Oral composition in pre islam poetry

Oral Composition in Pre-Islamic PoetryAuthor(s): James T. MonroeSource: Journal of Arabic Literature, Vol. 3 (1972), pp. 1-53Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4182889Accessed: 10/08/2010 05:30

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ORAL COMPOSITION IN PRE-ISLAMIC POETRY*

THE PROBLEM OF AUTHENTICITY

The authenticity of pre-Islamic poetry is hardly a problem of recent formulation, for as early as 'Abbasid times effort was expended by Arab philologists in sorting out the authentic from the forged. Although we may smile today, we can hardly refrain from applauding the objective rigor of the critic al-Jumahi for having branded as spurious those ancient Arabic poems attributed to the peoples of "Ad and Tham5d.1 The medieval Arabic tradition, in possession of far more material for study than is available to us at present, proceeded with exemplary caution and restraint in so ticklish a matter.

But in 1925 a frontal attack was launched, which claimed to show that all or practically all pre-Islamic poetry had been forged in Islamic times. The call to battle was sounded simultaneously yet independently by the Egyptian scholar Taha Husain and the British Orientalist D. S. Margoliouth. The former cut the Gordian knot by the publication of his book Fi sh-shi'r al-jdhili ('On Pre-Islamic Poetry'),2 and two years later he summed up his position that the general mass of what we call 'pre-Islamic' literature had nothing to do with the pre- Islamic period, but was simply fabricated after the coming of Islam...

* Abbreviations: A = cAntara; Alq = cAlqama; IQ = Imru' al-Qais; L = Labid; M = The Mufa4daliyyhvI; M = Mucallaqa; N = Nabigha adh-Dhubyan1; T = Tarafa; Z = Zuhair.

References: I References to A, Alq, IQ, N, T, and Z are quoted from: W. Ahlwardt (ed.);

The Divans of the Six Ancient Arabic Poets (London, 1870). (IQ, 128, 20, 19) = Imru' al-Qais, Divans, p. 128, no. 20, 1. 19; (A, M, 5) = cAntara, Mu'allaqa, 1. 5.

2 References to Labid are quoted from: Labid, Diwan, ed. DIr Sadir (Beirut, 1966). (L, 114, 38, 14) = Labid, Diwdn, p. 114, no. 38, 1. 14.

3 References to MI are quoted from: Al-Mufaddal ibn Muhammad ad-Dabbi, The Mufa44aliyyat: An Anthology of Ancient Arabian Odes, ed. Charles J. Lyall (Oxford, 1921), vol. I. (M, 180, 63) = Mufa44aliyydt, p. 180, 1. 63.

4 A single vertical stroke before a formula indicates the beginning of the first hemistich (/). A single vertical stroke after a formula indicates the end of the second hemistich. Two vertical strokes at the end of a formula indicate the end of the first hemistich (//). Two vertical strokes at the beginning of a formula indicate the beginning of the second hemistich. When no vertical strokes are marked, the formula occupies an internal position in the hemistich.

1 Amjad Trabulsi, La critique poilique des arabes jusqu'au Ve siecle de /'Hcgire (XIe siicle deJ. C.) (Damascus, 1956), p. 65.

2 (Cairo, 1925). Journal of Arabic Literature, III

2 ORAL COMPOSITION IN PRE-ISLAMIC POETRY

"what you read as being the poetry of Imru' al-Qais or Tarafa or Ibn Kulthuim or 'Antara is not the work of these men at all; it is merely the fabrication of 'transmitters', or the forgery of Bedouins, or the manufacture of grammarians, or the pretence of story-tellers, or the invention of commentators and traditionists and theologians." I

What then were the reasons given for this extraordinary and whole- sale forgery of individual and collective anthologies, to say nothing of scattered fragments too numerous to count? According to Taha Husain the Meccan tribe of Quraish, in order to win the struggle for power within the nascent Islamic community, had needed author- itative texts to enhance its own prestige, and so it forged a literature in its own dialect as a basis of support for its political ambitions. Devout Muslims, too, sought to prove that Islam had been fore- shadowed by pious Arabs who had believed in Allah prior to the revelation. This would account for the occasional references to Isla- mic doctrine contained in the poems. Likewise the Koran was full of obscure words and allusions to events that were no longer understood by later generations. Rather than admit ignorance of these passages, later commentators adopted the face-saving expedient of inventing lines of poetry to use as loci probantes in support of their personal interpretations. Story-tellers, furthermore, forged 'old' verses and used them to spice their tales in order to enhance their own prestige before gullible audiences. After the expansion of Islam beyond the confines of the Arabian peninsula, the Arabs came into contact with culturally superior subjects. Thereupon they forged a poetic literature to prove to their non-Arab subjects that they too had enjoyed a high level of civilization in their earlier, camel-herding days. The conquered peoples, on the other hand, once admitted to the status of adopted clients in an Arab tribe, became as eager as their conquerors to forge evidence proving the ancient glory of their new masters, partly to curry favor with them, and partly to lord it over their less fortunate unadopted brethren.

D. S. Margoliouth had some additional points to make in a now famous article.2 A literary form called 'poetry' (shi'r), he argued, must have existed prior to Islam because the Koran refers to it,3 and

I Taha Husain, Fi l-adab al-jdhili (Cairo, 1927), p. 63. 2 "The Origins of Arabic Poetry,"Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, n.v. (1925),

pp. 417-449. 3 Koran 26: 224-225.

ORAL COMPOSITION IN PRE-ISLAMIC POETRY 3

Muhammed was accused of being a poet by his enemies,' which charge he strongly rejected.2 This would imply that for the pre-Islamic Arabs the word 'poetry' meant the rhymed prose of the soothsayers and of the Koran rather than the measured verse of later times. This assumption is supported by the fact that unlike other early literatures such as Latin, not one line of poetry is to be found among the abun- dant pre-Islamic epitaphs and inscriptions. From this evidence it may be assumed that the Koran uses the word 'poet' in the sense of soothsayer. So-called 'pre-Islamic' poetry is uniformly written in the Meccan Quraishite dialect of the Koran, and not in the various tribal dialects of Arabia, whose existence and peculiarities were known to medieval Arab philologists. Also, the poems frequently allude to writing, which would imply that the Quraishites were a literate tribe, whereas Arab tradition would indicate that the poems were orally transmitted. The poetry must then have been preserved either orally or in writing. In the former case, the vehemence with which Muhammad attacked 'poets' would surely have resulted in the suppression and rapid extinction of the professional reciter. If the poems were preserved in writing, use of books is implied, but the Koran specifically accuses the pagan Arabs of possessing neither a book nor writing. Generally speaking, literature evolves from the irregular to the regular, as may be observed in the case of Latin. By analogy, it can be assumed that the irregular rhythms of the Koran gave rise to the regular meters of Arabic poetry, and not the reverse. Medieval Arab philologists speak eloquently, too, of the many forgeries perpetrated by transmitters such as Hammad ar- Rawiya and his disciple Khalaf al-Ahmar. The generosity of caliphs in rewarding transmitters of ancient poetry must also have been an irresistible temptation to forge poetry.

Pre-Islamic poets, continues Margoliouth, frequently swear by Allah and occasionally they even quote Koranic passages.3 Their thorough knowledge of Islamic customs and doctrine thus reflects negatively on the authenticity of the whole body of poetry. The poems are all in the Koranic dialect of Quraish which could only have been spread throughout Arabia after the rise of Islam as a unifying force. Furthermore, poets such as 'Amr ibn Kulthum

1 Koran 37: 35. 2 Koran 69: 39-43. 3 An example by Zuhair in R. Blachere, Histoire de la litteralure arabe des origines

a la fin du XVe sidcle de J. C. (Paris, 1952), I, p. 176.


betray a general knowledge of Near Eastern geography that is suspicious in an Arabian Bedouin. In his Mu'allaqa 'Amr claims to have tasted the wine of Baalbek, Damascus, and Qasirin, and requests to be given that of Andarin, possibly near Aleppo. This leads Margo- liouth to comment that "doubtless in the 150 years which this person is supposed to have lived he had time for extensive travels." 1 The qa4ida too, exhibits a stereotyped literary structure. This would imply that an original literary prototype must have existed in writing. If so, then why did the Koran not censure this textual source as the root of all the evil it sought to suppress?

The reaction to this dual attack on the authenticity of the classical prototype of Arabic poetry caused much ink to be spilled, both in the East and in the West. In a succinct summary of the case for the defense, A. J. Arberry replied point by point to the Husain- Margoliouth thesis as follows:2

The Koranic passages cited by Margoliouth are both mistranslated and torn from their proper context. They clearly refer to 'poetry' as measured verse and not to the rhymed prose of the soothsayers. The references in the Koran to the lack of a book and to writing among the pagan Arabs can in no way be construed as referring to poetry. It is clear from the context that they have to do instead with the lack of a holy scripture. On the linguistic side, Arberry points out that there were no metrical epitaphs in Greek before Homer, and that to this very day Arabic epitaphs rarely contain verse. Further- more, the theory espoused by medieval Arab philologists that the Arabic of the revelation derived from the speech of Quraish has been rejected by recent linguists. Instead, it is now thought that side by side with the tribal dialects there existed a specialized literary language used as a koine for intertribal affairs. This dialect, which was more lofty and dignified than normal speech, was used both by the Prophet and by pre-Islamic poets because it gave greater currency to their ideas. While it contained elements and borrowings from the different tribal dialects, it was essentially an artificial, literary language for use on solemn occasions. It was formerly maintained, furthermore, that the poetic texts called 'pre-Islamic' had originally cited the name of the pagan goddess al-Lat, which had been replaced by its metrical equivalent Allah by later generations of pious transmitters.

11 Op. cit., P. 443. 2 A. J. Arberry, The Seven Odes: The First Chapter in Arabic Literature (London,

1957), pp. 228-254.


More recent investigations have suggested, however, that Allah may in fact have been known to the pre-Islamic Arabs. The verse by 'Amr containing place names outside the Arabian peninsula, as Arberry shows, was already rejected as spurious by the medieval commentator Tibrizi, but even if the latter's opinion is not accepted, the verse may be considered a mere poetic exaggeration.

If the poets were the spokesmen of paganism, Margoliouth had asked, then who preserved and transmitted their poems after paganism was blotted out by Islam? Arberry maintains that Islam has always sat lightly upon the Bedouins. After the initial fervor of conversion to the new religion had died down, they soon reverted to their old ways. The art of poetry could not simply have disappeared, otherwise from whom would the early Islamic poets have learned it? The Bedouins, lukewarm Muslims though they may have been, were not so rash as to flaunt the old gods in the face of pious Mus- lims, and gradually the names of the idols were replaced by that of Allah.

Such is the present state of affairs with regard to the problem of the authenticity of pre-Islamic poetry, according to Arberry's exposi- tion. While some of the points raised by Taha Husain and Margoliouth have been answered satisfactorily, others continue to arouse nagging doubts that have left their mark on all subsequent studies. Generally speaking a stalemate has been reached. Those scholars objecting to the Husain-Margoliouth thesis have at times argued their case brilliant- ly, but they have so far failed to provide an overall theoretical explanation of the nature of pre-Islamic poetry. They have been handi- capped by the lack of a suitable critical method with which to solve the problem on an objective basis convincing enough to be acceptable to scholarly consensus.

The references to Islamic doctrines found in the ancient poets, who could not possibly have known Islam, appear to have already disturbed medieval Arab scholars. Living as they did in an age of faith, and thus attributing scientific validity to the miraculous, they solved the problem by the 'Methuselaean' expedient of attributing improbably long lives to the poets. In this way the latter could be brought conveniently within the pale of Islam and given ample time to revise and correct their poetry in the light of the new faith and its teachings. Half-legendary biographies of the poets thus developed and it was claimed, for example, that Zuhair met the Prophet when he was a centenarian; that Labid lived over 120 years


and died a Muslim; that both Harith ibn Hilliza and 'Amr ibn Kultham lived to the overripe age of 150 years.1 Modern critics, relying on a positivistic approach, have not only rejected these stories as fabulous inventions, but, as we have seen, have occasionally gone to the extreme of rejecting the whole corpus of poetry along with the biographies of the poets. Thus both the medieval and the modern approaches have failed to come to grips with the problem.

If the corpus was forged at all, common sense would tell us that it must have been forged in imitation of an earlier model now lost to us, and that this model would necessarily have had to be authentic, since it is inconceivable that a whole literature should have arisen from scratch. Sensing this fact, more moderate scholars such as R. Blachere have suggested with a far greater degree of plausibility that even if our present body of pre-Islamic poetry was all or partially forged, it must reflect, in all probability, the style and ideals of an earlier and authentic model.2 Supposedly false poems must therefore express the spirit of the Jahiliyya in general, even though they may have been composed in later time. Faute de mieux, this is the view generally accepted today by most scholars. But if this is so, how then are we to distinguish the true from the false? To this question criticism has so far provided no reliable answer.

Above all, it can be sensed that many of the arguments advanced on either side smack of the study, while the compromise solution is based on probabilities and leaves too many questions unanswered. Too often partisans of either side pick out certain historical facts in support of their arguments, to the exclusion of others that tnight possibly yield opposite results. Furthermore, these arguments are largely based on external evidence, while those based on internal evidence too often use what are, after all, primarily literary texts, as sources for historical data, without taking into account the inner laws of composition and structure of a poem. Thus a new and different approach is needed; one based on the study and analysis of pre-Islamic poems themselves in the light of current literary theory. It is time for the literary critic to attempt a solution of the problem on the basis of what literary historians have discovered.

Without a prior working-hypothesis which is ultimately confirmed by the results of investigation, no study can be carried out successfully.

1 Ibid.; Mlargoliouth, op. cit. 2 Blachere, op. cit., pp. 184-186.


This paper will therefore begin on the assumption that pre-Islamic poetry was an oral poetry. It will attempt to prove this on the basis of internal and external evidence, and will apply a contemporary theory of oral literature to it. Finally, it will contrast the orality of pre-Islamic poetry with the literate nature of later, Islamic, poetry.

THE PARRY-LORD THEORY OF ORAL POETRY

It would hardly be an exaggeration to state that the techniques peculiar to oral poetry and used by oral poets to compose regular verse have come to be understood far more closely during the past thirty years than in all the time that has elapsed since the rise of Aristotelian criticism in Ancient Greece. The discovery of, and advances in, the study of the oral technique of composition are chiefly due to the investigations conducted by Milman Parry and Albert B. Lord. Parry first applied the concept of theformula to the study of Homer and came to the conclusion, today generally accepted, that Homer was an oral poet.' To corroborate his thesis he then turned to a living tradition of oral epic poetry, namely the one preserved and cultivated by illiterate Yugoslavian singers. It was hoped that new insights applicable to Ho- meric studies could be discovered by focusing attention on the singer and his method of composition, studied in the laboratory of a still living oral tradition. With the help of Lord, Parry showed that orally composed poetry is clearly distinguishable from written poetry.2 The literate poet in every age and culture has time to elaborate and polish his ideas before setting them down in their definitive form. Furthermore, his reading public is once-removed from him. In contrast, the oral poet composes during the very act of performance, that is to say, he impro- vises, and he must do so verv swiftly indeed if he is to retain the audience that is immediately in front of him. In order to achieve this remarkable feat of producing regular verses extempore and without the use of memory, the oral poet is not entirely lacking in technical resources, for he draws upon a vast repertory of traditional formulas which he has previously mastered and which he strings together at lightning speed

l Milman Parry, L'Epithete traditionelle dans Homere (Paris, 1928); Les formules et la mitrique d'Homere (Paris, 1928); "Studies in the Epic Technique of Oral Verse-Making I: Homer and the Homeric Style," Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, XLI (1930), pp. 74-147; "Studies in the Epic Technique of Oral Verse- Making II: The Homeric Language as the Language of an Oral Poetry," HSCP, XLIII (1932), 1-50; The Making of Homeric Verse: The Collected Papers of Milman Parry, ed. Adam Parry (Oxford, 1971).

2 See especially, A. B. Lord, The Singer of Tales (Cambridge, Mass., 1964).


to produce regular lines of poetry; he sings in a specialized language of which the smallest separable unit is not the individual word, but the formula, defined by Parry as "a group of words which is regularly employed under the same metrical conditions to express a given essential idea." I

The stock of formulas in any oral tradition is elaborated during the course of centuries by the slow process of trial and error. Those that prove to be of greater use to the poet in expressing what he needs to say outlast the less useful ones so that slowly, by a process of natural selection, a traditional stock of collectively known formulas is elaborated and adopted.

The application of these findings to ancient or medieval literatures has proved to be most illuminating. In a poem the circumstances of whose composition are today lost to us, the repetition of a significant number of formulas or formulaic phrases and constructions is a sure indication that it was orally composed, whereas a general lack of formulaic repetition indicates its written origin. In other words, oral poetry is almost entirely formulaic, whereas written poetry is not. An oral poem has no fixed text until it is written down from a composer's dictation. Before this moment, its 'text' circulates from mouth to mouth, never being retold word for word or line for line in exactly the same way. It can be lengthened or abridged; some of its elements may be suppressed and new ones added to it with each performance; it can be entirely reworded. The poem thus exists in a fluid state and is recreated with each new performance. Neither does the oral poet memorize the poems of his more experienced mentors, nor does he even memorize his own songs. Conscious memorization thus plays no part in the technique of the oral poet. Instead, the process of learn- ing how to compose orally entails mastering a repertory of themes, motifs, plots, proper names, and formulas. With the aid of these the apprentice slowly begins to elaborate poems of his own in regular verse. Since this process is a slow one, it often occurs that older and therefore more experienced singers are better artists than young men. But although a good poet may be more skillfull in handling the collective repertory of formulas, the body of material he relies upon is essentially the same as that used by the mediocre poet. The poet thus applies a pre-existent repertory shared with his generation and inherited from the earlier generations that constitute the tradition.

