

89

10

28

11

11 8.5 29

7

6

31

10

9

47 7

10

48 9.5

13

9

7 30

8

7 46

12

13

9

32

7 8

49

Zuhayr and Tarafa have the greatest number of lines with high internal anaphora. All of the three-line groups appear in Zuhayr, as do three of the couplets. The description of war has one three-line group and the passage of proverbs has a whole series of two- and three-line groups, only a few lines apart. In lines with high internal anaphora, high interlinear anaphora is usually compounded within the line, but where the high internal index is in a single line, it represents a tying off of threads still hanging and the anaphora subsequently decreases. In Labld, internal anaphora never exceeds 6 and the lines that reach 6 have no conspicuous features in common with one another. These results are particularly interesting because they reflect a major syntactic feature of Arabic poetry. The prohibition of enj ambement operates in such a way that extremely few lines are dependent on some subsequent line for syntactic completion, but many are dependent on previous lines, containing enumerations of something already mentioned or subordinate clauses; this has the effect that the flow of poetry may be cut off at almost any point without producing anomalies of grammar. In a group of lines where the first contains the main clause (or in the next most likely case, a long temporal clause), while the second is an expansion or elaboration of the first, related by high interlinear anaphora, it is not surprising that the second tends to be composed of smaller units which favor greater internal anaphora. This may be observed to some extent by studying the specific cases— it is not an explanation of the majority of the examples, but another aspect of the data which seems to be related. In conclusion, a great deal may be learned about the pacing of Arabic poetry from an examination of repeated morphological items, within

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and between lines. Some of the data gained in this manner may be explained by referring to semantic content— consistent use of the same tense or pronouns, as well as repeated lexical items—but it is striking that in drawing on his inventory of morphemes whose semantic content is not systematically related to that of the passage, the poet tends to repeat forms in such a way as to impart a repetitive unity to many passages, giving them much of the same continuity as is supplied by phonological deviations. Morphological continuity, however, may be discerned to greater or lesser extent in more than half of the passages and so has a more conspicuous function than phonological distortion. On the other hand, the much greater number of categories and smaller number of instances means that the anaphoric index is more useful as a visual tool than as a statistical one, especially since the different morphological units are not strictly comparable. A graph drawn by plotting interlinear anaphora, with internal anaphora indicated wherever relevant, is a simple, visual demonstration of a multitude of complex relationships. The obvious next step is to endeavor to find some way of defining the nature of those relationships, rather than simply summing them, and to do this the criterion of order must be introduced.

i . For the distinction between functors and contentives, cf. CHARLES F. HOCKETT, A Course in Modern Linguistics (New York, 1958), p. 264.

CHAPTER VI

THE CRITERION OF ORDER The statement that all of pattern may be derived from regularity and all of regularity from repetition gives the immediate impression of oversimplification. This is because the leap from repetition to regularity involves the recognition of a multitude of different kinds of relationships between repetitions, besides the simple cumulative relations dealt with so far. These may be defined in terms of order. The simplest repetition, aa, becomes a regularity when correlated with another repetition, bb, and the simplest way in which it may be correlated is a ba b (since aabb would not constitute a regularity without some frame). It can, however, be related in the way we call symmetrical, abba, where the relationship between a and b is repeated in inverse order. Symmetry is only the first of a vast number of complexities that may be introduced into the concept of repetition at the point where it is redefined as regularity; a glance at a list of rhyme schemes or at the relationship between different lines of ornamentation on the edge of decorated pottery will yield rich examples for further degrees of confusion. Pottery decoration might have a pattern like the following one, in lines laid side by side: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa bccbccbccbccbccbccbccbccbccbccbccbc cbccbccbccbccbccbccbccbcc bccbccbccb deffeddeffeddeffeddeffeddeffeddeffe Each line is relatively easy to describe, but that is because they are separated. Suppose they appeared as follows (read in vertical columns): abcdacbeaccfabcfacbe, etc., but without the easy clue of the letters of the alphabet, and suppose further that a large quantity of extraneous material were included in between, including forms apparently comparable with a, b, c, d, e and / but irrelevant to the pattern.

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A d d t o this t h e fact that the poet is far from rigid in his stylistic patterns, picking t h e m up and dropping them at different points, and w e h a v e a considerably simplified model of the difficulty of introducing the criterion of order t o the study of poetic patterning. The most drastic oversimplification, of course, lies in t h e fact that the edge of a pottery bowl is flat clay until the pattern is added, while the raw material of t h e poet is already patterned b y t h e language. A consideration of the techniques for the description of cumulative repetition applied t o the material up t o this point will show that, here and there, t h e y h a v e characteristics which throw light on some of these problems. T o begin with, nowhere in this study, except in the area of internal anaphora, h a v e repetitions as simple as aa been discussed. All the repetitions discussed h a v e been of the order baba, with b stable throughout the data and noted as II, namely, the division between lines. However, the anaphoric curve involves n o more than an accumulation of repetitions of this relatively simple type, whose relationships to one another are not explored, and the same is true of the phonological descriptions. Furthermore, the division between phonology and morphology represents a partial breakup of the confusion into lines resembling t h e separate levels of decoration on the pottery, so that a further study on t h e level of s y n t a x might extract still another line of p a t t e r n i n g . 1 I n addition, each level makes some statement about t h e order of the repetitions which were dealt with only cumulatively on the previous level: the statement that t h e morpheme /?i5a/ is repeated in t w o consecutive lines, a simple llalla statement on t h e morphological level, becomes a WabcdWabcd statement on the phonological level. However, m a n y of the most obvious ordered phonological repetitions, e.g. /'ala/, " on ", and /?ala/, " Oh! " in t w o consecutive lines, giving Wabcdl ebcd on the phonological level, do not constitute a repetition on t h e morphological level, and the problem of systematically extracting all t h e factors of order on the phonological level which are untouched b y morphological analysis is bewildering. This leaves the problem of complex systematic relationships between rows, as for example in the case of the second and third row of the pottery analogy technically called " slide s y m m e t r y ". The addition of a line of analysis on the syntactic level makes it possible t o extract a n e w level of information and to throw some further light on ordered aspects of the cumulative repetitions in the morphology, but syntactic analysis operates under a considerable

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disadvantage. Whereas the phonological and morphological systems of Arabic have been relatively thoroughly analyzed from a structural point of view, only some portions of the syntax have been adequately described, whereas the remainder has been analyzed primarily in terms of logical and philosophical categories, so that it is not yet possible to undertake an extensive analysis of syntactic repetitions in Arabic poetry. There has been a considerable amount of work done on ordered repetition that is not directly defined in terms of particular syntactic systems, and this offers the possibility of extracting a general method which might be applied to Arabic data. Some of the most perceptive work that has been done in analyzing poetry has had to do with small numbers of ordered repetitions of syntactic units with complete or partial morphological identity of components, and different types of repetition have been classified—-much of the traditional vocabulary for discussing poetry has this purpose. Such discussions have dealt primarily with primitive or folk traditions, and some of these have already been cited. 2 A really excellent classificatory system has been developed for Sanskrit, by J. Gonda.3 However, these systems are only adequate for the discussion of gross repetitions which are very rare in pre-Islamic poetry: nowhere in this sample is a whole line repeated, and in only one case (Tarafa, line 80) is a hemistich repeated with only a single change. Lines 38-39 or 102-103 of Tarafa's ode represent the greatest degree of gross repetition that the Arabs resort to with any frequency, and even examples like this occur only a score of times in the corpus. In general, syntactic repetition in Arabic seems much more formulaic, involving, with some exceptions, only those morphological repetitions which occur as inflections within word boundaries, and only a few of these, and tends to occur in portions of lines rather than whole lines. Nevertheless, the analytic frames mentioned above, if slightly refined, would be perfectly adequate in a technique oriented towards the impressionistic collection of examples of repetition, which might then be described and classified. They are clearly not adequate for the study of a whole corpus, where haphazard collection of txamples cannot provide a rigorous basis for the correlation of dispositions, within the poem, of different types of phenomena. Although such repetitions have occasionally been mentioned, where they seemed relevant to the explication of regularities on some other level, a far more effective search technique was needed before any such data

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could be recorded on the stylistic maps, implying the assertion that whereas a defined phenomenon occurs in particular lines, it almost certainly does not occur significantly in others. In addition, the other techniques used in this study are such that they describe regularities on the passage level, so that repetitions which could not be discussed in relation to more than two or three lines could not be directly correlated with the consistent or interlocking regularities at the phonological and morphological levels. An effective method for applying the criterion of order had to be designed to " cover " the material, generalizing the observation of isolated details. Every complete syntactic structure which appears in this poetry may be taken to be a part of Arabic syntax, although some sequences may be extremely rare in prose or limited to poetry, and an incomplete but relatively broad description of Arabic syntax could be formulated on the basis of this sample of poetry. The task is to isolate syntactic phenomena which seem to have a special, temporary, privileged role within the passage, constituting slight deviations from the over-all structure of the corpus; some of these can be discovered even without a final formulation of the over-all description. As in the case of the vowels, a syntactic distortion (or rather specialization, since we are dealing in small numbers) need not be systematically and elegantly related to the patterning of the whole system. The methodology used here is based on a method called tagmemics, first proposed by Kenneth Pike, and further developed by Robert Longacre and others.4 Tagmemics is one of the alternative methods of syntactic analysis in use in American linguistics today and has so far been applied mainly to American Indian languages and occasionally to Greek and Hebrew because of their interest to missionaries. It is unidimensional, in the sense that it focusses on one syntactic level (clause, phrase, sentence) at a time (unlike e.g. Immediate Constituent analysis), and is purely descriptive as opposed to generative, without going very deeply into the hierarchal relationships and intricacies of an unfolding syntax. Tagmemics endeavors to explicate the grammatical structure of utterances by analytical formulas, and has turned out to be a highly practical method of introducing an analysis of simple aspects of order in this study. The larger units discussed here are somewhat gross as a description of Arabic syntax, but they offer a framework for statements dealing with repetitions of smaller morphological units, arranged in a particular order. Tagmemics usually begins its analysis at the clause level; within

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the syntactic hierarchy phrase and sentence level phenomena may be brought in as special aspects of clauses. This clause-centered approach is particularly applicable because, although some passages contain only a single sentence, all of them may be subdivided into a number of clauses, and these clauses are quite readily comparable to each other; the clause level provides a sufficient number of comparable units so that it is possible to speak in terms of repetition. The components of a clause are treated in terms of composition and function, where each kind of component may be functionally equivalent to larger forms including further, subordinate clauses, but where hierarchical clause-to-clause relations are not discussed. This allows for the isolation of a small number of building blocks, combining in a widely varied but finite number of ways, including almost all the the material. The prohibition of enjambement means that clauses tend to be complete in a line and the completion of the final clause of a sentence or of a passage almost always corresponds to a line boundary. The decision to deal on the clause level allows for the following kinds of coverage: the basic components of the clause are various types of phrase, but simpler forms may be treated as minimal representations of phrases, e.g. nouns and pronouns are minimal representations of noun phrases. Larger forms, having clauses as components, are analyzed as far as possible as clauses, treating the internal subordinate clauses as maximal representations of phrases. On the other hand, there are some components of the sentence which are without clause membership; e.g. /'aqarta ba'írl yd mrcfia Iqaysi fanzili/, " you have hocked my camel, 0 Imru'u l-Qays, so dismount " (Imru'u l-Qays, 1. 14), contains two clauses and one element which must be analyzed on the sentence level. The same is true of the many particles used to introduce clauses and of oath forms, e.g. ¡la'amruka ma jarrat 'alayhim rimahuhum | dama bni nahlkin.../, " By your life, their lances did not cause-to-flow on them the blood of Ibn Nahlk... " (Zuhayr, 1. 41). There are also very occasional components which belong neither to the clause nor to the sentence, but possibly only to the passage or to the poem as a whole, and these are units which occur occasionally in dialogue, fragments of sentences whose brokenness is part of their stylistic value. Except for this last category, however, almost all of the elements which cannot be assigned some type of clause membership are short enough to be dealt with separately and have been covered in the morphology

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in terms of the particles by which they are introduced. Oaths and direct address, especially, have important functions in separating passages, and this may even be related to their non-membership in any clause : these are indicated separately on the stylistic maps. Tagmemics involves the discovery and description of tagmemes, as units of grammatical arrangement based on the correlation between a slot (a grammatical position or function : a role in a sentence, e.g. subject) and the class of mutually substitutable items which can occur in (fill) that slot. 5 The clause level tagmemes of Classical Arabic are, to give a very brief outline of their most usual forms: 6 Slot

Class

V (verb)

filled by verb or verb phrase (including negation, adverbial particles, etc.). S (subject) filled by noun, noun phrase, or pronoun. O (object) filled by noun, noun phrase, or clause. C (complement) filled by noun, noun phrase, clause or by a phrase introduced by a preposition (A-R). A-R (axis-related) Arabic has a number of possible constructions introduced by prepositions. Although these have different properties and seem to demand setting up two or three separate tagmemes in a full analysis, they have been lumped together in this analysis. T (temporal) filled by A-R phrase, as above, noun, noun phrase, or clause. Again, the behavior of T is complex and it seems appropriate in this analysis to treat it as a separate tagmeme with almost unlimited freedom of movement. These tagmemes combine to form the syntactic structures at the level being studied, in this case clauses; whole clauses are called hypertagmas, and when they are classified into clause types these are labelled hypertagmemes. The hypertagmemes of one level function on the next level up, the sentence level, as tagmas, or may be identified as descriptively significant tagmemes. A hypertagmeme is composed of optional (±) and obligatory ( + ) tagmemes, and the statement of a hypertagmeme is the statement of a certain basic order in relation to which possible variations are described. There are two basic hypertagmemes which emerge clearly from this data, 7 characterized by the presence of -)-C in one and -(-V in the other.

