Brains Confounded by the Ode of Abū Shādūf Expounded: Volume Two 9781479809721
Unique in pre-20th-century Arabic literature for taking the countryside as its central theme, Yusuf al-Shirbini’s Brains
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Brains Confounded by the Ode of Abū Shādūf Expounded
Library of Arabic Literature Editorial Board General Editor Philip F. Kennedy, New York University Executive Editors James E. Montgomery, University of Cambridge Shawkat M. Toorawa, Cornell University Editors Julia Bray, University of Oxford Michael Cooperson, University of California, Los Angeles Joseph E. Lowry, University of Pennsylvania Tahera Qutbuddin, University of Chicago Devin J. Stewart, Emory University Managing Editor Chip Rossetti Digital Production Manager Stuart Brown Assistant Editor Gemma Juan-Simó
Letter from the General Editor
The Library of Arabic Literature series offers Arabic editions and English translations of significant works of Arabic literature, with an emphasis on the seventh to nineteenth centuries. The Library of Arabic Literature thus includes texts from the pre-Islamic era to the cusp of the modern period, and encompasses a wide range of genres, including poetry, poetics, fiction, religion, philosophy, law, science, history, and historiography. Books in the series are edited and translated by internationally recognized scholars and are published in parallel-text format with Arabic and English on facing pages, and are also made available as English-only paperbacks. The Library encourages scholars to produce authoritative, though not necessarily critical, Arabic editions, accompanied by modern, lucid English translations. Its ultimate goal is to introduce the rich, largely untapped Arabic literary heritage to both a general audience of readers as well as to scholars and students. The Library of Arabic Literature is supported by a grant from the New York University Abu Dhabi Institute and is published by NYU Press. Philip F. Kennedy General Editor, Library of Arabic Literature
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Brains Confounded by the Ode of Abū Shādūf Expounded Yūsuf al-Shirbīnī Volume Two Edited and translated by Humphrey Davies Volume editors James E. Montgomery Geert Jan van Gelder
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS New York
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS New York Copyright © 2016 by New York University All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Shirbini, Yusuf ibn Muhammad, active 1665-1687, author. | Davies, Humphrey T. (Humphrey Taman), editor translator. | Shirbini, Yusuf ibn Muhammad, active 1665-1687. Hazz al-quhuf fi sharh qasid Abi Shaduf. English. | Shirbini, Yusuf ibn Muhammad, active 1665-1687. Hazz al-quhuf fi sharh qasid Abi Shaduf. Title: Brains confounded by the ode of Abu Shaduf expounded / Yusuf Ibn Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Jawad Ibn Khidr al-Shirbini; edited and translated by Humphrey Davies. Description: New York : New York Univeristy Press, 2016. | In English with orginal Arabic text. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016006848 (print) | LCCN 2016008844 (ebook) | ISBN 9781479882342 (cl : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781479838905 (cl : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781479822362 (e-book) | ISBN 9781479888252 (e-book) | ISBN 9781479809721 ( e-book) | ISBN 9781479892389 (e-book) Subjects: LCSH: Villages--Egypt--Early works to 1800. | Egypt--Rural conditions--Early works to 1800. | Social problems in literature--Early works to 1800. | Satire, Arabic--Egypt--Early works to 1800. | Arabic literature--Egypt--Early works to 1800. Classification: LCC HN786.A8 .S5513 2016 (print) | LCC HN786.A8 (ebook) | DDC 307.760932--dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016006848 New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. Series design by Titus Nemeth. Typeset in Tasmeem, using DecoType Naskh and Emiri. Typesetting and digitization by Stuart Brown. Manufactured in the United States of America c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Table of Contents
Letter from the General Editor
iii
Part Two
1
An Account of the Lineage of the Poet and Its Components
4
His Lineage
4
His Village
4
The Shape of His Beard
6
The Origins of His Good Fortune in His Early Days and How Fate Came to Turn Against Him
13
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
34
Says Abū Shādūf . . .
34
Me, the lice and nits . . .
60
And none has harmed me . . .
84
And more inauspicious than him . . .
104
And from the descent of the Inspectors . . .
116
And on the day when the tax collectors come . . .
130
And I flee next to the women . . .
140
Almost all my life on the tax . . .
166
And on the day when the corvée descends . . .
176
And nothing has demolished me . . .
182
And nothing has made me yearn . . .
