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coral stone. 75
These are the two big and small different kinds and lu'lu is the larger
kind. Abu al-Hasan Lihyani writes that the durr and the lu'lu happen to be large. Abu al-Hasan has not opposed the view that marjan signifies the smaller pearl, but he is opposed to the signification of lu'lu by marjan. Probably he has formed his opinion from the verse by Nabighah: Her neck has been bedecked with durr and jacynth and lu'lus have
been threaded between emeralds.
Emeralds are threaded with the pearls and rubies. 'Ali bin Jahm has said something converse to Nabighah: When she saw the whiteness around my head,
She asked: "Is this old age or threaded pearls?"
Here, the poet has denoted marjan by lu'lu. Smaller pearls which are the size of the rape-seed on being strung, present the appearance of white hair. And this is the sense which the poet has taken, not old age: for had he taken the sense to have been old age, he would not have mentioned threading, as old age is more like dispersed pearls. Aws bin Hajar says: As if the rope has broken and the smaller pearls have dispersed.
Ibn Babak says: The crescent at that time looked like the remainder of the broken
thread of pearls.
The poet here means the smaller pearls. When the rope is distant
from the eyes, the pearls look uniform and even the hiatus between them is not visible. The broken thread has been mentioned here as the cutting off of the thread resulting in an incomplete circle. Ahmad bin 'Ali in the Kitab Sharah al-'Ilal (The Book of the Explanations of Causes) says:
Day is called nahar as light travels during the day from the east to the
west like the flow of a canal (nahr) till it spreads from the east to the
west.
I really do not understand why this should be so, for, if we accept this explanation, what difference would there be between the day and the night, since it can be said about the night as well that it would travel west to east in the manner of the canal (nahr) till it spreads from the west to the east. Ahmad says about layl (night): Night is called layl as, when a man looks at an object, he says: Hua
Hua (it is that). When he doubts what he has said, he says: La la (No,
No). Since it is called lala with respect to objects, it has been called
layl.
He further writes about the lu'lu that it has been so named, as jewellers say that it presents a different sight each time one gazes on it.
He has quoted the statement of the jewellers to the effect that pearls
look good because of their spherical form. Human sight embraces the |
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