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97

T y p e I: + S ± A - R + C T y p e II: + V ± S ± A - R ± O

± T ± T

The axis-related tagmemes are shown in those positions which most readily serve to suggest their range of variation. There are complex rules governing the alternative orders in which these tagmemes may occur and the order is partly determined b y syntactic rules on the sentence level and partly by stylistic preference. Not surprisingly, S and V are closely linked and when both are present they are usually contiguous, while O is often pushed away. It is also worth noting that oblique pronominal endings are morphologically affixed to the verb and to different axes and that the Arabic verb often stands without any stated subject. Type

I:

walguda?i

/ka?anna

durd-ra?si S tnigzalil

Imujaymiri

gudwatan \ mina T A-R

ssayli

falkatu C "As-though the peaks of the head of al-Mujaymir, (at) morning, because-of the flood and the wrack, were the whirl of a spindle. " (Imru'u 1-Qays, 1. 78) S (noun phrase) T (noun) A - R (noun phrase) C (noun phrase)

T y p e II: jyazillu Igulamu Ixiffu 'an

sahawatihij

V S A-R " The light youth slides from his back " (ibid., 1. 57) V (verb) S (noun phrase) A - R /waPalqd bisahraPi Igabiti ba'a'ahuj V A-R ' O " A n d it threw on the plain of al-Ghabit its baggage. " (ibid., 1. 79) V (verb) A - R (noun phrase) O (noun) These patterns appear with a multitude of variants, some of which are probably highly deviant and limited to poetry, but that aspect of the problem will not be pursued here. It is more to the point that this approach does give a w a y of examining line after line of Arabic poetry, referring each element to very simple categories and looking for regularities. In practice, the whole group of A - R tagmemes seem to have much the same stylistic effect, and distinctions are noted only where they seem relevant. Although there may be additional hypertagmemes in Arabic, these serve very well as points to which to refer each clause that occurs, since in many passages regularities character7

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ize only one clause type or different statements have to be made about the stylistic behavior of each. More important, the poet may introduce variety or break the continuity by switching from a long series of one and introducing a clause of the other kind. Type I I is more frequent than Type I. A consideration of this technique makes it possible to specify the kinds of information about the poetic patterning of passages which this method may be expected to reveal: 1 . Clause-level tagmemics deals with words, not with morphemes. However, the arrangement of a given set of morphemes to form words is one aspect of the grammar with which the poet can scarcely tamper: the poet has virtually no choice of the order in which morphemes are combined in words and the statement of a morpheme's presence is automatically a statement of its order within the word. Therefore, crucial stylistic decisions in morpheme order are made across word boundaries, not within them. When some type regularly has a single morpheme as marker, this will be noted. 2. Dealing with prepositions as axes and with particles as parts of verb phrases (or sometimes noun phrases) means that these, too, which must always stand in a set relationship or order to the noun or verb, are set aside. It is still necessary to note whether the class corresponding to a poetically patterned slot includes repeated phrasal representations, in order to say whether these elements are present as an aspect of the pattern: their ordering follows without demanding explicit statement. 3. The omission of patterns of subordination is balanced by the fact that subordinate clauses are marked by inflection and by particles, as well as by order. Since these other elements are covered, with their implied functions, in the morphology, order may be isolated here, and its repetitions due to varying morphological causes examined separately. 4. E v e r y clause in a passage is either a main clause (sometimes a complete sentence) or a subordinate clause, which means that it is the expansion of some tagmeme of the main clause. As a result, three types of coherence in groups of lines have been identified and described. a. A series of lines may contain clauses which are members of the same sentence (since most Arabic sentences begin with particles,

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99

it has been necessary to say that without some accompanying grammatical dependence, the presence of /fa-/ and /wa-/ cannot link two clauses into the same sentence). These linkages are noted in the minimum number of instances: only for lines which must be joined. As a result, all but one of the clauses of every sentence are taken as subordinate. b. A series of clauses, which may be either independent of each other or subordinated to each other, may have similar slot-class correlations (e.g. object slots filled exclusively by clauses), slot sequences, or even slot-(class-)line correlations. That is, they may all have a common or repeated element which may be highly abstract. c. A series of clauses may be repeated elaborations of a single tagmeme of the main clause of the sentence; if the repeated tagmeme is axis-related, the axis is normally not repeated. In this case, the first type of coherence, listed above, must also always be true. Elaborations on the phrase level usually accompany elaborations on the clause level. All of these types of coherence may occur simultaneously. 5. This technique is systematic and applied equally to the whole corpus, but it is no more exhaustive at finding regularities in order on the morphological level than the technique used in studying the morphology was at finding regularities of order on the phonological level. However, wherever regularities occur on this level, they will correspond to some need to reevaluate the coterminous cumulative regularities on the morphological level, giving them some increment of significance since they may show ordered as well as cumulative repetitions. Clearly, the points where the index of anaphora rises highest may not all have corresponding regularities in order. On the phonological level, in dealing with a great many data, each regular deviation which was suggested by the data was subjected to a significance test. On the morphological level, regularities at first suggested limits of significance, and then these were made into strict conventions, e.g. no repetition was considered significant across an interval greater than three lines. In this chapter, however, the patterns are scarce enough and the data is reviewed in sufficiently simple terms so that in the case of each regularity it is possible to describe the basis for the decision that it is significant. For each

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repeated sequence, if it is not uniform throughout the passage, the exceptions are noted and discussed. If the sequence is specialized enough so that it occurs infrequently through the poem, the ten lines on either side of the characterized passage were scanned, and any instances of occurrence of the marked feature, even though they were considered non-significant, have been detailed. For regularities which simply consist of the poet's limiting himself to one of several common alternative sequences, all of which are frequently used in the poem, I will note the frequency of exceptions to the pattern which occur immediately outside of the passage it describes. A few regularities which are of doubtful significance but do seem, impressionistically, to play some role, are noted on the stylistic maps with a wavy line, while the extent of clearly established regularities is noted with a solid bar. Where several regularities are noted in a passage, these are all indicated on the maps. Imm'u

l-Qays

1-6

In this opening passage, which has a phonological deviation, a highly coherent and stylized theme, and a number of morphological echoes between lines, no syntactic coherence could be located—on the contrary, the syntax is complex, varied and concentrated, and although a few patterns may be suggested, they are not precise enough to indicate on the maps. There are several pseudo-enjambements, adding extra intricacy: /qifa nabki min 6ikra habibin wamanzili| bisiqti lliwa bayna ddaxuli fahawmalill fatudiha falmiqrati lam ya'fu rasmuha/ " Halt [you two] and let us weep for the memory of a beloved and an abode at the edge of the dune's winding, between al-Dakhul and Hawmal II and Tudih and al-Miqrat, whose trace is not erased... " (Lines i and 2) More complex in its effect is the transition between lines 3 and 4: /...kaPannahu habbu fulfulill ka?annl gadata lbayni yawma tahammalu| lada samurati lhayyi naqifu hanzali/, " . . . as-though it (the oryx dung on the ground of the deserted camp at the time of composition) were grains of pepper. II (In the past, it was) as-though I, the morning of parting, the day they loaded, by the acacias of the tribe, were a splitter of colocynth (with my eyes watering). "

THE

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IOI

This is v e r y similar to an effect which occurs in the storm section. T h e only syntactic feature of this passage which seems to produce some regularity is a special slot-class correlation of A - R noun phrases in lines 1-3 and the T noun phrase in line 4. E a c h A - R phrase contains a conjunctive noun phrase, distributed with conspicuous balance through the lines: /min Sikra habibin wamanzili/, " for memory of a beloved and an abode " and /bayna ddaxuli fahawmali/, " between al-Dakhul and H a w m a l " occupy parallel positions at the end of each hemistich in line 1; /fatudiha falmiqrati/, the two additional place names depending on the earlier preposition, and /min janubin wasam?ali/, " of North and South-wind, " are symmetrical, at the beginning and end of line 2, while /fl 'arasatiha waql'aniha/, " in their courts and their hollows " is split symmetrically between the two hemistichs at the center of line 3. This is a relatively common construction (although the only unmediated instance in the next ten lines is in line 12), but if it can be assigned any cumulative effect in this passage, it m a y be said to produce a regularity which is broken in line 4 where a T tagmeme, which might h a v e been A - R but is not (T has proved a useful tagmeme in this analysis, but would not be adequate for a description of the s y n t a x per se\ it appears with and without axis and moves quite freely in both forms), is doubled. Thus /gad at a lbayni y a w m a tahammalu/, " (on) the morning of parting, the d a y they loaded " , is stressed because two separate patterns lead up to it, and it breaks both: in the case of the /ka?anna/-/ka?annl/" as-though " , " as-though I " parallel, the T tagmeme makes it necessary to wrench these a p a r t — a s the poet is drawn from contemplation of the sad present to the even sadder p a s t — t o recognize that the t w o clauses are not closely tied, but are strictly separate. T gets the emphasis that allows it to p l a y this role because it follows a series of similar doublets, breaking the regular precedent they h a v e established b y lacking both axis and conjunction. This sort of tension producing lapse is probably one aspect of any instance of regularity, but it is difficult to define in most cases. A few examples will be suggested. y-22 U p to line 18, this is really a passage b y default. T h e poet makes a number of false starts, without ever going far enough into one to develop a coherent passage style, and the continuity depends more on short-range morphological links. Lines 1 1 and 13 are partially parallel, beginning T V , specifically /wayawma CaCaCtu/, " and the

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day I — ed without really developing, and this sets off the beginning of line 18, which introduces a new passage with /wayawman/, " and a day ". This passage, 18-22, contains a speech by the poet to his heartless mistress and lines 18-21 each end with + V + 0 ± A-R + V II: /wa?alat halfatan lam tahallali/, " and swore an oath that was not conditioned "; /wa?in kunti qad ?azma'ti surmi fa?ajmili/, " or if you had determined-on my severance, then act-decently! "; /mahma ta?muri lqalba yaf'ali/, " whatever you command the heart, it will carry-out "; /fasulll 0iyabi min Qiyabiki tansali/, " then slip your garments from my garments (so) they will slip off ". This is relatively rare—verbs occur in line-final position only eight other times in this poem— since the end of the line is most often taken up with a metaphor or some detail of time and place. However, an identical sequence appears in line 14, so that both it and 17, which is only partly similar, may also be related. Line 27 has the only other linefinal verb within 10 lines. Since O and A-R are closely linked in line 21—/6iyabi min Qiyabiki/, " my garments from your garments "— this emphasizes rather than disturbs the sequence. In line 22 this pattern is abandoned, bringing into very sharp focus the phrase that ends the following line, which would normally be quite inconspicuous, pushed to the very end: /wama 8arafat 'aynaki ?illa litadribl bisahmayki fl ?a'sari qalbin muqattali/ " For your eyes did not flow except so you (could) sport with your [two] arrows in the ten-fragments of a slain heart. " Evidently in this poet's day the image was a fresh and striking one and he placed it carefully as the climax of the passage, in a position where he had carefully focussed the auditor's attention and expectation of something else. 23-30 This passage has little apparent syntactic coherence. It is set off from the previous passage by an initial verb in 24,26, 27, 28, and 30. Initial verbs occur, in the sections scanned, only in line 15, and then in a cluster, 38-40. There are few stated subjects in the passage. 33-37 This passage gains most of its coherence from the unfolding of one long sentence, in which the subordinate elements are not particularly

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similar to each other but gain their similarity from their dependence on repetitions of the same A-R tagmeme of the main clause. Since this is the first example of such a construction, I am including it in full, with the expansions of the single tagmeme in Italics. The camel guards herself ¡binádiratin min wahsi wajrata mutfili wajidin

kajidi rri?mi laysa

bifahiSin

?iñá hiya nassathu wala bimu'attali wafar'in

yazlnu lmatna Pasmada

fáhimin

VaBiOin kaqinwu nnaxlati lmuta'aOkili/ (Line 36 contains an expanded description of her hair.) jwakaSbin

latifin

kaljadlli

muxassarin

wasdqin ka?anbübi ssaqiyyi lmu&allali/

" .. .with a glance from an antelope of Wajra with-young and (with) a neck like the neck of the white-antelope, without grossness when she displays it nor unornamented,

II and (with)

a lock

which decks the back, jet black-hair, luxuriant as the clustered bunch-of-dates of the date-palm II (36 omitted) and

(with)

a delicate

waist like the leather thong,

slender,

and (with) a leg like the stalk of the overshadowed waterplant. " (33-37) 38-40

In contrast, lines 38-40 all begin with verbs and are all independent, and lines 39 and 40 are partially parallel. 41 and 42 are separate with their two hemistichs parallel and close off the passage. 52-62

This passage is somewhat similar to 33-37, with the exception that there is considerable regularity in the subordinate clauses and the reiterations of the A-R tagmeme expressing means throughout this whole long sentence are all adj ectival. The pattern which emerges in the subordinate clauses is perfectly usual—but exceptions to it occur outside this passage in 41, 46, 63, 65, 66, etc. Outside the passage, this formula describes about one-third of all Type II clauses. Among the subordinate clauses, all non-temporal Type II clauses may be described by the following formula : ± T + V ± [ + S — O] + A-R, where T is always filled by a clause (not covered by this formula), and A-R indicates any axis-related tagmeme; ± [ + S — O] will be seen to indicate that one of the two, S or O, is always present.

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but never both. There is one exception to this in line 57 where ± [ + S — 0 ] is missing, in the second clause, but this clause is very close in meaning to the first clause and gives the illusion of a complete parallel. Examples: /?i9a stadbartahu sadda farjahu bidafin/, " When you look-from-behind-at him, he stops his gap with an ample (tail)... ", line 60; /yazillu llibdu 'an hali matnihi/, " the feltpad slips from the middle of his back ", line 54. Type I clauses are introduced to break this pattern in lines 55 and 59, and the passage ends with two Type I lines, 61 and 62. An interesting but not very significant slot-class correlation is that all C of Type I clauses, if they are not A-R, and some S, are noun phrases of the same type, the very frequent /?idafa/ " construct " form: /ka?anna htizamahu .... galyu mirjalin/, " as-though his snorting.... were the boiling of a cauldron ", line 55. This S is the only one that is not a construct, and it has a possessive suffix which has much the same effect in Arabic grammar. This pattern is varied outside the passage in 44 and 64. Because of the currency of the form, this would not be significant were it not driven home so firmly in line 59: /lahu ?aytala zabyin wasaqa na'amatin wa?irxa?u sirhanin wataqrlbu tatfuli(n)/ " he has the flanks of a gazelle and the legs of a she-ostrich and the canter of a jackal and the lope of a young-fox. " These forms are echoed in line 61 by /madaka 'arusin/, " the poundingstone of a bride, " and /salayata hanzali/, " bruising-stone (for) colocynth ", and in line 62 by /dima?a lhadiyati/, " the blood of the leaders (of the herd) " and /'usaratu hinna?in/, " juice of henna ". Lines 61 and 62 form a pair of partly parallel lines, both beginning /ka?anna/, and it is interesting that this is echoed in the beginning of the next section, /fa'anna/, " then there appeared ". There is no violent break at the end of this section, but it is closed off by the two similar lines. 63-69 This passage is almost totally composed of Type I I clauses, with a V tagmeme at the beginning of every line, in the perfect (there is only one line-initial V in the preceding section in 57, and that is in the imperfect). The 0 tagmeme never occurs, although it is very frequent in the next section. Three lines, 65, 66, 68, end with verb

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clauses similar to those noted in 7-22 (the remaining five of those that were mentioned there do not seem to occur in any significant configurations), and every line is a complete sentence. There is a break at line 68, which is the first line with a clause break at the center and is at the same time introduced by /wa-/ and not /fa-/ as are the verbs that open all the preceding lines. 68 and 69 close the passage, referring to the night after the hunt, each with its hemistichs parallel and each stressing time through the verbs, not through T tagmemes. jo-81

