RITUAL AND SACRIFICIAL ELEMENTS IN THE POETRY OF BLOOD-VENGEANCE: TWO POEMS BY DURAYD IBN AL-SIMMAH AND MUHALHIL IBN

RABICAH*
Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych, University of Chicago

N another study of blood-vengeance in early Arabic poetry I have proposed an analysis of the poem known as the of Ta'abbata Sharran" on the basis of "Ritha the tripartite paradigm of the rite of passage.' Taking as the theoretical foundation the works of H. Lammens on blood-vengeance in the Jahiliyyah, A. van Gennep and others on the rites of passage, and H. Hubert and M. Mauss on sacrifice,2 I attempted to demonstrate that blood-vengeance, as perceived as a social code and encoded in poetry, exhibits a tripartite pattern that corresponds to the rite of passage and of sacrifice and, further, that it displays the chiastic (abba) progression characteristic of such rites. The poetry of blood-vengeance takes as its metaphorical meat images of blood and its tropical equivalents-wine, perfume, etc.-and operates extensively with imagery appropriate to the commensal meal or tribal feast. The taking of bloodvengeance is perceived and poetically expressed as an act of nourishing and revitalizing the kin, while concomitantly depleting and devitalizing the enemy. My intention in the present study is to apply these initial findings to two other early Arabic poems that take blood-vengeance as their theme: "Macshar Has Been Deserted of Its People" attributed to Durayd ibn al-Simmah; and "O Night of Ours at Dhi Husum" by Muhalhil ibn Rabicah (Asmaciyyah, no. 53). In doing so, I hope first to substantiate the theoretical proposals of my earlier work and, further, to demonstrate the poet's power to draw upon an extensive store of images from the classical Arabic poetic tradition in such a way as to situate the poem of blood-vengeance, both semantically and formally, within the boundaries of the classical qasTdah-form. Undoubtedly the most famous poem of blood-vengeance in the pre-Islamic poetic of Ta'abbata Sharran."3 It is obscure as to legacy is the semi-anonymous "Ritha attribution and provenance, and, devoid of proper names (except for the placebeing name Salc) and of the intimate aura of akhbar, its tremendous impact derives rather
[JNES 45 no. 1 (1986)] @ 1986 The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0022-2968/86/4501-0003$51.00. in Egypt in New York, April 1985. 1 See my forthcoming article, "The Rithi' of Ta'abbata Sharran: A Study of Blood-Vengeance in Early Arabic Poetry," Journal of Semitic Studies. 2 Henri Lammens, "Le Caractbre religieux du iar ou vendetta chez les Arabes pr6islamites,"BIFA0 26 (1926): 83-127; Arnold van Gennep, The,Rites of Passage, trans., M. V. Vizedom and G. L. Caffee (1909; Chicago, 1969); Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss, Sacrifice: Its Nature and Functions, trans., W. D. Halls (Chicago, 1964) ("Essai sur la nature et la fonction du sacrifice," L'Anndesociologique, 1898, pp. 29-138). 3 Hamasiyyah, no. 273, Abi CAli Ahmad ibn alHasan al-MarzqTi, Sharh DTwan al-Hamasah, 4 vols., ed. Ahmad Amin and CAbdal-Salam Hirin (Cairo, 1968), vol. 2, pp. 827-39.

Funding for the research on this study was provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities through the American Schools of Oriental Research, 1983-84. 1 would like to express my gratitude to the American Center for Oriental Research, Amman, Jordan, and to the Faculty of Arabic Literature of Yarmouk University, Irbid, Jordan, for the use of their facilities during that year. A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the American Research Center

31

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JOURNAL OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES

