Art. IV.—Gleanings from the Arabic

Extract

The Arabic texts of the two following poems, of which I have ventured to offer translations to English readers, were published in 1854 in London, under the patronage of the Oriental Translation Fund. They formed part of the Hudsailite Poems contained in the manuscript of Leyden, which were edited and were to have been translated, with annotations, by a very distinguished German Orientalist, John Godfrey Lewis Kosegarten, late Professor of Theology and Oriental Literature in the University of Greifswald. The poems were composed by two sisters, named Amra and Janûb, Arab poetesses of the tribe of Hudsail. Overwhelmed with grief at the loss of their brother Amr, or Amru, whom they tenderly loved as a relative and stood in need of as a protector, they sought relief in song, and in composing elegiac tributes to his memory. Three of these have come down to us, two by Janûb and one by Amra. For translation I have selected the latter and one only of the two former, as the second poem by Janûb is less adapted than that which I have chosen for translation into English verse. Amr, or Amrun, the master of the dog, was the designation by which the brother of the poetesses was distinguished among the Arabs of his time. He was himself a poet, and would seem, from the tributes which his sisters paid to his memory, to have been possessed of those high qualities which, in the estimation of the Arabs, were typical of heroism and virtue.