In lines 70-76, the basic sequence is V O, which expands as ± S + V + 0 ± A-R (always a goal or a location). S is rare, although it appears outside this passage in 61, 62, 63, 65, 67, 68 and more, and never appears as the normal, clear subject of the verb (in line 75, the subject is introduced by /min/, " some of, from "). Aside from line 75, every verb has a direct object (in the previous passage there were no direct objects); the desert and the desert towns are crushed and littered, but the storm, which is the implied subject, is never mentioned. Lines 70-72 are syntactically rather rough, as the poet describes the excited speculation when he and his friends sight the oncoming storm. In line 77, as the picture is completed, he introduces the metaphor of the stormswept mountain as an " elder of the people " in a line with considerable repetition between the hemistichs, beginning with /ka?anna/, thus repeating the trick he used in the naslb; line 78, beginning with /ka?anna/ also seems to be parallel, but he is again shifting times and talking about the next day. T, coming at the end of the first hemistich of line 78, /gudwatan/ " (at) morning ", stresses this position which is used again for T in line 80 and for the noun " evening ", part of a noun phrase referring back to the storm, in line 81. All the Type I clauses which occur in this passage occupy whole lines, alternating strongly with the Type II lines in 73, 77, 78, 81. Line 80 and 81, which end the poem, are partially parallel clauses, beginning with the familiar /kaPanna/. Tarafa

1-10 There does not seem to be any repeated syntactic pattern in this naslb—instead of limiting himself, the poet exploits all of the available resources. It is interesting to note that in lines 1-3, in the immediate

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vicinity of the line he borrows from Imru'u 1-Qays, he duplicates the effect created by the other poet in lines 3 and 4, in a considerably more diffuse form, and without building up to Imru'u 1-Qays' effect. He ends line 1, /kabaql lwasmi fi zahiri lyadi II (inserts a whole line from Imru'u 1-Qays) II ka?anna huduja malikiyyati gudwatan | xalaya saflnin/, " (the remnants, visible to the poet as he stands there in the present, are) like the remains of tattooing on the back of the hand as-though the litters of the Maliki camels (at) morning were hulks of ships ". Except for this one example, Tarafa does not employ the T tagmeme in this passage. 11-18

Lines 11-13 are held together in one sentence, expanded by the insertion of modifiers of the A-R tagmeme expressing means, and nouns in apposition to it, which stand at the beginning of 12 and 13. A pattern emerges in 14-16, partially repeated in 17, and completely broken by line 18 which ends the passage. Lines 14, 15 and 16 all begin and end the first hemistich with verbs in the same person, e.g. /tarl'u ?ila sawti lmuhlbi watattaql | bi&i xusalin.../, " she responds to the voice of the herder and defends-her-honor with a (tail) with tufts ", line 16. This configuration recurs only seven times in the poem (in lines 25, 43, 54, 65, 68, 70 and 81), and in several cases the verbs are in different persons, with a strong break between them. In line 17 this pattern is still not completely abandoned, and the verb at the end of the first hemistich is retained. Line 18 breaks the pattern with a line lacking a verb—unless one supposes that the strong verb pattern of the preceding lines is what makes it possible for the poet to do without one here, in what should be a Type II sentence like the ones that go before it. Certainly 18 should not be taken as too strong a break, since 17 prefigures the passage to follow by focussing on a precise description of a part of the camel's anatomy—particularly since it describes a doubled part, using the dual. 19-37 This passage depends on the coherence of one long sentence, 19-37, with 24-28 evidently inserted in the middle. The non-inserted sections are all conjunctive expansions of the subject of a Type I clause, whose complement is repeated in 19 and 22, with a large

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number of subordinate clauses, most of them short and belonging to Type II. In the inserted passage, the same type of structure is used, with adjectives modifying an unstated subject. However, the stated subjects of the main part of the passage are all parts of the camel's body, primarily natural pairs, e.g. /lahá faxiSani.../," she has thighs... " line 19, while in the inserted parts the adjectives must modify the whole camel. It is possible that 24-28 are later additions to the poem, but there is one factor that provides a modicum of syntactic continuity through the whole passage, in addition to the phonological continuity, and that is the presence at the end of nearly every line of an A-R tagmeme, usually locative. This occurs in all but six lines, most of them near the end, and is especially conspicuous in 24-28. The type of rhyme used is conducive to this, but it is significant that these phrases are all long, taking up at least half of the second hemistich, and thus pushing the weight of the sentence forward. Typically, they are indefinite noun-adjective phrases: /bida?yin munaddadi(n) /, " to ordered side-ribs ", line 20 ; /lisawtin munaddadi (n)/, " to a calling voice ", line 34; but /fl zahri qardadi(n)/, " on the back of a rocky hill ", line 27. Completely comparable line-endings occur three times in the ten lines preceding this passage, and twice in the ten lines that follow, and since this is not consistent throughout the passage it must be considered a marginal pattern. 38 and 39 are partially parallel, internally and with each other, and end the travel theme. 40-103 After the travel theme, this type of syntactic analysis cannot hope to produce very conspicuous results for Tarafa because the poet's style is fragmented, shifting from subject to subject in expressing his general dissatisfaction. However, there are short sections which seem highly regular, especially when contrasted with the section immediately following. Lines 46 and 47 have an internal parallelism which sets them off from line 48: line 46 has V (phrase) A-R (locative) V II V (phrase) A-R (locative) V, and line 47 has V (phrase) S V | A-R (locative), while 48 opens with a Type I clause. This contrast sets off an abrupt change of subject as the poet moves among the virtues of which he wishes to boast, but he establishes no new coherence in 48-51 as he describes the drinking party, except for a fugitive parallelism between 50 and 51. Line 62 has the appearance of a member of a series

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created by expanding one sentence through a single tagmeme of that sentence, but is introduced very abruptly, without any other lines leading up to or completing it. 63-66 are characterized by line-initial V O, which is an infrequent form in this poem, especially in this very clear form (a check of the ten lines on either side located two analoguous line openings). In 63-65, the second hemistich is completely occupied by a single tagmeme; this occurs twice in the surrounding sets of ten lines, but gains importance because 68-74 have highly variegated and busy second hemistichs. 68-74 seem to be characterized by a very high number of clauses in each line. This is a very dense passage. Lines 76 and 77 are partially parallel, each having S C S C II, as well as less tangible similarities. 83-86 are one sentence, based on modifiers of the sword, and there are four T tagmemes filled by clauses beginning with /?i&a/, " when, if " , in this passage; there are six other cases in the poem, all more than ten lines away. Lines 88-92 all begin with V (as do 79, 81, 83, and several others with V (phrase)). Zuhayr 1-6 No pattern of repetitions was found to characterize this first section of the nasib. 7-15

Lines 8 - 1 1 in this section begin with V, in the same person and tense, and end their second hemistich with a Type I clause, e.g. /wawarrakna fi ssubani ya'luna matnahu 'alayhinna dallu nna'imi lmutana' 'imi/, " and they swerved in al-Suban, mounting the top of it, (with) on them the coquetry of the easy-liver enjoying-life. " (Line 10) This pattern does not recur in the following ten lines, although line initial verbs do occur in 4, 7, 15, 16, 18, 19, and in 1 5 the verb is in the same person and tense. Lines 1 2 and 1 3 are both primarily Type I, so that this may serve to bring the second hemistich of 14, /wada'na 'isiyya lhadiri lmutaxayyimi/, " they set the staves of the encamping settler " , into relief. 16-24 Lines 16 and 17 are unusually tightly bound by an enjambement, /fa?aqsamtu bilbayti lla&I tafa hawlahu ] rij alun banawhu min quraysin

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wajurhumi II yaminan ..../, " So I have sworn, by the house around which circled men who built it, of Quraysh and Jurhum, II an oath.... " 25-32

The first two lines in this section are parallel, each having V O O in the first hemistich, and this does not recur in the area searched. The following lines, which may be related, represent a complicated permutation of the position of V in relation to line and hemistich boundaries, as follows (28-32): V - - I I V - V I I V - - | V - V V I I V - - | - V V II V — | II. The last of these, 32, ends the pattern. Few of these verbs have objects and no coherent pattern is formed by the positioning or composition of O. 25, 26 and 27 have related patterns, as does the following passage. 33-40

Line 33 is a completely deviant line, following the oath form with a Type I clause, but after that the poet returns to a construction much like that of the previous passage except that the O tagmeme plays an important role: lines 34-36 have the following pattern, V O - | — V V II V O (V 0 V | 0) - - II V V 0 | II. The second hemistich of 36 continues into line 37, which is in turn linked to 38, so that the three lines, all part of a sentence beginning in 36, grow out of one another as successive subordinate clauses. Line 38 closes this inset passage, with a group of Type II clauses, lacking O. Lines 39 and 40 both have the pattern V O - V | . Similar lines begin to occur after 46. 41-45

This passage, like the passage consisting of a series of proverbs that follows, is set off against the preceding sections by an almost complete avoidance of the verb at the beginning of the line, although the clauses are still primarily Type II. From here on, line initial verbs appear when the poet is departing from his pattern: in line 42, when he has not really gotten started, in 46-48 when he makes the transition to the passage of proverbs, and in 61 and 62, the last two lines of the poem. This passage starts out very slowly in 41-43 with the whole of the second hemistich occupied by a single tagmeme and part of the first hemistich as well in line 42. 46-58

The poet begins to introduce statements resembling proverbs, to confirm the V 0 assertion made by him at the beginning of the line, in 46-48, and from 49 through 58, every line is composed of one or

no

STRUCTURAL

CONTINUITY

more statements of the type /waman/ V - V does Y ", e.g.

IN

POETRY

" and he who does X,

/waman yaku 5a fadlin fayabxal bifadlihi 'ala qawmihi yustagna, 'anhu wayudmami/, " And he who is possessor of a surplus and hoards his surplus against his people, he is dispensed with, and he is abused. " (Line 5 1 ) I t does not seem accurate to analyze this passage in isolation, without reference to an analysis of the linguistic features of early Arabic proverbs, so I will simply note that the only lines which deviate significantly in syntactic structure are 53 and 55, /waman ya'si Patrafa zzijaji favinnahu yutl'u l'awall rukkibat kulla lah&ami/, " And he who refuses the ends of the iron-spear-butts, then indeed he shall submit to the spear-heads, each mounted (with) sharp (points). " (Line 55) because of the subject preceding the second verb. Either the poet moves away from proverbs confirming the ideas he has expressed earlier in the poem, or possibly later editors have added new lines, whenever they seemed to fit the rhyme and meter, so that only some of the lines after 53 seem to make sense. 53 is the only line with a verb in the perfect, and ends with a condition to the proverb: /waman haba ?asbaba lmanaya yanalnahu wa?in yarqa ?asbaba ssama?i bisullami/, " And he who fears the approaches of death, they reach him, even if he climbs the approaches of the heavens with a ladder. " Since 58 deviates morphologically, beginning with /wamahma/, " and whatever " , an argument might be advanced that the original passage ended with line 53, the poet's return to talk of death, and the later lines, with some inharmonious elements, were added; this is a considerably more radical change than is needed on the basis of content. However, the recurrent forms in this passage need not necessarily be attributed to the poet, but may be standard proverbial forms, or to put this another way, these forms do not shaie a temporary poetic similarity but are drawn from a pool of others that are identical or nearly so and if we cannot attribute repetition to the poet, it is dangerous to consider him responsible for deviations. On the other hand, he might have purposely varied his texture. Unfortunately, we cannot demonstrate which of these lines were accepted sayings and which were imitations by the poet and as long as we cannot do this,

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III

we must remain open to the possibility that they are all idioms sufficiently conventionalized so that the poet may use them as units.

Labid It is not surprising that there should be, in Labid's Mu'allaqa, a bare minimum of syntactic regularities extending over whole passages and decreasing or disappearing beyond their limits, for the syntax of Arabic is under a constant strain to meet the very difficult rhyme which Labid has set for himself.

In order to meet it, he must have a noun

in the final position of each line and this noun must refer back to some feminine or inanimate plural noun stated or very strongly implied earlier in the line.

Because of the tendency to keep the subject close

to the verb, if the rhyme word is filled b y S, some V is normally very close, usually the second or third V in the line.

The other alternative

is for the rhyme to be filled b y the S or C of a T y p e I clause, and many of the stylistic distinctions of the poem are made b y contrasting Type I and Type I I clauses in the final position.

The crowding of

several clauses into the line, each having a very brief form, gives the poet

very little

flexibility.

1-9 This first section of the naslb has a meager syntactic pattern, but since it is correlated with the dip in the index of anaphora it is surely worthy of notice.

In lines 1-3 and 7-9, each line has two clauses,

the second of which is Type II, beginning one word after the line break and containing + V + X

+ S, where X may be any other

tagmeme, or one of two subjects joined by a conjunction, e.g. /dimanum tajarrama ba'da 'ahdi ?anisiha hijajun xalawna halaluha waharamuha/, " Traces (such that) there have terminated, after the era of their habitation, years elapsed, their profane-months and their holymonths." (Line 3) In 4-6, the second V occurs immediately before the line break, except in 5, most of which is filled by an A - R tagmeme spilling over from line 4.

Line 5 is the main disparate line in the passage, containing

no Type I I clause, but rather a series of nouns introduced b y /min/, " from".

Throughout

this passage the pace is rather

leisurely,

with two clauses in most lines, three in line 8, and only one in line 5.

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io-ig No particular regularity can be found in this passage, but it differs from the preceding passage in having three to four clauses in every line. Of the Type II clauses in this passage, only two have three tagmemes, while the rest have two, and all but six tagmemes have minimal representations (of the remainder, three are filled by phrases, and three by doubled subjects). Lines 13-14 are part of a sentence beginning in 12 and have several Type I clauses, and Type I clauses appear as the main clause of the line after 17. 20-24,

25-35

The number of clauses per line decreases, but no pattern can be discerned in either of these sections. 20-24 is a transitional passage with some parallelism and a sentence structure which pulls it together. 2 5"35 is a narrative passage, with relatively independent lines and a great variety of clauses. 45-50 This is another narrative passage with a somewhat higher number of verbs at the beginning of the line than elsewhere, but not dramatically so. No pattern emerges before line 47, so that no light is thrown on the rearrangement of the earlier lines. 45 and 47-50 begin with V and end with Type I clauses, e.g. /watawajjasat rizza l?anisi fara'aha| 'an zahri gaybin wal?anlsu saqamuha/, " She listened-fearfully to the murmur of human kind, so it startled her, from behind an unknown-place, since human kind is her bane. " (Line 47) 40-43, 51 and 52 also begin with V, so they are roughly associated. 55-88. There are no definable extended patterns in the third section of the poem. Lines 55-77 are mainly made up of extended constructions introduced in the same way, /wa in/, " many-a, " but this regularity is primarily morphological. However, some coherence is provided by the fact that 71, 73, 75-77 all end with Type I clauses. No further line-final Type I clauses appear until 86-88, the final three lines of the poem. 78-82 are linked by a single sentence structure.