1 Parry, "Studies I," p. 80; Lord, op. cit., p. 30.


In this respect, his language is an artificial, specialized poetic diction rising above dialect differences, and it is intelligible to all the people of the different regions or tribal groupings that make up the cultural group. Since this poetic diction is based on formulas inherited from the past and stabilized by metrical requirements, it tends to be far more conservative than the surrounding spoken dialects with which it coexists. Some formulas will only fit the meter in particular dialect variants, and these will be preserved like fossils in the poetic language long after the dialect they were borrowed from has ceased to be spoken. Formulaic diction thus abounds in archaisms and references that occasionally are not even understood by the poet and his audience.

This is a theory of the nature of oral poetry, but it is also the result of long and painstaking research conducted by Parry and Lord among Yugoslavian bards. It has subsequently been applied successfully (and thus confirmed) to other oral literatures, mostly of the Indo-European group,2 but never to Arabic literature. The purpose

1 Jan Vansina, De la tradition orale: Essai de mithode historique, MIusee Royal de l'Afrique Centrale: Annales, Serie in 8?, Sciences Humaines, XXXVI (Tervuren, 1961), pp. 43-44.

2 Anglo-Saxon: Donald K. Fry (ed.), The Beowuif Poet: A Collection of Critical Essays (Englewood Cliffs, N. J., 1968); Francis P. Magoun Jr., "The Oral- Formulaic Character of Anglo-Saxon Narrative Poetry," Speculum, XXVIII (1953), pp. 446-467.

English: James H. Jones, "Commonplace and Memorization in the Oral Tradition of the English and Scottish Popular Ballads," Journal of American Folklore, LXXIV (1961), pp. 91-113.

French: Joseph Duggan, "Formulas in the Couronnement de Louis," Romania, LXXXVII (1966), pp. 315-344; A Concordance of the CHANSON DE ROLAND (Columbus, 1969); Tatiana Fotitch, "The Chanson de Geste in the Light of Recent Investigations of Balkan Epic Poetry," Linguistic and Literary Studies in Honor of Helmut A. HatZfrld, ed. Alessandro S. Grisafulli (Washington D. C., 1964), pp. 149-162; Eugene Vance, "Notes on the Development of Formulaic Language in Romanesque Poetry," Milanges offerts ai Reni Crozet, ed. Pierre Gallais and Yves-Jean Ride (Poitiers, 1966), I, 427-434.

Gaelic: James Ross, "Formulaic Composition in Gaelic Oral Literature," Modern Philology, LVII (1959), pp. 1-12.

Greek: W. E. MIcLeod, "Oral Bards at Delphi," Transactions of the American Philological Association, XCII (1961), pp. 317-325; Michael N. Nagler, "Towards a Generative View of the Oral Formula," TAPA, XCVIII (1967), 269-311; James A. Notopoulos, "The Homeric Hymns as Oral Poetry," American Journal of Philology, LXXXIII (1962), 334-368; Joseph A. Russo, "A Closer Look at Homeric Formulas," TAPA, XCIV (1963), pp. 235-247; "The Structural Formula in Homeric Verse," Yale Classical Studies, XX: Homeric Seudies, ed. G. S. Kirk and Adam Parry (New Haven and London, 1966), pp. 219-240.

Hebrew: William Whallon, "Formulaic Poetry in the Old Testament," Com- parative Literature, XV (1963), pp. 1-14; "Old Testament Poetry and Heroic Epic," Comparative Literature, XVIII (1966), 113-131.


of this paper is therefore to examine the formula in pre-Islamic poetry with a view to shedding light on the problem of authenticity.

EXTERNAL EVIDENCE FOR THE ORAL NATURE

OF PRE-ISLAMIC POETRY

The idea that the poets of pre-Islamic times were illiterate is not a new one.' Medieval Arab critics relied on oral transmission by Bedouin informants in writing down and collecting their poems. But although the orality of the transmission they were recording was quite obvious to them, their literate habits of mind blinded them to the significance of this fact, nor were they aware of the techniques of oral composition. They were obsessed with the desire to establish the 'original text' of a given poem, and when different informants came up with differing versions, instead of asking themselves what were the reasons for the discrepancies, they developed a general distrust of informants and often rejected as spurious those poems transmitted by what they considered to be disreputable transmitters.2

In the eighth and ninth centuries A. D., the partisans of the urban- ized anti-Arab group known as the Shu'abiyya observed that in

Hittite: I. MNIcNeill, "The AMeter of the Hittite Epic," Journal of Anatolian Studies, XIII (1963), pp. 237-242.

Norse: Lars Lonnroth, "Hjalmar's Death-Song and the Delivery of Eddic Poetry," Speculum, XLVI (1971), 1-20.

Spanish: J. M. Aguirre, "l2pica oral y epica castellana: tradicion creadora y tradicion repetitiva," Romanische Forscbungen, LXXX (1968), pp. 13-41; Bruce A. Beatie, "Oral-Traditional Composition in the Spanish Romancero of the Sixteenth Century," Journal of the Folklore Institute, I (1964), pp. 92-113; A. D. Deyermond, "The Singer of Tales and Medieval Spanish Epic," Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, XLII (1965), pp. 1-8; L. P. Harvey, "The MIetrical Irregularity of the Cantar de Mio Cid," BHS, XL (1963), pp. 137-143; Ian Michael, "A Comparison of the Use of Epic Epithets in the Poema de Mio Cid and the Libro de Alexandre," BHS, XXXVII (1960), pp. 32-41; Ruth H. Webber, Formulisfic Diction in the Spanish Ballad, University of California Publications in Modern Philology, XXXIV: 2 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1951), pp. 175-278.

Toda: Murray B. Emeneau, "Oral Poets of South India: The Todas," Journal of American Folklore, LXXI (1958), pp. 312-324; "Style and Mfeaning in an Oral Literature," Language, LXII (1966), pp. 323-345; Toda Songs (Oxford, 1971).

1 See the Arabic tradition according to which the poet Tarafa and his uncle Mutalammis, also a poet, are depicted as illiterates, in R. A. Nicholson, A Literary History of the Arabs (London, 1907), p. 108. There is, of course, no guarantee of the story's authenticity, but it should be noted that the notion that a great pre-Islamic poet was illiterate did not appear unusual to the medieval commentators who recorded the tale.

2 Blachere, op. cit., pp. 118-120.


public speeches and recitations of poetry the desert Arabs had the uncouth habit of brandishing bows and staffs for emphasis and perhaps as a rhythmic aid.' This custom was viewed by the Shu'iibiyya as a sign of backwardness, but it acquires particular significance when compared to the recorded fact that such aids were used by poets, soothsayers, and prophets in pre-Islamic times.2 Rhythmic aids are essential to the composition of oral poetry, and Lord has observed that when the Yugoslavian singer is deprived of his musical accompaniment he loses his beat and begins to produce irregular lines that are half in prose and half in verse.3 In deriding this custom, the Shu'ubiyya fortunately recorded it for our use. Al-Jahiz (d. A. D. 869), who presumably had witnessed recitations of Arabic poetry by Bedouins, in his defense of the Arabs against the adverse charges made by the Shu'abiyya, distinguishes clearly between literate and oral composition:

The Persians may have good orators but their eloquence is always the result of long thought, deep study and counsel. It is founded in literary scholarship, so that the successor always builds upon the efforts of his predecessors and the last man always uses the fruit of all previous thinking. It is quite different amongst the Arabs. Their eloquence is spontaneous, extempore, as if the result of deep inspiration. It is produced without effort or deep study, without exercise of reason and without the aid of others. The speaker prepares to speak or recite a verse, on the day of battle, or when watering the beasts; as soon as he concentrates his thoughts on the subject of his speech the concepts and words just flow from his mouth as if by themselves. Nor did the old Arab poets endeavour to preserve their speeches or transmit [them] to their children. The Arabs had no knowledge of writing and their art was inborn and not acquired. To speak well was so natural to everyone that it was not necessary to write down the work performed or to make it the subject of study and tradition; just as the examples of their predecessors were not available to them. Thus only that which a man had involuntarily remembered was ever transmitted; it is but a small part of the great mass which is known only to him who counts the drops in the clouds and knows the number

1 "The staff is used for beating rhythm, spears for fighting, sticks for attack, bows for shooting, but there is no relation between speaking and the staff, and none between an address and a bow." Apud Ignaz Goldziher, "The Shu'fi- biyya," Muslim Studies, ed. and trans. S. M. Stern (London, 1967), I, p. 156. Cf. ibid., p. 159.

2 These rhythmic aids were used in particular by al-Harith ibn Hilliza and Nibi- gha, as well as by the Prophet. See ibid., p. 156, n. 4. Cf. Blachere, op. cit., vol. II, p. 357.

3 Lord, op. cit., pp. 126-127.


of the grains of sand. Of this any Shu'uibite might convince himself if he but came to the dwelling places of the true Arabs.'

Fortunately for the modern investigator, the oral tradition of pre-Islamic poetry has not died out. Fifteen centuries after the age of Imru' al-Qais it is still alive in Arabia and has been studied, if only sporadicallv, by contemporary scholars. If more field work has not been done, it is partly because modern Orientalism has inherited a curious preconception from the middle ages. Medieval critics had reasoned that only those works in the classical cArabiyya (i.e. the pre-Islamic koine of poetry) were to be considered literature. Folk- poetry not in the 'Arabiyya was consequently regarded as sub-literary and unworthy of the serious critic's attention. As centuries went by and the poetic koine slowly changed, its divergence from the classical norms became more evident, and it was relegated to oblivion. Although this attitude has continued to persist even in Western circles, there are signs that times are changing. Certainly the following statement by R. B. Serjeant announces a welcome and long overdue change of perspective in modern scholarship: "In the 20th century it is time to take classical, pre-Islamic or early Islamic verse to Arabia for explanation and commentary, and see what results can be obtained from this method of approach, which should, of course, always be used with caution. One would in many cases obtain a more valid explanation of a verse than that provided by an 'Abbasid grammarian." 2

The observations made today in Arabia not only confirm those of al-Jahiz, but also illuminate the Arab poet's method of oral composition. Although none of the scholars who have conducted field research seem to have been familiar with the Parry-Lord theory, their numerous observations coincide with it in every respect. The poems so far collected, chiefly from the northern, central and southern regions of Arabia, belong to a tradition generally believed to descend from pre-Islamic poetry.3 This tradition today uses basically the same meters common to ancient poetry, if one makes allowance for the linguistic transformations that have taken place during the

1 Apud Goldziher, op. cit., pp. 160-161. 2 R. B. Serjeant, South Arabian Poetry: I Prose and Poetry from Hadramawt

(London, 1951), p. 3, n. 2. 3 Op. cit., pp. 3, 8, 13, 57; Albert Socin, Diwn aus Central-Arabien, Abhand-

lungen der philologisch-historischen Classe der kbniglich sachsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaft, XIX (Leipzig, 1901), p. 46.


course of 1500 years.1 The language of the poems is a near-classical koine understood even by the illiterate,2 and descending directly from the ancient poetic koine.3 It exists alongside the regional and tribal dialects, and allowing for slight differences of pronunciation, it is readily comprehensible to audiences throughout Arabia.4 The poets who employ this koine are largely illiterate.5 The act of composing a poem, today as in ancient times, is expressed by the phrase qilt (never katabt) al-qa.rida ('I uttered [not 'I wrote'] a poem').6 The poetry is composed extempore and is rarely written do wn. Instead, the poet's friends learn fragments of it from him, and when the poems are transcribed this is done from oral dictation.7 In this way the scribe has replaced the ancient rdwi or 'reciter'.8 The oral poets have no theoretical knowledge of meter. They rely on what observers have described as an instinctive sense of rhythm.9 As in the case of the Yugoslavian poets described by Lord and Parry, when dictation to a scribe slows down the rhythm of recitation, the Arab poet's technique of composition is disturbed; he loses his beat, and metrical irregularities result in his poem. These are usually corrected by the scribe.'0The ideas, sentences, themes, and motifs of this poetry are traditional and belong to a common repertory." Modern observers have noted that when poets are accused of 'stealing' each other's verses, as often happens, they have only vague answers to give in their own defense.12 Plagiarism is, of course, a moral concept more appropriate to a written literature than to an oral tradition, which is collective, and has no concept of literary property. The language of the poems contains formulas,13 and the introduction

l Serjeant, op. cit., pp. 76-85; Socin, op. cit., p. 48. 2 Serjeant, op. cit., p. 8. 3 Loc. cit. 4 Ibid., p. 55. 5 Ibid., p. 8. 6 Alois Musil, The Manners and Customs of the Rwala Bedouins (New York, 1928),

283-284. 7 Blachere, op. cit., p. 87; Musil, op. cit., p. 284; Serjeant, op. cit., p. 57. 8 Blach&re, op. cit., pp. 92-93. 9 Serjeant, op. cit., p. 76.

10 Ibid., pp. 12, 76; Harvey, op. cit.; Lord, op. cit., pp. 126-127. 11 Serjeant, ibid., p. 8. 12 Musil, op. cit., p. 284. 13 "Many of the [hunting poems] commence with the phrase 'akfat kalban'."

Serjeant, op. cit., p. 26. Even a cursory examination of modern Arabian oral poetry reveals the use of many other formulas. For example, a high proportion of odes begin with the expressionyd rikib.


of some of its traditional motifs is at times datable. For example, the coffee-drinking theme has to be fairly modern since the habit was unknown in Arabia during medieval times.'

In the process of transmission the poems are constantly undergoing modifications in vocabulary, number and order of lines.2 No two Bedouins who claim to know the same poem will recite it in exactly the same way. Even the poet will change his own text from one performance to the next and when confronted with earlier and different versions is unable to account for the obvious discrepancies. When this happens, he will appeal to the omniscience of God and declare that all versions are equally good.3 There is thus no 'original text' and a search for one would be a vain endeavour.4 Poets often 'forget' the poems they themselves have composed, thus betraying that they have not relied on memory in the first place.5 In the rather fluid situation of oral performance the poets are often obliged to end their poem rapidly when they sense that their audience is becoming impatient or bored. Because of this the ends of poems tend to be more unstable and to vary more than the beginnings.6 The poets delight in using rare words similar to the gharib of ancient times. Some of these are dialect forms or archaisms fossilized in the poetic koine and not even understood by the poet using them. More scrupulous poets will, however, not hesitate to substitute a familiar for an unfamiliar word.7 The poems are chanted in a monotonous tone to the accompaniment of the rabab, but the different parts of the poem are clearly distinguishable from one another. The firstwords are blurted out, the next are half swallowed, and the end is uttered in a falsetto.8 Parry and Lord also found that Yugoslavian singers use different melodies for different sections of the poem. The purpose of this is to keep alive the audience's

I Ibid., p. 13. Cf. G. E. von Grunebaum, "Zur Chronologie der fruharabischen Dichtung," Orientalia, ser. 2, VIII (1939), pp. 328-345. The author attributes the introduction of the formula tabassar kbalili hal tard min Zacd3inin into pre-Islamic poetry to MTuraqqish the younger (b. ca. 500). (See pp. 335-336.)

2 Musil, op. cit., p. 284; Serjeant, op. cit., pp. X, XI; Socin, op. cit., p. 6. M fusil, op. cit., 284.

4 Ibid., p. 284. 5 Ibid., p. 284. Cf. the anecdote according to which the pre-Islamic poetess

al-Khansa' was unable to recite a poem she had composed earlier, when asked to do so by the caliph 'Umar, but instead, immediately improvised a new poem on the same topic, in Marcel Jousse, Etudes de psychologie lingu'istique: Le style orale rytbmique et mnimotechnique cbez les verbomoteurs (Paris, 1925), p. 133.

6 Socin, op. cii., p. 6. 7 Musil, op. cit., p. 284; Serjeant, op. cit., p. X; Socin, op. cit., p. 6. 8 Musil, op. cit., p. 283; Blachere, op. cit., vol. II, p. 357.


interest. If the poet senses that the audience is getting bored he will break into a new melody to increase the dramatic tension or to announce that the end is drawing near. The melodic dimension of oral poetry helps to explain why so many pre-Islamic poems seem to stop in mid-air rather than coming to a carefully constructed conclusion.' The text in this case relies heavily on the human voice to impress the hearer. It is composed to be sung and not to be read.

INTERNAL EvIDENCE FOR THE ORAL NATURE

OF PRE-ISLAMIC POETRY

All poetry is based on one form of repetition or another, but the distinctive feature of oral-formulaic poetry, and in this pre-Islamic poetry is no exception, is the high frequency with which certain word combinations, the formulas, are repeated. For the purposes of this study it will be necessary to distinguish between four different categories of repetition: 1. The formula proper. 2. The formulaic system. 3. The structural formula. 4. Conventional vocabulary. To avoid misunderstandings it is emphasized from the outset that the oral-formulaic technique is no rigid, mechanized system reducing the poet to the level of a mere computer, but a highly flexible and delicate instrument worthy of being used by a great artist. The categories listed above merge into one another and can only be defined approximately, and there will always be dubious examples that can be fitted into either of two categories. This classification should therefore be taken only as a convenient means for making certain basic distinc- tions.

