Note 70 — RABBINICAL LEGENDS, TALES, FABLES, AND APHORISMS.

“Jacob’s grief” is proverbial in Muslim countries. In the Kurán, sura xii, it is stated that the patriarch became totally blind through constant weeping for the loss of Joseph, and that his sight was restored by means of Joseph’s garment, which the governor of Egypt sent by his brethren.—In the Makamat of Al-Harírí, the celebrated Arabian poet (A.D. 1054-1122), Harith bin Hamman is represented as saying that he passed a night of “Jacobean sorrow,” and another imaginary character is said to have “wept more than Jacob when he lost his son.” Return