198
Happy is he who sees bīsār come to him . . .
208
Happy is he who sees a bowl . . .
222
Happy is he to whom comes a basin . . .
228
Happy is he who gobbles energetically . . .
232
Happy is he who drinks a crock . . .
236
Happy is he to whom mussels come . . .
240
If I see next to me one day a casserole . . .
244
When shall I see mallow . . .
250
When shall I see grilled beans . . .
256
When shall I see that he’s ground the flour . . .
260
vii
Table of Contents
Ah how good is vetch-and-lentils . . .
264
Ah how fine is toasted bread . . .
268
And I’ll sit with one knee crooked . . .
274
Happy is he who finds himself next to rice pudding . . .
276
Happy is he who fills his cap with a moist little cheese . . .
286
Happy is he who sees his mother’s bowl full . . .
294
And I’ll sit down to it with ardor . . .
298
Now I wonder, how is milk . . .
302
Now I wonder, how is flaky-pastry . . .
306
Should I see the bowl of the son of my uncle . . .
310
Me, my wish is for a meal of fisīkh . . .
326
Happy is he who has seen in the oven . . .
330
And made faṭāyir cakes . . .
338
Happy is he who sees a casserole . . .
342
Happy is he who sees in the refuse dump . . .
356
If I live I shall go to the city . . .
370
And I’ll steal from the mosque . . .
384
And I’ll get me a felt cap . . .
398
And by me will sit . . .
422
And I’ll rejoice in the throng . . .
426
And I close my ode with blessings . . .
428
Some Miscellaneous Anecdotes with Which We Conclude the Book
430
Let Us Conclude This Book with Verses from the Sea of Inanities
440
Notes
445
Glossary
488
Bibliography
513
Further Reading
527
Index
531
About the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute
542
About the Typefaces
543
Titles Published by the Library of Arabic Literature
544
About the Editor–Translator
546
viii
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10
An Account of the Lineage of the Poet and Its Components
but a shift and shivering from the cold. Noticing that the man had a white woolen mantle folded under his arm, he asked him, “Why don’t you put on the mantle to protect yourself from the cold?” The man replied, “I’m afraid that the rain will get on it and make it wet, and then it won’t be lovely and new-looking anymore.” This made the man realize how stupid he was and he left him and went his way. The finest beard is middling, with hairs of even length, neither long nor 10.6 short. If it be said, “Pharaoh’s beard was longer than he was tall, by one or two spans, or so it is reported, and even so he was wise and full of insight,” we respond, “The explanation is that the Almighty gave him three miraculous signs, one of them being the length of his beard, which was also green and the like of which was vouchsafed to no other of his sort. He also had a steed that placed its front foot at the farthest point that it could see and raised its hind legs when it ascended and its front legs when it descended. Or it may be said that, even though he possessed extraordinary knowledge, he was effectively bereft of intelligence because he claimed to be divine and perpetrated heinous acts and so on. Thus what we have said is correct as stated above. End.” It is said that the most quick-witted and devilishly clever of men are those who have no beard at all. Anyone associating with them must be on guard, because of their great intelligence, breadth of knowledge, and finesse. Thus it happened that a certain king once asked his minister, “Who are the most devilishly clever and quick-witted of men?” and the minister answered, “Those who have no beard.” “I want you,” said the king, “to demonstrate the truth of that for me.” Said the minister, “You must prepare some food and make spoons for the food, each spoon three cubits in length, and order people to come and eat. When the people have come and sat down, order them to eat with nothing but those spoons and tell them that no one may touch the spoon except by the handle and that he may eat in no other way. Then watch what happens.” The king did as the minister instructed him, and the people came for the food. When they sat down, he ordered that they eat only with the spoons and told them that no one should touch any part of the spoon but the handle, as described. They wanted to eat but could not, and they wanted to leave, but the king stopped them and ordered them to sit. One of them would fill the spoon and try to put what was in it in his mouth, but it would miss his mouth and stick out over his shoulder, and no one knew what to do. While they were thus engaged, a man with no beard entered. “How is it that you are not eating
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١٨
18
An Account of the Lineage of the Poet and Its Components
You’d have said he was head of a band of musicians, Or the buffoon who’d come to plead! Gone now is his fart, God bless his bones And moisten his head-brick15 time and again! As to Abū Shādūf, God preserve his youth
10.11.3
