SOURCE: Wormhoudt, Arthur. “The Blessing of Ishmael and Esau.” In The Blessing of Ishmael and Esau in the Diwan of Abu Tayyib ibn al Husain al Kindi al Mutanabbi, pp. 1-57. Oskaloosa, Iowa: William Penn College, 1992.

[In the following excerpt, Wormhoudt explicates several of al-Mutanabbi's poems.]

Ishmael and Esau both play important roles in the tradition of which the New Testament and the Quran are a part. Ishmael is mentioned several times in the Quran since he and his father Abraham are said to be the builders of the Ka'ba at Mecca. Esau is important to Arabic Christians since his name is spelled ‘Isu and the name of Jesus is spelled ‘Isa. The root ‘is’ can mean to wither and become gray. The former term is applied to crops, the latter to camels. The name of Abraham is often referred to in both the Quran and the New Testament as the founder of Christianity and Islam. The covenant between him and Yahweh Elohim is sealed with circumcision which represents the separation of vowels from consonants in the Hebraic, Arabic and Greco-Roman scripts. These scripts are to be distinguished from the syllabic scripts of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt which do not separate vowels from consonants. The latter are thus idolatrous since idols do not hear or speak with vowels and consonants. Idols are only visible objects.

The story in Genesis which provides the context for these characters appears in chapters 11 through 25. It begins with the journey of Abraham from Mesopotamia to Egypt. He takes with him his wife Sara and his nephew Lot. Sara is unable to conceive a child and Abram shields her from the Egyptians by saying that she is his sister. For the reader this emphasizes her barrenness and the infant's separation from the nurse who feeds it only intermittently.

In the second fifth of the story Abram rescues Lot who has settled in Sodom, one of the lowest places on earth, from captivity by raiding Mesopotamian kings. Lot represents the seated position in the childhood pattern of communication habits. In this position the child learns to deal with the pull of gravity by counteracting the downward movement of body fluid. Fluids involved in excretion can thus be equated to the upward motion of breath when it moves freely to produce vowel sounds. Abram's 318 men sum to the twelve ribs in the upright torso.

In the middle fifth of the story Sarah gives her Egyptian maid Hagar to Abraham and he becomes the father of Ishmael by her. Lot's life in Sodom has taught Abraham the lesson of sexual erection and more importantly the ability to separate vowel from consonant. It is for this reason that Ishmael's name means he who hears El. But Sarah rejects both Hagar and Ishmael and thus sets the stage for the rivalry between Ishmael and her son Isaac who is to be born in the last fifth of the story.

In the fourth fifth Abraham returns to his concern for his nephew Lot. Yahweh Elohim has decided to destroy Sodom since the violent form of homo-eroticism practiced there contradicts the nature of hetero-sexuality. As Lot leaves Sodom he is offered a choice between not looking back at the sulphurous fire that is falling on the city or of doing so and paying the penalty for it. Lot's wife, like Eve who is offered a similar choice of safe compliance or dangerous rebellion, takes the dangerous option. She is turned into a pillar of salt and Lot himself is reduced to committing incest with his daughters.

In the last fifth of the story Sarah conceives a son by Abraham. His name is Isaac, meaning laughter. The laughter is due not only to the great age of his parents but also to the lesson Sarah has learned from Lot's wife. The salt pillar into which she is changed suggests the salt waters of the sea in which fish live. In the New Testament Jesus often compares his followers to fish and says they are the salt of the earth. So just as Abraham learns how to father a child from another man, that is Lot, so Sarah learns how to become a mother from another woman who is already a mother. The prophet Ezra said the Dead Sea breeds fish.

The last fifth of the story has a sequel in that when Isaac becomes a father his wife Rebekah gives birth to twins. The elder is called Esau, hairy, and the younger Jacob, he who holds the heel of his twin. Jacob manages to get Esau to sell him his birthright for a mess of pottage and when it comes time for the blessing to be given by Isaac, Rebekah disguises Jacob's hands with hairy goat skin to deceive Isaac who is now blind. This blindness represents the fact that the Hebraic script was written without vowels (a consequence of the hand having been a front foot) which the reader cannot see.

The covenant is therefore a covenant only for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Israel) who are the ancestors of the writers of the Hebraic and non-classical Arabic script. But Ishmael and Esau receive blessings from Yahweh Elohim since the Quran represented by Ishmael, Ismail, and the New Testament represented by Esau, Jesus, have the freedom of the wildass and the hairiness of the goat as distinct from the gift of land provided by the covenant.

So the rivalry between Ishmael and Isaac and that between Esau and Jacob as well is not something to be deplored. In fact it has been fruitful in enhancing both traditions. These traditions may be termed poetic and mystical insofar as they stem from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and scientific and social insofar as they follow the lead of Abraham, Ishmael and Esau. The former due to its being based on the absence of a vowel script is an inner tradition while the latter is outer based in the ears of Ishmael and the hands of Esau. The prophet and the would-be-prophet stand between the two. But these terms are relative to the times.

By the time al Mutanabbi, the would-be-prophet, was writing the Arabs had absorbed enough of ancient Greek and Roman wisdom to make significant contributions to it. During his lifetime (915-965) he could also draw on Indian and Chinese knowledge with the result that modern European science could be foreseen to have an important cultural debt to the Arabs. The poetic tradition stemming from the Hebrew Bible was further available to al Mutanabbi. And the 114 chapters of the Quran have a basically three part structure. The first part has the longest chapter in the book with its account of the Yellow Cow. The middle part has chapters on the Prophets and the Pilgrimage, and the last third has chapters emphasizing the light of the Star, the Moon and the Sun.

Al Mutanabbi's Diwan is divided into five parts and consists of 287 poems, some very short and others as long as 50 or 60 verses. They explore many themes and the dozen poems offered here represent only a small part of the richness of the collection. A model for the five parts of the Diwan may be found in Chapter 4 of the Quran entitled Women, verse 136: He who disbelieves in Allah and his angels and his books and his messengers and the last day has gone far astray. To some extent the five parts of the Diwan also follow the five steps in Allah's power to resurrect mankind as given in verse 5 of the Chapter on The Pilgrimage. They are: dust (root trb), the drop (ntf), the clot (‘ql), the lump (mdg) and the baby (tfl).

The first part of the Diwan has 240 poems and has the title of Shawmiyat, poems written in Syria in the early part of the poet's career. Several poems here are dedicated to men whose names can be associated with Esau and Ishmael. These names do not appear in other parts of the Diwan.

The second part of the Diwan consists of 161 poems most of which are dedicated to Saif al Daula, the ruler of Aleppo who carried on military campaigns against the Byzantines and patronized many poets and writers.

The third part of the Diwan has poems for the black eunuch who ruled Egypt. His name was Kafur. There are also poems dedicated to an Arab general named Fatik. Kafur's names means camphor and Fatik's means bold.

The fourth part of the Diwan has only five poems all written for the wazir Ibn al ‘Amid whose name means the son of support. He was a Kurd and served the ruler of northern Persia and Iraq.

The last part of the collection has seven poems all written for ‘Adud al Daula, the Buyid prince of southern Persia. His name means the arm of state.

5 He spoke in his youth and he had just passed two men who had killed a rat. They showed it to people who wondered at the size of it.