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113

'Antara 1-12

This first section of 'Antara's naslb is regular in the sense that it is extremely orderly and the sentence syntax is very simple, so that every Type II clause in the passage may be described by the formulation + V ± S ± A-R (locative) ± O ± T, with no variations in order at all. This may seem a very catholic order, but in fact it is abandoned in 14, 15, 16, 17, etc. Basically, this passage differs from the following in having a stronger tie between V and S. However, there are two cases, in lines 4 and 9, of a somewhat unusual expansion of that order, i.e. V S A-R S A-R, which could also be written, V S A-R (V) S A-R, with A-R always locative, e.g. /watahillu 'ablatu biljawa?i wa?ahluna bilhazni fassammani falmutaOallami/, " whereas 'Abla camps in al-Jawa' and our people in al-Hazn and al-Samman and al-Mutathallam " (line 4). This presents some possibility of error in transmission, since both lines where this appears convey almost the same idea with the use of different place names. On the other hand, the two have a further similarity in that each is directly preceded by a Type I clause, at the end of line 3, and at the beginning of line 9, and only two others appear in the passage, one of them at the end, in line 12, where it is obviously meant to break the continuity. The other occurs in line 6, in one of two passages which are colloquial and syntactically rough (the second hemistichs of 6 and 7), so that it may not be comparable. They have no common disruptive effect, so that any function that might be assigned to the relation between them would be one of pacing the passage—dividing it into approximately equal rhythmic subsections. 13-19

In this passage in general, V is pushed later in both clause and line and the syntax is more complex. Where O occurs, it is directly after the verb, and this results in a number of clauses in the passage which would not fit the syntactic formulation of 1-12, because of the separation of V and S. 24-27

This is a single sentence, based on an expansion of an A-R tagmeme of the main clause. Among the subordinate clauses, it is conspicuous that most of their tagmemes are concentrated in the first 8

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hemistich and no verb ever appears in the second hemistich, as they frequently do in the previous and subsequent sections. Although this rhyme-scheme is conducive to lines ending in A-R tagmemes, they can be varied by other genitive endings and some verbal forms and usually are. Here they are not and, in addition, are all somewhat drawn out, and the rhyme-words are all adjectives either agreeing with the noun introduced by the preposition or in construct with it, e.g. /kal'abdi 51 lfarwi ttawlli l?aslami/, " like the crop-eared slave with the long fur-coat " (line 27). In 28-33 both of these regularities disappear but no new ones emerge. 34-56 There are a number of brief patterns in various lines in this passage. 34-36 contain another reprise of the naslb, using Type I clauses. 37 and 38 are linked by one expanded tagmeme. 44-46 are different in style from almost all of the rest of the poem, since each V is second tagmeme in its clause. 47-49 have only a single Type I I clause in the line, with the second hemistich underused, and this contrasts with line 50 which has three Type I I clauses crowded into it. 51-56 are vaguely linked by the expansion of one tagmeme, but since there is a great gap in the middle, the passage is not too cohesive. 61-71 There is a break in the texture of this passage at 69, but this is probably not sufficiently strong to justify splitting it. There are long temporal tagmemes in 62, 64 and 65, the last two of these preceding their verbs. Line 66 begins V O, /yad'una 'antara/, " they call "Antara!' ", and then all clauses in the next two lines are V A-R, while 69-71 have no A-R tagmemes and every Type II clause has O. Line 72 stands out very strongly, beginning with a very brief Type I clause, /Sululun rikabl/, " tractable are my mounts " , and continuing with another. These descriptions of the fruit of tagmemic study of the poems make it clear that this is a useful experiment in providing one further level of analysis, for a greater understanding of the morphological level. There is no direct correspondence between the two levels of analysis: the statement that a series of lines begin with V O does not define

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the particular verbal inflections or derivations used, or whether the nouns are definite or indefinite—unless these aspects are pointed out, they are usually mixed. However, the recurrence of particular word-types and functions in a set sequence creates a strong supposition that whatever morphemes are repeated within the same passage will also be repeated in related orders. Marking tagmemic regularities on the stylistic maps provides one more of a set of related ways of noting continuity within particular passages. On the whole, these regularities correspond very well with the original passage divisions. As might have been suspected, sentences rarely span passage boundaries, so that almost all regularities created by common membership in the same sentence, including those involving elaborations of a single tagmeme, span whole passages, or portions of passages. Regularities in tagmeme sequences correspond almost as well. What is more striking is that there is some relationship between the content of a passage and the type of coherence observed. Passages composed of long sentences, especially those with expansions of a single tagmeme, are often descriptive and so tend to occur in passages with a great deal of vivid imagery, especially the travel theme, but sometimes elsewhere. Passages with repeated patterns depending on manipulation of the verb are often narrative in quality, with the obvious exception of the special semi-proverbial passage in Zuhayr. It is interesting that the naslb, containing highly standardized imagery and vocabulary, is the most elusive section of the poem on this level, although it gives the external appearance of being highly coherent. Since this approach depends on passages containing enough clauses for meaningful comparison and a clause is a relatively large unit, only fragmentary and tentative regularities can be isolated in the loosely organized passages, such as the series of romantic anecdotes in Imru'u 1-Qays and the main section of Tarafa's ode, where the poet devotes only a few lines to each topic, varying his style with snatches of dialogue and stepping from one association to another.

i. H E R D A N , Type-token Mathematics, discusses a closely related point of view in terms of the type and token functions of units on different linguistic levels.

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2. Cf. Chapter II, notes 21 and 22. 3. J. G O N D A , Stylistic Repetition in the Veda, Nieuwe reeks, deel 65, n° 3 (Amsterdam, 1959). 4. K . L . P I K E , Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of Human Behavior (Glendale, California, 1954-1960); R O B E R T E . L O N G A C R E , Syntax Procedures (mimeograph, Norman, Okla., 1957); B E N J A M I N E L S O N and V E L M A B . P I C K E T T , Beginning Morphology-Syntax (SIL, Santa Ana, Calif., i960). 5. Paraphrased from E L S O N and P I C K E T T , Beginning Morphology-Syntax, p. 16. 6. The analysis of Arabic is a much simplified version of a system worked out by Stephen Faunce and myself at the University of Michigan in the summer of 1961, in an unpublished comparative study of the clause-level syntactic systems of samples of Qur'anic Arabic and Biblical Hebrew. 7. Some approaches to Arabic include a third type which is rare in this corpus and has been handled as a variation of T y p e 1.

CHAPTER VII

CONCLUSIONS: THE SPAN OF PATTERN In this study, five poems have been examined on three different linguistic levels and the results of the study on each linguistic level have been related to the results of impressionistic thematic analysis. In fact, thematic analysis has had considerable influence on the other levels of study. To begin with, the statistical techniques used in studying the vowels required that the passages be studied as units. If the original analysis had been totally invalid, it is highly unlikely that any significant results would have emerged from the phonological study, but it is still possible that a better segmentation would have produced more passages with significant deviations and clearly this segmentation may have erred in including or excluding a line here or there, thus reducing but not eliminating statistical significance. The approach used for the analysis of deviant vowel distributions tends to confirm the original segmentation, but cannot disprove the possibility of some segmentation when the search for phonological distortions is fruitless. On the morphological level, the cumulative analysis was made totally without reference to thematic structure and the indices of anaphora are in no way prejudiced by the earlier conclusions. An examination of the curve of interlinear anaphora on the stylistic maps shows that whereas that curve would not have specified all the segmentations arrived at on a thematic basis and only these, the curve does tend to confirm them and confirms, in some measure, even those segmentations which were made hesitantly in the first place. Slightly more than half of the passages with coterminous phonological deviations are confirmed by convex curves of interlinear anaphora. Internal anaphora is so closely related to interlinear anaphora that it cannot be taken as independent evidence of passage patterning;

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it is a source of information about the properties of the index of anaphora as an analytical technique and about the relation between repetition within and between lines. On the syntactic level, the passage was taken as the original field of search, to make the material more manageable, but whenever a tagmemic pattern was noted within a passage, including one occurring in only two or three lines at the periphery, surrounding areas were searched, so that only very slight or brief patterns spanning passage boundaries could have been neglected. Those elements which could not be dealt with in terms of tagmemics, since they function on the sentence level, were noted and compared with passage boundaries, which they tend to confirm; this might have been expected, since invocations and oaths had already been noted informally as elements tending to introduce new themes in Arabic poetry. The whole corpus was reviewed, without reference to passage boundaries, in the search for lines linked within a single sentence and these linkages very rarely cross the passage boundaries. However, this is one area where the linguistic phenomenon is so obvious that it must surely have influenced the original segmentation. It is clear, then, that all of the data noted on the stylistic maps, except the index of anaphora, have already been influenced by, or have influenced, the division into passages. The different levels of analysis have, perforce, been imperfectly insulated. The effect of these influences is that whatever data confirm the division into passages are trustworthy, but some data tending to contradict that division may have been excluded or minimized. All of these analytical approaches, however, were insulated from the specific content or mood attributed to each passage in the impressionistic analysis; that is, the phonological and tagmemic analyses were carried out on a list of passages defined by line numbers (the tagmemic analysis involved reading the passages over and over, but did not involve invoking the generalizations about their mood and content). Therefore, if the patterns visible on the stylistic maps tend in any way to confirm the specific content of the impressionistic analysis, this constitutes very powerful evidence for the appositeness of the techniques. In fact, this is the case. An examination of the stylistic maps shows that while all the features noted tend to confirm the passage divisions, passages differ greatly in the extent to which they are characterized by phonological deviations and anaphoric and tagmemic

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continuity. Passages with very meager stylistic patterning include: 7-42 in Imru'u 1-Qays, the passage characterized as consisting of loosely strung, boastful, amorous anecdotes; 69-92 in Tarafa, the most ambivalent portions of the poem, from the point (after the comparison of the graves of the miser and profligate) where the poet first begins to complain of his family, followed by miscellaneous boasting and the anecdote of the pregnant camel slaughtered for the feast (but not including the instructions of how the poet is to be mourned); 33-45 in Zuhayr, two partially parallel passages where the poet vacillates between narrative and imaginative material; 36-52 and 57-77 in Labld, the comparison of his camel to a wild cow and the miscellaneous boasting in which he claims a number of different virtues; 13-56 and 63-71 of 'Antara, from the travel theme to the end of the first battle scene and then the second battle scene. This means that the two poetic sections which were originally characterized as inconsistent or disorganized in Tarafa and Imru'u 1-Qays are lacking also in consistency and in coherence on the linguistic level. In addition, most passages of direct boasting, in which the poet must cover a number of virtues without ever concentrating on a single subject, have only scattered patterning—a glance at the map shows that a pattern emerges for a few lines at a time and then fades away. The lack of patterning in the description of the wild cow in Labld and in the travel theme and battle scenes of 'Antara is a little more difficult to account for. The description of the wild cow is very highly patterned thematically and contains very vivid imagery, so that it is impressive poetry with a minimum of linguistic support; linguistic support, however, is often a concomitant of vivid imagery. It is possible that this passage, which has at least two lines out of order even in this modest reordering, is even more badly mutilated than is generally supposed—since obviously the index of anaphora can show a drastically altered configuration if even a single line is shifted. However, patterning is less obvious in Labld in general and a portion of this passage has the most conspicuous tagmemic consistency in the poem. In 'Antara, the fact that no phonological deviations could be detected means that there are fewer possible types of patterning throughout the poem, and both battle scenes and the involuted travel theme have patterned subsections whereas the miscellaneous boasting is almost completely unpatterned. Another way of looking at these same data produces somewhat clearer distinctions. If the least patterned sections of each poem are

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chosen, they are generally located in the main body of the poem and are always sections which are thematically loose, passages where the thread of the poet's argument disappears or where he makes a number of separate claims. If the most patterned sections of each poem are chosen, these tend to fall towards the beginning (especially in the naslb) and at the end or in a position separated from the end by a small number of transitional lines; thus, for example, 59-62 of Zuhayr is meagerly patterned, but is not really an autonomous passage. The poets differ somewhat in the extent to which they exploit different types of patterning. Labld, whose rhyme has been the subject of apology in nearly every chapter of this analysis, actually has quite a high degree of patterning, although he relies primarily on two techniques: just under a half of his poem is characterized by deviations in vowel frequency and a great many of his lines are linked by common sentence membership. Zuhayr uses oath forms and exclamations to mark the beginning of new passages almost twice as frequently as each of the other four; this may go with the generally more portentious style he employs. A general examination of the stylistic maps, concentrated on those passages which seem most coherent even at first reading, allows the following general conclusions: A. Each of the major techniques used in this study — the search for significant deviations in vowel frequencies, the graph of cumulative anaphoric linkage between lines, and the search for recurrent patterns of clause structure—tends to correspond to the passage divisions arrived at impressionistically, to the results obtained severally by the ether major techniques, and to the more predictable results obtained by the minor techniques—the observation of morphological markers of thematic shift and common membership in sentences. B. As they are applied here, none of these techniques are sufficiently precise so that the thematic flow of the poems could be adequately described on the basis of the stylistic maps, but since all of these techniques invite further refinement, the degree of correspondence is surprisingly good. C. The stylistic flow indicated on the stylistic maps is not hierarchic. In analyzing the poetry in thematic terms there are three major subdivisions, the nasib, the travel section, and the freer main section of the poem, each of which is divided and sub-divided, down to the

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level of single sentences. However, the stylistic shifts visible on the maps are very erratic in the extent to which they reflect these ranks: major breaks are more regularly discernible than minor ones, but the major ones are not always thematically the most conspicuous. D. Except for those features which must co-occur by definition (e.g. expansions of a single tagmeme and common sentence membership), there is no systematic relationship between the three major types of regularity: their coincidence is thematically, not formally, conditioned. E. Where several regularities co-occur, the fact that each technique was designed to give information about a specific linguistic level means that, in adding information about ordered regularity on the previous level, the presence of two types of regularity is much more than twice as significant as the presence of one. F . " Passage ", which is a term constantly invoked by literary critics, is now subject to partial and tentative linguistic definition for Arabic poetry. Further refinement of these methods may allow for more precision and the examination of the poetry of different languages may allow for more generality. A passage is a section of poetry dealing with a single theme, so that it is unified in content, and is, in addition, unified in form by stylistic regularities such that most of the lines in the passage are linguistically more similar to each other than to the lines directly outside of the passage. A passage, then, is essentially a poem within a poem, " more notable for its internal than for its external relationships ". G. The passage is coterminous with what might be sensed as the poet's " immersion " in a subject—he may set the background or introduce a subject without committing himself directly to a passage frame. The question of the relationships between the passages is considerably more complex, for although this corpus contains enough passages so that patterning is readily discernible, it contains only five poems. Very few patterns emerge which may be described as " poem-level " patterns and these are almost all extra-linguistic and limited to the thematic order which was first recognized and described by the Arab grammarians. This may be linguistically correlated only with the lexicon—as might have been expected, the poets use a great deal of common vocabulary in dealing with each theme, so that there are a number of words which may be considered " naslb words ", and the

