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128 THE TAKJUMAX AL-ASHWAQ (X L Il)

invisible, like the star Suha, but he wlio neglects what
is visible and manifest, like the sun.
3. ‘ Let him offer him.sel£ to his herd,’ etc., i.e. let him
.sacrifice himself for the sake of tho.se whom he loves, and
then tliey will prai.se him.
4. ‘ An Arab girl,’ i.e. one of tlie Muhammadan kinds of
knowledge.
' Belonging by origin to the daughters of Persia ’ : for the
foreign and barbarous idiom is more ancient tlian
the Arabic
6. ‘ I boded ill from her unveiling ’ : when a woman
unveiled herself to an Ai’ab with no particular motive, he
used to regard it as a sign that she was unlucky to him, and
h^ used to be afraid in consequence.
7. ‘ Two deaths,’ i.e. dying to (becoming unconscious of)
others, and dying to himself, so that he remained with her in
virtue of her, not in virtue of himself.
' Thus hath the Koran revealed her,’ in reference to
Kor. xl, 11 : ' Thoti hast caused us to die tic ice.'
8. ‘ Thy foes,’ etc., i.e. they will beguile thee with a form
resembling mine at the moment when I manifest my essence
to thee, i.e. thy desii’e to obtain possession of my essence will
deceive thee and make thee imagine that the form in which
I appear to thee is I myself.
9. ‘ I am in a guarded demesne,’ etc., as it is said of the
Prophet: ‘for He cattles a guard {of angels) to go before and
behind him ’ (Kor. Ixxii, 27), that he might be in no doubt
‘ At night the angels descended upon my heart and circled it
concerning his inspiration. This is the meaning of my verse,

like the sphere that circles the pole-star.’
10. ‘ This poem of mine is without rhyme,’ i.e. it has
no recurring rhyme-letter (ZSjj)> which in a rhymed poem
would invariably precede the U.
‘ I intend by it only Her’ (or, as the author expres.ses it,
' only the letter hd ’), i.e. ‘ I have no connexion except with
Her, since my connexion with the phenomenal world is
entirely for Her sake, in .so far as She reveals Herself there.’