on the same rhyme!" The vizier turned to me — I was at his right — and said: "O our lord, your servant here is the horseman of this field." Then he cut a strip from a scroll that lay before him and threw it to me, and reached for an inkstand and turned it toward me. The Sultan said to him: "What — like this, in such circum-stances and at such a moment?" He answered: "Yes; I have tried him and found him of kindled wit and present mind." Then the Sultan said to me: "In any case, come up here, that the din of the company may be cut off from you," and he pointed to a place at the right of the chamber. So I rose, my legs failing under me and my mind in disarray, for the awe of the assem-bly in my breast and the number of those present watching me, waiting for the moment of gloating over me. But no sooner had I sat down than my wits came back to me, and in the swiftest time I said:

From al-Malik al-Mu'azzam there arrived a treasure that filled the threads with its splendid pearls: lines of verse majestic as the stars — therefore their pages adorned the spheres. A marvel! They came like a garden, though the fire of your blazing mind had not withered them with its heat. Cares were lifted from the heart, even as the brightness of your face dispels the darkness. Why should I not be absent from Syria? What need has it of me, while you are there? Or how should I fear, when all the lands love the glory of your thrusting lances? I came to Egypt only to secure its frontiers; for that — may I be your ransom — I bore the loss of the sight of you.

...held your brother, the winning arrow among the shafts; ...for a time, and grant to other lands your

watering; my longing spurs me on to meet you; and my desire therein — how I crave it — is your love; forever; and may whoever is your enemy be your ransom; and may you live to serve your father in good fortune.

Sweet they were — and rightly; and why not, when they — I am like the clouds: I visit one land, watering it — and if I turn back to Syria, it is only — and I strive to give you my love with all my might — may you never cease to vanquish whoever opposes our king — and may I live to see your surviving son a father.

Then, says the author of the verses: I made a fair copy of the poem and returned. When the Sultan saw that I had returned he said to me, "Have you done anything?" — thinking that to do the work in that brief moment was an impossible feat, and that to attain the aim in it was inconceivable. I said, "Yes, I have done it." He said, "Recite to us." The people fell silent, eyes fixed and ears strained; men thought of me what they thought, and waited to see what would come. But no sooner did the recitation of its lines follow one upon another than hands clapped in admi-ration, and al-Malik al-Mu'azzam showered me with such favor and esteem as I have found no equal to.

With this splendid ijaza I close the collection of samples that space now allows me to present. Few though they are, they cast light on this branch of literature, which points to the kindled minds of the poets of Arabic and their unequaled preeminence in a field that none may enter save one endowed by his Lord with rare intelligence and a ready wit.