The raiding rat has in fact become
          Fates' prisoner struck down in a lump
Kinany and ‘Amir have hit him
          Tracked him in the way that Arabs do
Both men were near to his killing
          Which of you collared the noble loot?
Which of you was behind him?
          For he has tooth marks on the tail?

This poem provides the reader with an image that shows the newborn infant separated from the nurse and forced to make a raid into the external world to satisfy its hunger and thirst. But the feminine fates have struck it down to the horizontal position of a soft lump.

In this position Kinany (root knn, to conceal a girl, a veil, quiver for arrows) and ‘Amir (root ‘mr, to inhabit, to be prosperous) have hit him by following his tracks in the way that desert Arabs do.

The loot is free for the taking but whose shall it be? The tracks are the script by means of which the Arab poet tells the reader of inner, veiled or outer, inhabited truth. Toothmarks point to articulate speech.

It is the position of the pursuers behind the fleeing rat and the toothmarks on the tail that decide the question. The tail is the urethra. Urine (Greek ouranios, heavenly) is the model for the missing fluency which the infant enjoyed continuously prenatally and which it lacks postnatally when the nurse is absent. The babbling sounds which are the basis of speech and script depend on that fluency in saliva and urine for motivation.

29 He spoke about Abu Dulaf ibn Kundaj who visited him in prison.

I am used to long burial and wasting
          In the prison and the chains O Abu Dulaf
Not by choice do I take your care for me
          For hunger makes lions content with carrion
But whatever you will O prison for truly
          As I become used to death my soul confesses
If my stay with you were to decrease
          No pearl would grow in the oyster shell

This poem explores the theme of the newborn's self-centeredness already noted in the saying that the rat was a prisoner of the fates. Here the poet speaks of being buried and wasting away from hunger and thirst. He is in chains when he addresses Abu Dulaf, the father of one who walks slowly due to being shackled, ibn Kundaj, son of a chest or foundation post.

Abu Dulaf has done the prisoner a good turn but this was not in response to anything that the captive chose to do to him. The infant is helpless and yet has the pride of the lion who for all his strength must be content with carrion if hunger drives him to it. Carrion may be the gift of Abu Dulaf or more likely it is the infant's own excretion that is the basis for its creativity.

That is why the poet now addresses the prison rather than Abu Dulaf. He is used to the kind of dying that involved self punishment. His rage at being frustrated is recorded in his own extremities. The hands and feet thus become the instruments of his confession and his self torment.

So a lengthy stay in prison is useful since it gives time for the slow growth of the pearl in the oyster shell. The irritating grain of sand is covered with the fluid that produces the string of gems that are his verses. His attempt to assume the mantle of prophecy has earned him the title of the Would-be-prophet, al Mutanabbi.

Each verse of a poem ends in a consonant which remains the same throughout the poem but changes from poem to poem. The rhythms of the verses have names which contribute to the meaning of the poem. The two poems of al Mutanabbi quoted in Covenant and Search have rhythms called Outspread and Perfect respectively. Poem 5 in this essay is in the Tripping meter, poem 29 Flowing, poem 51 Long, poem 58 Flowing, poem 232 Nimble, poem 260 Exuberant, poem 267 Tripping, poem 271 Tripping, poem 276 Tripping, poem 277 Nimble, poem 281 Exuberant, poem 286 Nimble.

51 He spoke praising al Husain ibn Ishaq al Tanukhi.

This is parting when a troop won't delay
          When, O heart, you are among those I leave
We stayed and our stay aided confusion
          Two parts of our passion, beloved and lover
The eyelids are ulcered by weeping
          And the peonies yellowed on the cheeks
Due to this men die in groups, alone
          Corpses and newborn, the hated and beloved
My state changes as the nights alter (5)
          I am graying but teenaged time won't gray
Ask deserts: What are jinn in them to us
          What the male ostrich to one with my camel?
On many a dark night the wasteland
          Showed us your face as it guided us onward
But for your way's light its dusk came
          No riders would cross it except on she camels
Jogging made sleep flee till it seemed
          I was drunk in the stirrups, a torn cloak
They chanted of Ibn Ishaq al Husain (10)
          As pillow and saddle rubbed on their necks
Earth's hair bristles in fear as he
          Goes and towering mountains are quaking
A man like a dark cloud in fear and
          Hope, its rain hoped, thunderbolt feared
But the one passes the other stays
          To betray at times while he is ever true
Aloof from the world, forgot, not
          Absent its losses and lights from mind
He feeds Indian swords on skulls and
          Necks for those the combs, these collars
Coats are torn by them as he raids
          Hairparts and beards are dyed by them
He avoids those whom death scorns
          He is burned by those whom soul divorces
One speaks riddles of him, he's quiet
          He seems silent but the sword is telling
I denied when wonder was long of you
                    But no wonder at the beauty Allah created
As if you in giving hated wealth
          And in every battle were loving fate
O few the lances and horses that
          Stay with what comes and fails by you
Allah hide and cover beauty by veils
          If you blame a maiden behind the curtains
Night talkers are shamed as stars shine
          By you and drivers sing as dawn glows in you
Destiny aids none whom you prohibit
          Nor does power forbid one whom you feed
Days do not break what you have joined
          Nor battles unite what you have splintered
Yours the best, I want no wealth but you
          Nor do I follow any from Latakia but you
The farthest goal, your face reward (27)
          Your house is the world, you the creator

51: 1-4 Al Husain had a brother Muhammad ibn Ishaq al Tanukhi. Ibn Ishaq can be taken to refer to the son of Isaac and thus the two brothers are like their ancient namesakes, Esau and Jacob. Muhammad the praised one suggests Jacob who inherits the covenant. But Muhammad is dead and the poet wrote an elegy for him at the request of his still living brother al Husain who thus represents the elder brother Esau. Esau's name means hairy and it was due to this fact that Jacob was able to deceive his father Isaac and gain the blessing intended for Esau. His hairiness also suggests a four footed animal like the rat spoken of in our first excerpt. The name Tanukhi comes from a root meaning to make a camel kneel and so another allusion to the four footed animal.

By placing this poem in the first fifth of the Diwan al Mutanabbi suggests the horizontal infant's feeling for its four legs which cannot, as yet, move its torso though they are places where memories can be stored. Esau was also said to be the ancestor of the Edomites or Idumaeans from whom the family of King Herod stemmed and who sent a delegation to listen to the preaching of Jesus. Like Ishmael he is an outsider who at the time the story in the Hebrew Bible was written is one of the nomadic Arab tribes.

The love prelude of the poem occupies the first four lines. It tells of the abandoned lover whose beloved is leaving with the members of her tribe who won't delay. She is taking his heart with her as the nurse takes her breast with her when she leaves the infant. The lover's stay only increases his confusion and his passion for the beloved. His eyelids have become ulcered and his cheeks have lost their rosy color like yellowed peonies. He is near death.

51: 5-9 But passing time brings the journey theme and the graying hair of the lover. Time itself remains youthful. The deserts through which the crawling child must travel are haunted by jinn, demons of darkness, which cannot frighten the brave traveler. He has a camel that can run faster than a male ostrich and he is guided by the face of the patron singing in the darkness. It is a she-camel that has the strength needed to cross the wasteland. But the rider falls asleep from fatigue. He seems to be drunk and is limp as a torn cloak. Chanting Ibn Ishaq's praises makes one realize that the middle of the poem is the place for auditory production.

