Imru 'al-Qais

Imru 'al-Qais , full name Imruʾ al-Qais ibn Hudschr ibn al-Hārith al-Kindī ( Arabic امرؤ القيس بن حُجر بن الحارث الكندي; born at the beginning of the 6th century ; died around 550) was a Bedouin poet from the pre-Islamic period . Details of his biography come mainly from the second half of the 8th century and have been passed down contradictingly. Certainly, however, he is considered the greatest pre-Islamic poet in the Arabic language since Mohammed .

Life

His father Hudschr ibn al-Harith was the last king of Kinda in what is now Yemen and the Himyarites tributary; his mother came from the Taghlib tribe. His maternal uncle, Adī ibn Rabīʿa called Muhalhil (died around 531), is said to have introduced him to poetry. Imru 'al-Qais wrote poems with descriptions of nature scenes, drinking bouts and love pains from an early age. In particular, his erotic poetry is said to have aroused the anger of his father, who then drove him away. After his father was murdered by members of the Banu Asad tribe, Imru 'al-Qais led an unsteady wandering life, which gave him the nickname Wandering King ( Arabic الملك الضلّيل) brought in. In order to avenge his father , he went in search of allies and then sought protection from the king of Al-Hīra , whose troops were pursuing him. He is said to have found refuge in the palace of Prince Samaw'al in the Tayma oasis . According to a legend, he went to Constantinople and was received there by Justinian , but was killed on the way back near Ancyra by an envoy of the Roman emperor.

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Like numerous Bedouin poets of the Jāhilīya , Imru 'al-Qais is said to have received his inspirations from a Jinn whom he is said to have met in a remote wadi of the desert in Najd and who Lāfiz ibn Lāhiz (لافظ بن لاحظ) called. His collection of poems was put together by narrators from Basra and Kufa from the 8th century . His Qasida always appears first in the anthology Mu'allaqat . Here the beginning of the poem, translated by Philipp Wolff .

Oh yes, let the dearers bring us tears,
as well as the slope of the sand near Chaumal and Dachol,

The place also of Tudich and Makrat, where
traces of living still stand , despite the wind from the south and north. Deer

tracks can be seen on their campsites and fields, scattered
like peppercorns traun.

As if the morning they were divorced I had
crushed thorn bushes by the trunk of Coloquint .

Stopping here with the animals, the friends said to me:
Don't let pain consume you, be a man!

Goethe , probably together with Herder , translated the same poem into German from an English translation by William Jones , from which the opening verses have been preserved:

Stop, let's cry at the place of memory.
There it was, on the edge of the rolling sandy hill.
There was her tent around the camp.
The traces are not yet completely gone.
As much as the north wind and the south wind have
woven the drifting sand together.
And by my side the companions kept quiet
And spoke do not go into despair, be patient.

Suggestions from this poem by Imru 'al-Qais were later incorporated into Goethe's West-Eastern Divan .

See also

Arabic literature

Web links

• Translation of the Qasida by Friedrich Rückert
• Encyclopædia Britannica 1911

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Goethe and the Moallakat by Katharina Mommsen

literature

• Encyclopaedia of Islam , Second Edition. Article Imruʾ al-Ḳays b. Ḥud̲j̲r .
• Philipp Wolff: Muallakat: The seven price poems of the Arabs. Degginger, Rottweil 1857 ( digitized version ).
• Friedrich Rückert : Amrilkais the poet and king. His life represented in his songs . Orient bookstore Heinz Lafaire, Hanover 1924.
• Fuat Sezgin : History of Arabic Literature, Volume II: Poetry. Up to about 430 H. Leiden, EJ Brill, 1975. pp. 122-126.
• William McGuckin de Slane : Le Diwan d'Amro'lkats. Paris, 1837 digitized