1. The Formula: In the strict sense defined by Parry, the formula includes only verbatim, or nearly verbatim repetitions. Formulas can and do vary in length from two or three words to a whole hemistich or even a whole line:

/ 'afat id-diyaru (L, M, 1) / 'afat id-diyaru (IQ, 144, 45, 10)

1 Lord, op. cit., p. 37. The peculiar way in which Bedouins left their poems in suspense at the end was already noted by medieval Arab critics, who found the habit unsatisfactory and disapproved of it: "There are some Bedouins who end their poems brusquely, leaving the minds of their audience in suspense. Their speech remains unfinished, as though they had never thought about coming to a conclusion." Ibn Rashiq, Kitab al-'Umda ft sina'at ash-sbicr wa-naqdi-hi, (Cairo, 1955), I, 160.


/ li-man talalun (Z, 99, 18, 1) / li-man talalun (Z, 91, 15, 5) / li-man talalun (L, 123, 39, 1)

// bi-l-jalhataini (L, M, 6) bi-l-jalhataini (L, 196, 57, 7)

ka-anna-ha// fadanu (M, 257, 8) ka-anna-ha /1 fadanun (A, 45, 21, 6)

/ fa-waqaftu fi-ha (M, 827, 6) / fa-waqaftu fi-ha (A, 45, 21, 6)

dhikra habibin (IQ, M, 1) dhikra habibin (IQ, 121, 9, 1) dhikra habibin (M, 541, 6)

wa-ahli-ha// (L, 196, 57, 11) wa-ahlu-ha// (L, 88, 30, 5) wa-ahlu-ha // (IQ, 131, 20, 51) wa-ahlu-ha // (IQ, 152, 52, 19)

/ wa-hana min al-haiyi l-jami'i (M, 602, 1) / wa-hana min al-haiyi 1-jami'i (M, 889, 1)

/ wa-qad aghtadi wa-t-tairu fi wukunati-ha // (IQ, 196, 2, 1) / wa-qad aghtadi wa-t-tairu fi wukunati-ha // (IQ, 138, 35, 15) / wa-qad aghtadi wa-t-tairu fi wukunati-ha // (IQ, 154, 52, 47) / wa-qad aghtadi wa-t-tairu fi wukuniti-ha // (Alq, 104, 1, 19)

/ idha qamata tadauwa'a l-misku min-huma / (IQ, M, 8) / idha qamata tadauwa'a l-misku min-huma // (IQ, 124, 17, 7)

/ fa-'ada cida'an baina thaurin wa-na'jatin // (IQ, M, 61) / fa-'ada (ida'an baina thaurin wa-na'jatin // (Alq, 105, 1, 39)

// ka-mashyi 1-'adhara fi l-mula'i l-muhaddabi/ (IQ, 118, 4, 44) //ka-mashyi l-'adhara fi l-mula'i 1-muhaddabi/ (Alq, 105, 1, 32)

/ tahammala ahlu-hu min-hu fa-banu /a (Z, 99, 18, 2) / tahammala ahlu-ha min-ha fa-banii / (Z, 75, 1, 6)

/ za'ama l-humamu wa-lam adhuq-hu anna-hu // (N, 10, 23) / za'ama l-humamu wa-lam adhuq-hu anna-hu // (N, 10, 24)

/ qifa nabki min dhikra habibin wa-manzili 1/ (IQ, M, 1) / qifa nabki min dhikra habibin wa-'irfan // (IQ, 160, 65, 1)


/ wuqiifan bi-ha sahbi 'alaiya matiyya-hum // yaqiiliina lI tahlik asan wa-tajammali / (IQ, M, 5)

/ wuqiifan bi-ha sahbi calaiya matiyya-hum / yaquiluina la tahlik asan wa-tajalladi / (T, M, 2)

2. The Formulaic System: The minor substitutions observed in the last two examples above can be drastically increased, giving rise to formulaic systems.' These are larger groupings of different formulas related to one another in that they share at least one word in common in the same metrical position. The formulaic system is related to the very important linguistic process of substitution. In everyday spoken language, the number of possible word combinations, although not infinite, is very large indeed and is only restricted by grammatical usage. Oral-formulaic speech is in a sense a second grammar within that of the spoken language. It admits fewer possible word combinations, namely those alone that are useful in producing regular metrical speech. The good oral poet does not, however, merely repeat formulas word for word. If he did so he would soon run out of word combinations to express what he wanted to say. Instead he learns how to substitute words within a formula for others of equivalent rhythmic value. This leads to the creation of new, derivative formulas whose relationship to the original formula, or to others in the system, can often be detected because of the words they share in common and in the same metrical position. It is, of course, not always possible to tell which is the original and which the derivative formula, but in many cases relationships within larger groups are clearly discernible:

/ ya 'amru (M, 321, 3) / ya bu'sa (IQ, 121, 9, 1) / ya dhata (M, 886, 1) / ya dara (Z, 99, 18, 1) // bi-d-dari (Z, 97, 17, 2) / l-d-daru (Z, 97, 17, 2) / auda sh-shababa l-Iadhi (M, 226, 3) // inna sh-shababa l-ldhi (M, 848, 5) / huwa l-jawadu l-ldhi (Z, 97, 17, 13) / lau la l-humamu l-ldhi (N, 16, 14, 9) /f hatta tulaql l-ladhi (M, 19, 25) // akhnai alai-ha l-ladhi (N, 6, 5, 6)

1 Lord, op. cit., p. 35.

Journal of Arabic Literature, III


hussan qawadimu-hu // (M, 8, 6) zu'rin qawadimu-ha// (Alq, 113, 13, 23) zu'run qawa'imu-hu // (Alq, 112, 13, 17) uryanin qawa'imu-hu // (M, 288, 62)

la kifa'a la-hu// (N, 15, 11, 12) la kifa'a la-hu // (N, 27, 26, 6) la risha'a la-hu // (Z, 87, 10, 21) 1a rtija'a la-hu // (N, 6, 5, 7) la fakaka la-hu // (Z, 84, 9, 2) la shawara la-hu // (Z, 86, 10, 8) la anisa bi-ha // (M, 849, 11)

/ abligh hubaiban (M, 524, 1) / abligh ziyidan (N, 15, 12, 1) / abligh ban! nahshalin 'anni (Alq, 110, 11, 3) / abligh bani naufalin canni (Z, 83, 7, 1) / abligh ladai-ka bani s-saida'i kulla-humi // (Z, 88, 13, 1) / hal 1a sa'alta bani s-saida'i kulla-humii // (Z, 87, 10, 25) / abligh bani nahshalin (Alq, 110, 11, 1) / amsa banau nahshalin (Alq, 110, 11, 1) / amsat umamatu (M, 25, 1) / amsat khala'an wa-amsa ahlu-ha htamalu // (N, 6, 5, 6) / bii sira'an wa-amsa (Alq, 109, 9, 1) / banat su'adu fa-amsa l-qalbu macmiida / (M, 442, 1) / banat su'adu wa-amsa habli-ha njadama // (N, 25, 23, 1)

// wa-amsa hablu-ha (A, 49, 23, 1) / yauma l-wada'i fa-amsa r-rahnu qad ghaliqa // (Z, 84, 9, 2)

amsa qarqaran jalada // (IQ, 122, 12, 1)

/ ka-anna rahli wa-qad zala n-naharu bi-na // (N, 6, 5, 9) / ka-anna caini wa-qad sala s-salilu bi-him // (Z, 97, 17, 8)

/ bi-anni qad halaktu bi-arcli qaumin // (IQ, 123, 13, 2) / wa-lau anni halaktu bi-ardi qaumi!/ (IQ, 123, 13, 3) / idha nazala s-sahaba bi-ardi qaumin // (M, 703, 23) / idha wa,da'a 1-hazThizu ala qaumin // (M, 608, 3)

/ tahammala ahlu-hu min-hu fa-banu // (Z, 99, 18, 2) / tahammala ahlu-ha min-ha fa-banii / (Z, 75, 1, 6) / tahammala ahlu-ha illa ciraran // (L, 103, 37, 3) / tayammama ahlu-ha baladan fa-srii // (M, 662, 9)


/ wa-maskinu ahli-ha min batni jiz'in // (A, 49, 23, 3) / tajanafa "an shara'i'i batni qauwin // (M, 379, 25) / 'afa min ali laila batnu saqin // (Z, 99, 18, 4) / 'afa min ali fatimata 1-jawa'u // (Z, 75, 1, 1) / tahammala alu laila (Z, 75, 1, 5) / fa-mahlan ala 'abdi l-lahi (Z, 78, 1, 59)

/ cafat id-diyaru (L, M, 1) / Cafat id-diyaru (IQ, 144, 10) /asalu d-diyara (A, 41, 2) / nabki d-diyara (IQ, 157, 4) / hal bi-d-diyari (M, 485, 1) / li-man id-diyaru (Z, 81, 4, 1) / li-man id-diyaru (M, 190, 1) /li-man id-diyaru (M, 263, 1) / li-man id-diyaru 'afauna bi-l-jaz'i 1/ (M, 826, 1) / li-man id-diyaru ghashitu-ha bi-l-an'umi 1/ (M, 677, 1) / ala ya diyara l-haiyi (M, 520, 1) / ghashita diyara l-haiyi (IQ, 121, 10, 1) / ghashita diyara l-haiyi (L, 212, 62, 1) / tabitu ima'u l-haiyi (T, 66, 9, 5) /wa-jalat 'adhra l-lhaiyi (T, 66, 9, 7) / wa-qala l-'adhara (Z, 91, 15, 3) / ka-mashyi 1-'adhara fi l-mula'i 1-muhaddabi / (Alq, 105, 1, 32) // ka-mashyi l-'adhara fi l-mula'i 1-muhaddabi / (IQ, 118, 4, 44) // 'adhara dawarin fi mula'in mudhaiyali / (IQ, M, 58) // rawahibu 'jdin fi mula'in muhaddabi / (IQ, 118, 4, 43) / wa-zalla nisa'u l-haiyi (M, 318, 13) / yazallu nisa'u l-haiyi (T, 71, 16, 3) / la-'amri la-ni'ma l-haiyi (N, 8, 6, 5) / la-'amri la-ni'ma l-haiyi (Z, M, 33) /wa-hana min al-haiyi l-jamici (M, 602, 1) / wa-hana min al-haiyi l-jami'i (M, 889, 1) / idha za'ana l-haiyu l-jamriu (M, 474, 6) / idha qalla fi-l-haiyi l-jami'i (M, 635, 10)

/waqaftu bi-rab'i d-dari (N, 23, 21, 2) / waqaftu bi-ha min ba'di cishrina hijjatan// (Z, M, 4) /fa-ghaiyara min-hu mulka cishrina hijjatan 1/ (Z, 101, 20, 16) /ra'a kharazati 1-mulki 'ishrina hijjatan // (L, 136, 44, 50)


/ ka-anni wa-qad khallaftu tiscina hijjatan / (Z, 101, 20, 6) fi kulli hijjatin // (L, 118, 38, 44) fi kulli rihlatin // (L, 134, 44, 30)

3. The Structural Formula: If the process of substitution is pushed to its extreme, and no key words are left to be shared in common by two formulas, it might be argued that we are no longer dealing with a formulaic construction at all. It is obvious, however, in a vast number of instances, that two or more groups of words in the same metrical position, and yet sharing no key word in common, can be cast in the same or similar rhythmic, and often even syntactic, constructions.These word groups are called structural formulas.1 Because of the peculiar nature of word derivation in Arabic, structural formulas abound in its poetry. By substituting the root consonants of one word for those of another root, vast numbers of rhythmically similar words can be derived. If these are then arranged into similar syntactic constructions, structural formulas will result. They could thus be considered larger clusters of formulaic systems:

/ cafat id-diyaru (L, M, 1) / "afat id-diyaru (IQ, 144, 10) / la'iba z-zamanu (Z, 81, 2) / taraqa 1-khayalu (M, 515, 1) / zacama l-ghudafu (N, 9, 3) / zacama 1-humamu (N, 10, 22) / hana r-rahlilu (N, 9, 5) / kadhaba l-atiqu (A, 35, 3) / saqata n-nasifu (N, 10, 7, 17)

/aufa 1-fawarisi (L, 130, 2) / bacda l-fawarisi (M, 713, 8) // baina I-qawalibi (M, 298, 14) // ghubsun kawasibu (L, M, 39) / nakhlun kawaricu (L, 152, 4) // rihu l-masayifi (L, M, 31) /?allat tukhaliju-hu (L, 154, 6) / ?allat turasidu-ni (M, 75, 32)

/ wa-inna shifaii (IQ, M, 6) // wa-kana shifa'an (Alq, 110, 10, 5)

1 See especially Nagler, op. cit.; Russo, op. cit.


/ ka-anna dima'a (IQ, 142, 40, 37) / ra'aitu dima'a (M, 615, 5) / yaraina dima'a (L, 116, 38, 29) / zaliltu ridai'i (IQ, 121, 10, 3) / li-ba'i r-rida'i (Alq, 104, 1, 22)

// 'ala zahri 'airin (IQ, 121, 10, 6) // 'ala zahri bizin (IQ, 142, 40, 24) // 'al zahri satin (IQ, 142, 40, 23) // zala ?ahri mahbiikin (Z, 92, 15, 21) // 'ala farji mahrumi (Z, 79, 3, 10) / 'alia kulli maqsusin (IQ, 130, 20, 48)

//ila kulli mahbuikin (L, 197, 57, 26) //ila jidhri madhliiki (Z, 79, 3, 14)

,ala 'ajalin // (IQ, 122, 12, 3) 'ala ahadin // (M, 689, 5) 'ala damadi // (N, 7, 5, 25) tan ghanamin // (M, 233, 10) (an 'urudin// (N, 41, 11, 4) dha ghabani // (M, 525, 7) dha 'iwalin // (M, 13, 10) dha 'udharin // (M, 8, 7) fi lajibin // (N, 15, 12, 3) fi safarin // (M, 287, 57) fi sharakin // (M, 272, 13) ila baradin // (N, 15, 12, 2) min ahadi 1/ (N, 7, 5, 21) min baladin // (M, 323, 8) min cizami// (N, 15, 11, 10)

madrilsin madafi'u-hu // (M, 242, 28) mahmiudun masari'u-hu // (L, 58, 15, 21) mankiuban dawabiru-ha// (Z, 85, 9, 18) mankiuban dawabiru-ha // (Z, 98, 17, 15) marfu'"an nasa'ibu-hu // (M, 848, 7) marfiu'un jawashimu-ha // (Z, 98, 17, 16)

ardi-ha wa-sama'i-ha // (M, 479, 15) bad'u-ha wa-iyadu-ha /1 (M, 748, 10) ghaulu-ha fa-rijamu-ha 1/ (L, M, 1) haiyi-ha wa-nisa'i-ha // (M, 480, 5)


haqqa-ha wa-haqlqa-ha // (M, 696, 6) wasta-ha fa-mada-ha / (A, 34, 2, 12)

'alimtu-humii // uburin (A, 49, 22, 1) 'alimtu-humi // siida 1-wujiihi (A, 49, 22, 4)

// bida 1-wujiuhi (M, 260, 15) ka-anna banana-hu // 'anamun (N, 10, 7, 18) ka-anna rihala-ha // 'alaqun (N, 13, 10, 15) yughanni wahda-hu / hazijan (A, M, 23) yuzaiyinu nahra-ha // dhahabun (N, 10, 7, 10) 'urriya rasmu-ha // khalaqan (L, M, 2) usiffa na'iuru-ha /1 kifafan (L, M, 9)

/ ka-anna shu'a'a sh-shamsi fi hajarati-ha // (M, 174, 43) / sira'an yazillu 1-ma'u can hajarati-ha / (Alq, 110, 10, 2) / yuhattu yabisu 1-ma'i Can hajarati-ha / (Alq, 110, 10, 3) / da' can-ka nahban siha fi hajarati-ha 1/ (IQ, 150, 50, 1) / wa-baitin yafiihu I-misku fi hajarati-hi // (IQ, 140, 40, 14) / wa-baitin yafhul 1-misku minh ajarati-hi// (IQ, 206, 37, 1) / tara bacara I-ar'ami fi carasati-ha // (IQ, M, 3) / niyafan tazillu t-tairu "an qudhufati-hi // (IQ, 131, 20, 60) / tazillu 1-urculu I-cusmu "an qudhufati-hi (N, 12, 8, 15) / wa-sa'bin yazillu I-ghufru "an qudhufati-hi // (M, 625, 18) / yuzillu 1-ghulama 1-khiffa can sahawiti-hi // (IQ, M, 52) / wa-qad aghtadi wa-t-tairu fi wukunati-ha // (IQ, 196, 2, 1) / wa-qad aghtadi wa-t-tairu fi wukunati-ha // (IQ, 138, 35, 15) / wa-qad aghtadi wa-t-tairu fi wukunati-ha // (IQ, 154, 52, 47) / wa-qad aghtadi wa-t-tairu fl wukunati-ha // (Alq, 104, 1, 19)

// tarajjacu fi mac'simi-ha 1-wushiumu / (Z, 99, 18, 3) // tacaqqamu fi jawanibi-hi s-siba'u / (M, 377, 16) 1/ taqa"arati 1-mashaiiru bi-l-khiyami / (L, 200, 59, 3)

// calai-hinna 1-majasidu wa-l-buriidu / (M, 461, 6) /C 'alai-hinna 1-majasidu wa-l-hariru / (M, 835, 20) // bi-ha tarbii 1-khawasiru wa-sanamu / (M, 654, 19) / dhakartu bi-hi-l-fawarisa wa-n-nadama // (L, 123, 39, 3) //fa-yumnun fa-l-qawadimu fa-l-hisau / (Z, 75, 1, 1)

// fa-la yusda ladaiya wa-la yuda'u / (M, 373, 5) // fa-ma nazura 1-kalamu wa-la shajani / (N, 31, 30, 4) / wa-la fadhu 1-fuduhi wa-la shuyaimun // (M, 761, 17)


/ wa-li sahi 1-fu'adi wa-la 'aiyyi // (Z, 99, 18, 7) / wa-li zulman aradtu wa-la khtilaba // (M, 700, 14)

4. Conventional Vocabulary: Certain individual words, or etymologi- cally related words, are used over and over again in pre-Islamic poetry to convey specific traditional motifs and ideas. Nevertheless, in a few cases it was not possible to collect enough examples in the same meter to declare them fully formulaic. At times, the same word will appear in different meters and in different combinations with other words, that is to say, under different metrical conditions. But the frequency with which such words are repeated in a similar context of meaning leads to the suspicion that they probably also belong to formulaic constructions.