51: 10-27 Ibn Ishaq as Esau lives up to his reputation as a man to be feared. The mountains of the breast quake as he goes. He is like a cloud full of rain and thunderbolts. He is aloof from the world as Esau was an outsider but he uses his Indian swords to terrible effect. They are like pens dipped in blood. One who scorns death avoids these swords and one whose soul divorces him is burned by them. Only the sword can solve the riddles told of this patron since one must study a written description of him. His beauty is a wonder that Allah has created and his generosity is such that he seems to hate wealth. Few can escape his attack and his blame never falls on guarded maidens. Night talkers are shamed when they see the stars shining with the patron's light. As Esau he is ‘Isa the white camel implied in Jesus' name and so destiny aids him and the days do not contradict him. His home is Latakia, Laodicea, the wide justice dealt out to a lukewarm church. He is the creator of the house that shelters the poet, an almost blasphemous compliment.

By placing the poem which alludes to Esau and the next one which alludes to Ishmael in the first fifth of the Diwan Al Mutanabbi invites the reader to reflect on how the self-centeredness of the first fifth of the communication pattern affects the relationship between the two elder sons and their younger brothers. Ishmael, the one who listens to El Allah, has done so prenatally and continues to do so. His birth occurs in the middle fifth of the story in Genesis and follows on Abram's rescue of Lot who lives in the depths of Sodom. Thus Abram represents the heights and Lot the depths of the child's seated position. This vertical relationship appears in the vowel signs of the Quranic script of which Ishmael is the ancestor. This vowel script is also smaller than that for consonants to suggest its origins in childhood. The articulation of the vowel script is of fundamental importance.

58 He spoke also praising ‘Ali ibn Ibrahim al Tanukhi.

First traces of your tears are ambitions
                    The past most recent thing to guard them
But people are known by kings and Arabs
          Are not winners with their foreign kings
No culture among them and no respect
          No covenants for them and no loyalties
In every land I've trod are nations
                    Ruled by slaves as if they were sheep
One thinks silk rough when he wears it
          But rushes were worn out by his toenails
I do not blame those who envy me nor
          Do I deny that I was a plague to them
Why can't a man be envied as landmark
          That has advanced over the heads of all?
The friendlier sort of men fear him
          And heroes dread the edge of his sword
Enough blame that I am a man whose
          Best possession is the generosity I own
Wealth harms the greedy, if only they
          Knew it, as poverty can never harm them
They belong to things, not things to
          Them as shame stays and wounds are healed
Whoever seeks glory let him be as ‘Ali (12)
          He gives a thousand while he is smiling
He jousts horsemen, each one pierced
          No pain in them since they are swifter
He knows an event before it occurs
          He has no regret after it has happened
Command, denial, fine horses and
          Swords as well as slaves and clients
Those attacks you have heard about
          The mountains almost were broken by them
He attends to your words obedient to
          A plaintiff though deaf to foul language
He shows you treasures of his nature
          In its glory as life's breath was created
I went to one who almost between two
          If you were clients would divide himself
After taking a gift from him for one
          I loved there was earrings and ankle rings
No hand so generous as when he gives
          And no mouths so guided in what he says
The bold Banu of Lion Mahatta are
          Lions but their spears are their thickets
A folk for whom maturity in boys is
          Thrusting at warrior breasts, not puberty
As if bounty is born with them
          No child makes excuse nor any old one
If they follow a foe they reveal it
                    If they do a good deed they conceal it
You'd think from your losing count
          That they give gifts and do not know it
If they flash lightning death is near
                    Or if they reason it's correct and wise
Or swear an obscure oath they insist
          Their word on oath is: My client betrayed!
Or ride horseback with a saddle
                    Truly their thighs have determination
Or witness war's dangers they take
          Of armored hearts what they judge good
Their goals and ways shine as dawn
          As if their patterns were in their minds
But for you I'd not left Buhaira (32)
          For Gaur was hot and her waters cool
The waves like foaming stallions
          Rumbling there without their reins
You thought birds above the throughs
          Piebald horses whose bridles were broken
As if they as winds drove them were
          An army in battle pursuing, pursued
As if she in daylight were a moon
          That darkness in her gardens embraced
The birds sing on her shores
          Showers enrich the land about her
She is like a mirror crowned
          Whose skin cover is stripped from her
Her flow on the land is a fault
          If bastard rascals are blaming her
Abu Husain hear for your praise
          Is in deeds before the poetic words
Indeed the promise of it is yours
          And rain that favors it makes pasture
I make you safe from time's change (42)
          Which is ruinous to the generous one

58: 1-11 Just as there were several poems dedicated to Ibn Ishaq as Esau so now we have several dedicated to Ibn Ibrahim who can be seen as Abraham's elder son, Ishmael. He is the ancestor of the Arabs insofar as according to tradition he and his mother Hagar are rescued from death at the place where later he and Abraham build the Ka'ba and found the city of Mecca. Like Esau he is a nomad whose love of freedom contrasts sharply with the more submissive town folk.

The love prelude for this reason is spoken by a lover whose abandonment is expressed in a rebellious tone that is aimed at the Arab nation or Umma, the mother community, that personifies some of the bad qualities of the infant's nurse. The tears of regret at her loss motivate the lover's ambition. He has little respect for the foreign kings who rule the Arabs. They have neither culture nor loyalty. They enslave their subjects like sheep. They think that silk clothes are not good enough for them though they rose from poverty. Against them he poses his pride in his own achievements as he condemns their greed which is rooted in the infant's equation of babble to waste products.

58: 12-31 In line with Ishmael's nomadic life the poet now praises the patron ‘Ali, the high one, in the middle of the poem where normally the journey theme is introduced. But he knows how to ride horses and they are among his gifts. Like Ishmael whose name means he listens to Allah, ‘Ali is attentive to plaintiffs. The glory of his nature is the breath of life that makes possible speech. His words are guided and he belongs to the clan of the Mahatta, those who unload from the lions who are their horses and camels. If they swear an obscure oath they admit it to save their clients. Here as elsewhere the hyperbole in the poet's words point to the child's exuberant energies that have not yet been tested in the external world.

58: 32-43 The last third of the poem describes the lake of Galilee, the Buhaira, which the poet left in order to come up north to Latakia where the Tanukhi clan lived. It suggests the prenatal origins of the infant where Ishmael could hear Allah before he could see him. This establishes Ishmael as Abraham's eldest son and the one who is the source of the objective tradition which parallels the subjective tradition which stems from the laughter of Isaac. It is mirrored in the script that records speech more accurately than foreign script.

There is a kind of self-centeredness about the visual communication habits as they appear in the last third of the poem which reflects the infant's prenatal experience. It contrasts with the dialogue and other centeredness of auditory experience in the middle of the pattern. This inwardness appears in the cool waters of Buhaira that bring relief from the hot valley of the Gaur in which Damascus is situated. The waves of the Buhaira are like stallions that carry the nomads on their journeys. Even the birds are like horses driven by winds in battle. The lake itself is feminine like the writer's hand which grasps the pen and her surface is a moon surrounded by dark gardens. In Arabic the moon is a masculine noun though it still retains the ideas associated with the menstrual cycle. The songs of the birds are balanced by the mirror protected by a skin cover. They are the reader's page in auditory form which Ishmael can hear. Only the dwellers on her shores are ungrateful rascals. The patron is Abu Husain, father of the little beauty. He is the poet who makes the patron safe from the changes of time.