from its being an abstracted and impersonal expression of the JahilTethos of bloodvengeance. The two poems to be treated in the present study are, by contrast, replete with proper names, and, in the medieval compendia of Arabic poetry and lore, firmly ascribed and situated in what purports to be their historical setting. Thus the akhbar among which the poems are set serve both to explicate and complement the ash 'ar. In the case of Durayd ibn al-Simmah, the anecdotes in the Kitab al-AghanT4 concerning his avenging his brothers and his accession to the chieftainship of the Bani Jusham demonstrate the function of the institution of blood-vengeance as a rite of initiation or passage from boyhood to manhood and reveal the Oedipal tensions of which the taking of blood-vengeance is both an expression and outlet. Durayd's elder brother CAbd Allah had inherited the chieftainship of the Bani Jusham from his father. Thus, the Oedipal tensions involved here are in the form of sibling rivalry, for it is only through his elder brother that Durayd can accede to the chieftainship. The frustrated ambitions of the younger brother and his resentment of the elder brother form the crux of an anecdote about the battle of the Banii CAmir ibn Sacsacah and the Bani Jusham against Asad and Ghatafin. 'Abd Allah, having made a pact with his ally Shara7hil to share the booty, refuses to appoint Durayd as a leader, lest he have to share with him, and appoints him instead as an auxiliary. When it appears that CAbd Allah has been slain, Durayd persuades Sharahil to swear a similar pact with him. No sooner is this oath sworn at the idol Dhi al-Khalasah than CAbd Allah returns with herds of plundered livestock. Durayd demands his share, but considers that since CAbd Allah is not dead after all, his pact with Durayd is not Shar.hTl binding.5 Thus for Durayd, all that stands between him and manhood (full participation in battle, chieftainship, and booty) is his elder brother. At the day of al-Liwa, a cattle raid undertaken by CAbd Allah against Durayd's advice but with which the latter nevertheless goes along, CAbd Allah is, in fact, finally slain. As the akhbar themselves make clear, however, it is not merely his elder brother's death that marks Durayd's accession to the chieftainship of the Bani Jusham but his avenging that death. An anecdote related in the Kitab al-AghanTon the authority of Ibn al-Kalbi shows Durayd somewhat reluctant and dilatory in avenging his brother and asserting his manhood: Karibsaid to Durayd,"My son, if you are unableto [Durayd'smother]Rayhanahbint MacdT seek vengeancefor your brother,then seek help from your maternaluncle and his band of This made him ashamed,so he swore not to put on kohl, anoint himself,eat meat or Zubayd." drink wine until he had taken his vengeance.Then he carried out the raid [of the day of GhadTr], broughther [the captive]Dhu'db ibn Asmd', and slew him in her courtyard, saying, "HaveI broughtyou whatyou wanted?" she replied,"andI am pleasedwithyou."6 "Yes," Durayd is ashamed because his mother's suggestion impugns his manhood. Rayh~nah is telling Durayd that he must either accept the obligations and prerogatives of manhood or else relinquish them to the older generation (her brother), that is, he must remain a child. The youth then takes up the challenge of proving his manhood
4Abil al-Faraj al-lsbahdnT, Kitab al-AghanT, ed. IbrahTm al-IbydrT (Cairo, 1969), vol. 10, pp. 3467-3504. 5 Ibid., p. 3479. 6 Ibid., p. 3477.

THE POETRY OF BLOOD-VENGEANCE

33

through avenging his brother according to the prescribed (ritual) pattern: he swears an oath to forego those things that are signs of membership in society (haldl) and upon achieving his vengeance re-enters society once more, now with the status of adult and chief.7 In both form and function the taking of blood-vengeance fits the ritual paradigm posited earlier. In terms of the rite of passage, it exhibits the tripartite structure and results in a change of social status: (1) the separation of the youth from society is marked by the oath, whereby the poet enters (2) the marginal taboo state until, with the slaying of the captive, he signals (3) his re-entry (aggregation) into society, now with the status of an adult. The manner in which the victim is slain is, more than other stories of blood-vengeance, quite explicitly a sacrifice. The three phases defined by Hubert and Mauss-(1) entry into the sacrifice, (2) sacrifice, and (3) exit from the sacrifices--are marked by the oath of renunciation of society (that is, of its symbols), the slaying of the victim, and the resumption of societal participation. Furthermore, inasmuch as the act of avenging his brother fulfills an obligation that the poet has been shirking, this example admirably fits the definition of Hubert and Mauss: "Sacrifice is a religious act which, through the consecration of a victim, modifies the condition of the moral person who accomplishes it."9 The poem which I have proposed to discuss is itself associated with the Day of GhadTron which Durayd avenged his brother. In the Kitab al-AghanTit is introduced as follows: After his brotherCAbd Allah had been slain, Duraydibn al-Simmahset out on a raid against the [Banf] Ghatafin seekingto avengehis blood. He visitedthem clan by clan, killingSicidah ibn Murr of the Bani cAbs and capturing Dhu'db ibn Asmi' ibn Zayd ibn Qarib (it was who capturedhim). Then the Bani Jushamsaid, "Why actually Murrahibn cAwfal-JushamT don't we ransom him?"But Durayd would not stand for this and instead slew him for his brotherCAbd Allah. Then of the Bani Fazarah,he slew a man namedHizdmand some of his brothers,as well as a numberof the Bani Murrah,the BaniiThaclabah ibn Sacd, and the clans of Ghatafdn; and that was on the day of GhadTr. this battle Concerning day and those slain on it he recited:

L"l

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I "

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ij

I .;J~.
4

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"

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Li

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7 See Johannes Pedersen, Der Eid hbei den Semiten in seinem Verhiiltnis zu verwandten Erscheinungen sowie die Stellung des Eides im Islam (Strasbourg,

1914). 8 Hubert and Mauss, Sacrifice, pp. 19-49. 9 Ibid., p. 13.

