Tbe Poems of Dmayya B. Abi-s-Salt
• ·
Additions, Suggestions and Rectifications
by E. Power, s. j.
Professor Schulthess by bis recent publication (1 ) bas earned the gratitude of all who are interested in the early religious history of Ara¬ bia, for the poems ascribed to Umayya b. Abï -s -Salt, especially such of them as happen to be authen lie, are of considerable importance in this respect. It is not an easy task to collect and interpret the verses of a poet, when there is no substratum, containing a number of more or less com¬ plete poems, on which to build. Besides the tedious labour of reading through an enormous amount of published and manuscript Arabic litera¬ ture in vain or fruitful search of new material, there is a special difficul¬ ty in translating fragmentary verses of which the context is unknown and the textual correctness ill-assured. Professor Schulthess has maste¬ red these difficulties and produced a work the completeness of which can
(1) Umajja ibn Abi-s-Salt — Die unter seinem Namen überlïeferten Gedichtfragmente gesammelt und übersetzt [ Beitrâge zur Assyriologie und semitischen Sprachwissen-schaft, VIII, 3]. Hinrichs, Leipzig, 1911.
The reference made by Professor Schulthess to the literary relation of our previous article to his (B. A., VIII, 3, p. 1, n. 3), which might be misinterpreted, obliges us to say here that our materials were collected and our conclusions come to before we read his study. This we utilized in avoiding to say again what had been already said by him, and confining ourselves to those points, in which our views differed from his, or which, we thought, deserved fuller treatment than the necessarily limited nature of his article allowed. Not a single reference of bis was then of any use to us, as any, that might have been so, were to Mss. not at our disposal.
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