This is eminence so let him rise who can
          Thus and so, otherwise he rises not at all
Nobility strikes stars with its horns
          And strength makes the mountains tremble
Our foes' state is tremendous but Saif
          Al Daula, son of swords, has greater state
Each time they hasten warning on the way
          His horses are faster than the fastest one
They reach them scouring the earth that
          Bears only the iron armor and the warriors
Hid are the colors when dust weaves
          Upon the veils and even saddle cloths
Their breasts and lances have sworn to
          Plunge into terrors that are before him
To go where spear can find no target
          And where the blood-horse cannot roam
I don't blame Leon's son, king of Rum (9)
                    Even if what he wants is the impossible
Does fabric between his ears bother him
          If a builder sought heaven and obtained it?
When he aimed to ruin it the fort
          Spread and covered his forehead and back
He gathered Rum and Slavs and Bulgars
          Against it and you gathered destruction
You met them with brown lances like
          When the thirsty men go to the rain pools
They aimed to break its wall but built
          They came to shorten but made it longer
They tried to drag up war engines till
          They left them there with storms on them
Many an affair befalls you unpraised (16)
          In doing it but you are praised for deeds
You were shot at by many a bow when
          The bolts rebounded to the archer's heart
They seized roads to cut off messages
          But their seizure was itself a message
They were a sea possessed of waves
          But within your sea it became a mirage
They did not flee so as not to fight
          But rather the battle that sufficed you
That which cuts necks with blows
          Of your fists has cut off their hopes
Steadiness which had worked of old
          Taught those who were firm to run away
They go down to the dead and know it (23)
          Lamenting the maternal and paternal kin
The wind bears among them skull hair
          And scatters the limbs round about them
The bodies warn them lest they stay
          They are shown in every bone a lesson
They see thrusts reaching hearts
          Before they see the lancers riding
When horsemen try to pierce you
          They see an arm thrusting the spear
Terror spreads from right to right
          And returns from the left to the left
Fear shakes their hands so they
          Know not if they hear sword or chain
A face they fear it as your face
          They leave its beauty and elegance
Rolling eyes tell the thought
          Of cessation and the intent to retreat
When a coward is left alone here
          He asks for the thrust and the attack
They swear they don't see you but
          Feel you as eyes can deceive mankind
What eye can think of and meet
          You in a glance that sees and turns?
The accursed won't doubt your hold
          On his army but why send it as a gift?
What ails one who sets traps on earth
          In hopes of catching the crescent moon?
Before what is on Darb and Ahdab (37)
          And the river there's a feisty fighter
He angered fate and kings for her
          And built her on earth's face as a mole
She went with proud steps as a bride
          And was praised as coquette by the time
He guarded her with strong spears
          From terror of time and cowardly fear
Edges that know forbidden and legal
          For they have shed blood that is lawful
With battalions of brave lions that
          Have devoured both the souls and flocks
Indeed souls of men are beastly
          They eat each other openly and secretly
He who can take a thing by conquest
          And force does not seize it by begging
Each youth in time of need has an idea (45)
          That he must be the fiercest of the lions

232: 1-8 This poem appears in the second fifth of the Diwan which is devoted almost exclusively to poems about the poet's relation to Saif al Daula, the Sword of State, whose base was Aleppo. An earlier poem described the building of this border fort called al Hadath. This one tells of the rescue that Saif brought to the fort when he heard that the Byzantines were about to attack it. This rescue suggests Abram's rescue of Lot in the second fifth of the story of Abram's life. The child's seated position in the second fifth of the communication pattern is represented in the vertical walls of the fort. They Byzantines who wish to pull it down suggest the pull of gravity which makes the child expel its breath upward to form the vowel sounds that are articulated out of the babbling stream. Saif's sword cuts this stream into sounds which will be used later in the middle fifth to form spoken words.

The poem has five parts which expand the three part form of the traditional qasida with its love prelude, journey and praise parts that represent the child's exploitation of touch, hearing and vision. The five parts also suggest the articulation process.

In the first fifth of the poem the height of the fort is compared to the horns of an animal which seems to strike the stars and makes the mountains tremble. The bull of heaven is Saif al Daula and his horses are faster than those that warn him of the approaching foe. The horizontal infant is the scene for the attack that covers the earth with dust and veils saddles and banners. The breasts of the horses have sworn to plunge into terrors that are before him.

232: 9-15 The second fifth of the poem turns to the attacker, the Byzantine son of Leon. The fort is like a helmet that has been forced down over his ears so that he has to hear the sounds produced by the clanging sword of Saif. The Greco-Roman leader has brought up the Rum as well as Slavs and Bulgars from the north but he will follow them down to ruin. The lances move to the pools where blood flows. Their efforts are overturned like the Sodomites were by the four kings that attacked them from Mesopotamia. Only Saif remains erect. Gravity's rainbow concentrates attention on the underworld.

232: 16-22 In the middle fifth of the poem we return to the praise of Saif al Daula. He has been shot at but the arrows rebounded against the archers. The foe has attempted to cut off messages to him but this fact was a message to him. They have the fluency of speech but Saif's sea turns it into a desert mirage. The enemy flees the dialogue of battle more than the defeat that awaits them to show the power of speech in this part of the poem.

232: 23-36 In the fourth fifth the standing position and echoes of the overthrow of Sodom by Yahweh's fiery sulphur can be seen in the nightmarish fears of the Byzantines. They go down to the dead where their ancestors went before them. Wisps of hair from skulls and bones are scattered like the letters of the script formed by front feet now hands. Every limb is a lesson to them as they see thrusting spears before they see the lancers. Terror spreads from the right hand that holds the pen to the right flank of the foe. And from left to left. They fear Saif's face and do not see its beauty: the lower world contrasted with the upper world. They roll their eyes hoping to retreat. No eye can meet his glance and they seem to send him their armies as gifts. They try to catch the crescent moon with traps on earth but the cursive Quranic script eludes them.

232: 37-45 In the last fifth of the poem we return to Saif and the praise of his defense of the border pass, the Darb, and the hill on which the fort is built, Ahdab the hump. Hadath itself means excrement but it has been transformed into a beauty spot on the face of a bride. This mole makes her into a coquette whose femininity is seen in the mouth that produces the vowel sounds for the seated child. Her movement is proud like that of the vowels that in Arabic are called harak, motions, to distinguish them from consonants which stop the movement of breath. Saif's swords know the difference between what is forbid and what is legal. Unlike the Greco-Roman script there are no consonantal signs to represent the vowels. The Arabic script has a vertical vowel script that is true to inner reality of the erect torso that produces them. But the Byzantines are beastly and they devour each other openly and secretly since the four legs favor the consonants. Youths think that they are fierce lions until they have lost some of the self-centeredness of those wild cats.

