oye GentleIllen Arabic Studies on Science and Literary Culture

302 THOMAS BAUER
Structure and content OfShihäb al-Din's muzdawija tardiyya
The structure ofthe poem is clear-cut and well-balanced. The poem may
be said to consist of three parts, each part divided into two subsections.
The first part starts with an introductory section of \ eleven couplets, priniarily
of a descriptive nature. The second section, the 'parade of the
horses: is again a descriptive section and again comprises eleven lines.
The central section of the poem is constituted by two hunting episodes
that combine both descriptive and narrative elements. Each of these sections
has the length of twelve couplets. A transition of five lines, the
takhallu~,leads up to the concluding panegyric section, which with its
thirteen lines is again one couplet longer than the central sections. A
chart may illustrate this structure:
Lines Subject Length
1-11
1-3: frame: address to the audience;
4-11: description of nature
12-22 the huntsmen and their horses: 'parade of the horses' 11
23-34 episode 1: hunting gazelIes and onagers with arrows, dogs 12
and cheetahs
35-46 episode 2: hunting birds with falcons and the crossbow 12
47-51
takhallu: return from the hunt; transition to the
panegyric section '
52-64 praise (madi) of the dawädär 13
(1) lntroduction and description of nature. With its reference to surür
'joy' the first couplet may allude to the urjüza muzdawija by Abü Firäs
al-I;Iamdäni (320-357/932-968), in which we read al-'umru mä tamma
bihi l-surüru 'life is when joys are complete:44But there are only few
similarities between both poems, apart from their form. Abü Firäs's
poem, for instance, is more than twice as long as Shihäb al-Din's. Consequently,
Shihäb al-Din cannot give as detailed arecord of the events
44 Diwän Abi Firäs, ed. Sämi al-Dahhän, (Beirut, 1944),III, p. 435. See also James
E. Montgomery,'AbüFiräs'sVeneric Urjüzah Muzdawijah: <strong>Arabic</strong> and Middle Eastern
literatures 2 (1999),pp. 61-74.
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