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Arabs are famous for their specialized vocabulary describing camels and horses. These lexical regularities will not be dealt with systematically here, but may be readily recognized by consulting the work of Ludwig Abel which is, practically speaking, a concordance. The generalization that passage-patterning decreases gradually and then increases at the end can only be tentative on the basis of this small intensively studied sample, but other poems from the period do give the same impression. The question of the patterning of the total poem, however, warrants a reconsideration of the context and technique of composition, discussed in Chapter II. The three most significant facts noted at the time were a, composition and recitation, poet and transmitter, are separated in the Arabic tradition, but b, there are frequent references to poets who could compose on the spot, and c, modern field study shows that contemporary Bedouins tend to compose a group of lines, recite them or entrust them to the memory of a friend, and then compose further. The types of regularity observed in passages of these five poems may be variously used as evidence of technique of composition. Deviations in phoneme frequencies could, most probably, be arrived at only as the poet repeated the lines of a passage as a unit, making scores of minute changes in his wording to satisfy some vaguely felt demand of harmony. These subtle deviations are maintained over very long stretches and are rather unlike the usual linguistic expectations of phonological distribution. Therefore, it is unlikely that they could be produced in a first, spontaneous recitation. Although their presence does not exclude the use of writing, the poet must have been acutely conscious of sound in his reworking— probably reciting the poem over and over to himself. Passage patterning through anaphora makes much the same requirement but to a slighter extent, since at this level the poet is dealing with larger units to which he has greater conscious access and is assisted by semantic content. The patterns noted on the tagmemic level would be much easier to achieve in an initial recitation—indeed, they are related to the types of patterning which make it possible for the Yugoslavian " singer of tales " to weave and reweave his epics extemporaneously. However, they do define minimum stretches of unified composition: if the poet composed a series of lines, fashioning each completely without reference to the others, this would not result in patterning at the tagmemic level. Furthermore, it is clear that where lines are members of the same sentence they were probably composed at

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the same sitting, although in only a few cases of extreme enjambement is it possible to exclude single-line improvisation. From this point it is reasonable to conclude that all passages marked by phonological deviations represent unified and carefully reworked or " tuned " compositions, which had to be memorized for use in public recitation, and that the same is true of most passages with convex anaphoric curves and many passages with tagmemic patterning. Furthermore, the stretch of discourse characterized by regularity at any of these levels must have been composed as a unit— it cannot represent several discrete acts of creation casually strung together. On the other hand, the meter of Arabic is such that the poet might easily improvise relatively brief stretches, including some anaphora, and repeating word orders from line to line. The accurate picture of the composition of pre-Islamic poetry is probably a combination of improvisation and careful tuning. The professional poet would have composed his poems a passage at a time, dwelling on a series of lines dealing with one theme until he was satisfied that they formed a unit and then either pushing them to the back of his mind or entrusting them to a rawi. When called upon to recite, the poet might recite whole odes in which the passages had been carefully united to form a totality, or he might improvise long stretches at the interstices of the original design, to suit a mood or an audience. When faced with a particular occasion, a very large portion of the poem might be improvised, but he would still draw upon his repertory of naslbs and travel themes to meet the more formal requirements of the qaslda. This is essentially the procedure of many modern jazz musicians, with the exception that jazz usually involves a complex relationship between several instruments. A jazz group usually begins with a specific melody, borrowed from a popular song; this corresponds to the thematic structure of Arabic poetry. The musicians elaborate upon that theme, drawing upon a repertory of highly rehearsed " improvisations "—sequences which they have played in an almost identical form many times. At certain points, one player may genuinely improvise, playing something completely new or rephrasing an eld interpretation to meet a particular mood. The totality of a particular performance may be frozen when it is recorded or nearly frozen when it is so well received that it is worth the musicians' while to try to duplicate it and it becomes subject to imitation. By the same token, a particular version of a qaslda, many of whose compo-

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nents had crystallized long before, might become set as the result of a particular performance and might be re-used by the poet and memorized by the raw!. Variant versions reflect the fact that some fluidity was always retained and the poet felt at liberty to change or re-use lines (and even occasionally to borrow from others). When this hypothesis is applied to the five poems on which this study is based, it is easy to visualize Imru'u 1-Qays following his inclination and bringing in a multitude of romantic memories, or Tarafa, too full of anger and uncertainty to give his case a final shape but shifting his arguments and reiterating his peevishness. On the other hand, this argument should not be applied indiscriminately to all passages which do not seem highly patterned since, if they are strongly segmented, dealing briefly with a number of ideas, the methods applied here may not indicate the full extent of their patterning, nor do these methods exhaust the possible patterns of other types. In addition, the two " genuinely Bedouin " poets in the collection, Labld and 'Antara, have somewhat fewer patterned passages. Poets may possibly have decreased their readiness to depend in improvisation as they became more cosmopolitan, but this could only be demonstrated on the basis of a larger sample. The same argument with regard to the type of composition necessary to produce stylistic patterning has major implications in evaluating the authenticity of early Arabic poetry; if the passage is a unit of composition, it is highly probable that it is a unit of authenticity. Thus, whereas the Mu'allaqa of Imru'u 1-Qays is usually considered to be in very poor condition, stylistic analysis shows that all of the poem except the expanded portion of the naslb after line 6 is characterized by formal patterning which is strong evidence that the three separate passages represent no more than three units of composition. This must be tested against different recensions and is certainly not strong evidence against the displacement of particular lines, but the well tuned echoes that emerge from these passages must each have been a single harmony in the mind of a poet. Clearly, this in no way demonstrates that the poet was Imru'u 1-Qays or that the three passages were all written by the same person. It must be stressed that this argument may only be used positively —it may not be used to disprove authenticity, since the poet was under no compulsion to include any specified degree of stylistic patterning. The majority of a group of lines which are patterned, especially on the phonological level, probably belong together, but

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other lines may have vastly different relationships, none of which are even approached in this study. The principal way in which such speculation about the composition process of pre-Islamic Arabic poetry may be tested is by reference to other types of poetry about which more information is available. But before this can be done, it is necessary to have a clear picture of the precise theoretical position of the techniques which have been employed and their relationship and comparability with others which have been defined by linguistic work in this field. As linguists have begun to examine poetry, techniques have proliferated, but most of their results have been difficult to compare with each other. This is partly because of the number of distinct questions which may be raised about poetry. To begin with, the analyst has the choice of trying to define the general characteristics of poetry (which he may do with scattered examples), trying to describe a particular corpus existentially, or trying to define the poetic character of a corpus by reference to what it might have been. At the same time, those who have dealt with a particular corpus have differed about whether they defined that corpus in terms of a particular author (to be compared with other authors—this has given rise to a great deal of fruitful statistical study), a period (much the same problem), a genre, or a particular poem whose features were to be defined with reference to all other features of that poem with the general grammar of the language as a background. Most techniques for analyzing specific poems have had to be content with quite short poems.1 In general, it is possible in the analysis of very brief stretches of poetry to rely on methods which are essentially non-exhaustive, depend on the semi-intuitive recognition of individual examples which may then be linguistically defined, and dwell on the brief poem or sonnet until, hopefully, all of these are collected. In almost every case, the search for the linguistic mechanism of poetic unity is carried out with material which may be definitely said to be a single unit, having one set of unifying characteristics, and specific instances of surprisal or frustrated expectation. Results gained by such techniques tend to be so specific that two poems in the same language can hardly be compared, much less two poems in unrelated languages. To summarize : studies that concentrate on the internal dynamics of particular pieces of poetry tend not to be comparable, while studies that are designed to be comparable (allowing the critic to distinguish between two contemporary writers, for instance) have an essentially

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different orientation and are not concerned with internal dynamics. Studies which are non-exhaustive produce samples of poetic process which may be classified, but do not greatly advance the study of poems. A further difficulty in the linguistic study of poetry is that individual analysts have tended to concentrate on phenomena at a particular level, discussing the phonological or syntactic unity of a particular stretch of poetry. These levels are all defined in a manner which derives from the original analysis of the language, and each deals with a specialized aspect of that original analysis, so that even within the consideration of one poem they are not directly comparable. Finally, the concept of " surprisal" or " frustrated expectation ", the break in continuity which heightens the auditor's awareness, has been, of necessity, a very weak point in the argument. It is possible to single out features which are demonstrably bizarre in terms of the whole grammar of the language and which occur only once in the poem and claim that these are surprising without being challenged. Other instances of surprisal are simply negatively defined: features which do not correspond with whatever pattern is defined for previous lines and which seem to the analyst to be accompanied by heightened emotion. In all but the most extreme cases, surprisal itself has no specific identifying features, and yet the concept is absolutely necessary for any interesting theory of poetry. For this study, an interest in the Mu'allaqat and a readiness to discuss these thematically considerably antedated any interest in studying them linguistically—or even the belief that this might be possible, a belief which only gradually emerged in the course of studying these poems and others like them. The methods used here were designed to be appropriate to this particular corpus, with its unique problems, focussing on the internal structure of the poems; particular problems in the history of the Arabic language urged the assumption of the total corpus as the universe within which portions of each poem would be examined—variations in texture became the only possible subject for this analysis, so that only the fluctuations of poetic unity could be analyzed, and the necessity of describing particular events as surprisal was replaced by the possibility of indicating the extent of a particular degree of poetic unity, passages characterized by no such unity, and the initiation of new unified systems. With a theory based primarily on gross cumulative repetitions, several layers of fluctuation in poetic unity could be included.

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Five Mu'allaqat constitute much too large a corpus to deal with on the basis of independent evaluations of phenomena line by line, so that exhaustive methods had to be found. In fact, none of the methods used in this analysis is strictly exhaustive, but each deals exhaustively with arbitrarily defined phenomena. Instead of a collection of random examples of consonant alliteration and vowel repetition, which might have produced subtler insights into particular lines, all passages which could be defined in thematic terms, whose vowels were distributed in such a way that their deviation had less than a 10 % probability of occurring in a random sample, are noted. B y the same token, all instances of morphological anaphora are recorded; the definition of anaphora (essentially in terms of search technique) is doubtless crude and omits or blurs important factors, but it is a definition of a type that could be uniformly applied to the whole corpus. Tagmemic analysis yielded less uniform data, but as applied here is sufficiently simple so that the factors influencing each decision could be included in the description of every regularity. Each decision had to be insulated as much as possible from my own awareness of content, because only a native speaker can claim respect for his intuitive opinion that a particular form is surprising in a particular context, if it is not forbidden by the grammar (strictly speaking, nothing that occurred could be considered ungrammatical, since the five poems were considered theoretically equivalent to the corpus on which a relevant grammar would be based). Most important of all, the concept of poetry as the contrast between regularity/unity and surprisal had to be replaced (except in informal remarks in some descriptions) by the concept of poetry as a dynamic produced by different levels and stages of regularity/unity. In this poetry, the poet adopts a pattern and then lays it aside; adopts another one or two, simultaneously, and lays them aside one by one; picks up (or states) patterns as he moves deeper and deeper into a subject, until word choices are very highly determined, and then casts them all away. Clearly, the relevance of this conclusion is strongly affected by the question of whether the Arab poet composed for discontinuities. If the only result of his composition was to produce continuity, which was then broken as passages were carelessly strung together, the presence of discontinuities is a function of editing, not of composition. However, whatever continued research shows about techniques of composition, the fact that this study takes account of different linguistic levels resolves the difficulty. Even if the conclu-

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sion must be based only on those passages which must belong to a single act of composition (e.g. phonological deviations being taken as the criteria, and then anaphora and tagmemic regularities studied within that frame), fluctuations in stylistic unity are still observable. This is because no type of poetic regularity described by this study is directly conditioned by any other type. In describing fluctuations, some baseline is always necessary, and since strict line numbering does not seem relevant (i.e. because this poetry is non-stanzaic, the poet does not limit himself to passages of set length), thematic boundaries have regularly been taken as a baseline, in relation to which other factors could be seen to fluctuate. However, on the stylistic maps any one element may be taken as the baseline: these maps may be examined for the extent to which themes correspond to anaphoric continuities, tagmemic patterns to phonological deviations, and so on. The results reached in this study have considerable implications for further research, since they demonstrate the presence of a range of phenomena which can now be extensively studied with computers and much larger samples. Methods can be devised on the phonological and syntactic levels which come as close as possible to the sensitivity to both small and large patterns reflected in the anaphoric curve, for in spite of its need for further refinement the anaphoric curve is by far the most delicate instrument used here. Selective application of morphological and phonological analysis to hypothetically stressed syllables might indicate the date at which stress became a factor of Arabic poetry. Detailed comparison of the results gained by applying these techniques to all the recensions of a single poem would be some aid in the preparation of critical texts. The application of these techniques to other types of poetry may yield new and different kinds of insight, and since these techniques have revealed that passages of Arabic poetry have a great deal of autonomy, these passages could now be profitably studied through techniques originally designed for sonnets. The most fundamental question raised here for the linguistic study of poetry is whether thepassage may be defined as a linguistic unit characterizing all poetry (although some poems may be only one passage long). In these concluding pages, I have refrained from indulging in still another poem by poem analysis of the configurations on the stylistic maps. These were valid when each type of regularity had to be correlated with content, since the total content of a poem of this length is difficult to bear in mind. Now, however, the stylistic maps

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stand as a completed pattern, on which the variegated movement of the poems may be seen summarized with great simplicity. These maps are evidence of the essential fact that pre-Islamic poetry is patterned on every linguistic level and that more precise methods might reveal even more intricate designs, as consonants and a multitude of syntactic features are eventually deployed across them. The empirical possibility of identifying units and stating their regularities in relation to each other has been demonstrated and the eye can perceive the pattern emerging from all of these. It is just possible that if the stylistic maps were perfectly arranged and included all the wealth of data that still lies embedded in the poems, the maps themselves would seem to have some aesthetic value, offering, in long bars of continuity and shifting dunes of concentration, a visual translation of these ancient poetic forms.

1. The sonnet is a typical example, in e.g. S A M U E L R. L E V I N , Linguistic Structures in Poetry (The Hague, 1962), or D E L L H Y M E S , in S E B E O K , Style in Language, pp. 109-132. Related material may be found in Polska Academia Nauk, Poetics (Warsaw, 1961).