In analysing the Homeric poems, the scholar has a referent of about 27000 lines at his disposal, whereas the corpus of pre-Is- lamic poetry is considerably smaller and more unwieldy. For the purposes of the present study a referent of slightly over 5000 lines was used. Had the referent been larger, the percentage and number of formulaic repetitions would have been proportionately greater, and some of the individual words would have fitted into as yet undiscovered formulaic constructions. But since the formulaic nature of such words has not been proven definitively, they have been included provisionally in a separate category of their own:

// bi-minan ta'abbada (kdmil) (L, M, 1) / ta'abbada (wdfir) (N, 20, 19, 3)

// khalaqan kama daminia l-wubhyya (kdmil) (L, M, 2) / ka-wa4yi saha'ifin (wdfir) (A, 52, 27, 2) / li-man talalun ka-l-wa4yi (jawil) (Z, 91, 15, 5)

/ fa-waqaftu as'alu-hd (kdmil) (L, M, 10) /fa-waqaftu fi-ha kai usdaila-hd (kdmil) (M, 827, 6) / waqaftu usd'ilu-ha naqati (mutaqdrib) (M, 355, 3)

ba'da 'ahdi anisi-hi // (kdmil) (L, M, 3) / suduman qadiman 'abdu-hu bi-anisi-ha // (kdmil) (L, 207, 7) / la'ibat bi-ha l-anw'u bacda anisi-ha // (kdmil) (A, 41, 19, 3)

// bi-siqti l-liwd (tawil) (IQ, M, 1) fa-sala l-liwd la-hu // (tawil) (IQ, 138, 5) baina l-liwd fa-sarimatin // (tawil) (IQ, 124, 17, 11) bi-s-sarimati fa-l-liwa // (tawil) (M, 422, 3)


bi-sh-sharabbati fa-l-liwa // (tawil) (Z, 83, 6, 9) sarat thalathan min al-liwd // (tawil) (Z, 80, 3, 29) bi-mun'ariji l-liwd // (tawil) (M, 23, 6)

From the above examples it becomes clear that oral formulas have nothing whatsoever to do with the formal divisions of metrical feet established by Khalil ibn Ahmad for Arabic poetry, in the sense that they do not necessarily coincide with a foot. The oral poet has no knowledge of feet. Instead, it is by combining formulas of one class or another with the aid of rhythm that he builds regular lines of verse. For example, two structural formulas that frequently occur in basit are:

1 // ghulbun sawajidu (L, 56, 15, 7) / khalfa l-'adariti (N, 14, 11, 5) // sidu dh-dhawa'ibi (L, 55, 15, 4)

2 mahmiidun masari'u-hu // (L, 58, 15, 21) mankiiban dawabiru-ha // (Z, 85, 9, 18) marfui'an nasa'ibu-hu // (M, 848, 7)

The combination of these two patterns in proper sequence produces the perfect basit hemistich:

----1- I- - 1 / shibi l-mabariki, madriusin madafi;u-hu // (M, 242, 28)

1 2

Likewise, in kdmil meter, the following three formulas are very common:

/ 'afat id-diyaru (IQ, 144, 45, 10) /asalu d-diyara (A, 41, 19, 2) /nabki d-diyara (IQ, 157, 59, 4)

2 ardi-ha wa-sama'i-ha / (M, 497, 15) haiyi-ha wa-nisa'i-ha / (M, 480, 5) kahlu-ha wa-walidu-ha / (M, 311, 27)

3 /ghalalan taqaattaa (M, 55, 8)


// jurdin taqaddasu (M, 719, 9) // hadbin tuqassiru (M, 223, 38)

On the basis of these three formulas, and with slight adjustments, Labid produces the following line:

_ - - -I - \ - -

'afat id-diyaru, mahallu-ha fa-muqamu-ha / 1 2

bi-minan ta'abbada ghaulu-ha fa-rijamu-ha / 3 2

(L, M, 1)

It should also be noted that in Arabic the formula is not limited to descriptive tags or epithets, but that it is all-pervasive in the sense that literally everything is formulaic, from nouns to verbs and even particles. Certain formulas also occur with greater frequency among some poets than among others. In studying the oral poetry of the Yugoslavian tradition Lord concluded that although the repertory of formulas in a tradition is shared collectively, not all singers know or use all the formulas in it.1 Independently, in studying Spanish ballads, R. Menendez Pidal has also been able to show that the number and type of variants is greater from one region to another than it is within a region.2 Thus in oral poetry local, regional, tribal, and even individual peculiarities in style can be detected beneath the surface of a common, traditional repertory. A study of pre-Islamic formulas lends further support to this theory. Basing his arguments on a stylistic, thematic, and linguistic approach, G. E. von Grunebaum has divided pre-Islamic poets into six major schools or sub-groups.3 The close stylistic relationship he pointed out between the early-Jahili poets Imru' al-Qais and 'Alqama (both were born ca. 500)4 is entirely confirmed by formulaic analysis. Likewise the late-Jahili poets Nabigha, Zuhair, and Labid show clear indications of using similar formulas. A systematic compariscn

l Lord, op. cit., pp. 49-50, 63-65. 2 R. Menendez Pidal, Diego Catalan, and Alvaro Galmes, Como vive un romance:

Dos ensayos sobre tradicionalidad (Madrid, 1954). See also Holger Olof Nygard, The Ballad of Heer Halewijn; Its Forms and Variations in Western Europe: A Study of the History and Nature of a Ballad Tradition, Folklore Fellows Communications, CLXIX (Helsinki, 1958).

3 G. E. von Grunebaum, op. cit. 4 Ibid., p. 381.


of formulas in pre-Islamic poetry could thus permit us to solve the problem of arranging the poets chronologically into schools.

But even if not all singers use the same formulas, these divergent formulas can be arranged into larger formulaic systems, from which it immediately becomes clear that they are interrelated and belong to a common tradition. The most stable formulas are those used to express the most common ideas in the poetry. Because in an oral situation the poet may begin his recitation at a leisurely pace, but is not always allowed to finish it, the most common formulas appear in the earlier parts of the poem. In the case of Arabic it was found that there are certain typical nasib formulas, and other typical rabil formulas, etc., for each thematic section of the poem. The formulas peculiar to each theme, however, can be grouped into larger systems or structural families with those of other themes, thus betraying the fact that thev belong to a common repertory. The process of substitution is thus of enormous importance to the oral poet since it permits him to use his technique creatively rather than relying slavishly on memorization.

In pre-Islamic poetry the formulaic process can be seen at work not only within the hemistich or the line, but from one prosodic unit to the next. Once a poet has established a linguistic pattern, he frequently repeats it immediatelv in the next hemistich or line. In this way, nouns, verbs, particles, or even whole phrases at the beginning of a hemistich frequently are repeated in the followiing hemistich:

/fa-lam ara ma'sharan asarii hadivyan // wa-lam ara /ara baitin yustaba'u/

/ wa-jaru 1-baiti wa-r-rajulu l-munadi // (Z, 78, 1, 52-53)

/ wa-qadghadautu 'ala qirnl yushaiyicuni / / wa-qad 'alautu qutiuda r-rahliyasfauni1/ (Alq, 113, 13, 44-45)

/ mana'ta 1-laitha min akli bni hujrin / wa-kdda /-laithu yudi bi-bni hujri /

/ mana'ta fa-anta dhii mannin wa-nu'ma // (IQ, 132, 24, 1-2)

/ mujawaratan bani shamaja bni jarmnin // /wa-vamnahu-ha bantz shamaja bnijarmin1/ (IQ, 161, 67, 2-3)

/ )a'am,a l-humdmu bi-anna fa-ha baridun // / "a'ama l-humdmu wa-lami adbuq-hii anna-hb // /Zacama /-humdmu wa-lam adjuq-hu anna hb/ (N, 10, 7, 22-24)


Otherwise, the word just before the end of a hemistich can be repeated immediately in the beginning of the next hemistich:

// bi-ta'natin faisalin lamma da'dnil / da'dni da'watan wa-l-khailu tardi /l (A, 50, 25, 1-2)

When one listens to recitations of Arabic poetry, no pause is heard at the hemistich break, but actually accentual groups very rarely bridge the caesura in pre-Islamic poetry. There is, to put it differently, little internal enjambement of the caesura. In the different meters studied, only in kdmil were formulas found to bridge the caesura. This is an important feature of oral poetry, and one which should be kept in mind when arguing for the orality of pre-Islamic poetry, since it is a well-known fact that literate Arab poets of later medieval times, in contrast, frequently and deliberately used the displaced caesura as a rhetorical device to achieve certain artistic effects.l

The end of the line is clearly marked off by the ever-recurring Arabic monorhyme, and enjambement between lines is very infrequent in pre-Islamic poetry. Lines are therefore linked loosely together in a series, frequently by the use of a conjunction, or by the repetition of a key word in the previous line. This is what Lord has described as the typical "adding" stvle of oral poetry, and it is based on parataxis.2 This does not mean that the lines are entirely independent from one another as is often claimed, for a second line will usually connect with a first in the way described above, even if the first contains an idea that is entirely independent of the second. Since the second line is dependent on the first, it will often echo its sound patterns by either repeating formulas, alliterative effects, or structural patterns.

One question that is very significant is how the pre-Islamic poet managed to acquire a wide enough repertory of formulas to compose poetry in fifteen different meters. In other words, does each meter have its own peculiar repertory of formulas or do the formulas exist prior to the different meters? In the former case, the whole system would indeed be cumbersome if not impossible for an individual to master, but in the latter, then the order in which a common

1 In the Nxniyya of the Andalusian poet Ibn Zaiduin more than half of the caesuras are displaced, and this is by no means an atypical example, for the technique is common in tenth and eleventh century poets. See James T. Monroe, "La poesia hispanoirabe durante el califato de C6rdoba: Teoria y practica," Estudios orienta/es, VI (1971), pp. 113-151.

a Lord, op. cit., p. 54.


set of formulas is arranged by a poet in a given performance would give rise to a distinct meter.

The present study was based on the four most frequent meters found in pre-Islamic poetry. A typical sanmple in each meter was compared to a large referent of lines in the same meter, and formulas were discovered. When the four meters had been subjected to this procedure, it became evident that several identified formulas were used indifferently in coinciding sections of different meters:

ardi-ha wa-sama'i-ha / (kdnii) (M, 479, 15) bad'u-ha wa-iyadu-ha / (zawil) (M, 748, 10)

// bi-l-jalhataini (kdmil) (L, M, 6) bi-l-jalhataini (tawi) (L, 196, 57, 7)

dhikra habibin (tawil) (IQ, M, 1) // dhikra habibin (bas~t) (IQ, 121, 9, 1)

/ waqaftu bi-ha (inutaqdrib) (M, 837, 3) /waqaftu bi-ha (wdftr) (N, 30, 29, 3)

At times, obviously related formulas contain slight modifications that allow them to be used in different meters. For example, the above formula reappears as follows in kdmil:

\ - -

/ fa-waqaftu fi-ha (kdmil) (M, 827, 6) / fa-waqaftu fi-ha (kdwi/ (A, 45, 21, 6)

Here the additicn of the initial conjunctionfa plus substitution of long fi for its synonym short bi easily adapts the formula to a new meter. From this the important principle can be derived that it is the order of formulas that determines the meters of Arabic poetry. Viewed from the unitarian theory of the formula, the rich complexity of Arabic prosody is therefore seen to respond to a simple, underlying cause. At the same time, there is a tendency for certain words to recur more frequently in certain meters. This leads to the phenomenon of linguistic economy typical of the oral poet. Parry observed that in Homer a given synonym always recurred in the same metrical conditions, whereas another synonym would be used where the conditions


were different.' This meant that the profusion of synonyms in Homeric Greek had a function to fulfill; they were not used merely for effect. Pre-Islamic poetry is notorious for its vast store of synonyms, for which no satisfactory account has been given other than to refer it to the 'fantasy' and 'verbosity' of the Oriental poet. A meter-by- meter formulaic analysis reveals, however, that as a general rule certain synonyms tend to recur in particular meters, while others do not. Thus, for example, the word talalun and its structurally related synonyms (dimanun) are the terms usually employed for the abandoned encampment in wdfir and tdwil hemistich beginnings, whereas diydru is used in kdmil:

/ li-man talalun (wafir) (Z, 99, 18, 1) / li-man talalun (wdfir) (L, 123, 39, 1) / li-man talalun (tawil) (Z, 91, 15, 5) / li-man dimanun (tawil) (M, 559, 1)

But:

/ li-man id-diyaru (kdmil) (IQ, 157, 59, 1) / li-man id-diyaru (kdmil) (Z, 81, 1) / li-man id-diyaru (kimil) (M, 190, 1) /li-man id-diyaru (kdmil) (M, 263, 1).

While formulas are prior to the different meters, they may thus be modified in some instances by use of synonyms so that they can be adapted to a particular meter. It is important to realize that the formulas are in the poet's mind (however subconsciously) before he actually utters a line of poetry. With the aid of rhythm, he then organizes them so as to produce a specific meter. If the principle outlined above is understood, then the frequent metrical irregularities in Arabic verse can be explained by a method that is far simpler than the cumbersome classification developed by medieval prosodists, and which merely describes allowed variations from the normal meter without explaining the underlying reason for them. To take an example, the normal form of kdmil is:

-s _% - - /UsI - v/ v v _ // Ih- Z. /vW.2-\ / - 2- _

Each foot can thus begin either with two short syllables or one

1 Parry, "Studies I," HSCP, XLI (1930).


long one. Now, it happens that a very frequent formula found in the beginning of kdmil lines is the syntactic group verb + article + noun, in which the morphological pattern is CvCvCv l-CvCvCv. This formula is frequent, it should be added, precisely because it is not unusual in the Arabic language.

/ la'iba z-zamanu (Z, 81, 4, 2) / taraqa l-khayalu (M, 515, 1)

Since it also happens that the third person masculine singular form of the perfective Arabic verb in hollow roots is of the pattern CvCv rather than CvCvCv as above, it often occurs in the normal process of substitution during oral performance that a hollow root will be used instead of a regular one:

Ibhna r-rahilu (N, 9, 7, 5)

If in place of a verb, a noun is used, and the syntactic pattern is altered to a genitive construction, the following result is obtainable:

// qulha l-kilabi (M, 712, 2)

The process of substituting with words that are almost but not precisely equivalent acoustically, within syntactic formulas common to the Arabic language, thus gives rise to formulaic or structural systems that contain slight metrical irregularities. Since oral poets are not machines, this tends to occur rather frequently, especially in view of the fact that they have no time to polish or revise their 'texts'. These irregularities, it should be added, never occur in the stressed rhvthmic core of a foot, but only in svllables bearing a secondary stress. This proves that the rhythmic core of each foot, and the regular sequence of cores in a line, are essential to the oral poet. These are what provide the rhythmic skeleton around which he organizes his formulas, and it is only in the secondary, unstressed sections of the line that slight rhythmic deviations (Zihdfdt) are allowed to occur.'

I For a full description of stress patterns in Arabic meter, based on a regularly recurring rhythmic core consisting of the sequence , see Gotthold Weil, Grundriss i nd System der altarabischen Metren (Wiesbaden, 1958).


Given the overwhelming importance of the formulaic technique for the production of oral poetry in Arabic, it is curious to note that, as far as I know, medieval Arab critics were not aware of it. This must be attributed to their literate habits of mind, nor should they be blamed for something about which not even modern scholars have been aware. In the western area of Islam, however, the four- teenth-century writer Ibn Khaldiin (A.D. 1332-1406) outlined a most lucid account of the formulaic technique; one that is at the same time astonishing for its insight and for its totally innovative approach:

Let us mention the significance of the word 'method' as used by poets, and what they mean by it.

It should be known that they use it to express the loom on which word combinations are woven, or the mould into which they are packed. It is not used to express the basis upon which the meaning [of a word rests]. That is the task of the vowel endings. It also is not used for perfect expression of the idea resulting from the particular word combination used. That is the task of eloquence and style. It also is not used in the sense of meter, as employed by the Arabs in [connection with poetry]. That is the task of prosody. These three sciences fall outside the craft of poetry.