260 Abu Tayyib wrote to Kafur about a journey to Ramla to attend to his property but he intended to let the black know what he wanted. So he replied: No and by Allah we do not permit the journey but we will send someone to attend to it for you.

Did you swear not to allow me to go
          To the country where I have property?
You guaranteed this unlucky place
          This farthest exile and worse condition
When one day we go from Fustat
          And one pursues with horses and men
You'll know the value of one gone
          And that you aimed at my hurt in vain

After al Mutanabbi left the service of Saif al Daula he was invited to come to Egypt by the black eunuch Kafur who was the head of the government there. He wrote a few fine eulogies for Kafur whose name means camphor. But he was also disappointed that he did not receive richer rewards than he did. This black and white behavior on the part of Kafur is similar to that of Sarah who invited Abraham to father a child with her Egyptian handmaid Hagar and then drove Hagar and her son Ishmael into the desert to die of thirst. Abu Tayyib, however, would like to leave but Kafur refuses to allow him to go from Fustat, the capital of Egypt.

The poet thus draws the reader's attention to the child's use of the four legs in the middle of the communication pattern. Kafur's refusal to allow this points to the development of spoken syntax which imposes an inner order on speech that differs from the semantic reference of the words in the outer world. The fact that Kafur is a eunuch is similar to the idea that Sarah is barren. But Abraham has been proven fertile by fathering Ishmael by Hagar. He has learned from his rescue of Lot that the flow of sexual blood can reverse the pull of gravity in the seated position and more importantly that the free movement of breath can produce the vowel sounds which are needed in making the spoken words resonant and capable of exchanging information about the external world. This is something syntax cannot do.

While the birth of Jacob and Esau occurs in the last fifth of their story in Genesis some light is thrown on it by this poem of al Mutanabbi's escape from Kafur and his trip through the desert. When Lot's wife looks back at Sodom she sees the foot prints which are analogous to the pressure of the tongue as it forms the consonants. Had she looked on ahead she would have seen the emptiness which represents the inner freedom of the vowel script. Jacob as a child of the covenant who grasps his brother's heel represents the script of the Hebrew Bible which was written without vowels. But Esau, ‘Isu, ‘Isa, Jesus, whose heel Jacob touches, suggests the Greco-Roman script which Jesus chose for the New Testament. It is a script in which vowels are written as if they were consonants. It has the hairiness of the animal's four footedness in it. The rivalry between Ishmael and Isaac looks ahead to Galileo's opposition to Joshua's stationary sun just as the rivalry between Esau and Jacob looks ahead to Darwin's opposition to dating the creation story in 4000 b.c. The tensions between Old and New Testaments and Muslim's and Crusaders have some of their roots in these stories.

267 He spoke when he entered Kufa describing his journey from Egypt and he mocked Kafur in the month of first Rabi'a 351 H.

O all the mincing women's walks are
          Ransom for each fast she-camel's gait
And every Bujawi that can rescue
          Clumsy but a graceful pace is nothing
And yet they are life lines and
          Tricks to foes and forts against evil
By her I beat deserts in a throw
          Of dice either one way or another
If she took fright horsement were
                    Ahead, bright swords and brown lances
She passed by Nakhl and on her way (6)
          One did without the people and place
At eve she gave a choice of Naqab
          To Wadi Waters or to Wadi al Qurra
We said to her: Where's Iraqi land?
          She said and we were at Turban: There!
At Hisma she ran as a west wind
          Facing the blast of the eastern wind
Aiming at Kifaf and Kibd and Wihad
          And nearby Buwaira and the Wadi Gada
She cut through Busaita into a coat
          Collar among the ostrich and wild cows
To ‘Uqda Jauf until she drank
          At Running Water some of her thirst
Sawar and dawn appeared to her
          And Shagur and morning shone for her
Her gallop took us to Jumaiy
          The next morning at Adari' and Dana
O what a night for you at ‘Akush
          The land all dark and signposts hid
We reached Ruhaima in the midst of it
          The rest of it more than what was gone
When we stopped we planted spears
          Between our good deeds and eminence
We spent night thanking our swords
          And cleaning them of the blood of foes
So Misr might know and some in Iraq
          And those in ‘Awasim that I am a man
And I am true and I resisted and (20)
          I rebelled against one who presumed
Not all who speak words are true
          Not all forced to shame will reject it
He who has a heart like my heart
          Splits ruin's heart into excellence
But some tool is needed for heart
          And wisdom to cut the stubborn stone
And every path the youth takes
          Has a step measured by his stride
The little slave slept in our night
          Before he slept blindly not drowsing
In spite of closeness between us
                    Were deserts of stupidity and fog
O it was laughable in Egypt
                    But it was laughter making tears
A Nabataean there of Sawud folk
          Teaching genealogies to desert men
And a black who was half lip
          One addressed as: Dark's full moon!
In verse I praised him as crocodile
                    At times in poetry at times by spells
This was not praise for him
          Rather it was satire on mankind
Folk will stray with their idols
          But with a bag of winds, O never!
If one is ignorant of his worth (33)
          Another sees in him what he will not

267: 1-5 The love prelude for this poem which tells of Abu Tayyib's escape from Egypt shows the infant's rejection of the mincing women's walk as it is found in the absent nurse in favor of the fast she-camel that represents the child's four feet learning to crawl in the middle of the communication pattern. The Bujawi camels come from Nubia of the black land and are not graceful but they are fast and useful for escape. They are what Hagar needs in her flight with Ishmael. They aid the poet to escape from Kafur and his entrance into the wider world outside Egyptian syntax.

267: 6-20 The account of the journey through the desert tells of the camel's passage through various towns and places. The relation of the child's crawling phase to speech is seen in the dialogue between the rider and his camel. The place names also have humorous overtones like Isaac's laughter to suggest the relief involved in escaping imprisonment horizontally or seated. There is also a mention of a fight between Abu Tayyib and some thieves one of whom was killed.

267: 21-33 The last third of the poem shows the visual communication habits asserting the manliness of the poet's rebellion against shameful servitude. It requires a tool to cut the stubborn stone of ignorance. Kafur is mocked as a little slave who is separated from the poet by deserts of stupidity. His wazir is also ridiculed for attempting to teach the genealogies of the noble desert folk even though he was a native of the Sawud, the black lands of Iraqi peasants. Kafur is said to be half lip and dark full moon. He was praised as a crocodile but that satire was intended for mankind in general. Kafur is a windbag of the sort needed for spoken words. Two verses of even more sucrrilous mockery were omitted from this text.

271 He spoke as a friend at Kufa came to him with a spiced apple in his hand that had written Fatik's name. So he took it and recited.

Its mildness reminds me of Fatik
                    Something of spice in it in his name
I am not forgetful, but still
                    Its smell renews for me his perfume
What a youth fate looted from me! (3)
          Even his mother knew not what she bore
She had not taken him to her breast
          Had she known what his touch foreboded
In Egypt there were wealthy kings (5)
          But they, not they, had not his spirit
Larger than their bounty his economy
          Better than their praise was his blame
Nobler than their lives is his death (7)
          More useful than their wealth his lack
In truth his death in his house
                    Was as wine his generosity poured out
For it is his water one drinks (9)
                    And it is his food that one tastes
Earth was too narrow for his soul
          It was fit that his body cramped her

271: 1-2 Abu Tayyib's stay in Egypt brought him one friend that he could praise in the way Ishmael was blessed. This was Abu Shuja Fatik, the Father of the Serpent, the bold one. He eulogized him highly but he died before the poet left Egypt. In this poem he meditates on an apple spiced with aloes, musk and ambergris that was given to him with Fatik's name on it. The apple links Fatik with Eve's apple and her bold decision to risk death rather than stay in the safety of the garden. It is there the Adam's clay tablet represents the syllabic script of cuneiform signs that do not distinguish vowels from consonants. Eve was made from Adam's rib and so represents the free movement of the vowel breath which is found in the spoken word that precedes the written word.

