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Adi; and Omar said, “It is he who saith, glorying in adultery . . . .” [And he repeated the following verses:]
The two girls let me down from fourscore fathoms’ height, As swoops a hawk, with wings all open in full flight;
And when my feet trod earth, “Art slain, that we should fear,” Quoth they, “or live, that we may hope again thy sight?”
“He shall not come in to me. Who is at the door, other than he?” “El Akhtel et Teghlibi,”[1] answered Adi; and Omar said, “He is the unbeliever who says in his verse . . . .” [And he repeated the following:]
Ramazan in my life ne’er I fasted, nor e’er Have I eaten of flesh, save in public[2] it were.
No exhorter am I to abstain from the fair, Nor to love Mecca’s vale for my profit I care;
Nor, like others a little ere morning appear who bawl, “Come to safety!”[3] I stand up to prayer.
Nay, at daybreak I drink of the wind-freshened wine And prostrate me[4] instead in the dawn-whitened air.
“By Allah, he treadeth no carpet of mine! Who is at the door other than he?” “Jerir ibn el Khetefa,” answered Adi; and Omar said, “It is he who saith . . . .” [And he recited as follows:]
- ↑ A Christian and a celebrated poet of the time.
- ↑ The poet apparently meant to insinuate that those who professed to keep the fast of Ramazan ate flesh in secret. The word rendered “in public,” i.e. openly, avowedly, may also perhaps be translated “in the forenoon,” and in this El Akhtel may have meant to contrast his free-thinking disregard of the ordinances of the fast with the strictness of the orthodox Muslim, whose only meals in Ramazan-time are made between sunset and dawn-peep. As soon as a white thread can be distinguished from a black, the fast is begun and a true believer must not even smoke or swallow his saliva till sunset.
- ↑ Prominent words of the Muezzin’s fore-dawn call to prayer.
- ↑ i.e. fall down drunk.
