[FN#442] The Hebrew grammarians of the Middle Ages wisely copied their Arab cousins by turning Fa’la into Pael and so forth.

[FN#443] Mr. Lyall, whose “Ancient Arabic Poetry” (Williams and Norgate, 1885) I reviewed in The Academy of Oct. 3, ’85, did the absolute reverse of what is required:  he preserved the metre and sacrificed the rhyme even when it naturally suggested itself.  For instance in the last four lines of No. xii. what would be easier than to write,

Ah sweet and soft wi’ thee her ways:  bethink thee well!  The day
     shall be
When some one favoured as thyself shall find her fair and fain
     and free;
And if she swear that parting ne’er shall break her word of
     constancy,
When did rose-tinted finger-tip with pacts and pledges e’er
     agree?

[FN#444] See p. 439 Grammatik des Arabischen Vulgaer Dialekts von AEgyptian, by Dr. Wilhelm Spitta Bey, Leipzig, 1880.  In pp. 489-493 he gives specimens of eleven Mawawil varying in length from four to fifteen lines.  The assonance mostly attempts monorhyme:  in two tetrastichs it is aa + ba, and it does not disdain alternates, ab + ab + ab.

[FN#445] Al-Siyuti, p. 235, from Ibn Khallikan.  Our knowledge of oldest Arab verse is drawn chiefly from the Katab al-Aghani (Song-book) of Abu al-Faraj the Isfahani who flourished A.H. 284-356 (= 897- 967):  it was printed at the Bulak Press in 1868.

[FN#446] See Lyall loc. cit. p. 97.

[FN#447] His Diwan has been published with a French translation, par R. Boucher, Paris, Labitte, 1870.

[FN#448] I find also minor quotations from the Imam Abu al-Hasan al-Askari (of Sarra man raa) ob.  A.D. 868; Ibn Makula (murdered in A.D. 862?), Ibn Durayd (ob.  A.D. 933) Al-Zahr the Poet (ob.  A.D. 963); Abu Bakr al-Zubaydi (ob.  A.D. 989), Kabus ibn Wushmaghir (murdered in A.D. 1012-13); Ibn Nabatah the Poet (ob.  A.D. 1015), Ibn al-Sa’ati (ob.  A.D. 1028); Ibn Zaydun al-Andalusi who died at Hums (Emessa, the Arab name for Seville) in A.D. 1071; Al-Mu’tasim ibn Sumadih (ob.  A.D. 1091), Al-Murtaza ibn al-Shahrozuri the Sufi (ob.  A.D. 1117); Ibn Sara al-Shantarani (of Santarem) who sang of Hind and died A.D. 1123; Ibn al-Khazin (ob.  A.D. 1124), Ibn Kalakis (ob.  A D. 1172) Ibn al-Ta’wizi (ob.  A.D. 1188); Ibn Zabadah (ob.  A.D. 1198), Baha al-Din Zuhayr (ob A.D. 1249); Muwaffak al-Din Muzaffar (ob.  A.D. 1266) and sundry others.  Notices of Al-Utayyah (vol. i. 11), of Ibn al-Sumam (vol. i. 87) and of Ibn Sahib al-Ishbili, of Seville (vol. i. 100), are deficient.  The most notable point in Arabic verse is its savage satire, the language of excited “destructiveness” which characterises the Badawi:  he is “keen for satire as a thirsty man for water:”  and half his poetry seems to consist of foul innuendo, of lampoons, and of gross personal abuse.

[FN#449] If the letter preceding Waw or Ya is moved by Fathah, they produce the diphthongs au (aw), pronounced like ou in “bout’” and se, pronounced as i in “bite.”