[Poetical method] is used to refer to a mental form for metrical word combinations which is universal in the sense of conforming with any particular word combination. This form is abstracted by the mind from the most prominent individual word combinations and given a place in the imagination comparable to a mould or loom. Word combinations that the Arabs consider sound, in the sense of having the [correct] vowel endings and the [proper] style, are then selected and packed by [the mind] into [that loom], just as the builder does with the mould or the weaver with the loom. Eventually, the mould is sufficiently widened to admit the word combinations that fully express what one wants to express. It takes on the form that is sound in the sense [that it corresponds to] the Arabic linguistic habit... the [poetical] methods that we try to establish here have nothing to do with analogical reasoning. They are a form that is firmly rooted in the soul. It is the result of the continuity of word combinations in Arabic poetry when the tongue uses them. Eventually the form of [those word combinations] becomes firmly established. It teaches [the poet] the use of similar [word combinations]. [It teaches him] to imitate them for each word combination that he may use in his poetry.l

Ibn Khalduin thus maintains that poetic method has nothing to do with grammar, rhetoric, and prosody, precisely the sciences a literate

1 Ibn Khalduin, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, trans. Franz Rosenthal, ed. N. J. Dawood (Princeton, 1969), pp. 445-446.


Arab poet was expected to have mastered. Method is instead, the ability to derive formulas in Arabic poetrv by the process of substitution. Curiously enough, although he collected oral Bedouin poetry in North Africa, and in his Muqaddima was largely concerned with the differences between nomadic and sedentary civilizations, Ibn Khaldu:n failed to distinguish between the degrees of substitution among literate and oral poets, mainly because this can only be done by the application of modern statistical analysis.

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF PRE-ISLAMIC POETRY

To avoid misunderstandings it should be pointed out that the following statistical figures were obtained by counting manually, line by line, without the use of data processing equipment, and that a margin of error is therefore inevitable. The manual method was nevertheless chosen deliberately because computers must be pro- grammed to collect specific kinds of information, but in this case, without knowing clearly from the outset what kind of formulas existed in Arabic poetry, if any, it was not possible to design a pro- gramme. It was therefore decided to rely on the human mind to recognize various categories of formulas during the process of investigation. What was lost in total precision, was gained in wealth of observations that a machine could not have recorded.

An element of subjectivity no doubt also entered into the identifica- tion of some marginal formulas. Possibly a different division of word groups than the one adopted might have led to the recognition of different formulas. This is, of course, inevitable, but since the categories actually established were the ones used in subsequent statistical checking, the overall validity of the figures is not seriously affected.

It would have been desirable to have used the total corpus of pre-Islamic poetry as a referent, had it been manageable. However, this is not the case, since many poems and fragments lie scattered throughout medieval works. To assemble them all, sort them out, and eliminate repetitions would have taken years. It was therefore decided to use a representative selection consisting of the diwans of the six major pre-Islamic poets Nabigha, 'Antara, Tarafa, Zuhair, 'Alqama, and Imru' al-Qais in the masterly Ahlwardt edition,' plus the diwjn of Labid,2 and the general anthology of pre-Islamic

W. Ahlwardt, The Divans of the Six Ancient Arabic Poets (London, 1870). 2 Labid, Diwan, ed. Dar aadir (Beirut, 1966).


poets entitled the Mfufa&laliyydt edited by Lyall.1 This selection takes us chronologically from early pre-Islamic times well into the seventh century A. D., and includes a wide range of poets, represented both by the breadth of a collective anthology and by the detailed depth of individual diwdns.

The relatively limited number of lines available as a referent (when compared to the much larger referent available to Homeric scholars) posed a further problem. It is a statistical law that the larger the referent, the greater the percentage of formulaic repetition will be. In other words, a comparison of a ten line tawil sample with 2520 lines in the same meter, as against a ten line kdmil sample with a referent of 1157 lines (all that were available in the texts used), is not entirelv valid statistically. As it is, the formulaic percentages obtained in these two cases were 89.86% and 82.12% respectively. Had the two referents been equal the percentages would no doubt have been closer to each other. The only alternative would have been to have reduced all the referents to the size of the smallest (a mere 646 lines in basif), but this would have posed a serious problem. Nevertheless, the fact that the slight discrepancy in the size of the referents did not sensibly distort the statistical results became clear gradually, as experience gained during the course of investigation showed that in the case of each meter, by the time 300 to 400 lines of referent had been examined, all the major formulas in the sample under study had been identified, after which only additional repetitions of the same formulas were accumulated. These additions did not sensibly alter the percentages obtained.

In sum, the statistical figures obtained are not and should not be taken as absolute. Theirgenerally remarkable consistency does, however, point clearly toward a sharp distinction between the oral and the literate poet in Arabic. The following steps were taken:

1. Imru' al-Qais, Labid, Zuhair, and Nabigha were chosen as sample pre-Islamic poets for formulaic analysis because their lives are said to have spanned over a century. Imru' al-Qais was an early- Jahili poet born ca. A.D. 500, whereas the others were late-Jahili and two of them are said to have known Islam. One sample was chosen from the poems of each, in tawil, krmil, wdfir, and basit

1 Al-Mufaddal ibn Muhammad ad-Dabbi, The Mufaddaliyyal: An Anthology of Ancient Arabian Odes, ed. Charles James Lyall (Oxford, 1921), 1.

Journal of Arabic Literature, III 3


respectively. The selection of meters was also made deliberately because previous statistical surveys have shown that 50.41% of all pre-Islamic poetry is in tauwi, 17.53% in kdmil, and 24.77% in wdfir and basit. This means that 95.38% of all pre-Islamic poetry is in these four meters, leaving only 6.37% in the remaining eleven.' Conclusions drawn from the work of these four poets in these four meters are thus both chronologically and prosodically valid for the major part of pre-Islamic poetry.

2. The first ten lines of the Mtu'allaqa of Imru' al-Qais were used as a sample and compared with a referent of 2520 lines, also in tawil, comprising all tawil poems in lmru' al-Qais's Diwdn, in those

of six other major pre-Islamic poets (Nabigha, 'Antara, 'Alqama, Tarafa, Zuhair, and Labid), and in the minor pre-Islamic poets included in the Mufaddal/yydt. It was discovered that at least 89.86% of Imru' al-Qais's text is formulaic (see Chart I). The majority of the formulas found were either word for word repetitions or formulaic systems.

3. The first ten lines of the Mu(allaqa of Labid were then compared with 1157 lines in kamil, comprising all kdmil poems in Labid's Diwdn, in those of six other major pre-Islamic poets (Nabigha, 'Antara, cAlqama, Tarafa, Zuhair, and Imru' al-Qais), and in the wide selection of minor poets from the same period included in the Mufaddaliyydt. It was discovered that at least 82.12% of Labid's text is formulaic, including a predominance of formulas and formulaic systems (see Chart II).

4. The first ten lines of poem no. 18 by Zuhair in wdfir were compared with an 800 line referent in the same meter, including all wdfir poems in Zuhair's Diwdn, in those of Labid, Nabigha, 'Antara, Tarafa, 'Alqama, and Imru' al-Qais, and in the poets included in the Mufa.da- liyydt. Paradoxically, Zuhair, who is depicted by the Arab tradition as having had the habit of composing for four months, asking the advice of other poets for four months, and finally of reciting a single qa.ida publicly at the end of a year,2 appeared to be 92.59% formulaic, the highest percentage obtained (see Chart III).

5. The first ten lines of poem no. 5 by Nabigha in basHt were finally compared with 646 lines in the same meter, comprising all basit

1 For these figures, see Mary Catherine Bateson, Structural Continuity in Poetry: A Linguistic Study of Five Pre-Islamic Arabic Odes (Paris and the Hague, 1970), p. 30.

2 Nicholson, op. cit., 119.


poems in Nabigha's Diwdn, in those of Labid, cAntara, Zuhair, cAlqama, and Imru' al-Qais (Tarafa had no poems in basit), as well as in the Mufa.4al4yydt poets. The sample by Nabigha proved to be 85.62% formulaic (see Chart IV).

It has often been argued against the oral-formulaic theory that formulas are in fact nothing more than those word combinations that are imposed upon the poet by the rigid requirements of meter; in other words, that meter determines the shape of the formulas and not vice-versa. If this were true, then the frequency with which formulas occur in literate and oral texts would be about equal. On the other hand, if we accept the theory that the oral poet uses pre-existent formulas to create meter, whereas the literate poet uses individual words which he then fits into a pre-existent metrical scheme, then we can expect to find a higher formulaic frequency among oral poets than among their literate colleagues. This fact has been established in the case of other literatures. The best way to prove it is to select a poet, or a group of poets, with regard to whose literacy there is no doubt whatsoever, and to determine whether he or they use formulas with as great a frequency as do oral poets. To provide this further check on the validity of our thesis about pre-Islamic poetry, the following steps were therefore taken:

6. The formulas identified in Imru' al-Qais's Mu'allaqa, I1. 1-10, by means of 2. above were checked against the work of other Arabic poets to determine the extent to which they constituted a collective formulaic repertory. It was found that these formulas constitute an average of 33.24% of the total text in 574 lines of referent selected at random from other tawi/ poems by pre-Islamic poets (Nabigha, cAntara, Tarafa, Zuhair, Labid, and Imru' al-Qais),' but only 9.22% of the text in 348 lines of referent randomly selected from tawil poems by literate poets who lived after the coming of Islam (Abui Nuwas, Mutanabbi, Ibn Zaidiin, al-Barildl).2 It was also observed that the coincidences with the modern poets were almost exclusively on the level of structural formulas, and that almost no word for word

' Referent used: (1) Nabigha: Ahlwardt, Divans, nos. 1, 15, 17. (2) 'Antara: Ibid., nos. 4, 7, 8, 9, 15, 24, 26. (3) Tarafa: Ibid., no. 4. (4) Zuhair: Ibid., no. 16. (5) Imru' al-Qais: Ibid., nos. 4, 10, 20. (6) Labid, Diwdn, nos. 4, 18, 44.

2 Referent used: (1) Abii Nuwas, Diwan, ed. Dar Sadir (Beirut, 1962), pp. 21, 28, 200, 242, 244. (2) Mutanabbi, Diwdn, ed. R. Dieterici (Berlin, 1861), pp. 660, 672, 284, 327. (3) Ibn Zaidiin, Diwdn wa-Rasd'il, ed. 'All cAbd al-'Azim (Cairo, 1957), pp. 261, 152, 158. (4) Al-BAriidi: A. J. Arberry, Arabic Poetry: A Primer

for Students (Cambridge, 1965), no. 28.


formulas and very few formulaic systems found in pre-Islamic poetry occur in the modern poets.

7. Step 6 was repeated with the formulas in krn,il identified in Labid's Alu'allaqa, ll. 1-10, by means of 3. above. It was discovered that these formulas constitute an average of 30.46% of the total text in 325 lines of referent selected at random from other kimil poems by pre-Islamic poets (Nabigha, 'Antara, Tarafa, Zuhair, Imru' al-Qais, Labid; 'Alqama was omitted because the small number of lines in kdmil by him made statistical results negligible),' but again only 9.88% of the text in 299 lines selected from kdnmil poems by literate poets (Abiu Nuwas, Mutanabbi, Ibn Zaiduin, Shauqi).2 Again it was found that the literate poets seem to have inherited mainlv structural formulas from the pre-Islamic tradition. Thus the statistics for both tawil and kdmil were found to correspond rather closely to one another. The formulaic content of both averages to at least 85.99% of identified formulas in the two samples studied, and these formulas in turn constitute a combined average of about 31.32?% of the total work of other pre-Islamic poets sampled, but only 9.64% of the total work of Islamic poets studied. Furthermore, with remarkable consistency, the percentages varied only slightly from poet to poet within each of the two groups (see charts V, VI).

The literate poets chosen are representative of at least three different schools ('modern' [mu.hdath], neoclassical, and contemporary) and styles ranging chronologically from the eighth to the twentieth centuries A.D., and geographically from Baghdad to C6rdoba. Clearly then, this consistent difference between pre-Islamic and modern poetry responds not to the stylistic peculiarities of different schools, but to something much deeper, namely to two radically different techniques of composition: the oral-formulaic as opposed to the literate.

CONCLUSION AND FURTHER PROBLENIS

The combined formulaic average of all the four samples studied is 87.54%, and this figure is valid for 95.38% of all pre-Islamic poetry.

1 Referent used: (1) Nabigha: Ahlwardt, Divans, nos. 7, 10. (2) cAntara: Ibid., nos. 2, 21. (3) Tarafa: Ibid., nos. 1, 8, 17. (4) Zuhair: Ibid., no. 4. (5) Imru' al-Qais: Ibid., nos. 45, 46, 59. (6) Labid, Diwdn, no. 51.

2 Referent used: (1) Abci Nuwas, op. cit., pp. 25, 64, 177, 184, 196. (2) Mluta- nabbi, op. cit., pp. 191, 594, 732. (3) Ibn Zaiduin, op. cit., pp. 184, 343. (4) Shauqi: Arberry, op. cit., no. 29.


Taking only the two most commonly used meters, !awil and kdmil, the average is 85.99%, and this is valid for 67.94% of the poetry. The formulas identified in these two meters constitute an average of about 31.32% of the total referent of other pre-Islamic poets, but only 9.64% of the referent of modern, literate poets. A pre-Islamic poet therefore uses slightly over three times as many formulas as a modern poet; i.e., if it were to be assumed that a pre-Islamic poet's work is actually 100% formulaic (although theoretically correct, this assumption cannot be proved owing to the lack of a sufficiently large referent), this would mean that a modern poet's total use of formulaic constructions is somewhat less than 33.33%. To this should be added the important fact that modern poets use significantly less verbatim formulas and formulaic systems than do pre-Islamic poets. Had only these been included in the statistics, the figures would have been proportionately reduced. The three-to-one ratio does, however, agree with findings in other literatures.

The formulas used by the pre-Islamic poet belong to a traditional and collective repertory; they fit within larger systems common to all pre-Islamic poets in general, but this is not the case for literate poets. This proves that the pre-Islamic poet worked with an artistic medium based on the formula rather than the individual word. This in turn is a characteristic feature of traditional, oral poetry. The relative lack of individual stylistic differentiation between one pre-Islamic poet and another, in contrast to the unmistakably individual style of a Mutanabbi or an Abui Nuwas, is thus explained by the oral- formulaic method of composition.

It follows that pre-Islamic poets, who were oral-formulaic artists, composed during the course of improvisation rather than relying upon memory. In contrast, modern poets, being literate, thought out their poems, perhaps even pen in hand, applying the rules of grammar, prosody, and rhetoric in order to invent their own individual stylistic figures (badi') which differed from poet to poet. Their poems rely over three times as much on their own innovations in style as do those of pre-Islamic poets. Whereas pre-Islamic poets use one another's formulas freely and with a typically oral disregard for the concept of literary property, critics in later times introduce the idea of plagiarism, and literate poets come to be severely judged by its standards. The structural formulas literate poets use are to be explained as the result of conscious or unconscious imitation of their literary heritage within an unusually conservative tradition, but it is


an artificial usage; it is based on deliberate forethought, on conscious imitation, or on memory, and not on oral-formulaic improvisation.

Medieval Arab literary critics insisted that the hallmark of ori- ginality in the literate poet was his ability to rephrase traditional literary motifs inherited from pre-Islamic poetry. The literate poet was expected to treat only the ancient themes, preserving the outward form of the qa.rida in all its rigidity, but he was not allowed to say the same things in the same words as his predecessors, since this was considered plagiarism.' Therefore the literate poet learned to create his own personal linguistic patterns and to rely on these rather than on the traditional formulaic repertory used by pre-Islamic poets. Style ceased to be collective, and became individual. Abu Tammam and Mutanabbi were both accused of having invented some of the most sublime lines in Arabic poetry along with some of the most grossly unpoetic ones. For example, in one instance Mutanabbi ended a panegyric with the following exclamation:

/ lau lam takun min dha l-wara l-ladh min-ka hfi // 'aqimat bi-maulidi nasli-hd hauwa'u I

If you had not been of this human kind, which is rather of you, Eve would have been barren of the birth of her offspring.2

The line is in kdmil, yet it sounds harsh and abrupt, particularly the first hemistich. Upon closer examination that hemistich proves to contain none of the formulas identified in pre-Islamic poetry. Only the second hemistich contains one single structural formula found also in Labid's Mucal/aqa (italicized), and this helps to make the line somewhat smoother toward the end. The abruptness, however, is not the result of inferior workmanship, but rather, it is a deliberate attention-getting device appropriate to the grand finale of a panegyric. Yet the old poetic technique, based on tried and true formulas that had over the centuries proven aesthetically pleasing to the Arab ear (for which very reason they survived in the collective tradition), acted as a safeguard for the poet against the pitfalls of innovative

I G. E. von Grunebaum, "The Concept of Plagiarism in Arabic Theory," Journal of Near Eastern Studies, III (1944), pp. 234-253. For a literate poet's defense against the accusation of plagiarism see James T. Monroe, Risalat at-Tawdubi' wa-Z-Zawdbi' ('Treatise of Familiar Spirits and Demons') by Abfi 'Amir ibn Shbhaid al-A shja'i al-Andalusi: Introduction, Translation, and iVotes, University of California Publications: Near Eastern Studies, XV (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1971).

