Then he turned to me and said, "Come, complete it" — and I completed it, saying:

It has grown gray as we have grown gray, and our youth has departed, as though we had been keeping a tryst.

It appears, moreover, that the art of the ijaza long held sway over the minds of poets and princes, so that they composed and completed verses even in their dreams. Among the fine things related in this regard is that Abu al-Murajja Muhammad ibn Harb completed verses in his sleep — he dreamed that a man recited to him this line:

I seek the bounty of the days while fate is my destroyer; we draw provision from them, while fate holds their gift in pledge.

And he completed the verse with lines of which he retained these:

O seeker of this base world — surely it will hurl you down one day if you mount its back. Guard your soul; do not lean upon the world, and if it refuses, recite over it the closing verses of Ta-Ha. Leave the garden of hopes and of greed, for when guidance curbs the soul, it masters it. For one day, without fail, a calamity will strike and loosen from us a knot, and scatter it.

It is a fine and admirable thing that a man should be able to answer verse with other verse made up of a small number of lines; but what shall be said of a whole poem composed as an ijaza to another poem —

composed, moreover, on a critical occasion, like the one that befell a certain poet of the Sultan al-Malik al-Adil? He said: Among the strangest straits into which I was ever cast — save that God in His bounty gave aid and granted victory, and helped my flagging wit until it cut like the polished sword — is this: I was in the service of our lord the Sultan al-Malik al-Adil at Alexandria; the assembly was thronged with its people and honored by the Sultan's gathering and his retinue. Our lord the Sultan came out to his assembly and took his seat, then handed the vizier of his state a letter with broken seals. He opened it, and in it were verses from al-Malik al-Mu'azzam urging him to return to the lands of Syria to crush the enemies. Here are some of them:

Water your lances from the throats of your foes, and mount steeds lean as desert demons; gather of the heroes every valiant lord — victory is bound to that resolve of yours; rise and hasten to him who hopes to meet you; my happiness lies with al-Adil, the king who — so remain to me, my sovereign, in bliss —

and let your horsemen plunder those who obey another, and strike with your sword whoever breaks your staff; your resolve sets upon every man who hates you; you have risen a heaven above the star Simak; for of all things his desire is to meet you; he masters kings and keeps company with the spheres; and of all things I am made your ransom.

When the vizier had finished reading this poem, the Sultan said: "We want someone to answer it with lines