‘ÍSÁ IBN HISHÁM related to us and said: One day I joined a company like unto the flowers of spring, or the stars of night after the third watch, with bright countenances and agreeable dispositions. They resembled one another in appearance and were alike in good circumstances. And we began to pull the skirts of conversation and to open the doors of debate. Now there was in our midst a youth, short of stature among men, with clipped mustachios, who uttered not a word, nor entered with us into a description, until, finally, the discussion led us to the praise of wealth and its possessors, to the mention of property and its excellence and to the assertion that it is the adornment of men and the goal of perfection. Then, as if he had awoke from a sleep, or presented himself after an absence, he opened his díwán, 4 loosed his tongue, and said: 'Silence! Verily ye have failed in a thing that ye lack; ye have come short in the search of it and
Said ‘Isá ibn Hishám: When that company dispersed, I sat after them for a while. Then I advanced towards him and seated myself before him and said--and verily I desired to make his acquaintance and my soul longed to converse with him: 'It is as though I knew thy pedigree and had met thee.' He said: 'Yes, a road united us and thou wast my travelling-companion.' So I said: 'Time hath changed thee to me and none made me forget thee except Satan.' 4
And, when money faileth, I spend from the purse of desires.
Whoever desires greedy feeding and deep drinking, to the sound 2 of the lute, 3
And prefers the smooth-faced, oblivious of so and so, and so and so,
Thou wilt see him secure against wealth and prosperity.'
182:4 His diwán: Figuratively for his store of prose and poetry, his repertoire.
183:1 The near: That is, the present life,
183:2 The remote: That is, the future life.
183:3 Tarsus: A well-known ancient city in the fertile plain of Cilicia. It was captured by the Arabs shortly after A.D. 660. For more than a century after its conquest it was in ruins. But Hárún al-Rashíd rebuilt its wall in A.D. 787 and made it the north-western capital of the Arab power in the long wars against the Byzantine empire. The Khalífa Mamúm died and was buried here in A.H. 218 (August A.D. 833). The ruins of the ancient city are extensive but are deeply buried. (Encyclopædia Britannica, xxvi, 433). The assertion that a treasure lay buried here was, therefore, not inappropriate.
183:4 Patricians: Plural of leader of an army, one who is over ten thousand men. It is arabicized from the Latin patricius. From the time of Constantine (A.D. 288-337) patrician became the title of a person high in office at court.
183:5 Sora: In Babylonia quite close to Hilleh and Waqf, the seat of a famous Jewish academy founded in the third century A.D. by the renowned scholar Abba Arika, which played a dominant rôle in Babylonian Judaism for several centuries. It was noted for wine. Jewish Encyclopædia, i, 145, and Yaqút, iii, 184.
183:6 Hilleh: of Banú Mazyad, a town of Asiatic Turkey between Kúfa and Baghdad and sixty miles south of the latter city. It is situated on both banks of the Euphrates. Many of the houses of the town are built of bricks, not a few
184:2 A bare sufficiency: Literally, that suffices the cattle of what they obtain from trees or plants; hence food sufficient to maintain life.
184:3 What will maintain strength: Literally, what will arrest the remains () of life.
184:4 None made me forget thee except Satan: An allusion to Qur’án, xviii, 62.
185:1 I am the tyrant of the time: Metre, ramal.
185:2 The sound: Literally, a humming, or rumbling sound.
185:3 The lute: Literally, the chord (of a lute) composed of two strings, or, as some say, the second chord. See Ḥarírí, i. 244.