In the first two couplets of the poem the poet finds in the gift a kind of mildness or clemency which is seen in the progress of the consonantal Hebraic, consonantal voweled Greco-Roman and the voweled consonantal Quranic scripts. They represent a quiet revolution which though it rejects the safety of an idealized garden yet works to control the evil tendencies in mankind. The smell of the spices is a perfume that transforms the excretion of musk, ambergris and aloes into the spoken and various forms of the written word.

271: 3-4 The second fifth of the poem hints at the descent into the underworld of the child's seated position with its mention of the loss of Fatik. It turned him into an underworld serpent which would have frightened his mother more than Eden's serpent frightened Eve. But then her breast is an earlier form of the snake with which the horizontal infant contends. She is Hagar who has profited from Abram's erection as Saif al Daula upheld al Hadath against the Byzantines.

271: 5-6 Fatik's spirit is more generous than that of the wealthy Egyptian lords from whom Abu Tayyib has fled. Their stinginess was learned in the struggle with gravity in the seated position but Fatik's economy is better than their bounty. His blame is better than their praise. His eulogy is well deserved in the fluency of the spoken word.

271: 7-8 In the fourth fifth of the poem we see that Fatik's death in the standing position, like that of Lot's wife, is nobler, higher than the Egyptian lives. His death was like wine poured out as offering to the pull of gravity and ink for the letters from the pen of the writer. It is like Noah's generous invention of the vine, and Lot's drunken carouse with his daughters.

271: 9-10 For it his water that one drinks in reading the stories of the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament wine and the Quranic script. It is his food that one tastes in Eve's apple, Abraham's sacrifices and Esau's mess of pottage. Earth was too narrow for such a serpent. His body cramped her.

276 He attended the majlis of Ibn al ‘Amid where there was an incense burner covered with myrtle and narcissus that hid the fire so that the smoke came up from between them. So Abu Tayyib spoke.

Loveliest thing souls can love
          Sweetest that the nose can smell
A spreading incense but yet
          Its censer is myrtle and narcissus
We see no flame that drives it
          Does your swelling glory feed it?
For those who stand about it
          Have heads that envy their legs

After escaping from Kafur's Egypt Abu Tayyib was invited by the wazir of the Buyid prince who ruled northern Persia and Iraq to come to his court. This man was Abu Fadl ibn al ‘Amid. His name means pillar or support and as such he recalls Lot's wife who as a pillar of salt preceded the birth of Isaac. It is in this standing position that the child begins to use its hand to form the letters of the script though it again is faced with pull of gravity and the need to keep the balance of the upright torso.

Al Mutanabbi represents this situation with a poem describing an incense burner which sends its smoke up through myrtle and narcissus flowers. It is like the child who balances the pull of gravity on excretion with the flowers of the script that the hand, now freed from its role as front foot, writes in choosing its letters. The poet asks a question about the source of the flame that spreads the incense of gravity's rainbow. He knows it comes from the lower world since the heads of those who stand near it are jealous of the legs which support the fires of the underworld.

277 He spoke praising him and congratulating him on the New Year.

New Year comes and you its purpose
          Its firesticks kindling the fire it desires
This glance it receives from you
          Feeds it till its like in another year
If it returns to you on the last
                    Day it has vision in its eye and sleep
We on Persian earth are happy
          This dawn we see is its birthday
Persian kingdoms magnify it
          All the days of its year envy it
We do not put on crowns for it
          Till hills and valleys put them on
Among them no comparison for (7)
          Kisra Abu Sasan or his royal sons
Arabic his tongue, philosophic
          His wisdom, Persian are his festivals
Each gift says: I'm from him
          Lavishly, another says: It's economy
How should my shoulder not touch
          Heaven when its sword belt is his?
His right hand girded on my sword
          His ancestors produced only one such
When it is unsheathed lights gleam
          As the sun thinks they are the morning
They paint it on its sheath for
          Fear of loss, its guardian an image
Shod with gold, not barefoot, it
          Bears a sea whose crazing is foam
It splits an armored rider not
                    Yielding its edges to a saddle top
Time joined its edge and his hand
          And my praise as uniqueness united
I'm girded by his bounty's beauty
          Its skin has jewels and perfections
Racers taught us to ride being (18)
          Gifts with his saddle for hunting
They hope for rest with us
          But see it not in lands that are his
Shall my excuse to hero Abu Fadl
          Offer my eye's black as his inkwell?
I am sick with intensity of shame
          Gifts of one who noted were as nurses
A fault did not suffice what I
          Said of his rank till his blame did
I hunted the female falcon (23)
          But the highest stars are not hunted
Often what words cannot tell
          The heart conceals by conviction
I am not used to seeing Abu Fadl
          Thus what I bring him is the usual
To one drowning in waves excuse
          Is obvious if he does not number all
Victory is bounty spread
          Poetry my post as Ibn ‘Amid props
My ideas held facts not worthy
          I did not have his mind or strength
He wrongs bounty when riders stop (29)
          He makes his servants bring out seas
He overwhelms me, a heart wishes
          Words were among what he gives away
We never heard of one who liked
          Giving and wanted to give his heart
Allah created a most eloquent man
          Who is a Kurd in the place of Arabs
Most worth showers of praise himself
          In times when all souls are grasshoppers
As when prophecy comes to a world
          And a mission as corruption spreads
A bright rising moon adorns night
          And the darkness is not harmed by it
Many the ideas we are guided by
          As slaves are guided to a lord chief
What we have of flocks and horses
          Are from him as gifts and guidance
We send forty of the colt kind
          Each filly recited on parade ground
A number, may you live it, as body
          Sees the goal but not how to exceed
Stable them for a heart trained (40)
          Them as stationed horse excels

277: 1-7 This poem praises Ibn ‘Amid at the beginning of the New Year which in Persia refers to the solar year as distinct from the lunar year which regulates the Muslim festivals. The sun moves from a low point on the horizon in winter to its highest point in summer and thus suggests the vertical axis of the vowel script used in the Quran. In Arabic the sun is a feminine noun and in this love prelude the poet can address her as the good nurse who brings warmth to the flowers of spring. But the patron has a share in the anniversary since his vision of the sun gives it meaning.

277: 8-17 In the second fifth of the poem the poet turns to the gift of a sword which Ibn ‘Amid has given him. Wearing its belt makes him touch heaven and its ancestry can be traced to the sword of state in Saif al Daula who occupied the second fifth of the Diwan as a whole. The poem about the rescue of al Hadath like this one had five parts to suggest the articulation involved in the second and fourth fifths of the pattern. The sun envies the brightness of this sword-tongue-pen and its sheath has a guardian image on it. The sword itself is like the salt sea that will produce the salty pillar of Lot's wife. It splits an armored rider from top to bottom and can divide vowel from consonant to give meaning to the babbling stream.

