{"collection":"Texts of Islam","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_isl_arp_arp129_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_isl_arp_arp129_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_isl_arp_arp129_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/isl/arp/arp129.htm","summary":"This is a prose narrative excerpt from W. A. Clouston's 1881 anthology *Arabian Poetry*, drawn from the pre-Islamic Arabic romance cycle of Antar \u2014 a genre blending heroic epic with lyrical love poetry. The passage recounts how King Zoheir's learned brother Asyed, upon revisiting a valley of tamarisk trees, is overcome by grief and recites a mournful love poem before confessing a youthful secret: decades earlier, he had impulsively married a shepherd's daughter in that same valley, then lost her when she disappeared before his messenger could bring her home. The embedded poem itself is notable for its classical Arabic motifs \u2014 the apostrophe to trees as witnesses to lost love, tears as a flooding lake, the owl and raven as emblems of desolation \u2014 illustrating how the anthology uses verse as an emotional pivot within prose narrative. The tale resolves with a melodramatic recognition scene: the warrior Antar captures a young chief whose wrist bracelet reveals him to be Asyed's unknown son, leading to the family's reunion. The excerpt is most useful for readers interested in pre-Islamic Arabic literary conventions, the interplay of poetry and prose in the *Sirat Antar* tradition, or 19th-century Western anthologizing of Arab literary culture.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"Arabian Poetry: The Romance of Antar: King Zoheir and His Brother, Asyed","tradition":"Texts of Islam","translated_text":null,"word_count":1157}