2 Mutanabbi, op. cit., p. 201. Trans. by A. J. Arberry, Poems of al-Al-Mtanabbi (Cambridge, 1967), p. 30.


failure. When the oral technique was abandoned with the advent of writing and more reliance was placed on personal inventiveness, an unevenness in the poetic style inevitably resulted.

Since modern poets could not attain the high degree of formulaic diction found in pre-Islamic poetry, and in fact dislocated the sound of poetic rhythms for deliberate literary effects, by introducing their own turns of phrase, it necessarily follows that pre-Islamic poetry, on the basis of internal evidence, could not have been forged by literate authors in Islamic times, but that it is authentic, traditional, oral-formulaic poetry.

Oral-formulaic poetry in other literatures is known to have had no fixed texts.1 Each poet, each reciter recreates and rephrases a given poem with each performance of it. As centuries go by, and cultural conditions change, a poem may undergo considerable modification, though always retaining a core of identity, based in the case of epic poetry on the plot. The pagan poetry of the Anglo-Saxons uses the same formulaic technique as does Christian Anglo-Saxon poetry of later times, but Christianity censored those references to pagan customs that were felt to be essentially incompatible with Christian society, while tolerating other, more innocuous ones. The pagan tale of Beowulf thus contains Christian themes and elements.2 Likewise, Spanish ballads with Christian themes, preserved today by Moroccan Jews, exhibit a process of 'de-Christianization'.3 In the Iliad, archaic Mycenaean elements, such as the shield of Ajax, are found consorting anachron- istically with elements from later, Homeric times.4 This typical feature of oral poetry, namely the ease with which it absorbs the new while never ridding itself entirely of the old, explains why so many pre-Is- lamic poems refer to and swear by Allah; why Koranic quotations appear in what are in other respects typically ancient poems. The

I See the works cited on p. 9, n. 2, for specific literatures. 2 Francis P. Magoun Jr., op. cit. 3 Samuel G. Armistead and Joseph Silverman, "Christian Elements and

De-Christianization in the Sephardic Romancero," Collected Studies in Honor of Americo Castro's 80th Year, ed. M. P. Hornik (Oxford, 1965), pp. 21-38. A case of 'de-Islamization' in Arabic poetry which is rather similar to the Spanish phenomenon occurs when the Hudhaili poet Abiu Khirash, in order to taunt the Prophet and the novel Muslim doctrines, deliberately transforms the Islamic formula wa-l-ldbu aclamu ('God knows best') into wa-l-qaumu allamu ('the tribal warriors know best'). See E. Braunlich, "Versuch einer literargeschichtlichen Betrachtungsweise altarabischer Poesien," Der Islam, XXIV (1937), p. 209.

4 Denys Page, History and the Homeric ILIAD (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1959), pp. 232-238.


pre-Islamic poems gradually absorbed Islamic elements during a long process of constant elaboration. They were in a sense 'de- paganized'.

The Parry-Lord theory of oral-formulaic poetry has until now been applied largely to studies of the epic, that is to say, to relatively long poems of a narrative character, containing a basic story and a plot around which the different themes common to a tradition are organized. In this case the use of the oral-formulaic technique is essential to the poet because the nature of epic compositions is such that they are usually far too long to memorize. In contrast, pre-Islamic poems are lyrical-descriptive; they tell no story, and are relatively short compositions, ranging from a few to a hundred or more lines. Like European ballads and the Toda songs of India, the Arabic poems are short enough to be committed to memory, and it is therefore reasonable to suppose that memory may have played a greater role in their transmission than in that of epic poetry, as the tradition of the rdwi would seem to indicate. In the case of pre-Islamic poetry it is therefore necessary to make a modification of the Parry-Lord theory. As it has been proved, the high formulaic content of the poems shows beyond a doubt that they were orally composed. On the other hand, the different recensions of individual poems made by Arab philologists, although they contain numerous variant readings for individual words, and although specific lines are often placed in a different order from version to version, are by no means entirely recast or retold in a new sequence of formulas as occurs, in the epic. This feature of pre-Islamic poetry points to a far greater textual stability than is the case with the epic. This stability also occurs according to Lord, in the case of shorter epic poems when they are frequently repeated or resung by a bard. The same is true of the Spanish ballad. In this case the composer eventually ends up by memorizing his poem, but it is necessarv to stress that the process of memorization is unconscious and that it occurs only after oral composition of the normal, improvised type. Oral improvisation and memory, in the case of short poems, are therefore not two mutually exclusive opposites, but are connected by the unconscious process whereby a poem gradually becomes stabilized in the mind of the composer.

Whether there is memorization or not, it should be stressed that oral-formulaic composition is the normal, indeed the only form of composition available to the illiterate poet, and that it is employed despite differences of form or genre. In medieval Spanish


poetry it may be observed, for example, that not only the epic, but also the ballad and the lyric are highly formulaic, and that poets frequently use the same formulas in different meters or genres. But when the professional and creative class of j ongleurs who knew the art of improvisation died out, the epic died out with them, and only the ballad and the lyric survived because these shorter compositions could be retained in the memories of non-professional performers. In Arabic literature too, the tradition of the rdwi points in the direction of memorization; of a rhapsodic stage following a truly creative aoidic one, although it is not advisable to stress this point too much, since it is known that rdwis were not merely memorizers of the poetry they heard from their mentors, but that the relationship was also that of an apprentice poet. Thus Ka'b ibn Zuhair, son and rdwi of Zuhair ibn Abi Sulma, later became a poet in his own right. One can only suppose that the period of apprenticeship would allow the aspiring poet to acquire the formulaic repertory and technique with which to compose poems of his own.

On the basis of internal evidence it can be concluded that pre- Islamic poetry should on the whole be viewed as authentic as long as it is clearly understood that what has been preserved of it is probably not an exact recording of what a great poet once said, but a fairly close picture of it, distorted by the vicissitudes of an oral transmission in which both memorization and 'de-paganization' were operative and further complicated by a tradition of scribal correction. The variants of a given poem should thus be studied by focusing on the history of the poem's transmission and recensions, as recorded by the Arabic tradition. If it is evident that variants in a text are due to different recensions recorded from different informants, then, barring other factors, these variants should all be accepted as valid, since the search for an exact 'original text' is a hopeless pursuit in the case of oral poetry.

Further studies should be able to provide us with a complete concordance of pre-Islamic formulas, including those used by all poets from this period. Thereafter, it will become necessary to compile individual concordances of the formulaic repertory found in each poet. By comparison of the individual concordances with the general, those formulas most favored by a poet can be distinguished. This in turn can allow us to characterize individual stylistic features in pre-Islamic poetry with some degree of objectivity, and ultimately to distinguish chronological and literary relationships between individuals and schools.


A third stage of investigation would be to subject poems doubtful of attribution or authenticity to formulaic analysis by comparing them with the general and individual concordances. If a dubious poem shares few formulas in common with those most used by the poet to whom it is attributed, it can be accepted as a likely assumption that it was not composed by him. If its formulaic content turns out to be low, it can further be assumed that it was forged by a literate poet in Islamic times. In the opposite case it can be assumed that it is authentic, and a careful study may even reveal its authorship or the school to which it belongs. This method of analysis has the advantage over those used until now in that it provides a greater measure of scientific objectivity based on internal evidence. The results of such analysis should, of course, always be compared with the facts recorded about the poem by the Arabic philological tradition.

For students of Arabic literature, a clearer understanding of how pre-Islamic poetry was composed is hardly irrelevant, since it leads directly to a clearer understanding of its use of themes, motifs, and of the individual poem's literary structure. When Ibn Qutaiba (d. A.D. 889) affirms that a qasida should have three parts (nasib, raeil, and the subject proper), and that the poet should furthermore maintain a proper balance between each part and the next,' he is echoing ideas derived possibly and indirectly from the principles of Greek rhetoric.2 In fact, however, pre-Islamic poetry does not always observe this rather convenient rule. Many poems have no nasib; others have no rahil; the proportion between one theme and the next varies drastically and inconsistently from poem to poem. Even the order is irregular: the Mu'allaqa of Labid introduces nasib elements after the rahil, where thev would be out of place according to Ibn Qutaiba's principles, although closer observation reveals that they constitute a final link in a tightly knit ring structure containing two long and digressive extended metaphors typical of oral poetry,

I Ibn Qutaiba, Aluqaddima li-kitdb ash-shi'r wa-sh-shu'ard', ed. and French trans. Gaudefroy-Demombynes (Paris, 1947), p. 14.

2 See Aristotle, Rhetoric, III: 13-14. Poetics, VIII: 15-36. For the development of this concept in Greek criticism, see G. M. A. Grube, The Greek and Roman Critics (Toronto, 1965). For Arabic, see Amjad Trabulsi, op. cit.; Wolfhart Heinrichs, Arabische Dichtung und Griechische Poetik: Hdzim al-Qart0jannis Grtnd- legung der Poetik mit Hi/fe Aristotelische Begriffe, Beiruter Texte und Studien, VIII, Orient-Institut der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft (Beirut, 1969).


and very appropriate in this instance to the poet's purpose.' The Mucallaqa of Imru' al-Qais also structures the nasib in ring form.2 What pre-Islamic poetry really exhibits, therefore, is a rather flexible ordering of themes based entirely on the nature and circumstances of oral composition. The poet, using a fixed traditional repertory of themes, may alter, lengthen, shorten, transpose, or omit themes in response to the audience's interest during the highly unpredictable situation of performance. Thus the criteria used by modern scholarship in reorganizing the sequence of lines in pre-Islamic poems by applying literate standards of logic to them, needs to be revised.

The features noted above, all of which are typical of oral poetry in general, are not shared with learned, written poetry. The techniques of composition and delivery thus determine the structure and content of the poem in a larger sense; in this instance, the formulaic technique is closely related to the mode of thematic development. Only by grasping this basic principle of literary criticism is it possible to

1 Ring-composition is a typical feature of oral poetry. See Cedric H. Whitman, Homer and the Heroic Tradition (Cambridge, Mass., 1958) for its use in Homer. The technique of the extended, digressive metaphor, also a peculiarly oral form of literary embellishment, is carefully analysed by Phillip Damon, Modes of Analogy in Ancient and Medieval Verse, especially chap. 1 "Homer's Similes and the Uses of Irrelevance," University of California Publications in Classical Philology, XV (Berkeley and Los Angeles), p. 269, where he cites several pre- Islamic examples, including Labid. Cf. Blachere, op. cit., II, p.442. The ring-composition in Labid's Mucallaqa is introduced in the nasib (1. 16 [references are to Arberry, The Seven Odes, pp. 142-145]) with the mention of the poet's beloved, the lady Nawar. The poet then decides to break with her (I. 20) and to ride away on his camel (1. 22). This introduces the rahil. The camel, in an extraordinarily complex extended metaphor of thirty-two lines, is compared first to a wild ass (11. 25-35), and then to a wild cow (11. 36-52). The poet finally returns to the camel (11. 53-54), and this leads him directly back to his thoughts about Nawar (Il. 55-57). The thematic progression could thus be charted as follows:

Nawdr-camel-(wild ass-wild cow)-camel-Nawdr 1 2 3 3 2 1

2 The ring-composition in the nasib of Imru' al-Qais's Mucallaqa takes the form of a series of frivolous love affairs with several different women, all of whom are contrasted with an unnamed beloved (iabib) to whom the poet swears eternal love. The tension is therefore between true love and false. The poet begins by invoking this true hdbib (11. 1-6) whom he cannot forget. Then he recalls adventures with Umm al-Huwairith and Umm ar-Rabab (11. 7-9), a party of maidens in Juliul (11. 10-12), Unaiza (11. 13-15), a pregnant woman (11. 16-17), Fatima (11. 18-22), a veiled lady (ll. 23-41), and finally he returns to his true babib exclaiming that he cannot forget her, and thus completes the cycle (I. 42);

SUmm al-Huwairith) SMaids U .SPregnant .~ Veiledh `habib-um arRbfktJlil$Unaiza-gw a -Fatima- l b-abtb 1Umm ar-Rab2 b of3 lady 4 1 ~~~2 3 4 4 3 2 1


avoid the two opposite and equally unsophisticated extremes of glorifying pre-Islamic poetry for sentimental reasons as a supreme classical model, or deprecating it as a dull, repetitive, and unoriginal body of literature (both points of view have their schools, adherents, and specialized bibliographies). An understanding of the method of composition and consequently of the structure of pre-Islamic poetry is therefore a positive and basic step toward the ultimate goal of aesthetic appreciation.

A poetics derived from the actual oral practice of pre-Islamic poets will reveal more about their poetry than will a literary theory deriving from the principles of literate Greek rhetoricians as these were understood by literate 'Abbasid critics, since formal rhetoric was a science totally foreign to the pre-Islamic poets. This is, of course, not to say that they lacked a highly developed and subtle rhetorical technique, but rather that their technique was intuitive; that it was formulaic, and therefore far more appropriate to the oral environment in which they composed than any school-learned rhetoric could have been.

SUPPORTING EVIDENCE

Only a representative selection of formulaic examples is provided in the following charts. Formulas and formulaic systems are underlined with a solid bar; structural formulas and conventional vocabulary, with a broken bar.

Chart I (Imru' al-Qais, Mu'allaqa, 11. 1-10)

1 qifa nabki min dhikra habibin wa-manzili bi-siqti l-liwa baina d-dakhali fa-haumali

2 fa-tudiha fa-l-miqrati lam ya'fu rasmu-ha li-ma nasajat-ha min januibin wa-sham'ali

3 tara ba'ara l-ar'ami fi 'arasati-ha. wa-qi'ani-ha ka-anna-hu habbu fulfuli

4 ka-anni ghadata 1-baini yauma tah.ammaliu lada samurati l-haiyi naqifu hanzali

5 wuquifan bi-ha sahbbi alaiya matiyya-hum yaquiluna 1a tahlik asan wa-tajammali

6 wa-inna shifa'i 'abratun muharaqatun fa-hal 'inda rasmin darisin min mu'auwali

7 ka-da'bi-ka min ummi 1-huwairithi qabla-ha wa-jarati-ha ummi r-rababi bi-ma'sali


8 idha qamata tadauwa'a 1-misku min-huma nasima s-saba ja'at bi-raiya I-qaranfuli

9 fa-fadat dumui'u I-'aini min-ni sababatan Cali n-nahri hattd balla dam'iya mihmali

10 ala rubba yaumin la-ka min-hunna salihin wa-la-siyyama yaumin bi-darati juiuli

la / qifa nabki min dhikra habibin wa-'irfan // (IQ, 160, 65, 1);/ qifi 1 yakun (T, 66, 10, 2); / qifi wa-ddici-ni (T, 66, 10, 1); / tacazzaita "an dhikra suhaiyata (A, 36, 7, 3); /min dhikri laila (IQ, 155, 55, 3); /min dhikri salma (Alq, 111, 13, 3); // dhikra habibin (IQ, 121, 9, 1); li-dhikra habibin (M, 541, 6); habibin bi-hi ddacat // (IQ, 129, 20, 15); habiba 1-muwadda'a / (M, 537, 27); fi kulli manzilin // (N, 22, 20, 22); fi kulli manzilin // (MI, 745, 9); wa-manzilin // (NI, 494, 6).

lb bi-muncaraji l-liwa // (M, 23, 6); fa-l-liwa // (M, 422, 3); fa-l-liwa (Z, 83, 6, 9); baina I-liwa fa-sarimatin //(IQ, 124, 17, 11); bi-sitari fa-ghurrabi/ (Alq, 103, 1, 2); 'ala s-sitari fa-yadhbuli / (IQ, M, 68); baina yadhbulin fa-riqani/ (IQ, 160, 64, 1); baina 1-cariidi wa-kath'ama / (L, 197, 57, 20); baina r-rijami wa-wasitin / (L, 112, 33, 3); baina s-sitari fa-azlama / (M, 105, 8); // min haumalin (M, 442, 2).

2a // sa'danu tuidiha (N, 5, 7, 28); / fa-mujtamacu I-ashraji ghaiyara rasmu-ha // (N, 18, 17, 2); 1/ fa-cArimatin fa-burqati 1-ciyarati / (IQ, 121, 10, 1); fa-ghaulin fa-hillitin (IQ, 121, 10, 2); / fa-waqfin fa-sulliyin (L, 181, 52, 2); / fa-raqdun fa- $aratun (Z, 91, 15, 6); // wa-rasmin cafat (IQ, 160, 65, 1); 'urriya rasmu-ha// (L, M, 2); curriyat wa-ta'abbadat // (L, 120, 38, 64); 'ahdi-hi (L, 114, 38, 17); amra-hu // (L, 131, 44, 4); amri-him // (L, 132, 44, 8).

3a /tara bacara I-ar'ami fi caraati-ha // wa-qic'ni-ha ka-anna-hu habbu fulfuli / (IQ, 204, 26, 3); / tara l-fa'ra 'an mustarghibi I-qadri la'ihan // (Alq, 105, 1, 35);

tari 1-fa'ra fi mustackidi I-ardi lahiban // (IQ, 118, 4, 49);/ bi-ha 1-'inu wa-l- ar'amu (Z, M, 3); / min al-bidi ka-l-arlami (IQ, 159, 63, 14); / min al-bidi ka-l- ar'ami (IQ, 160, 64, 7); // Cala 'ara$ati d-dari (N, 23, 21, 3); can hajarati-ha / (Alq, 110, 10, 2); fi hajarati-hi // (IQ, 150, 50, 1); an qudhufati-hi // (IQ, 131, 20, 60;) can-qudhufati-hi // (N, 12, 8, 15); fi wukunati-ha // (IQ, 196, 2, 1).

