Proverbs and Lullabies from Southern Arabia

In the spring of 1929, while loafing on the southern coast of Arabia, I amused myself by collecting a few samples of native folklore. Most of these were entered in my notebook by Arabs who were more or less literate. Others were dictated to me, and I wrote them down in my own faulty Arabic script, revising them as the informant directed. Translation was a roundabout and doubtful business. I had Hava's little dictionary in my lap, and the informant was usually patient enough to paraphrase the text in terms that I could understand. This method proved more successful with proverbs and lullabies from the Yemen than with the longer poems which I recorded at Makalla and Shihr, and I therefore offer only the former for publication. Most of these were obtained from my traveling companion, a middle-aged man of the seyyid caste. Where short vowels were lacking or ambiguous in my original notes, I have suplied the classical forms, and I have corrected, in brackets, several apparent errors. All readings which are frankly dubious are tagged with a question mark or with an alternative translation in parentheses. Selections presented in this amateurish way have very little linguistic value, but Arabists may be interested in their general form and content. I accept full responsibility for all the mistakes.