277: 18-22 The middle fifth praises Ibn ‘Amid's gift of fine horses to the poet. The horses teach him to ride and they have no rest as they travel over the patron's wide lands. But they remind the poet that Ibn ‘Amid, himself a writer and a poet, has criticized some of his poems. For it is different kinds of speech that give rise to the different kinds of script. He wonders if he should offer the black of his eye's pupil as inkwell for his critic. He is sick with shame for his fault though he implies that his own skill as a poet exceeds that of Ibn ‘Amid.

277: 23-28 This becomes clear when he says that he has hunted a female falcon in other patrons but Ibn ‘Amid as the highest star cannot be hunted. The child has learned to stand. What words cannot tell the heart conceals as conviction and thus has a double meaning. Abu Fadl Ibn ‘Amid is so unusual that the poet can only bring him the usual sort of praise. He is drowning in the waves of criticism and cannot pay attention to the number of them as gravity pulls. They are the letters to which one must attend. Ibn ‘Amid is a prop but the poet has a post that is a pillar.

277: 29-40 The last fifth of the poem brings more sincere praise of the patron's generosity. Allah has created him the most eloquent of men as a Kurd who takes the place of eloquent Arabs. We live in grasshopper times and Ibn ‘Amid is a prophet with a mission. He is a rising moon who reflects the light of his prince Kisra Abu Sasan mentioned in the second fifth of the poem. The poet compares his own verses to fine horses better educated than the horses Ibn ‘Amid sent to teach him how to write in the middle of the poem. The poet wishes his patron may exceed their number in the years of his life. But he knows that his poems will outlive any human life.

281 He spoke praising ‘Adud al Daula and recalling the Shi'b Bawwan on his road to him.

Valley abodes, sweetest of abodes
          Like a springtime among the seasons
But the Arab youth among them
          Has a strange face, hand and tongue
Playground of jinn if Sulaiman were
          To travel here he'd need an interpreter
Good for our horsemen and horses till
          I fear though thoroughbred they'll balk
We go early with branches dripping
          The like of seed pearls on their manes
I went as they veiled sun from me
          Bringing me the light to suffice me
The east threw some on my shirt
          Like dinars that fled from my fingers
They had fruits offered to you as
          Drinks that were waiting without jugs
Waters babbling there on pebbles
          Tinkling bracelets on singers' wrists
Like at Dimashq they bend my reins
          The thard well made, the dish Chinese
With aloe logs piled for a guest
          The fires there smoke with the spice
One stops with a hero's heart
          Departs with the heart of a coward
A place where dreams do not end
          Accompanying me toward Naubandajan
When the gray doves sing there
          The songs of singing girls respond
Those in the valley more than doves
          Need the clarity when they sing or wail
The two songs are very similar
          But the two described are far apart
In valley Bawan my horse said:
                    Does one leave here for jousting?
Your father Adam transgressed
          And taught how to leave gardens
I said: When I saw Abu Shuja' I (19)
                    Am consoled for that place and all
For men and world are a highway
          To one who among men has no equal
I taught myself words about them
                    Like learning jousting without spears
By ‘Adud al Daula defended, aided
          By no other forearm does one conquer
Nor any grip on cutting sword
          Nor couching of the brown bamboo
They call him refuge of limbs
          In the war's first day or the later ones
None are named as Fannakhusra
          Nor any surnamed like Fannakhusra
His virtues not counted by mind
          Nor by tales of him or eyewitness
Lands of men are dust and fear
          Abu Shuja's country is security
Each merchant guarded from thieves
          He guarantees the sword to criminals
If their cargoes need a safeguard
                    They are defended on plain and cliff
They spend night without aid
          Crying to passers: Don't you know us?
Each bright sword has a charm
          For each deaf basilisk and snake
His wealth not charmed from his
          Bounty nor fine flocks from scorn
A hero defends Persian borders
          Urging survival with death's whip
With a blow he stirs fate's joy
          Not a second or third lute string
As if skull's blood on hair tufts
          Dressed the land with grouse feathers
If lover's hearts wandered there
                    They'd not fear the eyes of beauties
I'd not seen before him two cubs (37)
                    Like his lions nor as racing colts
Stronger contenders of fine stock
                    More like in shape to the best father
Hearing more often in his majlis:
          Such a one broke a lance on that one
The first vision they saw was high
          In fact attached to them before time
First words understood or spoken:
                    Rescue suppliants! or End captivity!
You were the sun dazzling each eye
          How now that two more have appeared!
They live lives of two moons as
          They revive by light and do not envy
May they rule only foes' domains
          And inherit only what they fight for
May the foes' sons increase for
          Him with two ya letters diminutive
A prayer like praise without cant
          When the heart brings it to the heart
You appear in it like temper
          In a Yamani blade glitters long
But for you being there they'd (48)
          Be nonsense like words without sense

281: 1-18 In the last fifth of the Diwan Abu Tayyib moves to a new patron, the Buyid prince ‘Adud al Daula whose name means the forearm of state and thus represents the writer's hand and arm that produces the visual communication habits. In this poem the poet describes his approach to Shiraz where ‘Adud al Daula held court. He seems to be entering paradise and as an Arab youth in Farsi lands he finds them a playground of jinn where even Solomon would need an interpreter to understand the enchantment. One fears the horses will not want to leave this scene where dew drops drip from the leaves like seed pearls and the sunlight seems to fall like golden dinars on the rider's coat. The fruit trees are ready to offer drinks and the waters of the stream are like singers whose bracelets make babbling sounds. The poet recalls his stay at Damascus whose name echoes the Arabic word for lapwing, a deceiver who know how to decoy predators from its nest. A dish of thard in a Chinese bowl also recalls the mess of pottage Jacob made to trick Esau and the syllabic script. The perfumed logs of aloe wood remind him of the sacrifice of Isaac but the doves of Naubandajan, the thread of song, sound like singing girls. There is a problem of clarity. The horse wants to know if it has to leave this place for jousting to confront the infant's nurse. But the poet adds that Adam had a lesson in how to leave gardens.

281: 19-36 The middle third of the poem is devoted to praising ‘Adud al Daula. The world has made a highway to him and the poet has practiced praise by jousting with ordinary patrons. But this patron has no equal. He is Fannakhusra, the king of art, and like Fatik he is Abu Shuja, the father of the serpent. He is known as a defender of commerce and this creates his wealth. It makes a music that is better than the lute strings can produce. The blows of the sword dress the land with the bloody tufts of grouse feathers that carry messages.

281: 37-48 In the last third of the poem the poet praises the two sons of ‘Adud al Daula. They are not named but they are like Ishmael and Esau in being bearers of the tradition of justice which balances the outer world with the inner world. They are compared to lions and racing colts. Their father is like Abraham whose dazzling sun is reflected in two moons that produce the cursive script. Their rivals can increase only by adding a letter ya to their names which diminishes them. ‘Adud al Daula is the temper for a Yamani blade that writes the words of a pen with temper that glitters.