APPENDIX

A

THE TEXTS Transcriptions of the five Mu'allaqat examined in this study, those of Imru'u 1-Qays, Tarafa, Zuhayr, Labld and 'Antara, along with their translations, appear on pages 135-176. The texts are those of al-Zawzani, and their numbering preserves his original order. The slight changes in order which seemed necessary are indicated in the actual arrangements of the numbered lines, one passage which should be omitted is bracketed, and one line which does not occur in al-Zawzani is included in its English translation to clarify the passage. Slight emendations of the vocalization are not systematically indicated, but in all cases changes have been kept at an absolute minimum; whatever the faults of the text, I have usually preferred living with them to running the risk of introducing any of m y own prejudices. In preparing these translations, I have leaned heavily on earlier work. I have tried to strike a balance between precision and a readable style of English, yet in many places it has proved difficult to find consistent solutions which will allow anyone with a little knowledge of Arabic to follow the Arabic text, and yet be readable for content alone. It may be that the only solution would have been to provide two translations. The following principles govern most of the translations, although without complete consistency. 1. Regular syntactic patterns of Arabic have been translated into their corresponding English forms, without any effort to reproduce word order or word boundaries. Thus, of has often been supplied in translating constructs; there is and forms of the verbs to be and to have, or phrases to translate single words in Arabic which are necessary for recurrent grammatical reasons (/qutila/ " he was killed "), are provided without apology, on the assumption that they will present no difficulty to anyone with a basic knowledge of the structure. 2. Similarly, items of the Arabic text which are part of a pervasive system of grammatical categories different from English are translated

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into the normal English forms. Thus, the definite article, which is used with words like truth or beauty in Arabic, has not been translated in such positions; similarly, it has often been used to translate masculine or feminine pronouns of Arabic, unless the context suggests personification (e.g. Zuhayr 28-32). Since the dual is not an obligatory category of English, duals are translated as plurals, with a parenthetical [two] where this seems to add some necessary information (not with eyes, ears, etc., where it is self-evident). 3. Lexical features of the two languages have presented more of a problem. Nomadic Arab culture is radically different from Western European academic culture and the Arabs were rich in vocabulary for concepts which are exotic and strange to readers of this study, and yet elaborate paraphrases or explanatory notes would have been impractical, adding too much bulk and duplicating the work of other scholars. The effort has been to provide an English translation acceptable in context for every lexical element of the Arabic text, setting off phrases which are added for explanation but not actually present in parentheses, and hyphenating phrases used to translate a single Arabic stem. Thus, /taraqtu/, a single word in Arabic, contains the verb stem /taraq-/, " to night-visit " , in the first person singular of the past tense. The grammatical features, being predictable, are ignored, while the lexical form of the Arabic is indicated with a hyphen: " I have night-visited " . Similarly, verbs which are transitive in Arabic and require prepositions in English are attached to their prepositions: /Sahaba/, " go-to " . Occasionally the reverse situation occurs and an Arabic preposition is redundant in English; wherever this seemed to read at all naturally it has been retained, and otherwise the redundant Arabic form is bracketed. The criteria for parenthetical clarifications are hard to find, since a great deal is left to the imagination; it is probable that every reader will find himself sometimes mystified and sometimes told the obvious, but it is hoped this will not be too frequent.

APPENDIX B

THE STYLISTIC MAPS On pages 152, 168 and 176 the stylistic maps for the poems, on which the different regularities discussed in Chapters IV, V, and V I are traced, are inserted. At the extreme left of each map the structure and content of each poem, as defined in Chapter III, is outlined for the reader's convenience. Each stylistic map is arranged so that it may be folded out, making it possible for the reader to observe the place of each regularity in the total configuration. Each stylistic map includes the following levels of data, from top to bottom: The line numbers, in my order, are noted across the top, and breaks between passages are indicated by double vertical lines (see Chapter III). The occurrences of the group of particles referred to as morphological markers of subject initiation (see Chapter V, page 7 1 ) are noted with an " X " . They are not differentiated on the maps, but may readily be compared with the texts. The indices of interlinear anaphora are connected to form the anaphoric curve, on a vertical scale noted at both the extreme left and the extreme right of each map (see Chapter V). Common sentence membership is noted by continuous hatched bars (see Chapter VI). Tagmemic regularities are noted as follows: the expansion of a single tagmeme by a white bar; different types of repeated clause structure by black bars; doubtful regularities by w a v y lines (see Chapter VI). Phonological deviations are noted by dotted bars. Internal indices of anaphora greater than x + 2s ( = 7) are noted at the bottom, encircled. This arrangement has been selected for visual rather than theoretical reasons: it was felt that all regularities indicated by the different bars should be together, and if the longest ones were put at the bottom a

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tendency to form a convex pattern, of a very fragmentary sort, would complement the anaphoric curve running above. Features for which single lines had to be marked were put at the periphery and the morphological markers were set above in the hope that these, since they tend to occur next to a double vertical line at a dip in the index of anaphora, might be seen figuratively as units pressing for discontinuity.

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I. The Mu'allaqa of Imru'u 1-Qays 1

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qifa nabki min Qikra hablbin wamanzili bisiqti lliwa bayna ddaxuli fahawmali Halt [you two] and let us weep for the memory of a beloved and an abode at the edge of the dune's winding, between alDakhul and Hawmal, fatudiha falmiqrati lam ya'fu rasmuha lima nasajatha min janGbin wasam?ali and Tudih and al-Miqrat, whose trace is not erased by what wove-across them of North and South-wind. tara ba'ara l?ar?ami fl 'arasatiha waql'aniha ka?annahu habbu fulfuli Y o u see the dung of the oryxes in their courts and their hollows, as-though it were grains of pepper. ka?annl gadata lbayni yawma tahammalu lada samurati lhayyi naqifu hanzali As-though I, the morning of parting, the day they loaded, b y the acacias of the tribe, were a splitter of colocynth. wuqufan biha sahbl 'alayya matiyyahum yaquluna la tahlik ?asan watajammali Halting in them, my companions, over me, their mounts, say, " Don't die (of) grief, but be-seemly. " wa?inna sifa?i 'abratun muharaqatun fahal 'inda rasmin darisin min mu'awwali Truly, my remedy is tears poured-out—But is there at a fading trace any reliance? kada?bika min ?ummi lhuwayriOi qablaha wajaratiha ?ummi rrababi bima^sali (This weeping) is like your habit from [little] Umm al-Harith before her and from her neighbor, Umm al-Rabab in Ma'sal; ?i5a qamata tadawwa'a lmisku minhuma naslma ssaba ja"?at birayya lqaranfuli when they [two] arose musk diffused-itself from them, the breath of the Eastern-breeze, it came with the scent of clove.

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fafadat dumu'u l'ayni minnl sababatan 'ala nnahri hatta balla dam'I mihmali Then the tears of the eye of mine overflowed (with) yearning on the chest, until my tear moistened my sword-sling. ?ala rubba yawmin laka minhunna salihin wala siyyama yawmun bidarati juljuli How many a day was yours from them, pleasant, but especially a day in the valley of Juljul, wayawma 'aqartu lil'a&ara matiyyatl faya 'ajaban min kuriha lmutahammali and the day I hamstrung my mount for the maidens—oh, wonder of its trappings (to be) loaded!— fazalla l'a&ara yartamina bilahmiha wasahmin kahuddabi ddimaqsi lmufattali so the maidens spent-the-day playing-catch with its meat and fat like the fringes of twisted white-silk; wayawma daxaltu lxidra xidra 'unayzatin faqalat laka lwaylatu ?innaka murjill and the day I entered the howdah, the howdah of 'Unayza, and she said, " Disaster to you, indeed you force-afoot me," taqfllu waqad mala lgabltu bina ma'an 'aqarta ba'Irl ya mra?a lqaysi fanzili saying, while the saddle-frame tilted with us together, " You have hocked my camel, o Imru'u 1-Qays, so dismount. " faqultu laha sir! wa?arxi zimamahu wala tub'idlnl min janaki lmu'allali Then I said to her, " Travel-on and loosen his nose-rein and don't banish me from your twice-tasted saliva; famiQliki hubla qad taraqtu wamurdi'in fa?alhaytuha 'an 5i tama^ima muhwili and-many-a pregnant (woman) like you have I night-visited, and many a nursing (mother), and diverted her from a oneyear-old with amulets— ?i&a ma baka min xalfiha nsarafat lahu bisiqqin watahti siqquha lam yuhawwali when he cried from behind her, she turned-away to him with a half, and under me, half of her was not turned. " wayawman 'ala ?ahri lkaQlbi ta'a65arat 'alayya wa?alat halfatan lam tahallali And a day on the back of a sand-hill, she withheld-herself from me and swore an oath that was not conditioned: ?afatima mahlan ba'da ha&a ttadalluli wa?in kunti qad Pazma'ti surml fa?ajmili

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" O Fatima, gently, (with) some of this coquetry, or if you had determined-on my severance, then act-decently; ?agarraki minni ?anna hubbaki qatill wa?annaki mahma ta?muri lqalba yaf'ali has it misled you, about me, that love of you is slaying me, and that you, whatever you command the heart, it will carry-out ? wa?in taku qad saPatki minni xallqatun fasulli OiyabI min Oiyabiki tansuli For if there has displeased you a trait of mine, then slip my garments from your garments, (so) they will slip-off. wama Qarafat 'aynaki ?illa litadribi bisahmayki fl ?a'sari qalbin muqattali For your eyes did not flow except so you (could) sport with your [two] arrows in the ten-fragments of a slain heart. " wabaydati xidrin la yuramu xiba?uha tamatta'tu min lahwin biha gayra mu'jali And-many-an egg of a curtained-chamber, whose tenting is not dared, I have enjoyed some dalliance with her, not rushed; tajawaztu ?ahrasan ?ilayha wama'saran 'alayya hirasan law yusirruna maqtali I passed watch-parties to her and a company (of relatives) against me desirous: if-(only) they (could) announce killing me! ?i6a ma 00urayya fl ssama?i ta'arradat ta'arruda ?a0na?i lwisahi lmufassali When the Pleiades in the skies showed-obliquely, (like) the obliqueness of the intervals of the intercalated necklace, faji?tu waqad naddat linawmin 0iyabaha lada ssitri Pilla libsata lmutafaddili then I came, when she had shed her clothes for sleep, by the curtain, except for the garment of the single-garmented. faqalat yamlna Uahi ma laka hllatun wama ?in ?ara 'anka lgawayata tanjali And she said, " God's oath, you have no strategem (for escape) and I don't see the wilfulness being-removed from you. " xarajtu biha ?amsl tajurru wara?ana 'ala "?a0arayna Qayla mirtin murahhali I went-out with her, I walking, she dragging behind us, on our [two] tracks, the train of a figured outer-garment; falamma ?ajazna sahata lhayyi wantaha bina batnu xabtin 51 hiqafin 'aqanqali then, when we crossed the compound of the tribe and the shelter of a hollow, with crescents, criss-crossing (dunes), loomed before us,

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hasartu bifawday ra?siha fatamayalat 'alayya hadlma lkashi rayya lmuxalxali I pulled at the [two] tresses of her head and she swayed above me, slender flanked and fleshy (of) the ankleted (place), 31 muhafhafatun bayda?u gayru mufadatin tara?ibuha masqulatun kassajanjali a luminous, slender (body), not buxom, her breasts were polished like the silver-mirror: 32 kabikri lmuqanati lbayadi bisufratin gaftaha namlra lma?i gayru lmuhallali like the pale first-born of the depths, (mingled) with yellowness, whom the unsullied (part) of the water, not camped-at, nurtured. 33 tasuddu watubdl 'an Pasllin watattaql binaziratin min wahsi wajrata mutfili She turns-away and uncovers [from] a smooth (face) and guardsherself with a glance from an antelope of Wajra with-young, 34 wajidin kajldi rri?mi laysa bifahisin ?iQa hiya nassathu wala bimu'attali and (with) a neck like the neck of the white-antelope, without grossness when she displays it, nor unornamented, 35 wafar'in yazlnu lmatna ?aswada fahimin ?a0i0in kaqinwi nnaxlati lmuta'a6kili and (with) a lock which decks the back, jet black-hair, luxuriant as the clustered bunch-of-dates of the date-palm,— 36 gada?iruha mustasziratun ?ila Tula tadillu l'iqasu fl muGannan wamursali her plaits are twisted-withershins to the top (of her head), the red-ties stray in a doubled-back and a loosed (portion),— 37 wakashin latifin kaljadili muxassarin wasaqin ka?anbubi ssaqiyyi lmuSallali and (with) a delicate waist, like the leather-thong, slender, and a leg, like the stalk of the overshadowed waterplant. 38 watudhi fatltu lmiski fawqa firasiha na?umu dduha lam tantatiq 'an tafadduli When she wakes-in-the-forenoon, crumbs of musk are over her bedding; a slumberer of the forenoon, she did not girdherself rather-than wearing-a-single-garment, 39 wata'tu biraxsin gayri sa0nin kaPannahu "Pasan'u zabyin ?aw masawlku Pishili and she takes (her due) with a tender (hand), not calloused, as-though it were red headed-worms of Zaby, or tooth-sticks of tamarisk-wood.

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tudPu zzalama bil'isa?i ka?annaha manaratu mumsa rahibin mutabattili She illuminates the darkness at dusk, as-though she were the lamp of the night-cell of a monk, dedicating-himself.