3b fi qicani jasin (T, 69, 13, 2); // cala lahibin ka-anna-hu zahru buriudi / (T, M, 12).

4a / ka-anni ghadata 1-baini lamma tahammalii // lada samurati 1-haiyi naqifu hanzali // (IQ, 204, 26, 4); / ka-anni wa-rahli (IQ, 137, 34, 9); / ka-anni wa- rahli (IQ, 141, 40, 11); ka-anna sarata-hu (IQ, 137, 34, 15); / ka-anna sarata-hu (IQ, M, 56); / fa-fi'nd ghadata 1-ghibbi (T, 66, 9, 9); / ka-anni shadadtu r-rah.:la hina tashadhdharat (N, 23, 21, 9); lamma tahammalui // (L, 117, 38, 40); idh tahammalui // (L, 117, 38, 37).

4b /lada marbati I-afrasi (NI, 694, 5); / lada s-sarhati I-cashshAli (NI, 613, 12); / yazallu nisaVu l-haiyi (T, 71, 16, 3); / wa-zalla nisa'u 1-haiyi (M, 318, 13); / wa- kanat fatatu 1-haiyi (M, 349, 4); / wa-nada munAdi 1-haiyi (M, 21, 2); / wa-rahat liqahu-1-haiyi (M, 548, 12); / 'ala rabidhatin (M, 598, 4); // la-ha rabidhatun (M, 338, 12); / min al-waridati 1-ma'i (N, 15, 13, 5); playatu hanzali (IQ, M, 56).

5a / wuqufan bi-ha pahbi 'alaiya matiyya-hum // yaqulina Id tahlik asan wa-tajalladi / (T, Al, 2); / waqaftu bi-rab'i d-dari (N, 23, 21, 2); / waqaftu bi-ha (Z, M, 4); // hifzan cali laurati-hi (T, M, 99); 5aburan cala l-cillati (Alq, 105, 1, 30); // sabuiqin iDa l-ghayati (Z, 80, 3, 37); li-l-'adhara matiyyati // (IQ, 146, 48, 9); tucra matiyyatun // (N, 20, 18, 3); matiyyati (M, 318, 16).


5b // yufaddiuna-hu (IQ, 119, 4, 66); / jadiriuna (NI, 477, 13); / yahuzzilna (MI, 177, 54); / yahuzzuina (MI, 109, 16); / wa-abligh wa-la tatruk (IQ, 131, 21, 2); / fa-qultu la-hu 1 tabki laina-ka (IQ, 130, 20, 44); // tafaqadtum la tuqdimiina (NI, 113, 25); / bi-waddi-ki ma qiumi (NI, 476, 11).

6a // wa-kana shifa'an (Alq, 110, 10, 5); // shifali damun (L, 212, 62, 5); /ka-anna dima'a (IQ, 142, 40, 37); // yaraina dima'a (L, 116, 38, 29); / ra'aitu dima'an (M, 615, 5); labratun fa-radadtu-ha / (N, 18, 17, 7).

6b / fa-hal and mashin (IQ, 130, 20, 55); / wa-hal and laqin (IQ, 131, 20, 55); / wa-hal huwa illa (L, 119, 38, 60); 'abisin mutaghaddabi / (L, 26, 4, 3); 'aidhin mutahauwidi / (Z, 81, 3, 40); 'aridi l-mutawaqqidi (A, 37, 7, 4); 'aridin mutawaqqidi / (Z, 81, 3, 41).

7a cala ummi jundubi // (IQ, 116, 4, 1); lada ummi jundubi / (IQ, 116, 4, 2); ummi taulabi / (IQ, 119, 4, 69); hushashatin nafsihi // (IQ, 154, 52, 59); mithlu l-cuwairi wa-rahti-hi // (IQ, 161, 66, 2); ummu $-pabiyaini (M, 339, 17).

7b / a jarata-nd inna (IQ, 196, 3, 2); / a jarata-nd inna (IQ, 196, 3, 1); //li- jarati-ha (M, 201, 7); / fa-ya jarati (IM, 200, 5); // hijaratu ghailin warisatun bi- tuhlubi / (IQ, 118, 4, 32).

8a / idha qamata tadauwaca l-misku min-huma // (IQ, 124, 17, 7); / idha jahadat (N, 23, 21, 9); / idha ghaba (Alq, 106, 2, 4); /idha kana (L, 120, 38, 68); /idha nala (IQ, 129, 20, 17); / idha raba (IQ, 137, 34, 11); min al-miski adhfara / (IQ, 129, 20, 13); ka-l-miski rihu-ha // (NI, 495, 8); min-humiu // (N, 17, 15, 6); yahduru d-dam'u min-huma // (Alq, 108, 4, 2); ra'su-hu qad tadauwa'a / (M, 532, 14).

8b / wa-rihu sanan (IQ, 129, 20, 13); rihu s-saba (IQ, 141, 40, 13); rihu $-$abd (IQ, 115, 2, 3); raiya l-mukhalkhali (IQ, M, 28).

9a / fa-ja'at qatuifa 1-mashyi (IQ, 139, 38, 9); / wa-jalat 'adhara 1-haiyi (T, 66, 9, 7); //fa-qalat yamina l-lahi (N, 17, 15, 17); / fa-sahhat dumui'i (IQ, 160, 65, 4); // amama jumu'i n-nasi (M, 112, 23); /wa-qala jamicu n-nasi (M, 603, 7); / fa-'addi qarida sh-shi'ri (NI, 180, 63); //fa- inna ghazira sh-shi'ri (NI, 180, 63); / busamin ka-launi 1-milhi (M, 205, 25);/ busamun khafiyyu 1-jarsi (NI, 176, 49); / ala abligh dhubyana Cann! risalatan // (N, 17, 15, 1); / fa-man mublighu l-ahlafi 'anni risalatan // (Z, Al, 25); risalatan // (T, 64, 6, 6) risalatan // (T, 68 12, 6); 5ababatan // (IQ, M, 38); 5ababatan (M, 135, 20); saqa na'amatin // (IQ, 117, 4, 27); saqa nacamatan // (IQ, M, 54); saqa nacamatan // (IQ, 138, 35, 16).

9b // cala n-nahri min-ha mustahillun wa-damicu (N, 18, 17, 7); / ka-anna dima'a l-hadiyati bi-nahri-hi // (IQ, 142, 40, 37); batta jarra (T, 67, 10, 13); hatta daqa (IQ, 124, 15, 2); idha ballat (T, MI, 86); balla afrasa-na dama / (NI, 113, 24); // hatta balla nahri wa-padra-hu // (NI, 711, 10).

10a /ala rubba yaumin (T, 67, 10, 7); /ala rubba yaumin $dlihin qad shahidtu- hu // (IQ, 131, 20, 53); // ala rubba darin li (T, 66, 10, 6); /bala rubba yaumin (IQ, 152, 52, 9); min ali yaminin // (IQ, 128, 20, 5); safini bni yaminin // (T, Al, 4); wa-hwa na'imu /(NI, 693, 1); wa-hwa $dVimun // (M, 165, 19); fa-hwa saribu / (MN, 421, 27); camra bnu khalidin // (L, 196, 57, 15); qaisi bni khalidin // (NI, 613, 11); 'inda darijin // (IQ, 206, 35, 2); baina darijin // (IQ, Al, 67); baina dArijin // (IQ, 138, 35, 4).

10b // wa-la muqsirin yauman (IQ, 124, 17, 1); // wa-kullu fatan yauman (L, 88, 30, 3); / wa-kullu mri'in yauman (L, 132, 44, 11); // wa-kullu mrilin yauman (N, 24, 21, 22); bi-darati mauducin / (M, 100, 1); darata majidin / (NI, 137, 27).


Chart II (Labid, Mu'allaqa, 11. 1-10)

1 'afat id-diyatu mahallu-ha fa-muqamu-ha bi-minan ta'abbada ghaulu-ha fa-rijamu-ha

2 fa-madaficu r-raiyani curriya rasmu-ha khalaqan kama damina l-wuhiyya silamu-ha

3 dimanun tajarrama bada 'ahdi anisi-ha hijajun khalauna halalu-ha wa-haramu-ha

4 ruziqat marabl'a n-nujiumi wa-saba-ha wadqu r-rawa'idi jaudu-ha fa-rihamu-ha

5 min kulli sariyatin wa-ghadin mudjinin wa-'ashiyyatin mutajawibin irzamu-ha

6 fa-cala furu'"u I-aihuqani wa-atfalat bi-1-jalhataini ziba'u-ha wa-na'amu-ha

7 wa-l-'inu sakinatun 'ala atla'i-ha 'adhan ta'ajjalu bi-l-fida'i bihamu-ha

8 wa-jala s-suyulu "an it-tuluili ka-anna-ha zuburun tujiddu mutiina-ha aqlamu-ha

9 au raj 'u washimatin usiffa na'uiru-ha kifafan tacarrada fauqa-hunna wishamu-hd

10 fa-waqaftu as'alu-ha wa-kaifa su'alu-na summan khawalida ma yubinu kalamu-ha

la / 'afat id-diyiaru (IQ, 144, 45, 10); // asalu d-diyara (A, 41, 19, 2); // nabki d-diyara (IQ, 157, 59, 4); /li-man id-diyaru (Z, 81, 4, 1); /li-man id-diyaru (M, 190, 1); li-man id-diyaru (M, 263, 1); harju-ha wa-bi'adu-ha /(M, 742, 1); shuqru- ha wa-widadu-ha / (MI, 745, 9); nu'yu-ha wa-ramadu-ha / (M, 743, 4). The second halves of the second hemistichs in Labid's Mucallaqa are all based on this formulaic system, which provides the rhyme. In many cases it also reappears in the first hemistich.

lb / fa-idha tacadhdharat (M, 714, 11); ghalalan tadammana (L, 155, 6); ghalalan taqatta'a (M, 55, 8).

2a bi-mashariqi 1-jabalaini (L, M, 18); / yataradafu l-wildanu (L, 62, 17, 2); / aqwa wa-'urriya (L, 160, 49, 1); "urriyat wa-ta'abbadat // (L, 120, 38, 64).

2a, b usiffa na'iuru-ha // kifafan (L, M, 9); aqtulu qauma-ha // za'aman (A, 45, 21, 10); yughanni wahda-hu // hazijan (A, 45, 21, 23);

2b / ka-wahyi $ahd'ifin (A, 52, 27, 2); li-man talalun ka-l-wahyi (Z, 91, 15, 5); azfara-ha // (M, 855, 9); liwali-ha // (M, 715, 2) na'uru-ha (L, M, 9). This pattern is, of course, closely related to "ghaulu-ha fa-rijamu-ha" (L, M, 1), and also recurs throughout the poem.

3a /dimanun tala'abat ar-riyahu bi-rasmi-ha // (L, 152, 48, 4); ba'da anisi- ha // (A, 41, 19, 3); cadhu-hu bi-anisi-hi // (L, 207, 61, 10);

3b // aqwaina min hijjaiin (Z, 81, 4, 1). 4a // khuliqat macaqimu (M, 481, 8); // qana't anamilu (M, 557, 5); / 'aufa


l-fawarisi (L, 130, 43, 2); / ~akhiba sh-shawaribi (M, 858, 15); // subulu 1-masaliki (NI, 596, 11).

5a / min kulli abtaha (L, 154, 48, 22); / min kulli arwaca (A, 34, 2, 8); /mimi kulli mahfiifin (L, Al, 13); / min kulli mushtarafin (MI, 719, 10); /min kulli mus- tarkhi (M, 681, 13); / fi ithri ghaniyatin ramat-ka bi-sahmi-ha // (N, 9, 7, 6); / wa-l-cinu sakinatun (L, Al, 7); /au raj'u wushimatin (L, M, 9).

Sb / wa-cashiyyata (L, 158, 48, 46). 6a / wa-jala s-suyilu (L, Al, 8); / jalat shu'unu (?4, 827, 4); / laciba s-suycilu

(M, 55, 8); // sa'du n-nujuimi (?4, 269, 13); //1 ummu n-nusciri (A, 44, 20, 27). 6b bi-l-jalhataini (L, 196, 57, 7); // fa-'amayataini (IQ, 157, 59, 1); fa-sahataini

(IQ, 157, 59, 2); //wa-l-amcazani (IQ, 115, 1, 1); / wa-l-harithani (L, 189, 54, 7); // wa-t-tubba'ani (L, 189, 54, 7).

8a, b ka-anna-ha // zuburun yurajjicu (L, 206, 61, 2); ka-anna-hu zaghabun (L, 154, 48, 23); ka-anna-hu // 5aqrun (AI, 516, 5); ka-anna-ha // fadanu (NI, 256, 8); ka-anna-ha // fadanun (A, 45, 21, 6).

10a / fa-waqaftu fi lara$ati-hd (Am 41, 19, 2); /fa-waqaftu fi dari l-jami'i (M, 827, 4); / fa-waqaftu fi-ha kai usa'ila-ha (NI, 827, 6); /fa-v-aqaftu fi-ha n5qati (A, 45, 21, 6); / waqaftu usa'iluha naqati // (NI, 355, 3).

Chart III (Zuhair, Poem No. 18, 11. 1-10)

1 li-man talalun bi-ramata la yarimu cafa wa-khala la-hu huqbun qadimu

2 tahammala ahlu-hu min-hu fa-banui wa-fi 'arasati-hi min-hum rusumu

3 yaluhna ka-anna-hunna yada fatain turajja'u fi ma'asimi-ha l-wushuimu

4 'afa min ali laila batnu saqin fa-akthibatu l-'ajalizi fa-l-qaisimu

5 tutali'u-na khayalatun li-salma kama yatatalla'u d-daina l-gharimu

6 lac-amru abi-ka ml harimu bnu salma bi-malhiyyin idha l-lu'amai'u limwi

7 wa-li sahi -fu'adi wa-la 'aiyyi I-lisani idha tashajarati l-khusimu

8 wa-huwa ghaithun la-na fi kulli 'amin yaludhu bi-hi l-mukhauwalu wa-l-'adimu

9 wa-'auwada qauma-hu harimun (alai-hi wa-min 'adati-hi l-khulqu l-karimu

10 kama qad kana 'auwada-hum abi-hu idha azamat-huma yauman azQmu

la / li-man talalun (L, 123, 39, 1); / li-man talalun (Z, 91, 15, 5); / li-man zucunun (M, 576, 5); / li-man dimanun (M, 559, 1); la yuda'u / (NI, 373, 5); la shajani / (N, 31, 30, 4). See also 1. 7a.


lb /'afa min ali laila (Z, 99, 18, 4); amrun cazimu / (Z, 99, 18, 11); daina 1-gharimu / (Z, 99, 18, 5); ghada jami'an // (Z, 77, 1, 47); labanu 1-haqin / (Z, 100, 19, 12).

2a / tahammala ahlu-ha min-ha fa-banui/ (Z, 75, 1, 6); / tahammala ahlu- hi illa 'iraran // (L, 103, 37, 3); / tahammnala ahlu-ha wa-ajadda fi-hi // (L, 104, 37, 5); // tayammama ahlu-ha baladan fa-saru // (M, 662, 9); // baliran bi-z- zac'aini haithu sarii / (M, 660, 3); wa-kaniu // (Z, 99, 18, 12).

2b / wa-fi tuili (Z, 88, 12, 1); fi 'ara$ati-ha // (IQ, M, 3); // call yasarati (M, 377, 18); H/ila 1-hujurfiti (L, 186, 53, 15); // min al-kalimati (Z, 78, 1, 49); / min al-mathulati (Z, 78, 1, 51); min az-zimarati (T, 64, 7, 2).

3a / yashirnna (Z, 75, 1, 4); / yuqadna (N, 28, 27, 19); / yuraina (L, 202, 59, 18); / wa-hunna ka-anna-hunna nicaju ramlin // (N, 29, 27, 29); / ka-anna mafida-hunna (N, 30, 29, 4); fa-min mahatin // (Z, 76, 1, 12); gharban sunatin If (L, 104, 37, 7).

3b // ka-raj'i 1-washmi (A, 52, 27, 1); / yurajji'u fi ?-$uww (L, 109, 37, 43); / au raj'u washimatin (L, M, 9); // tacaqqamu fi jawanibi-hi s-sibacu / (M, 377, 16); // taqa"carati l-mashijiri bi-l-khiyami (L, 200, 59, 3); / yufarriju bi-s-sanabiki (L, 108, 37, 42); / aqamii li-l-kata'ibi kulla yaumin // (M, 620, 19); / kasa- hunna l-hawijiru kulla yaumin // (L, 184, 53, 7); / khubasitu l-fawarisi kulla yaumin // (L, 201, 59, 8); // tushannu 'ala sanabiki-ha l-quruimu / (Z, 100, 19, 7); //yusannu cald maraghimi-hi l-qasamu / (M, 650, 6).

