Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/11

v.W BIOLOGY ENCYCLOPEDIA BBITANNICA. M T-M T MOTANABBI, or MOTEXEBBI. Abu 1-Tayyib Ahmed ibn al-Hosain of Cufa, called Al-Motanabbi (9l5/6- 965), is the most famous representative of the last period of Arabic poetry, though some Eastern critics place him below Abu Tammam. He was the son of a water-carrier, and is said to have picked up much of the literary knowledge for which he was afterwards famous by haunting the book stalls of his native city. He spent, too, some years of his youth among the nomads of the Syro- Arabian desert, learning their purer dialect and becoming imbued with their self-reliant spirit. Thus he grew up a brave proud man, a gallant warrior as well as a poet, full of ambition, not easily satisfied either with wealth or honours, indifferent to the Koran and to the fasts and prayers of Islam, but untainted by the looseness of morals common to the poets of those days. Such a character was not well fitted for the part of a courtier, the only career that then lay open to a poet ; for, though no Arab poet deems himself humi liated by the most extravagant praises of a generous patron, and none has written in this vein more extrava gantly than Abu 1-Tayyib, he was as exacting of due acknowledgment as prodigal of adulation, and was too proud to endure a slight, even where it was dangerous to show resentment. At first he essayed a greater and more perilous road to distinction, appearing in the character of a prophet in the desert between the Euphrates and Syria, where he formed a considerable party, but was arrested by the governor of Emesa. A prison and the pillory cooled his enthusiasm ; his prophetic pretensions indeed are hardly a proof of genuine religious fervour, for in the lands of Islam a revolutionary popular leader almost necessarily seeks a supernatural sanction for his attempt. The name of Al-Motanabbi (he who plays the prophet) clung to him, however, and is that by which he is still commonly known. Regaining his liberty, he had to struggle for a time with poverty and neglect. But his poetical talents at length found him patrons, and in 337 A.H. (948/9 A.D.) he became attached to the court of that famous warrior and patron of letters, Saif al-Dawla, prince of Aleppo, to whom many of the best fruits of his muse were dedicated, and by whose side he approved his valour in the field. But he had rivals who knew how to inspire jealousy between him and the prince, and an angry scene with the grammarian Khala- 105 waih, in which the latter closed a philological dispute by striking Motanabbi on the face with a key which he had in his sleeve, in the very presence of the prince and with out rebuke from him, led the poet to leave the court and seek a new career in the realm of the Ikhshidites. He now took as his patron and the object of his eulogies Kafur, the regent of Egypt a hideous black eunuch whom it was indeed a humiliation to praise, but who knew how to open the poet s lips by great gifts and honours. Motanabbi, how ever, sought a higher reward, the government of Sidon, and at length broke with Kafur, wrote satires against him, and had to fly for his life to Cufa. A curious anecdote relating to this part of his career will be found in Lane s Arabian Nights, chap. viii. note 18. His next great patron was Adud al-Dawla of Shiraz, and on a journey from Shiraz to Cufa he was waylaid and slain, fighting bravely, by a chieftain of the Asad named Fatik, whose kinsfolk he had satirized (Sept. 965). The poetry of Motanabbi is to European taste much less attract ive than the verses of the ancient Arab poets, being essentially artificial and generally unreal, though it has great technical merits and displays lively fancy and considerable inventive power. It is mainly court poetry, but the poet has the credit of never losing his self-respect in the presence of his patrons. Oriental taste, on the other hand, places him on a very high pedestal, as may be judged from the fact that more than four hundred commentaries were written on his Diwan (H. Khal., iii. 306). Dieterici s edition of the poet, Berlin, 1858-61, gives the commentary of Wahidi ; the Egyptian edition of 1870 has the commentary of Okbaii. See Abulfeda, Ann. Mosl., ii. 482 sq. ; Ibn Khallikan, ed. De Slane, p. 51 sq., and the notes to De Slane s translation ; De Sacy, Chrest. Ar., vol. iii. ; Bohlen, Commcntatio de MotenebMo, Bonn, 1824; Dieterici, Mittamlbi und Seifuddaula, Leipsic, 1847. MOTHER-OF-PEARL. The shells of many molluscous animals display a brilliant pearly and iridescent lustre, resulting from the peculiar manner in which the layers of calcareous matter of which they are composed have been successively formed. Such shells, even when small in size, form bright and, specially to the untutored eye, attractive ornaments, and as such are used for necklaces and similar purposes. When the shells are of sufficient size to cut and shape for purposes of utility, they become an article of some commercial importance under the name of Mother- of-Pearl. This term, though applicable to all pearly shells, is in commerce principally applied to the shells of the bivalve pearl -mussel Meleagrina margaritifera, which is XVIL i