34

JOURNAL OF NEAR EASTERNSTUDIES

WL
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LYL

r)

1. Macshar has been deserted of its people, Then Jaww Suwayqah and then al-Asfar, 2. From the bend in the WadTof until al-Wasita fixed abode. One was a bedouin camp; the other, al-I.ulayf 3. So tell the Banfi Sulaym and those gathered round them, And perhaps the greatest lineage will incline [an ear], 4. That I have avenged your brothers, When before it was as though I had betrayed them. 5. At morn we gave the brown spears a draught of the Fazarah; Banfi Go easy, Fazarah, do not grieve (grumble at being milked). 6. And say to the Bani Mazin, in person, "What good is a threat if you don't enforce it? 7. "For if you slay a lone band of young warriors, Marked for death, or if you vanquish them, 8. "[Know] that Hizam lies fallen on the battlefield And over his brothers buzzards hover. 9. "And [that] on the day that Yazid of the Bani Ndshib [fell] And before him your Yazid the Elder, 10. "We stirred up the cry for help among the Banif Ndshib And the kin of Laqit; so do not boast. 1. I "The hyenas drag off their limbs and get pregnant on them; They lie, even now, unburied."'0 This short poem of blood-vengeance is striking for its opening image, that most traditional of the opening motifs of the classical qasTdah, the abandoned campsite (atldl). What is remarkable in this case is that this otherwise lyric, nostalgic, or melancholic motif (as we see it, for example, in the Mucallaqah of Imru' al-Qays or
76.
1OAl-Isbahani,

Kitab al-AghanT,vol. 10, pp. 3475-

THE POETRY OF BLOOD-VENGEANCE

35

the Mucallaqah of Labid)" assumes an eery polysemy in the poem of bloodvengeance. We read it first as the melancholy musings of the poet-lover over the ruins of the abandoned dwelling of a long-lost mistress. We must keep in mind, too, that the classical atfll-motif has a tragic as well as nostalgic or lyric element and further, when taken together with the Qur'dnic lore of c'Ad and Thamiid, a moral one. Perhaps the devastation in Durayd's poem is then the devastation of treachery (as suggested by line 4), of the social dissolution that would be the inevitable result of the failure to avenge kindred blood. Such a reading would associate the image of abandonment and desertion with the common metaphor for unavenged blood, that is, thirst or drought.12 However, when we read the two opening lines in the more specific context of the khabar (itself apparently drawn from the poem) that accompanies it in the Kitab alAghanT and of the boastful declaration of vengeance achieved that comprises the remainder of the poem, the image takes on a curious bivalency: it seems to describe the devastation that the poet has wreaked on the Bani Ghataf~n. An examination of the toponyms in this poem reveals an etymological, that is, semantic rather than geographical, significance. Macshar (literally a party or band of of a root whose meanings encompass men) is the noun of place or masdar mTmT social intercourse, kinship (specifically cognation), and tribe. The friendship, intimacy, concept of desertion and abandonment thus receives a rhetorical emphasis in the first line through the tibaq (antithesis) between macshar, which suggests human society and habitation, and ta'abbada, which means to become wild and deserted (this is then merely another expression of the tibaq that commonly occurs in the atlal-motif, between anisa, "to be sociable, familiar, intimate," and ta'abbada). The place-names of the second hemistich are likewise suggestive: Jaww Suwayqah-the hollow of the little market-and al-Asfar-empty. The bend in dried-up riverbed of the little ally or covenant (IHulayf) and the mediator (al-Wasit) in line 2 refer in a similar way to the breakdown of the social order, i.e., the outbreak of war: the riverbed of alliance and mediation has dried up and been abandoned. Let us recall at this point that the image of the deserted encampment, the disintegration of tribal alliances and of the social order are all signs of separation, of the entry into the marginal state, the dangerous, polluted, and taboo medial phase of the rite of passage or sacrifice. It is not surprising then that they form the introduction to the theme of blood-vengeance. The remainder of the poem is divided into two parts, both in the form of an announcement or declaration, a message to be delivered. In the first part, lines 3 through 5, the poet instructs a messenger to announce to the kin group that their blood has been avenged. The pollution/ purification aspect of the blood-vengeance ritual finds expression here: the poet had been treacherous-as though an enemy rather than kin-until, by avenging his slain kinsman, he has re-established the bonds of fidelity and kinship. The verb sabaha (give a morning draught) in line 5 is bivalent due to the ambiguity of the two accusatives (indirect object and direct object): it first reads "we gave Fazerah a draught of the brown spears (i.e., death)," but also "we gave
II Imru' al-Qays, Mucallaqah, 11. 1-6; LabTd, Mucallaqah, 11. 1-11 in AbN Bakr Muhammad ibn al-Qrsim al-Anbari, Sharh al-Qasa-'id al-Sabc aled. CAbd al-Salam Muhammad Tiwal al-Jdthiliyyiat, Hartin (Cairo, 1969), pp. 15-27, 517-29.
12 See, for no. 107, 1. 11; example, Mufa4ddaliyyah, in al-Mufaddal al-Dabbi, al-Mufaddaliyyit, ed. Ahmad Muhammad Shdkir and CAbd al-Salam Hdrfn (Cairo, n.d.), p. 364.

