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“And indeed,” continued Adi, “this ode on the Prophet (may God bless and keep him!) is well known and to comment it would be tedious.” Quoth Omar, “Who is at the door?” “Among them is Omar ibn [Abi] Rebya the Cureishite,”[1] answered Adi, and the Khalif said, “May God show him no favour neither quicken him! Was it not he who said . . . . ?” And he recited the following verses:
Would God upon that bitterest day, when my death calls for me, What’s ’twixt thine excrement and blood[2] I still may smell of thee!
Yea, so but Selma in the dust my bedfellow may prove, Fair fall it thee! In heaven or hell I reck not if it be.
“Except,” continued the Khalif, “he were the enemy of God, he had wished for her in this world, so he might after [repent and] return to righteous dealing. By Allah, he shall not come in to me! Who is at the door other than he?” Quoth Adi, “Jemil ben Mamer el Udhri[3] is at the door;” and Omar said, “It is he who says in one of his odes” . . . . [And he recited the following:]
Would we may live together and when we come to die, God grant the death-sleep bring me within her tomb to lie!
For if “Her grave above her is levelled” it be said, Of life and its continuance no jot indeed reck I.
- ↑ Said to have been the best poet ever produced by the tribe of Cureish. His introduction here is an anachronism, as he died A.D. 712, five years before Omar’s accession.
- ↑ i.e. odorem pudendorum amicæ?
- ↑ A famous poet of the tribe of the Benou Udhreh, renowned for their passionate sincerity in love-matters. He is celebrated as the lover of Butheineh, as Petrarch of Laura, and died A.D. 701, sixteen years before Omar’s accession.