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?ila miOliha yarnu lhalimu sababatan ?i5a ma sbakarrat bayna dir'in wamijwali To such-as she, the self-controlled (elder) gazes (with) desire, when she has grown-tall between the (age of) a woman'sgarment and (that of) a child's-garment:

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tasallat 'amayatu rrijali 'ani ssiba walaysa fu?adi 'an hawaki bimunsali the blindnesses of men are consoled for youth but my heart is not consoled for desire of you. 43 ?ala rubba xasmin flki ?alwa radadtuhu naslha 'ala ta'Salihi gayra mu?tali Oh, how-many an adversary about you, quarrelsome, have I repulsed, sincere in-spite-of his censoring, not stinted. 44 walaylin kamawji lbahri murxin sudulahu 'alayya bi?anwa'i lhumumi liyabtali And-many-a night like a wave of the sea loosing its curtains on me with (all) kinds of cares to afflict me: 45 faqultu lahu lamma tamatta bisulbihi wa?ardafa ?a'jazan wana?a bikalkali so I said to it, when it stretched with its spine and followedwith buttocks, and rose-painfully with a chest, 46 ?ala ?ayyuha llaylu ttawllu "?ala njall bisubhin wama l?asbahu minka bi?am0ali " Oh, o long night, oh, give-way to dawning, although the dawns are no improvement over you— 47 faya laka min laylin ka?anna nujumahu bi?amrasi kattanin ?ila summi jandali Oh, what a night you are, as-if its stars were (fastened) with strings of flax to immovable stones! " [48 waqirbati ?aqwamin ja'altu 'isamaha 'ala kahilin minnl &alulin murahhali] And-many-a water-skin of tribes have I fixed its strap on a back of mine, docile, (used to being) saddled, [49 wawadin kajawfi l'ayri qafrin qata'tuhu bihi 8&i?bu ya'wl kalxali'i lmu'ayyali] and-many-a valley, like the belly of an ass, empty-desert, have I cut-across, in which the wolf howls like the disowned-profligate having-a-large-family;

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[50 faqultu lahu lamma 'awa Pinna sa?nana qalllu lgina ?in kunta lamma tamawwali] so I said to him when he howled, " Indeed our state is slight in wealth if you have not yet got-a-sufficiency; [51 kilana ?i&a ma nala say?an ?afatahu waman yahtariO har0I waharOaka yuhzali] each of us, when he gains something, dissipates it, and whoever tills my tillage and your tillage, is made-lean. " 52 waqad ?agtadi wattayru fl wukunatiha bimunjaridin qaydi l?awabidi haykali I go-out-early when the birds are (still) in their nests on a short-haired (horse), the shackle of the wild-beasts, monumental: 53 mikarrin mifarrin muqbilin mudbirin ma'an kajulmudi saxrin hattahu ssaylu min 'ali wheeling, retreating, advancing, withdrawing at-once, like a boulder of a rock-pile which the flood hurled from above; 54 kumaytin yazillu llibdu 'an hali matnihi kama zallati ssafwa?u bilmutanazzili reddish, the felt-pad slips from the middle of his back, as the smooth-rocks shed the descending (rain); 55 'ala ddabli jayyasin ka?anna htizamahu ?i5a jasa flhi hamyuhu galyu mirjali in spite of leanness, seething, as-though his snorting, when his vehemence seethes within him, were the boiling of a cauldron; 56 misahhin ?i5a ma ssabihatu 'ala lwana "?a0arna lgubara bilkadldi lmurakkali gushing, when the swimmers (swift mares), in-spite-of weariness, raise the dust on the trodden hard-ground; 57 yazillu lgulamu lxiffu 'an sahawatihi wayulwl biPaOwabi l'anlfi lmuSaqqali the light youth slides from his back and he twists-off the garments of the burdensome rough-rider; 58 darlrin kaxu&rufi lwalidi ?amarrahu tatabu'u kaffayhi bixaytin muwassali swift, like the top of the child which the alternating-motions of his hands twisted on a continuous string; 59 lahu Paytala zabyin wasaqa na'amatin wa?irxa?u sirhanin wataqrlbu tatfuli he has the flanks of a gazelle and the legs of a she-ostrich and the canter of a jackal and the lope of a young-fox;

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dall'in ?i&a stadbartahu sadda farjahu bidafin fuwayqa l?ardi laysa bi?a'zali well-ribbed, when you look-from-behind-at him he stops his gap with an ample (tail) just-above the ground, not askew, 61 ka?anna 'ala lmatnayni minhu ?i9a ntaha madaka 'arusin ?aw salayata hanzali as-though, on the [two] sides-of-his back, when he turns-sideways, there were the pounding-stone of a bride, or bruisingstone (for) colocynth; 62 ka?anna dima?a lhadiyati binahrihi 'usaratu hinna?in bisaybin murajjali as-though the blood of the leaders (of the herd) on his neck were juice of henna in a combed, hoary (beard). 63 fa'anna lana sirbun ka?anna ni'ajahu 'a&ara dawarin fl mula?in mu5ayyali Then a troop appeared to us, as-if its ewes were maidens of Dawar in trailing striped-robes; 64 fa?adbarna kaljaz'i lmufassali baynahu bijldi mu'ammin fl l'aslrati muxwali so they wheeled, like the intercalated [between it] onyx (necklace), on the neck of a (child), paternal-uncled in the tribe, (and) maternal-uncled; 65 fa?alhaqana bilhadiyati wadunahu jawahiruha fi sarratin lam tuzayyali so he brought us (up) with the leaders, while behind him, the hindmost of them were in a clamorous-group that had not dispersed. 66 fa'ada 'ida?an bayna Oawrin wana'jatin dirakan walam yandah bima?in fayu^sali Then he overtook, (in) a heat, both a buck and a ewe, overtaking, whereas he did not exude water so that he would be washed. 67 fazalla tuhatu llahmi min bayni mundajin saflfa siwa?in Paw qadlrin mu'ajjali Then the dressers of the meat spent-all-day, between cooking spitted-pieces of roast-meat, or a hastened pot. 68 waruhna yakadu ttarfu yaqsuru dunahu mata ma taraqqa l'aynu flhi tasaffali And we came-to-rest-in-the-evening, when the eye almost falls short-of him; when the eye rises on him, it glides-down. 69 fabata 'alayhi sarjuhu walijamuhu wabata bi'aynl qa^iman gayra mursali So he passed-the-night (with) his saddle on him and his bridle, and he passed-the-night by my eye, standing, not let-loose.

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?asahi tara barqan ?urlka wamidahu kalam'i lyadayni fl habiyyin mukallali " 0 my companion, do you see lightening whose flash I show you, like the flicker of the hands (of the arrowshuffler) in the crested cumulus, yudPu sanahu ?aw masablhu rahibin ?amala ssalita bi85ubali lmufattali lighting its flash? or (is it) the lanterns of a hermit who has poured olive-oil on the twisted w i c k s ? " qa'adtu lahu wasuhbatl bayna darijin wabayna l'u&aybi bu'da ma muta?ammali I sat to (watch) it, with my companions, between Darij and [between] al-'Udhayb; (how) far was that contemplated (by) me! 'ala qatanin bissaymi ?aymanu sawbihi wa?aysaruhu 'ala ssitari fayaQbuli Above Qatan, by the forecast-of-lightning, is the right of its downpour and its left is on al-Sitar and Yadhbul. fa?adha yasuhhu lma?a hawla kutayfatin yakubbu 'ala l?aQqani dawha lkanahbuli Then it spent-the-forenoon pouring water around Kutayfa, prostrating on (their) beards the tall-trees of the kanahbul, wamarra 'ala lqanani min nafayanihi fa?anzala minhu l'usma min kulli manzali and some of its spray passed over al-Qanan, and sent-down from it the white-footed (goats) by every descent, watayma?a lam yatruk biha ji&'a naxlatin wala ?utuman ?illa masidan bijandali and (as for) Tayma', it did not leave in it the stock of a (single) date-palm nor a roofed-house unless reinforced with stone. ka?anna Oablran fl 'aranini wablihi kablru nnasi fl bijadin muzammali (It was) as-though Thablr, in the van of its downpour, were an elder of the people in a striped-garment, wrapped-around; ka?anna 3ura ra?si lmujaymiri gudwatan mina ssayli walgu0a?i falkatu migzali as-though the peaks of the head of al-Mujaymir, (at) morning, because-of the flood and the wrack, were the whirl of a spindle. wa?alqa bisahra?i lgabiti ba'a'ahu nuzula lyamanl 81 l'iyabi lmuhammali And it threw on the plain of al-Ghabit its baggage, (like) the dismounting of the Yemen! (merchant), possessor of leatherbundles loaded-up;

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ka?anna makakiyya ljiwa?i gudayyatan sabuhna sulafan min rahiqin mufalfali (it was) as-though the larks of the valley, in the morning, had drunk-at-morning a draught of spiced old-wine, ka?anna ssiba'a fihi garqa 'asiyyatan bi?arja?ihi lquswa ?anablsu 'unsuli (and) as-though the beasts in it (the valley), drowned at evening in its furthest reaches, were plucked-up-roots of wild-onions.

II. The Mu'allaqa of Tarafa 1

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lixawlata ?atlalun biburqati Gahmadi taluhu kabaql lwasmi fl zahiri lyadi Khawla (has) remnants in the gravel-plain of Thahmad which show-up like the remains of tattooing on the back of the hand. wuqufan biha sahbl 'alayya matiyyahum yaquluna la tahlik ?asan watajalladi Halting in them my companions, over me, their mounts, say, " Don't die (of) grief, but show-hardiness. " ka?anna huduja Imalikiyyati gudwatan xalaya saflnin binnawasifi min dadi (It was) as-though the litters of the Malik! camels (at) morning were hulks of ships in the wide-spaces of (the Wad! of) Dad, 'adawliyyatin ?aw min saflni bni yaminin yajuru biha lmallahu tawran wayahtadi 'Adawli (ships), or of the ships of Ibn Yamin, with which the sailor tacks sometimes, or goes-straight; yasuqqu hababa lma?i hayzumuha biha kama qasama tturba lmufayilu bilyadi their prow cleaves the rippled water with them as the gamester divides the dust (-heaps) with the hand. wafl lhayyi ?ahwa yanfudu lmarda sadinun mu?ahiru simtay lu?lu?in wazabarjadi And in the tribe is a dark (-lipped gazelle) who shakes-down the arak-fruit, well-grown, showing [two] necklaces of pearl and topaz, xa&ulun tura'i rabraban bixamilatin tanawalu ?atrafa Ibarlri watartadl left-behind (while) grazing together (with the herd) in a copse, she browses-on the tips of the arak-buds and cloaks-herself (in its branches),

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watabsimu 'an ?alma ka?anna munawwiran taxallala hurra rramli di'sun lahu nadi and she smiles from blackened (gums) as-though her smile were a blossoming (flower) which appears amidst the sand, a hillock which has moisture, saqathu ?iyatu ssamsi ?illa liOatihi ?usiffa walam takdim 'alayhi bi?i0midi (a mouth) which the rays of the sun have drenched, except for its gum, which has been smeared, while she does not bite on it, with antimony, wawajhun ka?anna ssamsa hallat rida?aha 'alayhi naqiyyu llawni lam yataxaddadi and (she has) a face, as-though the sun had loosed its mantle on it, clear of color, not wrinkled. wa?inni la?umdi lhamma 'inda htidarihi bi'awja?a mirqalin taruhu watagtadl And I , surely I send-away grief at its visitation with a swiftstepping thin (camel) who goes-by-night and goes-by-day, ?amunin ka?alwahi l?irani nasa?tuha 'ala lahibin ka?annahu zahru burjudi a reliable (one), like the planks of a bier, which I guided on a highway as-though it were the back of a striped-cloak, jumaliyyatin wajna?a tardl ka?annaha safannajatun tabrl li?az'ara ?arbadi a stallion-like (female camel), strong-bodied, she pounds-along as-though she were a she-ostrich who races with an ash-grey hairless (male); tubari 'itaqan najiyatin wa?atba'at wa?Ifan wa?Ifan fawqa mawrin mu'abbadi she vies-with swift well-bred (horses?), and follows ankle (with) ankle above a trodden track. tarabba'ati lquffayni fl ssawli tarta'I hada?iqa mawliyyi l?asirrati ?agyadi She spring-grazed the [two] rocky-hillsides among tail-raising (pregnant she-camels), pasturing-on the verdant gardens (of a valley) watered b y the following rains. tarl'u ?ila sawti lmuhlbi watattaql bi&I xusalin raw'ati Paklafa mulbadi She responds to the voice of the herder and defends-herself with a (tail) with tufts (against) the attacks of a mat-haired, tawny (stallion), ka?anna janahay madrahiyyin takannafa hifafayhi sukka fi l'aslbi bimisradi

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as-though the wings of a white-vulture enclosed its sides, fixed in the tailbone with an awl, fatawran bihi xalfa zzamlli wataratan 'ala hasafin kassanni &awin mujaddadi so sometimes (she strikes) with it behind the back-rider, and sometimes on puckered-udders, like the worn-waterskin, withered (and) dried-out. laha faxi&ani Pukmila nnahdu flhima ka?annahuma baba munlfin mumarradi She has thighs (with) perfect firmness in them, as-though they were the [two] gates of a plastered, over-topping (palace), watayyu mahalin kalhaniyyi xulufuhu wa?ajrinatun luzzat bida?yin munaddadi and an interlocking of vertebrae, the short-ribs of which are like arched-bows, and a neck which is attached to ordered side-ribs, ka?anna kinasay dalatin yaknufaniha wa?atra qisiyyin tahta sulbin mu?ayyadi as-though [two] (gazelle) coverts of a lotetree flanked her, and an arching of bows under a reinforced spine. laha mirfaqani ?aftalani ka?annaha tamurru bisalmay dalijin mutasaddidi She has elbows twisted-out as-though she moved-along with the [two] leather-buckets of a water-carrier exertinghimself, kaqantarati rrumiyyi ^aqsama rabbuha latuktanafan hatta tusada biqarmadi like the vaulted-bridge of the Byzantine, whose builder swore that it would be enclosed, until it was strengthened, with brick. suhabiyyatu l'uQnuni mujadatu lqara ba'Idatu waxdi rrijli mawwHratu lyadi (She is) reddish bearded, firm backed, long strided of the foot, easy-going of the forearm. "?umirrat yadaha fatla sazrin wa?ujnihat laha 'adudaha fl saqifin musannadi Her forelegs are twisted twisting withershins, and her forearms are bent towards her in (a chest like) propped roofingslabs. janflhun difaqun 'andalun Qumma Pufri'at laha katifaha fl mu'alan musa"adi (She is) given-to-swerving, rushing, large-headed; besides there are lifted for her her shoulders on a lofty prominence, 10

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27 ka?anna 'uluba nnis'i fi da?ayatiha mawaridu min xalqa?a fi zahri qardadi as-though the welts of the girth among her ribs were waterchannels from a smooth-rock on the back of a rocky-hill; 28 talaqa wa?ahyanan tabinu kaPannaha bana?iqu gurrun fi qamlsin muqaddadi meeting and sometimes separating, as-though they were gleaming slits in a gored shirt. 29 wa?atla'u nahhadun ?i5a sa"adat bihi kasukkani busiyyin bidajlata mu§'idi And (she has) a lengthy rearing (neck), when she raises it, like the rudder of a barge in the Tigris, going-up-river, 30 wajumjumatun miQlu l'alati ka?annama wa'a lmultaqa minha ?ila harfi mibradi and a skull like the anvil, as-though the suture of it were joined to the edge of a file; 31 waxaddun kaqirtasi ssa?ami wamisfarun kasibti lyamani qadduhu lam yuxarradi and a cheek like the parchment of the Syrian, and an upperlip like the leather of the Yemeni whose form is not distorted (by age); 32 wa'ayn&ni kalmawiyyatayni stakannata bikahfay hajajay saxratin qalti mawridi and eyes, like the [two] mirrors, which lurked in the caverns of the eye-sockets of a rock, a watering-pool amid-rocks, 33 tahurani 'uwwara Iqa&a fatarahuma kamakhQlatay mad'uratin ?ummi farqadi expellers of the motes of white-matter, so you see them like the kohl-rimmed (eyes) of a frightened (one), a mother of a calf; 34 wasadiqata sam'i ttawajjusi lissura lihajsin xafiyyin ?aw lisawtin munaddidi and [two] faithful of hearing of harkening for night-travel to a hidden whisper or to a calling voice: 35 muPallalatani ta'rifu l'itqa flhima kasSmi'atay satin bihawmala mufradi pricked (ears) by which you discern the breeding, like the hearing (ears) of the wild bull in Hawmal, isolated; 36 waParwa'u nabbadun ?aha55u mulamlamun kamirdati §axrin f! saflhin mu§ammadi and an alert pulser, lively, compact like the battering-stone of rock among erected slabs;

