Chinese and Arabian Literature - E. Wilson - The Search For Mecca

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SELECTIONS FROM ARABIAN POETRY
Though Nile's full stream be seen no more,
That spread his waves from shore to shore,
Still in the verdure of the plain
His vivifying smiles remain."
The praise of a humble lot has been sung from Hafiz to
Horace, but never illustrated by a prettier conceit than the
Arabic poet has recourse to in this stanza :
" Not always wealth, not always force
A splendid destiny commands;
The lordly vulture gnaws the corse
That rots upon yon barren sands.
—
" Nor want nor weakness still conspires
To bind us to a sordid state;
The fly that with a touch expires,
Sips honey from the royal plate."
This is undoubtedly a very original way of stating the
philosophic axiom of the Augustan poet,
" The lord of boundless revenues,
Do not salute as happy."
I have spoken of the wit of these verses, which is certainly
one of their distinguishing qualities. It is quite Attic in its
flavor and exquisitely delicate in its combined good-humor and
freedom from rancor. An epigram, according to the old defi-
nition, should be like a bee; it should carry the sweetness of
honey, although it bears a sting at the end. Sometimes the
end has a point which does not sting, as in the following quat-
rain of an Arabic poet:
—
" When I sent you my melons, you cried out with scorn.
They ought to be heavy and wrinkled and yellow;
When I offered myself, whom those graces adorn,
You flouted, and called me an ugly old fellow."
Martial himself could not have excelled the wit of an epigram
addressed to a very little man who wore a very big beard,
which thus concludes :
" Surely thou cherishest thy beard
In hope to hide thyself behind it."