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JOURNAL OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES

the brown spears a draught (of the blood) of Fazarah." Both metaphors are widely used in such poetry.3 In this case I have preferred the second, since the verb that I have translated as grieve (dajira) also means to grumble at being milked (said of a she-camel, Lane): the concept that blood-vengeance depletes the vital forces of the enemy while it nourishes and revitalizes the kin is thus given expression. The announcement to be made to the kin is then complemented by the message to the enemy, thereby presenting the two complementary sides of the blood-vengeance dialectic: the purification, revitalization of the kin (lines 3 through 5) and the concomitant pollution, devitalization of the enemy (lines 6 through 11). The argument of lines 7 through 9 is a familiar one in the poetry of blood-vengeance: if you shed (or have shed) our blood, we have shed yours.14 The enemy dead are enumerated and the pollution of their corpses expressed in images that are familiar-if not indeed obligatory-in the poetry of blood-vengeance.15 As I have argued elsewhere, the vultures that glut themselves on the flesh and blood of those fallen in battle are an expression of both the defilement of the corpses of the enemy and their devitalization. Longevity is, in poetry, the most common attribute of the vulture, and it would appear that the blood, the liquid life-force upon which it feeds, is the source of its long life. The image of the vultures, then, expresses the diverting of this life-stream from the enemy lineage to these scavengers, or perhaps, if we are to accept the interpretation I have proposed earlier, that the vulture may be, like the owl, an image of the soul of the deceased kinsman or of the ancestral souls of the clan, the diversion of this lifeforce from the enemy to the kin group.16 The closing line of the poem adds, for most of us, a new dimension to the expression "to violate a corpse." The hyenas in this poem do not merely feast on the corpses of the dead but couple with them. This rather unfair advantage that the female hyenas take of the fallen warriors once rigor mortis has set in is described in detail by in Kitaib and al-Nuwayri in Nihayat al-Arab.17 Our concern, is semiotic rather than however, al-J.hiz al-.Hayawin prurient. This image should surely be analogous to that of the vultures devouring the corpses of the slain, that is, the image of the hyenas impregnating themselves on the corpses is the expression of the diversion of yet another life-giving liquid, semen, from the enemy to propagate, instead of enemy progeny, this polluted and polluting species. It should be noted, too, that the image of the hyena in the poetry of blood-vengeance comprises a diametrical opposition to the nawd'ih (wailing women) in rithi' (elegy): female feasting and fertility in celebration of the death of the enemy as opposed to female mourning and infertility in commemoration of the dead kinsman.
13 E.g., HamasiJI'ah, no. 273, 1. 20, al-MarzfqT, Sharh DTwan al-Hamasah, vol. 2, p. 836; Asmaciyyah, no. 53, 1. 7, p. 40 below. 14 Its converse is also found: see Hamdsiv'vahno: 273, 1. 17, al-MarzfqT, Sharh DTwdnal-Hamdsah, vol. 2, p. 835. 15For a discussion of excarnation of predators in the ancient Mediterranean tradition generally and of dogs and birds "feasting" on humiliated corpses in Homeric epic, see Emily Vermeule, Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Poetrjy (Berkeley, 1979) pp. 46-48.
16 See again my forthcoming article "The Rithd' of Ta'abbata Sharran." 17Aba cUthman cAmr ibn Bahr Kitab al-Hayawan, ed. CAbd al-Salam Muhammad al-J.hiz, Hdron (Cairo, 1967), vol. 6, pp. 50-51. Shihab al-Din Ahmad ibn CAbd al-Wahhib al-Nuwayri, Nihayat al-Arab ft Funtin al-Adab, (Cairo, 1964), vol. 9, no. 70, 1. 22 for a p. 274. See also Asmacilah, description of hyenas as brides, Aba SacTd CAbd al-Malik ibn Qurayb ibn CAbdal-Malik al-Asmaci, al-Asmacilyat, ed. Ahmad Muhammad Shakir and CAbdal-Saldm HdrOn(Cairo, 1968), p. 206.