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wa?a'lamu maxrutun mina l?anfi marinun 'atlqun mata tarjum bihi l?arda tazdadi and a harelip pierced from the nose, pliant, well-bred; when she batters the ground with it she speeds-up. wa?in si?tu lam turqil wa?in si?tu ?arqalat maxafata malwiyyin mina lqaddi muhsadi And if I wish she doesn't trot and if I wish she trots, (for) fear of a twisted from leather, strongly-woven (whip); wa?in si?tu sama wasita lkuri ra?suha wa'amat bidab'ayha naja?a lxafaydadi and if I wish, her head vies (in height) with the middle of the saddle, and she swims with her forearms (with) the flight of the male-ostrich. 'ala miQliha ?amdi PiSa qala sahib! ?ala laytanl ?afdlka minha wa?aftadl On such-as she I press-on when my companion says "Oh, would that I could ransom you from it and be (myself) ransomed, " wajasat Pilayhi nnafsu xawfan waxalahu musaban walaw Pamsa 'ala gayri marsadi and (his) soul seethes at it, (with) fear, and he imagines himself smitten even if he night-travels on (a road) not ambushed. ?i8a lqawmu qalu man fatan xiltu ?annanl 'unltu falam ?aksal walam ?ataballadi When the tribe say, "Who is a gallant?" I imagine that I am meant and I do not shirk and I do not blunder. Pahaltu 'alayha bilqati'i fa?aj5amat waqad xabba "?alu l?am'azi lmutawaqqidi I set upon her with the rod, so she hastened, when the mirage of the blazing stony-ground had become-tall, fadalat kama 5alat walldatu majlisin turl rabbaha ?a5yala sahlin mumaddadi so she minced just-as the slave-girl of an assembly minced, showing her master the trains of a trailing white-garment. walastu bihallali ttila'i maxafatan walakin mata yastarfidi lqawmu ?arfidi I am not an inhabitor of the ravines (out of) fearing, but when the people ask-succor, I succor; fa?in tabgini fi halqati lqawmi talqanl wa?in taqtanisnl fi lhawaniti tastadi so if you seek me in the circle of the people, you will meet me, and if you hunt me in the wine-shops, you will catch me, wa?in yaltaqi lhayyu ljami'u tulaqini ?ila Sirwati lbayti rrafi'i lmusammadi

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and if the assembled tribe gather, you will encounter me (if you look) to the apex of the established lofty house. nadamaya bldun kannujumi waqaynatun taruhu 'alayna bayna burdin wamujsadi My boon-companions are white like the stars, and (we have) a songstress who walks-at-evening among us (wearing) either a striped-cloak or a saffronned (robe) ; rahlbun qitabu ljaybi minha raqlqatun bijassi nnadama baddatu lmutajarradi wide is the lower-part of the neck-opening of hers, delicate at the touch of the boon-companions, tender of the exposed (portion); ?i&a nahnu qulna ?asmi'ina nbarat lana 'ala risliha matruqatan lam tasaddadi when we say, "Let us hear", she addresses us at her ease (with eyes) downcast, (and) she does not strain; ?i&a rajja'at fl sawtiha xilta sawtaha tajawuba ?az?arin 'ala ruba'in radi when she trills in her voice you would think her voice was the antiphony of foster-mothers over a perished spring (foal). wama zala tasrabl lxumura wala&5atl wabay'I wa?infaqi tarifl wamutladl And there did not cease my drinking wines and my pleasures and my selling and my squandering my acquired and my inherited (wealth), ?ila Pan tahamatnl l'aslratu kulluha wa?ufridtu ?ifrada lba'Iri lmu'abbadi until the clan shunned me, all of it, and I was isolated, the isolation of the tarred (mangy) camel. ra?aytu banl gabra?a la yunkirunani wala ?ahlu ha8aka ttirafi Imumaddadi I saw (that) the sons of the dust did not disapprove me, nor the folk of that extended leather-tent. ?ala ?ayyuha5a lla?imi ?ahduru lwaga wa?an ?ashada lla88ati hal ?anta muxlidi Oh, you blamer of me (because) I attend the fray and that I participate-in the pleasures—are you my immortalizer? fa?in kunta la tastl'u daf'a maniyyatl fada'nl ?ubadirha bima malakat yadi So if you cannot ward-off my doom then let me forestall it with what my hand possesses, falawla 0ala0un hunna min 'Isati Ifata wajaddika lam ?ahfil mata qama 'uwwadl

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for were it not for three (things), that are of the life of the youth, by your fortune, I wouldn't care when my sick-visitors got-up: faminhunna sabqu l'a&ilati bisarbatin kumaytin mata ma tu'la bilma?i tuzbidi so among them is anticipating the reproaching (women) with a ruddy (morning) drink, which, when it is topped with water, foams; wakarri ?i5a nada lmudafu muhannaban kasldi lgada nabbahtahu lmutawarridi and (secondly) my wheeling, when the hemmed-in (fighter) summons, a broad-stanced (horse), like the wolf of the thicket, which you have startled, going-to-water; wataqslru yawmi ddajni waddajnu mu'jibun bibahkanatin tahta ttirafi lmu'ammadi and (thirdly) curtailing a day of rain-cloud—and the raincloud is pleasant—with a buxom (girl) under the propped leather-tent, ka?anna lburina waddamalija 'ulliqat 'ala 'usarin ?aw xirwa'in lam yuxaddadi as-though the anklets and the bracelets were hung on a sodomapple or castor-plant which was not broken. karlmun yurawwl nafsahu fi hayatihi sata'lamu ?in mutna gadan ?ayyuna ssadi (I am) a generous (one) who waters his soul in his life—you will learn, if we die tomorrow, which of us is the thirsty. ?ara qabra nahhamin baxllin bimalihi kaqabri gawiyyin fi Ibatalati mufsidi I see the tomb of a grudger, stingy with his property, is like the tomb of one erring in idleness wasting (his property): tara ju6watayni min turabin 'alayhima safa?ihu summun min saflhin munaddadi you see [two] piles of dust, upon which there are hard slabs of an ordered pavement. ?ara lmawta ya'tamu lkirama wayastaf! 'aqllata mali lfahisi lmutasaddidi I see (that) death selects the nobles, and chooses the pick of the property of the closefisted miser. ?ara 1'aySa kanzan naqisan kulla laylatin waraa tanqusi l?ayyamu waddahru yanfadi I see life (as) a treasure-trove decreasing every night, and whatever the days and time lessen will be exhausted.

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la'amruka Pinna lmawta ma PaxtaPa lfata lakattiwali lmurxa waOinyahu bilyadi B y your life, indeed death, as-long-as he misses the gallant, is like the loosened tether when its doubled-ends are in the hand. fama li Parani wabna 'ammiya malikan mata Padnu minhu yanPa 'annx wayab'udi So what is (the matter) with me (that) I see myself and the son of m y paternal-uncle, Malik, whenever I approach him, he with-draws from me and keeps-away? yalumu wama Padri 'alama yalumunl kama lamanl fl lhayyi qurtu bnu ma'badi He blames and I don't know why he blames me, just as Qurf ibn Ma'bad blamed me among the tribe. waPayPasani min kulli xayrin talabtuhu kaPanna wada'nahu Pila ramsi mulhadi He made-despair me of any boon I requested, as-though we had put him at a niched grave, 'ala gayri Qanbin qultuhu gayra PannanI nasadtu falam Pugfil hamulata ma'badi for no offense that I said, except that I pursued and did not neglect the baggage-camels of Ma'bad, waqarrabtu bilqurba wajaddika ?innanl mata yaku ?amrun linnaklOati ?ashadi and I approached by (right of) kinship, and by your fortune, I, when there is a matter for striving, present-myself; wa?in ?ud'a liljulla ?akun min humatiha wa?in yaPtika IPa'daPu biljahdi Pajhadi and if I am called to the crisis, I am (one) of its (i.e., tribal honor) defenders, and if the enemies come to you with distress, I strive, wa?in yaq&ifu bilqaS'i 'irdaka Pasqihim bika?si hiyadi lmawti qabla ttahaddudi and if they malign with slander your honor I give-drink-to them with the cup of the cisterns of death before (even) threatening. bala hadaQin ?ahda6tuhu wakamuhdiBin hija?I waqa&fl biisakati wamutradi Without any breach I introduced, and as an instigator (of crime) (occur) m y imprecation and my defamation with complaints, and my banishment; falaw kana mawlaya mra?an huwa gayruhu lafarraja karbl Paw laPanzaranl gadl

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so if my cousin were (any) man other-than he, surely he would have dispelled my grief or surely he would have stayed my (blame) (until) tomorrow; walcLkinna mawlaya mru?un huwa xaniql 'ala sSukri wattas?ali ?aw ?ana muftadi but my cousin is a man who is strangling me, about thanking and petitioning, unless I ransom-myself; wafulmu 8awl lqurba ?asaddu madadatan 'ala lmar?i min waq'i lhusami lmuhannadi for the abuse of possessors of kinship is harsher (in) smart on the man than the fall of the Indian blade. fa&arnl waxulql ?innanl laka sakirun walaw halla bayti na?iyan 'inda dargadi So leave me and my disposition —indeed I shall be grateful to you, even supposing my tent were pitched afar, at Darghad. falaw sa?a rabbi kuntu qaysa bna xalidin walaw §a?a rabbi kuntu 'amra bna marOadi For if my lord wished, I would be Qays ibn Khalid, and if my lord wished, I would be 'Amr ibn Marthad; fa?asbahtu &a malin kaOirin wazarani banuna kiramun sadatun limusawwadi then I would become possessor of much property and noble sons would visit me—chiefs to (one) regarded-as-a-chief. ?ana rrajulu ddarbu lla&I ta'rifunahu xasa§un kara^si lhayyati lmutawaqqidi I am the nimble man whom you (pi.) know, keen, like the head of the glowing viper. fa?alaytu la yanfakku kashi bitanatan li'adbin raqlqi ssafratayni muhannadi So I swear, my waist shall not cease (being) a lining to an Indian sword, thin of [two] edges, husamin ?i&a ma qumtu muntasiran bihi kafa l'awda minhu lbad?u laysa bimi'dadi a blade (such that) when I rise defending with it, there sufficesfor the return of it the initial (stroke) (since it) is not a treelopper; ?axi 0iqatin la yan0ani 'an darlbatin •?i&a qlla mahlan qala hajizuhu qadl worthy of trust, it does not swerve from a target; when it is said, " gently " its wielder says " enough for me " (the deed is already done); ?i&a btadara lqawmu ssilaha wajadtanl manl'an ?i&a ballat biqa^imihi yad!

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when the tribe rushes-to arms, you find me a bulwark, when my hand is glued to its hilt. 87 wabarkin hujudin qad PaGarat maxafatl nawadiyaha ?amsl bi'adbin mujarradi And-many-a kneeling-camel-herd, sleeping whose runaways fear of me has startled, I pass with a bared blade. 88 famarrat kahatun 8atu xayfin julalatun 'aqllatu sayxin kalwablli yalandadi Then a matronly-camel passed, possessing dry (udders, i.e. pregnant), majestic, the choice-treasure of an elder like the stick, a vehement-disputer, 89 yaqulu waqad tarra lwa?ifu wasaquha ?alasta tara ?an qad ?atayta bimu?yidi who says, when the foreleg and her shank have been hacked-up, " Don't you see that you have come with an outrage? " 90 waqala ?ala ma&a tarawna bisaribin sadidin 'alayna bagyuhu muta'ammidi And he said, " Now what do you (pi.) think about a drinker, severe on us is his iniquity, a willful (one)? " 91 faqala Saruhu Pinnama naf'uha lahu wa?illa takuffu qasiya lbarki yazdadi And he said, " Leave him, for the profit of her is his only, but except you prevent the far kneeling-camels, he will do worse. " 92 falalia l?ima?u yamtalilna huwaraha wayus'a 'alayna bissadifi Imusarhadi So the maids spent-the-day baking her foal and there was hastened to us with the fatted hump. 93 fa?in muttu fan'aynT bima ?ana ?ahluhu wasuqql 'alayya ljayba ya bnata ma'badi So if I die, then announce-the-death-of me by what I am entitledto, and tear for me the collar, o daughter of Ma'bad; 94 wala taj'allnl kamriPin laysa hammuhu kahamml wala yugni gina?I wamashadl and don't make me like a man whose ambition is not like my ambition, and who does not suffice my sufficiency and my presence, 95 batPin 'ani ljulla sari'in ?ila lxana 8alilin bi?ajma'i rrijali mulahhadi tardy at the crisis, swift to corruption, contemptible (and) buffeted by the fists of men. 96 falaw kuntu waglan fl rrijali ladarranl 'adawatu 5i l?ashabi walmutawahhidi

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I. The Mu'allaqa of Imru'u 1-Qays A.

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Nasïb (expanded by anecdotes) : 1-47. 1. 1-6 : Nasïb proper. 2. 7-47 : Romantic anecdotes. a) 7-17 : Slaughtered camel and encounterwith 'Unayza. b) 18-22 : Fâtima breaks off liaison. c) 23-28 : A rendezvous. d) 29-42 : Description of one mistress. 3- 43-47 : Description of the night. Travel theme : 52-69. 1. 52-62 : First hunting scene, description. 2. 63-69 : Second hunting scene, narrative. Main section : 70-81 : Storm scene. (Shift to results of the storm at 1. 78).

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Nasib : 1-10. (The poet shifts to description of mistress 1. 6). B. Travel theme : 11-39. 1. 11-18 : Description of camel in motion. 2. 19-37 : Static description of camel. 3- 38-39 : Concluding couplet. C. Main section : 40-103. 1. 40-45 : Transition from travel theme. 2. 46-61 : Acceptance turns to rejection — the poet defends his position after 55. 3. 62-67 : Comparison of the graves of profligate and miser. 4. 69-79 : Resentful comments on his family. 5. 80-81 : Wishful thinking (couplet). 6. 82-86 : Boast of courage. 7. 87-92 : Hospitality, leading to slaughtered camel. 93-97 : Exhortation on how to mourn the poet. 9. 98-101 : Boast of courage, xo. 102-103 : Concluding couplet.

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Nasïb : 1-19. 1. 1-12 : Separation and campground. 2. 13-19 : Comparison of 'Abla's kiss to a meadow. Travel theme : 20-33. x. 20-21 : Transitional couplet describing horse. 2. 22-27 : Involved similes describing camel. 3. 28-33 : Description of a journey (and evening, after 1. 31). Main section : 34-75. 1. 34-56 : Personal boasting. a) 34-43 : The poet's virtues. b) 44-56 : Battle scene (narrative with description of opponent). 257-75 : Specific propaganda. a) 57-60 : Reprise of nasïb. b) 61-70 : A particular battle. c ) 71-75 : Conclusion — the poet cites his grudge.

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