286 He spoke praising ‘Adud al Daula and recalling his hunting in the place named Dasht Arzan.

How natural for my days and nights
          To say: What's wrong with him and us?
It's not my way of talking, a youth
                    Who has burned in the double war fires
Drinking from them, bathing in them
          Nor did whoring divert me in my mind
If an armorer were to tug my skirts
                    Offering me two kinds of good garments
I'd not name chainmail but pants
                    And why not since there is my guide
The rider of Majruh and Shamal
          Abu Shuja conqueror of warriors
Winebearers of death's cup and blood
          When he routed the Qufs in past time
He beat the Kurds in battle till
          They took shelter in flight and fear
Destroyer and subduer from afar
          Hunting down horsemen with lances
With freshly polished heirlooms
          He went chasing beasts in mountains
And in marshy lands and sandy
          Amidst men's blood and their bones
Apart from the troop as first
                    In greatness of spirit not weakness
In strong fear not changing
                    In their movement except to attack
They are beaten for neighing
          Each one above them sick with terror
The mouth held for fear it cough
          From the sun's rising to its setting
Whatever flies far cannot escape (16)
          Nor what runs and hides in thickets
And what stays in water or lake
          Of flesh that is forbid or permitted
Truly souls bear death's number
          Blessings on the length of Dasht Arzan
Between the wide prairies and woods
          In the pathways of boars and of lions
The piglets are closer than cubs
          And the bear towers over the gazelle
Uniting the opposites and shapes
          Like to Fannakhusra with the virtues
Fearing he'd lack perfection he
          Brought them elephants and riders
Mountain goats hobbled with rope
          Yielding to lassoes of men and horses
Going the gait of sheep and camels
          Turbaned with those dried out roots
Born beneath the heavy burdens
          That keep them from being deloused
They share not in body's leanness
          Whenever they turn them into shadows
They show them the ugliest shapes
          As if they are created for baseness
An addition for ignorant curses
          And members not useful in any case
To the rest of the body a defect
          The buck of the antelope is higher
Horns bent back like a bow of yew
          The point of the tip on the flanks
They almost pierce the haunches
          Having a black beard without mustache
Good for a laugh but not for fear
          It grows all thickened with spittle
Not anointed with musk or unguent
          It is content with oil and with urine
And with piercing spice and manure
          If spread on the cheeks of a deceiver
He has it to serve as net for wealth
          Between evil judgments and poor children
With a pretense the back is front
          It does not show the face at the rear
They are left to the arrows' shower
          From the mountain slopes and heights
The men's bows bid them farewell
          In every liver an arrowhead's weight
So they plummet away from peaks
          Upside down the hoofs and bounding
Leaping through air on the backs
          On the fastest way down to the depths
They sleep the sleep of the lazy
          On their necks they hurry the quickest
They don't complain of weariness (42)
          Nor do they take care of straying
One had reason to go from them
          The desire of the much for the little
Upland beasts grieve due to it
          They are frightened on Salma and Qiyal
With the fear of lizards and iguanas
          Dust colored ostrich and their chicks
Fawns and wild cows and buffalo
          They listen for his delightful news
They sent to no dumb beast to
          Ask for their stallions, foals or colts
Wishing he'd send them a governor
          To rule them with bridle and saddle
To make them safe from these fears
          And provide pasture without anxiety
And water in each flowing shower (50)
          O power of those who travel and turn
If you wish you hunt lions with foxes
                    And drown the foe with desert mirages
Or put in place of weapons of war
          Pearls so you can kill them with joy
So nothing remains but to pursue
          Goblins in the dark of absent moons
On backs of camels not needing water
          You could reach the top of your hopes
You leave nothing but the impossible
          That exists nowhere and is unobtainable
O ‘Adud al Daula and the heights
          A lineage is gems and you the owner
O father not of earring or ring
          A jewel of yourself to adorn beauty
Many an ugly one is much adorned
          Finer than her is unadorned beauty
A man's honor is in himself and acts (59)
          Of a mother and father's kin before him

286: 1-15 This is the next to the last poem in the Diwan. It describes a grand hunt staged by ‘Adud al Daula who presides over a judgment scene that is similar to that given in the Apocalypse of the New Testament. The poet himself opens with a love prelude that disclaims any violent intention against the infant's idea of the bad nurse. But the days and the nights still ask the question what is wrong with him and with us. The poet says he has burned in the double fires of war: those of sexual trials and those involving quarrels between men. If an armorer were to offer him two kinds of garments he would not choose the chainmail of the warrior. He leaves that to his guide Abu Shuja.

286: 6-15 He is the rider of Majruh, the wounded horse, and Shamal, the north wind or left handed one who conceives. He has conquered the Kurds and the Qufs tribe in battle and has hunted them through the mountains and marshlands. As befits the second fifth of the communication pattern he now sits apart from the troop of men and they are in awe of him and keep silence. They have been beaten for nonsensical babbling and know they must not cough and scare off the game.

286: 16-41 In the middle fifth of the poem the procession of the hunted begins to illustrate the child's crawling phase. No matter how far they flee they cannot escape the hunters in the Dasht Arzan, the great hunting preserve. There are boars and lions, piglets and bears. Fannakhusra has brought elephants and their riders to the hunt. The mountain goats are lassoed but the poet is especially intrigued by their horns which he says are like dried roots, heavy burdens that keep them from being deloused. They are ugly shapes which are not useful when it comes to joining word to word. The antelope bucks have black beards that are filthy with spit, oil and urine. They are like greedy usurers who cheat poor children for money which is only manure. Such creatures are worthy targets for the archers who send them plummeting up side down the mountain slope as the front legs of the child turn right side up in the standing position. Thus speech turns to the letters of the script.

286: 42-29 In the fourth fifth of the poem the animals themselves realize the need for a better way of life. They send messengers to the prince to ask for a governor who will make them safe from fear. Even the mountains of Salma, peace, and Quyal, rest, know this. They don't complain of weariness and lizards, iguanas, ostrich, fawns, wild cows and buffalo listen for news.

286: 50-58 In the last fifth the poet addresses the power of those who travel and return. If he wants to hunt lions with foxes or drown the foe with desert mirages ‘Adud al Daula's forearm will succeed. He may use pearls as missiles and pursue goblins in the dark of the moon. His camels will need no water and yet he will reach the top of his hopes. Nothing is impossible for him. His lineage is made of gems. He himself is a jewel and he is better than a beauty adorned. A man's honor is in himself and the deeds of his mother and father.

This poem shows the triumph of ‘Adud al Daula, the arm of the writer, over the forces of evil. His two horses Shamal and Majruh represent Ishmael and Esau. The wounds which the hands of Jesus suffered on the cross have been transferred to the kid gloves which tricked Isaac into blessing Jacob instead of the elder son. But al Mutanabbi sees the horns of the antelopes as useless front feet that can only be guided by the Buyid prince. The rivalry between the mysticism of Isaac and Jacob on the one hand and the science that guides society on the other has taught them how to pursue the great dragon and his evil apocalyptic beasts. What poems like Dante's Comedy and Cervantes' Don Quixote, both influenced by the classical Arabic tradition, will make of this remains to be seen. The eye of the scientist profits from the competition.

The last three chapters of the Quran emphasize this dialectical progression in excellent fashion.