Note 403 — HISTORY OF PRINCE HABIB AND WHAT BEFEL HIM WITH THE LADY DURRAT AL-GHAWWAS.

In text “Ghayth al-Hátíl” = incessant rain of small drops and widely dispread. In Arab. the names for clouds, rain and all such matters important to a pastoral race are well nigh innumerable. Poetry has seized upon the material terms and has converted them into a host of metaphors; for “the genius of the Arabic language, like that of the Hebrew, is to form new ideas by giving a metaphorical signification to material objects (e.g. ’Azud, lit. the upper arm; met. a helper).” Chenery p. 380.