THE POETRY OF BLOOD-VENGEANCE

37

At this point, we can begin to perceive how the poem of blood-vengeance fits into the nasTb-rahTl-fakhr The use of the aftlal-motif in pattern of the classical qasTdah.'B Durayd's poem already establishes a metaphorical link between this poem and the standard qasTdah-form. I should then like to suggest that whereas the standard qasTdahmost often exhibits a marginal phase in the form of the desert journey and an aggregation phase in the form of the hunt (e.g., the Mucallaqah of Imru3 al-Qays),'9 the feast (the Mu allaqah of Labid),20the celebration of the bounty and fertility of the tribe and its life-sustaining and life-propagating forces, the poem of blood-vengeance expresses marginality in the anathema, anti-social state (the 'ihraim)21 of the avenger and signals his reaggregation or re-entry through the slaying (sacrifice) of his victim. What is then described in the feasting and copulating of the vultures and hyenas is not, in a direct way, the abundance and propagation of the poet's tribe, but its obverse, the deprivation and diversion of the life-forces of the enemy. Thus there is a symmetrically inverse relation between the rite of sacrifice (commensal meal)-the slaying of an animal victim to revitalize the kin group-and the rite of blood-vengeance--the slaying of a human victim to devitalize the enemy: they are two sides of the same coin. Furthermore, just as blood-vengeance is a subclass of sacrifice,22so too I would argue that the poem of blood-vengeance is a subcategory of the classical qasTdah.In both we find the progression from an image of loss, drought, and desertion by way of separation and sacrifice (the hunt, the commensal feast, the enemy slain) to a final image of congregation, feasting, and fertility (in one by the revitalized kin, in the other by scavenger beasts). The juxtaposition or interweaving of these two diametrically opposed images in the same poem stems from the fact that they are complementary and ultimately convey the same message: the necessity of the survival and propagation of the kin group. Before proceeding to the second poem, I would like to discuss briefly the epistolary formula of this and other poems, the apostrophic " abligh" (tell, inform). This should serve to remind us of the function of poetry in the Jahiliyyah: it was indeed "the dTwin of the Arabs," their archive or register. Thus we find in this poem and in others a certification documenting the accomplishment of blood-vengeance and, with the careful enumeration of names, a balancing of the books. As Lammens's remarks on the relation of the poem of blood-vengeance to the act of taking vengeance itself would suggest,23 the act only becomes "official" or "officially recognized" through the poem. Given this function, we can begin to understand that poetry was above all mnemonic both in its purpose and its composition. This would go far in explaining the features that characterize--indeed define-poetry as opposed to prose: they are
18 The rite of passage pattern as exhibited in the classical Arabic qasTdah is discussed in my articles "Structuralist Interpretations of Pre-Islamic Poetry: Critique and New Directions," JNES 42 (1983): 98-107; and "Al-QaSTdahal-'Arabiyyah wa-Tuqas al-cUbor: Dirdsah fT al-Naqd al-Namadhaji," Majallat Majmac al-Lughah al-Arabivyah biDimashq 60 (1985): 55-85. 19See the Mucallaqah of Imru' al-Qays, 11.53, 63-68, al-AnbirT, Sharh al-Sabc, pp. 82, al-Qasdtid 92-97. 20 See the Mucallaqah of LabTd,11. 73-77, ibid.,

pp. 588-91. 21Lammens, "Le Caractbrereligieux du tar," pp. 85-86; Joseph Chelhod, Le Sacrificechez les Arabes:Recherches sur l'evolution,la natureet la fonction des rites sacrificiels en Arabie Occidentale (Paris, 1955),p. 101. 22Lammens, "Le Caractere religieux du tar," p. 115; Chelhod, Le Sacrifice chez les Arabes, pp. 100-104, 116-20; and my article"TheRithd' of Ta'abbataSharran," passim. 23Lammens, "Le Caractere religieux du Lar," pp. 108-10.

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mnemonic devices to assure the stability of the text and the preservation of the underlying message in a society in which such messages or documents were not preserved in writing. Rhyme, meter, the sequential, and, I would argue, archetypal patterning of well-known images, rhetorical devices (especially tibiq and jinis), the condensation of expression, and the reiteration of the same message through a variety of metaphors-all of these are mnemonic in origin and function, that is, means to insure that the underlying message is not lost. The juxtaposition of medieval literary with modern anthropological theory will perhaps shed some light on the character of poetry in tribal society and its ritual function. Of the socio-political role of poetry in the J~ihiliyyah,Ibn RashTqstates: The Arabsneededto sing about the nobilityof theircharacter, the purityof theirblood, and to recalltheir good battledays and far-awayabodes, their bravehorsemenand compliantsteeds,
in order to incite themselves to nobility and direct their sons toward good character . . . . to

memorable theirhonor,guardthe tribeand inspirethe awe of it in deeds,strengthen perpetuate othertribes,since otherswould not advanceagainstthemfor fear of theirpoet.24 Burkert gives the definition and function of ritual as follows: Since the work of Sir Julian Huxley and Konrad Lorenz, biology has defined ritual as a behaviouralpatternthat has lost its primaryfunction--presentin its unritualized model-but which persists in a new function, that of communication.... This communicating function reveals the two basic characteristics of ritual behaviour, namely, repetitionand theatrical immutable do not transmit differentiated and complex exaggeration.For the essentially patterns informationbut, rather,just one piece of information each. This single piece of information is considered so important that it is reinforced so as to avoid misunderstandby constantrepetition is thus more importantthan what is understood. ing or misuse. The fact of understanding Aboveall, then, ritualcreatesand affirmssocial interaction.25 Applying these remarks then to poems such as the one we are discussing, I would like to suggest that whereas the original function of the poem may have been merely to inform kin and enemy alike that vengeance has been taken, the literary or ritual function of the poem, that is, the reason that it is preserved and reiterated, is to communicate information vital to the survival of the kin group. The message that we find in the poetry of blood-vengeance so precisely stated in terms of theme, structure, and a variety of images and metaphors, is that kindred blood must be avenged in order to revitalize the kin and devitalize the enemy. If we accept the application of Burkert's definition of ritual to this body of poetry, it will point out to us what we should have already known, that the genius of poetry lies not in the ultimate message that it conveys-for the message is largely the same-but, rather, in the mode or manner of conveying that message in a way that is striking and indelible-the conciseness of meaning, the power of the metaphor. It should be added at this point that in the case of early Arabic poetry we need not always posit an original epistolary function for each poem. The " abligh" and "ya rakiban" may often be no more than a
literary conceit, albeit hearkening back to the actual earlier function of poetry.26 24Ibn Rashiq al-Qayrawdni, Al-cUmdah fiT al-Shicrwa-Adiabih 2 vols.,ed. Mahizsin wa-Naqdih, MuhammadMuhyT al-Din cAbdal-Hamid(Beirut, 1972),vol. 1, pp. 22, 82. 25Walter Burkert,Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Ritual and Myth, trans. Peter Bing (1973; Berkeley, 1983), p. 23. 26 On the early Arabic poem as announcement and missive, see Alfred Bloch, "Qasida," Suisse d'Etudes Etudes asiatiques: Revue de la SocietW

