if incorrect, these angels beat the corpse upon his temples with iron maces, until he roars out for anguish so loudly that he is heard by all from east to west, except by men and jinn.  Abu’l-Ala had little confidence in these two angels; he reminds one of St. Catherine of Sienna, a visionary with uncommon sense, who at the age of eight ran off one afternoon to be a hermit.  She was careful to provide herself with bread and water, fearing that the angels would forget to bring her food, and at nightfall she ran home again because she was afraid her parents would be anxious.  With regard to the angel of death, Avicenna has related that the soul, like a bird, escapes with much trouble from the snares of earth (quatrain 43), until this angel delivers it from the last of its fetters.  We think of the goddess Ran with her net.  Death is imagined (quatrain 44) as a fowler or fisher of men, thus:  “Do kam der Tot als ein diep, und stal dem reinen wibe daz leben uz ir libe."[10]

On account of its brilliance a weapon’s edge (quatrain 46) has been compared in Arab poetry with sunlit glass, with the torch of a monk, with the stars and with the flame in a dark night.  Nor would an Arab turn to picturesque comparisons in poetry alone.  Speaking of a certain letter, Abu’l-Ala assures the man who wrote it that “it proceeds from the residence of the great doctor who holds the reins of prose and verse” (quatrain 50).  Now with regard to glass, it was a very ancient industry among the Arabs.  In the second century of the Hegira it was so far advanced that they could make enamelled glass and unite in one glass different colours.  A certain skilled chemist of the period was not only expert in these processes (quatrain 52), but even tried to make of glass false pearls, whereon he published a pamphlet.

Death, from being a silent messenger who punctually fulfilled his duty, became a grasping, greedy foe (quatrain 56).  In the Psalms (xci. 3-6) he comes as a hunter with snares and arrows.  Also “der Tot wil mit mir ringen."[11] In ancient times Death was not a being that slew, but simply one that fetched away to the underworld, a messenger.  So was the soul of the beggar fetched away by angels and carried into Abraham’s bosom.  An older view was the death-goddess, who receives the dead men in her house and does not fetch them.  They are left alone to begin the long and gloomy journey, provided with various things.[12] “Chacun remonte a son tour le calvaire des siecles.  Chacun retrouve les peines, chacun retrouve l’espoir desespere et la folie des siecles.  Chacun remet ses pas dans les pas de ceux qui furent, de ceux qui lutterent avant lui contre la mort, nierant la mort,—­sont morts"[13] (quatrain 57).  It is the same for men and trees (quatrain 59).  This vision of Abu’l-Ala’s is to be compared with Milton’s “men as trees walking,” a kind of second sight, a blind man’s pageant.  In reference to haughty folk, an Arab proverb says