poet, cling about the wretched even as a coat of mail (_quatrain_
6) is on the warrior. This image was a favourite among the Arabs,
and when Ibn Khallikan wants to praise the verses of one As Suli,
he informs us that they have the reputation of delivering from
sudden evil any person who recites them frequently. When this
evil is complete, with rings strongly riven, it passes away while
he thinks that nothing can dispel it. . . . We have mention in
this quatrain of a winding-sheet, and that could be of linen or
of damask. The Caliph Solaiman was so fond of damask that every
one, even the cook, was forced to wear it in his presence, and it
clothed him in the grave. Yet he, like other Moslems (_quatrain_
10), would believe that he must undergo the fate recorded in a
book. The expression that a man's destiny is written on his
forehead, had its origin without a doubt, says Goldziher, in
India. We have remarked upon the Indian ideas which had been
gathered by Abu'l-Ala at Baghdad. There it was that he enjoyed
the opportunity of seeing ships (_quatrain_ 11). He spent a
portion of his youth beside the sea, at Tripoli. But in the
capital were many boats whose fascination he would not resist,--
the Chinese junks laboriously dragged up from Bassora, and dainty
gondolas of basket-work covered with asphalt.[4] However, though
in this place and in others, very frequently, in fact, Abu'l-Ala
makes mention of the sea, his fondness of it was, one thinks, for
literary purposes. He writes a letter to explain how grieved he
is to hear about a friend who purposes to risk himself upon the
sea, and he recalls a certain verse: "Surely it is better to
drink among the sand-heaps foul water mixed with pure than to
venture on the sea." From Baghdad also he would carry home the
Zoroastrian view (_quatrain_ 14) that night was primordial and
the light created. As a contrast with these foreign importations,