Jose Royo Momento de Paz paintingJose Royo Azul Mediterraneo paintingPino Soft Light painting
lower, acquires silkier rhythms. "Ah, yes. Whereas to place yourself at the disposal of assassins is an entirely honourable thing." A cult of the dead has been raging in J ahilia. When a man dies, paid mourners beat themselves, scratch their breasts, tear hair. A hamstrung camel is left on the grave to die. And if the man has been murdered his closest relative takes ascetic vows and pursues the murderer until the blood has been avenged by blood; whereupon it is customary to compose a poem of celebration, but few revengers are gifted in rhyme. Many poets massassination songs, and there is general agreement that the finest of these blood--praising versifiers is the precocious polemicist, Baal. Whose professional pride prevents him from being bruised, now, by the Grandee's little taunt. "That is a cultural matter," he replies. Abu Simbel sinks deeper still into silkiness. "Maybe so," he whispers at the gates of the House of the Black Stone, "but, Baal, concede: don't I have some small claim upon you? We both serve, or so I thought, the same mistress."
Now the blood leaves Baal's cheeks; his confidence cracks, falls from him like a shell. The Grandee, seemingly oblivious to the alteration, sweeps the satirist forward into the House.
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