Again, she lamented him as follows: 

    “Each glorious rising sun brings Sakhr to my mind,
    I think anew of him when sets the orb of day;
    And had I not beheld the grief and sorrow blind
    Of many mourning ones o’er brothers snatched away,
    I should have slain myself, from deep and dark despair.”

The poet Nabighah erected for her a red leather tent at the fair of Okaz, in token of honor, and in the contest of poetry gave her the highest place above all but Maymun, saying to her, “If I had not heard him, I would say that thou didst surpass every one in poetry.  I confess that you surpass all women.”  To which she haughtily replied, “Not the less do I surpass all men.”

The following are among the famous lines of El Khunsa, which gave her the title of princess of Arab poetesses.  The translation I have made quite literal.

    “Ah time has its wonders; its changes amaze,
    It leaves us the tail while the head it slays;
    It leaves us the low while the highest decays;
    It leaves the obscure, the despised, and the slave,
    But of honored and loved ones, the true and the brave
    It leaves us to mourn o’er the untimely grave. 
    The two new creations, the day and the night,
    Though ceaselessly changing, are pure as the light: 
    But man changes to error, corruption and blight.”

The most ancient Arab poetess, Zarifeh, is supposed to have lived as long ago as the Second Century, in the time of the bursting of the famous dyke of Mareb, which devastated the land of Saba.  Another poetess, Rakash, sister of the king of Hira, was given in marriage, by the king when intoxicated, to a man named Adi.

Alas, in these days the Moslem Arabs do not wait until blinded by wine, to give their daughters in marriage to strangers.  I once overheard two Moslem young men converging in a shop, one of whom was about to be married.  His companion said to him, “have you heard anything about the looks of your betrothed?” “Not much,” said he, “only I am assured that she is white.”

In a book written by Mirai ibn Yusef el Hanbali, are the names of twenty Arab women who improvised poetry.  Among them are Leila, Leila el Akhyaliyeh, Lubna, Zeinab, Afra, Hind, May, Jenub, Hubaish, Zarifeh, Jemileh, Remleh, Lotifeh, and others.  Most of the verses ascribed to them are erotic poetry of an amatory character, full of the most extravagant expressions of devotion of which language is capable, and yet the greater part of it hardly bearing translation.  It reminds one strikingly of Solomon’s Song, full of passionate eloquence.  And yet in the poetry of El Khunsa and others, which is of an elegiac character, there are passages full of sententious apothegms and proverbial wisdom.

CHAPTER II.

STATE OF WOMEN IN THE MOHAMMADAN WORLD.

Our knowledge of the position of women among the Mohammedans is derived from the Koran, Moslem tradition, and Moslem practice.