praising caliphs and kings, and moving through the various provinces of his native land.
He was born in Āmid and died in the month of Ṣafar, 543 AH. Al-ʿImād, however, says it was 546.
Among his verses in which he portrays the cheetah are these lines:
From every (1) gaunt savage whose anger shows outright,
Who has flung aside all modesty—grim-faced and ill-tempered;
And since they have nicknamed the sun “the Gazelle,” she has (2)
Bestowed on the fawn a body of her own dazzling hue;
Then, as a gift (3) from the gentleness of her rays (4), she sprinkled him with spots,
So that on the pathways of death the desert ewes appear in his pupils;
Such is he, yet neither of them ever reveals itself
Peaceably at his side to a beholder except in fear (5).
In the same period al-Ṣūrī the lamp-maker, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad, composed:
Broad-clawed (6) is he; in his jaws and in his paws
Flashes the stroke of keen swords and heavy, stabbing spears (7);
Night and day vied with one another over him,
So they clothed him in a cloak woven of black eyes (spots);
And the sun, since they called her (8) “the Gazelle,” has
Never appeared to his watcher except in trepidation (9).
(1) Wafayat al-Aʿyan records the word as “wakul.” The term al-aharat designates a person with an unusually wide mouth.
(2) The adjective abyad yaqq—pronounced with the middle letter vocalised, like katif—means “dazzling white.” Wafayat al-Aʿyan reads “hasadan” (out of envy) instead of the manuscript’s “jasadan” (in body).
(3) The manuscript has ḥayaʾ (modesty); we follow Wafayat al-Aʿyan in correcting it.
(4) Wafayat al-Aʿyan reads: “so that he might placate her.” The expression naʿāj al-raml refers to wild cattle (oryx).
(5) These verses are cited in Wafayat al-Aʿyan, 3/392. Ibn Khallikan says they belong to a superb qaṣida that opens:
hiya l-mawāridu bayna s-saḥri wa-l-ḥadaqi * fard danān al-manāyā mawridu l-inaqi
wa-aṭyabu l-ʿayshi mā tajnihi min taʿabin * wa-aʿdhabu sh-shurbi mā yaṣfū min ar-ranaqi
“The watering-places lie between sleeplessness and vigilant eyes; the goblets of death are offered one by one to the long-necked. The sweetest life is what you harvest after toil, and the most delightful drink is that which is free from dregs.”
(6) The manuscript reads al-barāthīn; we adopt the correction from Wafayat al-Aʿyan.
(7) Wafayat al-Aʿyan has: “what lies in the sharp swords.” al-ʿasāla is the plural of ʿassāl; a spear so described is flexible and supple. al-dhubl is the plural of dhābil; such a spear is slender and tightly bound at the joint.
(8) Wafayat al-Aʿyan reads: “leave it.”
(9) The verses are also found in Wafayat al-Aʿyan, 3/393.