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Arabian Poetry, by W. A. Clouston, [1881], at sacred-texts.com

p. 126

EPIGRAM

ON

EBN NAPHTA-WAH.

BY MOHAMMED BEN ZEID ALMOTAKALAM.

[IN order to understand Ben Zeid's Charade. we must remark that, in Arabic, Naphta signifies a combustible not very much unlike our gunpowder, and that Wah is an exclamation of sorrow.]

BY the former with ruin and death we are curst;
In the latter we grieve for the ills of the first;
And as for the whole where together they meet,
It's a drunkard, a liar, a thief, and a cheat.

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