EPIGRAM
ON
EBN NAPHTA-WAH.
BY MOHAMMED BEN ZEID ALMOTAKALAM.
[IN order to understand Ben Zeid's Charade. we must remark that, in Arabic, Naphta signifies a combustible not very much unlike our gunpowder, and that Wah is an exclamation of sorrow.]
BY the former with ruin and death we are curst;
In the latter we grieve for the ills of the first;
And as for the whole where together they meet,
It's a drunkard, a liar, a thief, and a cheat.