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39

The second poem dealt with in this paper is from Harb al-Basils, the forty-year war between Bakr and Taghlib that was set off by the slaying of a she-camel. The poem is said to have been written by Muhalhil ibn Rabicah to commemorate his avenging the death of his overweening brother Kulayb Wd'il at the hands of his cousin (ibn camm) Jassas ibn Murrah.

S P1''

ma m o wee

LL4L

fth I '"" 4.i- ~.a ButA -[. Ae1i how tio

0

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0040

Sometimes a shortnight may makeone weep.

1.

night of ours atDhe i Husum, give way to day

Whenyou haveendanad do not return.

5. left Bujayr at [the water atths

of] Waridoat In blood like compound perfume. It would cool his weeping eye-

4. Of the day two Shacthams [werecut short],

In

blood

like

compound

perfume.

Meaning: Arabic Lyricism in a Formal Tradition,

2(1948): 117-22.On the epistolary Asiatiques aspect chap. 2 (forthcoming).A strikingexample of this of the classical Arabic qasidah-form,see Jaroslav type of poem is Asmaciyyah, no. 29 by Duraydibn Stetkevych, From Form and Content to Mood and al-Simmah, al-Asmacivyyt, pp. 1 1-13.

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ibn Murrah 6. And we left Hammam Withtwo ancientvulturesabove him. 7. We gave al-Wukhima morningdraughton a day of evil, withtheirthroats. As they wardedoff the spearheads 8. As if we, in the earlymorning,and our father'ssons In CUnayzah'shollow Weretwo millstones grinding. 9. Wereit not for the wind,the peopleof Hajrwouldhaveheard The clankingof casquesstruckby steel.27 Like Durayd's poem, this short piece by Muhalhil opens with an image familiar from the classical nasTb:the poet-lover waiting through the seemingly endless night. Here the image is reconstructed as a rithci': the death of the brother takes the place of the departure of the mistress and evokes the same sense of loss and separation; the slain brother's grave stands in the place of the atlil, the ruined encampments of the poet's beloved, and is haunted, as they are, by the melancholia of the irrevocable past. The poet in line 2 alludes to the irony of the lover's night, that the length of the night of separation from his beloved makes him weep, but so too does the shortness of the night of union. Muhalhil's rhetorical query in line 4 is none other than that of Labid in his Mucallaqah:28

Then I stoppedto question[the ruins]But how do we questionthe [rocks]muteand ageless, Whosewordsare obscured? Let us note too that the same sibling rivalry with its Oedipal overtones that was at work in the case of Durayd and his elder brother is alluded to in this poem, when, in line 3, the poet refers to himself as zTr,a flirt, a dandy, "one who mixes with women to talk to them, without evil intent."29 According to the commentaries, Muhalhil's brother Kulayb once censured him, saying, "You are a visitor of women (zTr alnisi')."30 It is an expression of the ambivalent Oedipal attachment that love and resentment mingle in the younger brother's desire to prove himself, his manhood, to his slain elder brother by avenging his death. Further, if we recall that such innocent womanizing is an adolescent attribute, it becomes apparent in this case, too, that we are dealing with a rite of passage pattern, the transition from boyhood with its frivolous sport and innocent coquetry to manhood and tribal chieftainship marked by blood-vengeance, blood-sacrifice, on the field of battle.3"Thus, as in Durayd's case, the taking of blood-vengeance serves to transfer Oedipal violence outside the kin
27 Asmacivyah, no. 53 by Muhalhil ibn Rabi'ah, al-Asmaci,tit, pp. 154-55. 28The Mucallaqah of Labid, 1. 10, al-Anbari, Sharh al-Qasa'idal-Sabc, p. 528. 29 Al-AsmaCivyat, p. 154. 30 Ibid.; Abfi al-'Abbas Muhammad ibn Yazid alMubarrad, al-Kamil ft al-Lughah wa al-Adab, 2 vols. (Beirut, n.d.), vol. 1, p. 360. 31 See the poem by Muhalhil's niece, Umamah bint Kulayb, that begins: 1. Do you delight in diversions and wine Unaware of the course of events? 2. Do you not know that Kulayb lies slain In broad daylight by the treacherous Jassas?

