Since the time of major anthologizing efforts in the late 'Abbasid period, Classical Arabic scholars have tended to group together mujun (libertine) and hija' (invective) poetry. By reading hija' against the social and political backdrop of the 'Abbasid literary court, this paper seeks to complicate the taxonomy that holds both genres under a common rubric of irreverent literature. It will be argued here that the invective poem is not only distinct from mujun but also from the ethically nebulous world to which both poetic genres seem to appeal. Whereas this "light verse" celebrates transgression, hija' is in fact a highly didactic literature of social rules, a study of behavioral ethics within the act of insulting. The example of most direct interest to this paper is Al-Sahib Ibn 'Abbad, vizier and polymath of the fourth century Hijra, tenth century CE. Because Ibn 'Abbad's court was preeminent in his era and a highly contested space for bureaucrats and authors seeking fame, controlling it became a function of the vizier's own writing, including his poetry. Cannily using the guise of mujun sensibility – i.e., the excuse of frivolous play – Ibn 'Abbad issues hija' that is not only acidly slanderous, but also highly regulatory of sociopolitical life in his province. The language of indulgence and pleasure, favored throughout the Classical Arabic tradition of jocular poetry, in hija' becomes a tool for excoriating and manipulating an enemy: ridicule leads to a tacit call for forceful correction, a didactic claim unacknowledged by extant literary histories but crucial to 'Abbasid politics. This paper reads Ibn 'Abbad's use of multiple poetic styles, and his marking the differences between them, as a forceful ethical argument about the people with whom he came into contact in elite imperial culture. Through the technique of insult, the poetry privileges virtue, language, and mastery of the body, an Aristotelian effort at shaping ideal courtiers. Viewed in historical and theoretical light, Ibn 'Abbad's ability to poeticize key ethical rules parallels his broader political work, regulating the space and people under his vizierial authority.