4a / cafa min ali fatimata 1-jawa'u // (Z, 75, 1, 1); / tahammala alu laila (Z, 75, 1, 5); batni qauwin // (M, 379, 25); batni jiz'in // (A, 49, 23, 3); / wa-lau anni halaktu bi-ardi qaumi // (IQ, 123, 13, 3); / bi-anni qad halaktu bi-ardi qaumin // (IQ, 123, 13, 2); / idha nazala s-sahaba bi-ardi qaumin // (M, 703, 23); ala qaumin // (M, 608, 3); amra qaumin // (M, 373, 5); min dli himi / (A, 50, 23, 12); min ali nasrin (M, 346, 15); wa-ili nacshin // (L, 203, 59, 27), bi-dhiti dalin // (M, 578, 10); bi-dhati kahfin // (M, 669, 28); bi-dhati lauthin // (M, 581, 19); fa-dhati-rijlin (M, 576, 6); dhatu gharbin // (A, 38, 11, 5).

4b / fa-audiyatun asafilu-hunna (Z, 100, 19, 4); // fa-yumnun fa-l-qawadimu fa-l-hiA'u / (Z, 75, 1, 1); fa-l-hajuni / (Z, 100, 19, 3); // li-salma bi-l-madhanibi fa-l-qufali I (L, 103, 37, 1).

5a / li-man zu'unun tutalicu (M, 576, 5); tawaratha-ha (A, 50, 23, 10); tuha- dimu-hunna (A, 38, 11, 8); // tutaridu-hunna (T, 65, 7, 7); // tuwafiqu-ka (N, 30,29, 4); // yuc'dilu-hu (M, 43, 7); / ta'auwaba-hu khayalun min sulaima // (M, 40, 1); / sara lailan khayalun min sulaima // (M, 460, 1); // li-salma (L, 103, 37, 1); harimu bnu salma (Z, 99, 18, 6).

5b // kama yatacauwaju (M, 343, 8). See also, 1. 10a below. 6a // la-camru abi-ka (M, 754, 1); / la-camru-ka (T, 64, 7, 4); / la-camru-ka

(N, 31, 30, 1); / la-camru-ka (M, 620, 12); /fa-la wa-abi-ka ma haiyun ka-haiyin // (L, 185, 53, 13); / fa-kun ka-abl-ka (N, 5, 4, 2); luqmana bni 'cadin // (IQ, 136, 33, 3); camru bnu camrin // (M, 669, 27); bani huiri bni 'amrin /f (IQ, 158, 62, 2); ban! huiri bni camrin // (IQ, 122, 13, 1); bani hujri bni camrin // (M, 34, 5, 13).

6b // wa-cadiyya (L, 187, 53, 23); idha khifna huuiinu / (Z, 100, 19, 4); li-l-a'da'i hami / (M, 756, 2); min al-baghda'i cirun / (M, 834, 15); darra'u khimu / (Z, 99, 18, 13); bi-l-asla'i 'ufnu / (Z, 100, 19, 5); min at-ta'dai jiinu / (Z, 100, 19, 6).

7a // fa-la yusda ladaiya wa-li yudacu / (M, 373, 5); // fa-ma nazura l-kalamu wa-la shajani / (N, 31, 30, 4); / wa-lam ara mithla (M, 182, 2); / wa-lam ara mithla-hi (M, 182, 3); / wa-lam ara mithla-ha (M, 183, 4); wa-li ahiibu / (M, 182, 2); wa-li aaldu / (M, 461, 8); wa-la matiru / (T, 64, 7, 6); wa-la sanidu / (L, 45, 10, 2).

Journal of Arabic Literature, III 4


7b // sinanun mithla (N, 28, 27, 21); // yamilu idha (A, 38, 11, 11). 8a // fa-inna l-ghaitha (Z, 100, 19, 14); fi kulli fajrin // (Z, 76, 1, 27); fi kulli

rihin (M, 125, 7); fi kulli yaumin (N, 12, 9, 5); kulla cami / (M, 758, 7). 8b // yaluidhu bi-gharqadin (L, 105, 37, 17); / dhakartu bi-hi l-fawarisa

wa-n-nadama / (L, 123, 39, 3); // tabidu bi-hi maAyifi l-hamami / (A, 49, 23, 3); // wa-li-l-ldhi 1-mu'aththalu wa-l-cadidu / (L, 44, 10, 1); / ala dhahaba l-muhafizu wa-l-muhami // (L, 200, 59, 1).

9a / wa-khadhdhala qauma-hu 'amru bnu camrin // (M, 669, 27); / wa- khauwada fahlu-ha (L, 186, 53, 16); / wa-qattaca wasla-ha (MI, 6, 8, 3); qauma-na (M, 672, 36); wariqin calai-ha // (M, 43, 10); barakat 'alai-hi // (N, 29, 27, 28); batat calai-hi (M, 65, 3, 12); karrat calai-him // (M, 24, 2); karrat calai-him // (M, 121, 3). macqiidan calai-him / (M, 621, 23); mac>iiban 'alai-hi // (N, 31, 30, 2).

9b // 'ala athari (Z, 75, 1, 6). See also, 1. 2b. 10a /kama aksui (M, 618, 5); / kama hada (N, 31, 30, 6); / kama kharaja

(L, 106, 37, 23); / kama la'iba (L, 106, 37, 26); / kama marra (L, 106, 37, 24); / kama suhirat (L, 204, 59, 31); / fa-ma in kana (N, 5, 4, 6); abi-hi // (N, 29, 27, 37).

10b / idha abzat bi-hi yauman (Z, 84, 8, 5); / idha hawalat (N, 30, 29, 14); //idha hazabat (M, 831, 5); / idha hubisat (M, 343, 5); / idha jamahat (Z, 83, 8, 3); / idha musihat (MI, 185, 9); // idha nafadhat-humii karrat calai-him // (M, 121, 3); / idha tamdi-himi cadat calai-him // (M, 24, 2); / idha ya'siina-ha nashazat "alai-him // (M, 758, 12); yauma hisyin // (N, 5, 4, 5); yauma l-khiami / (L, 200, 59, 1); yauma qlui // (L, 200, 59, 2); yauma tasmu // (A, 52, 27, 3); laila t-tamami / (L, 202, 59, 14); fi mulajjijatin aziumi / (L, 185, 53, 10).

Chart IV

(Nabigha, Poem No. 5, 11. 1-10) - -- Lj LI --/-L

1 ya dara maiyata bi-l-'alya'i bi-s-sanadi aqwat wa-tala 'alai-ha salifu 1-abadi

2 waqattu fi-ha usailanan usa'ilu-ha 'aiyat jawaban wa-mi bi-r-rab'i min ahadi

3 illa l-awariyyu la'yan ma ubaiyinu-ha wa-n-nu'yu ka-l-haudi bi-l-mazlfumati 1-jaladi

4 ruddat alai-ha aqasi-hi wa-labbada-hu darbu 1-walidati bi-l-mishati fi th-tha'ldi

5 khallat sabila atiyyin kana yahbisu-hu wa-raffa'at-hu il s-sijfaini fa-n-nadadi

6 amsat khaIa'an wa-amsa ahlu-ha htamali akhna (alai-hi I-Iadhi akhnd 'ala lubadi

7 fa-'addi 'amma tara idh Id rtija'a la-hu wa-nmi I-qutuda "aid 'airanatin ujudi

8 maqdhuafatin bi-dakhisi n-nahdi bazilu-ha la-hu sarifun sarifa I-qa'wi bi-l-masadi

9 ka-anna rahli wa-qad zala n-naharu bi-na


yauma 1-jalili 'ala musta'nisin wa-hadi 10 min wahshi wajrata maushiyyin akaricu-hu

tawi 1-masiri ka-saifIS s-saiqali 1-faridi

la / ya hari (Z, 87, 10, 27); / ya cida (M, 2, 1); / bi-d-dari (Z, 17, 17, 2); I la d-daru (Z, 97, 17, 2); / a min suhaiyata (A, 40, 16, 1); / hallat khuwailatu

(M, 268, 2); / qalat sulaima (IQ, 121, 9, 2); cala 'alya'a mahziimu / (Alq, 113, 13, 50); al-a'da'u bi-r-rifadi / (N, 8, 5, 43); 'all I-a-dati (M, 240, 23); ila I-acda'i (M, 226, 4); min asma'i masriima // (MI, 847, 1); min asma'i ma Caliqa / (Z, 84, 9, 1); bi-l-jaradi / (N, 7, 5, 30); bi-l-masadi (N, 6, 5, 8); bi-safadi / (N, 8, 5, 48); bi-z-zabadi / (N, 8, 5, 44);

lb // tulqa l-buruidu calai-ha (M, 293, 81); // yarshui t-tijara calai-ha (M, 849, 9); ghadira l-maciku / (Z, 87, 16, 28); hb'ifi 1-bukari / (L, 59, 15, 33); aarimu dh-dhakaru / (L, 57, 15, 12); wahinan khalaqa / (Z, 82, 9, 3); wahinin khalaqin // (Z, 87, 10, 26).

2a / waqaftu usa,'ilu-ha naqati // (M, 355, 3); / waqaftu bi-ha usulan ma tabinu // li-sa'ili-ha (M, 837, 3); / waqaftu bi-ha (N, 30, 29, 3); / waqaftu bi-ha (M, 698, 9); / fa-waqaftu fl-hi kai usa'ilu-ha // (M, 827, 6).

2b / urdud yasaran (Z, 87, 10, 28); // anna yasaran (Z, 88, 13, 1); / abligh ziyadan (N, 15, 12, 1); / banat sucadu (M, 442, 1); / banat su'adu (M, 442, 1); aidi n-nac'mi (A, 41, 17, 2); / mithlu n-nacami (Z, 86, 10, 9); min ahadi / (N, 7, 5, 21); min baladin // (M, 323, 8); min jasadi (N, 7, 5, 37).

3a // illa d-dawabiha (M, 849, 11); // shummu l-caranini (N, 4, 2, 8); / shummu l-carAnini (N, 27, 27, 7); / wa-bi-l-fawarisi (Z, 89, 13, 4);// wa-la s-sanabiki (Alq, 113, 13, 48); / tahwi sanabiku (M, 725, 6); / fa-la'yan ma tabinu rusiimu darin (M, 342, 3); / fa-la'yan ma qaartu t-tarfa can-hum (M, 661, 5); tu'arriqu-hu // (N, 4, 2, 9).

3b nu'yu-ha (M, 743, 4); / wa-l-khailu (N, 27, 26, 12);/ /a-na asisun ka-jidhmi 1-haudi haddama-hu // (291, 73).

4a // akhna calai-ha (N, 6, 5, 6); // maddan calai-hi (N, 15, 11, 11); / shucthun Calai-ha (N, 4, 2, 8); / ~ubbat calai-hi (IQ, 121, 8, 2); wa-haiyaja-hu // (Alq, 112, 13, 20); haddama-hu // (M, 291, 73); ghaiyara-hu (L, 57, 15, 12).

4b // fatqa l-cashirati (M, 689, 5); / khazi t-tariqati (M, 288, 62); / shakka 1-farisati (N, 6, 5, 15); // can ir-riyasati (Z, 99, 17, 36); / amsat umamatu (M, 25, 1); / waddi' umamata (N, 16, 14, 1).

5a // wa-la sabila (N, 6, 5, 18); / bana l-khalitu (Z, 86, 10, 1); / inna l-khalitu (Z, 84, 9, 1); / raha l-qatinu (L, 55, 15, 1); // marra l-atiyyi (M, 559, 5); kana maktiima / (M, 847, 1); kana min khuluqin// (M, 321, 1); laisa yacsimu-ha,/1 (N, 27, 26, 9); laisa yudriku-hu // (M, 286, 56).

5b cala l-ashqaini masbuilu / (IQ, 121, 8, 2); can id-dafaini taftilu // (M, 274, 20); ila l-ka"baini tahjilu // (M, 276, 26); bi-shaffanin wa-surradi (M, 688, 3).

6a / amsat umamatu (c\I, 25, 1); / abui sira'an wa-amsa (Alq, 109, 9, 1); banat suc'du fa-amsa l-qalbu ma'muida // (M, 442, 1); / banat su'adu wa-amsa hablu-ha njadama // (N, 25, 23, 1); // wa-amsa hablu-ha (A, 49, 23, 1); / yauma l-wada'i fa-amsa r-rahnu (Z, 84, 9, 2); min ahli-ha aramu / (Z, 97, 17, 3); fa- htamalu // (Alq, 111, 13, 4); fa-htazamui / (Z, 98, 17, 21); wa-khtalafu // (NI, 724, 2); / bana l-khalitu wa-lam ya'wiu li-man tarakiu // (Z, 86, 10, 1).

6b auda sh-shababa l-ladhi (M, 226, 3); // batta tulaqi l-1adhi (M, 19, 25); / huwa l-jawadu l-ladhi (Z, 97, 17, 13); // inna shababa I-ldhi (M, 848, 5).

7a / fa-caddi (M, 180, 63); / fa-caddi can-ha (M, 270, 8); // habwa l-jawari tara fi (Z, 84, 9, 15); la anisa bi-ha // (M, 849, 11); la-fakaka la-hu // (Z, 84, 9, 2); la-kifa'a la-hu (N, 15, 11, 12); la kifa'a la-hu (N, 27, 26, 6).


7b // fa-nji fazara ill (N, 11, 2, 4); // shadda s-suruiia 'all (Z, 98, 17, 26); //illa I-qutuiu 'all (Z, 86, 10, 8); // inna 1-bala'a 'ala (IQ, 121, 8, 2); / tabni buyiitan 'ala (L, 59, 15, 3); 'all musta'nisin wa-hadi (N, 6, 5, 9).

8a / qarwa'a maqdhufatin bi-n-nahdi yash'afu-ha // (NI, 271, 11); // mashdu- datan bi-rihali 1-hiirati (N, M, 29); I/majnuinatan (M, 25, 1); // simakhu-ha bi-dakhisi r-rauqi (N, 16, 14, 11); c'limu-hum // (N, 25, 23, 11); satca'u khadi'atun// (Alq, 112, 13, 28); adma'a khadilatin // (Z, 84, 9, 5); waind'a najiyatin // (NM, 44, 30); zabba'a qaribatin // (A, 41, 17, 3); rakibu-ha / (N, 16; 14; 7); rakibu- hu // (Alq, 113, 13, 43).

8b qalili 1-wadqi (M, 242, 28); qarlra I-'aini (M, 445, 14); // sahla 1-fina'i rahiba 1-baci (M, 449, 9); / la-na a$iun (M, 291, 73).

9a / ka-anna caini wa-qad sila s-salilu bi-him // (Z, 97, 17, 8); / ka-anna Cainaiya (Z, 84, 9, 10); / ka-anna fa-ha (L, 56, 15, 9); / ka-anna khurtiima-ha (IQ, 156, 55, 12); // ka-anna quryana-hu (IQ, 155, 55, 10); ka-anna raci-na (NI, 29, 10); kaffu 1-walidi la-ha // (Z, 87, 10, 19); yuqa 1-bandnu bi-ha // (NM, 17, 19).

9b yauma 1-wada'i (IQ, 160, 65, 7); // yauma n-nimarati (N, 16, 14, 2). 10a // wa-ziba'a wajrata (L, M, 14);f/ /n taiyibi r-rahi (Z, 84, 9, 6); madriusin

madaficu-hu // (M, 242, 28); mahmiidun masaricu-hu II (L, 58, 15, 21; mankaban dawabiru-ha / (Z, 85, 9, 18); mankiiban dawabiru-ha /1 (Z, 98, 17, 15).

lOb / habi 1-marighi (M, 242, 28); ka-jidhmi 1-haudi (NI, 291, 73).

Chart V

Percentage of Identified Imru'al-Qais Formulas Found in:

(1) Pre-Islamic Poets a) Nabigha: 80 lines... . 1219 words .. 346 formulaic

words .. 28.38% b) 'Antara: 64 . 931 . 334 . 35.87% c) Tarafa: 103 . 1579 . 462 . 29.20%

Zuhair: 59 . 893 . 325 . 36.39% e) Imru' al-Qais: 144 . 2078 . 790 . 38.01% f) Labid: 124 . 1854 . 587 . 31.66% AVERAGE: 574 . 8554 . 2844 . 33.24%

(2) Modern Poets a) Abu Nuwas: 66 . 1090 . 99 . 9.08% b) Mutanabbi: 155 . 2539 . 242 . 9.53% c) Ibn Zaiduin: 83 . 1376 . 118 . 8.56% d) Al-Barudi: 44 . 695 . 67 . 9.64% AVERAGE: 348 . 5700 . 526 . 9.22%

Chart VI

Percentage of Identified Labid Formulas Found in: (1) Pre-Islamic Poets a) Nabigha: 60 lines.... 830 words.. 265 formulaic

words.. 31.92%' b) 'Antara: 70 ...... 981 ....... 263 .26.80% c) Tarafa: 36 .495 ...... 157 ....... 31.07%/O


d) Zuhair: 21 ........ 273 ........ 56 . 20.5 % e) Imru' al-Qais: 60 ........ 823 . 288 . 34.99% f) Labid: 78 ........ 1098 . 342 . 31.14%

(excluding rhyme formula) AVERAGE: 325 . 4500 . 1371 . 30.46%

(2) Modern Poets

a) Abfi Nuwas: 52 . 721 .83 . 11.5 % b) Mutanabbi: 143 . 2147 . 207 . 9.64% c) Ibn Zaiduin: 48 . 748. 67 . 8.95% d) Shauqi: 52 . 712. 71 . 9.97% AVERAGE: 299. 4328. 428 . 9.88%

JAMES T. MONROE

Oral composition in pre islam poetry

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