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(although in the case of Bakr and Taghlib, not far enough), establishing in its place a ritual exchange of violence. The remainder of the poem exhibits the symmetrical opposition, expressed by rhetorical means as well as through the imagery, between the devitalization of the enemy and the revitalization of the kin. The ear is alerted to the morphological parallelism of the quadriliteral duals al-shacthamdn (line 4) and al-qash camdn or -ayn (line 6). The two share three of their four radicals, thus forming a jinas naqis. Furthermore, the etymology of shactham reveals an underlying tibiq (antithesis) between the two, the meaning of which is the crux of the poem of vengeance: the enemy slain bear the name Shactham,32 the root of which, sh-c-th, means unkempt, unanointed, defiled, a typical epithet of the liminal youth (one in a state of 'ih-rim and thus under oath not to comb or wash his hair) and includes among its meanings "to cut (short)," whereas the vultures, an expression of the now-avenged (and hence reaggregate) souls of dead kin, bear the epithet, qash am (long-lived, advanced in years). The semiotics of proper names is apparent too in the place where vengeance is achieved: Waridat (line 5) means "paths to water," whereas the place where Kulayb fell or lies buried, 2 and 3), means ends, extremities, the dried-up ends al-DhanIib (lines of a streambed, where fertility first fails. These place-names are otherwise attested in the commentaries and the accounts of the battle days,33 but surely this all-too-telling etymological appropriateness is no mere accident. If we return to Durayd's poem, we see that Muhalhil's is not unique in this respect. For Durayd's brother CAbd Allah fell on the day of al-Liwa, "the winding sand-dune," a "locus classicus" for liminal events (the trysting-place of illicit lovers, of Ta'abbata Sharran and the Ghll) with its semiotic association with barrenness and instability; he avenged his brother on the day of al-GhadTr-"a pool left by rain, a pond."34 This then is yet another expression of the metaphor found very commonly in the poetry of blood-vengeance, that is, of thirst for seeking vengeance and quenching thirst for achieving vengeance. Nor is the juxtaposition in line 5 of Waridat with blood like perfume without significance, for all three liquids-water, enemy blood and perfume-perform the same function: purification, ghasl al-dam bi al-dam, cleansing the unavenged, polluted blood of the kin with the (to the kin) purifying blood of the slain enemy. The source of this metaphor is connected with several other aspects of blood-pollution and purification in early Arab (including Islamic) rituals. Let us note that the blood-pollution of menstruation is cleansed with water and perfume.35 Furthermore, both death and
Louis Cheiko, Riyadal-Adab ft MarathTShawcir al-'Arab (Beirut, 1897), p. 6. Note that the elements in this poem and the khabar that accompanies it are the same as those in the story of the announcement to Imru' al-Qays of the death of his father Hujr at the hands of the treacherous Bani Asad, al-IsbahdnTi, Kitab al-AghanT, vol. 9, pp. 3207-8. Such stories appear to be the result of the transformation of the ritual pattern of the oath of blood-vengeance into narrative pattern. 32 The commentators take al-Shacthamayn either as a place name, denoting where the battle was fought, or as the name of two brothers whom Muhalhil slew on the Day of Wdridat, Shactham and
Shacith, the sons of 'Amir ibm Dhahl ibn Thaclabah, al-AsmaAciYat,p. 155. 33 See notes in AbF cUmar Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn CAbd Rabbih al-AndalusT, Kitab al-~lqd alFarTd, ed. Ahmad Amin, Ahmad al-Zayn and IbrahTm al-IbyarT(Cairo, 1973), vol. 5, pp. 318-20. 34 It is curious that in al-IsbahanT's remarks concerning Durayd ibn al-Simmah's Baciyyah (Asmaciy ah, no. 29), his brother cAbd Allah is said to have died on the day of al-Dhand'ib; al-Isbahini, Kitab al-Agh-nin vol. 10, p. 3477. 35 See AbO cAbd Allah al-Bukhari, Sah7h alBukharTbi-Sharh al-KirmanT(Cairo, 1933), vol. 3, pp. 178-81.

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unavenged blood are referred to in poetry as "menstruation," that is, as polluted/ polluting blood.36 Thus, it is to be expected both on the basis of ritual and of metaphor, that the bloodshed that cleanses this pollution should be compared to water and perfume. The blood of the enemy slain in vengeance is one of a group of liquids that are perceived as purifying, life-giving and life-sustaining: water, blood, perfume, milk, and wine. It is thus not surprising that these are precisely the liquids that are poured as libations on the graves of the dead-not only among the Arabs, but among other Mediterranean peoples as wel137-nor that it is precisely these liquids that stand metaphorically for one another in the poetry of blood-vengeance. The converse image is that of line 7, in which the enemy are given to drink a draught of death. As death is their only drink, so too, their only shields are their throats, nahr (throat) being, notably, the place where the sacrificial beast is cut (cf. manhar, place of slaughter, sacrifice). The name of the enemy clan, al-Wukhlm, too, is remarkable, for it is a verbal noun meaning "to be tainted, unwholesome." A tibaq is thus established that perfectly expresses the bivalency of blood-vengeance: for the avengers it is purifying, for the enemy, polluting. Since sabaha (to give a morning draught) can take two accusatives (indirect object and direct object), the first hemistich as a second reading or pun: "We gave an unwholesome, tainted drink in the morning." The taking of vengeance in the early morning hours is the sacrifice that marks the end of the liminal night of mourning and separation, of unavenged blood, the transition of ritual states from polluted to pure, from thirsting to quenching, from haram to halail,from darkness to light. The use of the same verb (sabaha, sabbaha) for the (commensal) morning draught of wine and the morning attack (for bloodvengeance) is thus an expression of their ultimate ritual or metaphorical equivalence, not merely of their concurrence. This equivalence explains, too, the common metaphorical! rhetorical interplay, such as we see in the two poems under discussion, between these two indirect expressions of blood-sacrifice.38 The morning drinking scene and the morning attack are common qasTdahfeatures, one or both of which often occur at the point at which the poem makes the transition from the rahil/ liminal section to the fakhr/ aggregation section. It is also of note that when another form of sacrifice and commensal meal, the hunt, marks this transition, it, too, takes place in the early morning hours. Perhaps the most famous and most explicit case in point is the Mucallaqah of Imru'al-Qays, in which the description of the seemingly endless night is followed by the hunt scene that opens: Wa qad aghtadT wa al-tayru ft wukiinatihd, "I would set out in the morning while the birds were still in their nests."39 Like the rest of the poem, line 8 is constructed around a well-known metaphor of early Arabic poetry, that of the thick of the battle as a hand-mill.40 Given the
36 As in the al-mawt (menses of expression death) Hamasiyyah, no. hiyhd, 228, al-MarzqqTi,Sharh DTwan al-Hamdisah, vol. 2, p. 681 and Kitaib alNaqiid: Naq~iid Jar-r wa al-Farazdaq (Arabic text), ed. A. A. Bevan (Leiden, 1907), vol. 2, p. 586. See again my article "The Rithd' of Ta'abbata Sharran." 37 See, for example, Hamaisiyyiut, nos. 289, 306, 371 in al-MarzfqT, Sharh DTwan al-Hamasah; alKhansa~, DTwan (Beirut, 1978), p. 15; see also Odyssev 11. 38 In a very interesting article, Ahmad Kamdl Zaki

discusses the imagery of the morning draught of wine and the morning attack in connection with the sacrifice of wine/ blood to the morning star Venus (CUzzd, Zuharah), thereby establishing, as I have tried to show here, the relationship between sacrifice (bloodshed) and fertility. Ahmad Kamal ZakT,"al3 Tafsir al-UstfrT li al-Shicr al-QadTm," (1981): 116. Fus.il 39 The Mucallaqah of Imru' al-Qays, 1. 53, alAnbarT,Sharh al-Qasa'id al-Sabc, p. 82. 40 See, for example, no. 60, 1. 3; Mufadd.aliy.vah, p. 252. al-Mufadd.alivyat,

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interpretation of the imagery of blood-vengeance proposed in this paper, a deeper explanation of this metaphor can now be proffered. It is an extension of that imagery that describes the taking of blood-vengeance as revitalizing and nourishing the kin. Thus, the spilling of blood to avenge slain kinsmen is likened to the milling of grain to feed the clan. Muhalhil has added something further to this image: his clan (the Bani Rabi'ah) and their enemy-cousins (the Bani! Murrah) (here termed Bani AbTini,but taken by the commentators to be cousins) are likened to the upper and lower stones of the hand-mill. Some early critics have taken this to be the first case of 'insyf (the equitable treatment of the enemy),41 a rhetorical device that is particularly appropriate in the poetry of blood-vengeance, since only the blood of an equal of the deceased can avenge his blood.42 In addition, the image of the two millstones grinding against each other constitutes a perfect expression of the dialectic of blood-vengeance, the revitalization of the kin and the devitalization of the enemy, through the implicit equation of slaying the enemy with nourishing the kin. The poem closes with a line that is at once martial and sexual, that is, that the martial imagery of the casques (bay~d)and swords (dhukiFr)has a second reading as ova and phalli. Taking bay~dhere to mean testicles, we can suggest an additional or alternative meaning, that of the castration of the enemy. The final message then is precisely that which was extracted from the earlier images, that the taking of bloodvengeance is equated with fertility, the reproduction and propagation of the kin (and its obverse, the emasculation and cutting off of the reproductive organs of the
enemy).43
41 Al-Asmaci.,at, p. 155. 42 Lammens, "Le Caractere religieux du tar," pp. 115-18. 43 A striking example of the (at least metaphorical) perception of bloodshed in terms of fertility is found no. 243, 1.3, in by Qabisah ibn Jlbir in HamasiKyvah,

which a war in which there is little killing is likened to a virgin whose breast is cut off (producing neither offspring nor milk), whereas a bloody war is likened to a pregnant woman, al-MarzilqT,Sharh D-iwanalHamaisah,vol. 2, pp. 707-8.