And make him our shaykh, to rule to our gain, Like his father mounted, and may his army Troop after troop after troop contain, And may he buck like a donkey and set off around noon And lounge about pompously and sit in the shirāʿah.16 Thus we end our words, and God alone endures, And death’s a cup from which none may abstain! And I’m a smart guy and all my life a poet, And I string together verses that shimmer and shine. These I’ve made so all who behold them may mourn,
10.11.4
And today with my words I’ve sent him off fine, And for the rest of my days I’ll praise the Beauteous, God’s Prophet, and pray his intercession to gain. Now the blessing’s done, so hear what I say: I hope you’re all snuffed by a clot on the brain! And when the wake was over and the dust had settled and Abū Shādūf had
10.12
received the condolences of the shaykhs and the brave lads, and he had distributed bran-and-barley pastries as alms for the repose of his father’s soul and had plastered his grave with mud and dung, and built the calf ’s trough next to it, he put his cudgel over his shoulder and stepped out like a fine steed, and played the shaykh over the hamlet, and every Zayd and ʿAmr17 obeyed, and he sat on his ass with one knee up and one knee on the ground, and shouted and jumped, both up and down, and sang and made up poetry, of which he was proud, declaiming and saying out loud: Me, Abū Shādūf—O Salāmah18—
10.12.1
All my life I’ve made up verses and I’m a bright guy, And now my father’s in his grave19 I’m shaykh of the hamlet, which none can decry! And I rule the foot soldiers and come and go, And I wade in the river up to my thigh,
١٩
19
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٢٤
24
An Account of the Lineage of the Poet and Its Components
and helpers bereft, no wealth remaining but what his father’d left, and those who were once his servants took over the shaykhdom of the hamlet, while he could find neither helper nor friend—for such is the way of Fate: it raises up the lowly, and brings down the noble and exemplary, it being like a balance in its action, or like a sieve in its working and extraction—as the poet25 says in the following verses: I see Fate lifts every scoundrel high And humbles those with noble traits— Just like the sea, which drowns all living things While every stinking carcass to its surface levitates, Or like the scale, which raises all that’s light But sinks with weights. And another has said:
10.17
Fate’s like a sieve in how it works, So wonder at what the sieve achieves— The densest grains it puts below, And on the top the husks and chaff it leaves —for the accidents of Fate may be cause for alarm, and drive a man into the way of harm. In the opening lines of an ode of mine on the same theme I say:
10.18
The accidents of Fate may be to your peril— So beware their outcome and escape any harm that might transpire. Prepare against them an ample coat of mail from patience, To protect you from their fierceness when showered with their fire And leave behind the time of youth—its boughs have dried That in the verdant nursery once were full of juice. They were nights bowed down with pleasures From which, when young, I gathered glory’s fruits —and so on to the end of these verses. Nothing but “patience fair”26 against the accidents of Fate can remedy afford—that, and submission to the Majestic Lord; and apropos of those caught unawares by fate’s blows and abandoned by kin and fellows, is the story that is told of how a certain envious person slandered the vizier and
٢٥
25
10.19
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٢٨
28
An Account of the Lineage of the Poet and Its Components
As for the opposites of these four,28 how well the poet put it in the follow-
10.21
ing lines: Uṭrūsh is odious, Ibn Qaynah discourteous, Qarnān’s credulous, and Ibn Ayham’s obstreperous. Were all these faults combined in one with wealth endowed, He’d be “the people’s orator” whenever he made a sound! Concerning another who was caught unawares by Fate’s blows and overcome by oppression and woes—so that after he was exalted he became debased, and after riches saw his wealth effaced—is the story that is told of a man who was burdened with debts and left his children and wandered aimlessly until he came to a high-walled city, mightily built. He entered, abject and broken in spirit, devoured by hunger and exhausted by travel, and was walking along one of its streets when he saw a company of eminent persons proceeding together. He joined them and they came to a place like a king’s palace, and they entered, the man following, and they continued until they came to a man sitting in great state, with pages and servants around him, as though he were the son of a viceroy, and this man, when he saw them, rose to greet them and paid them great honor. The subject of our tale was overcome with amazement and taken aback by the magnificence of the place and the servants and retainers, and he retired in a state of perplexity and apprehension, afraid for his safety, and sat down in a spot far removed from the people, where none could catch sight of him. While he was thus seated, a man came towards him with four hunting dogs dressed in silks and brocades and with gold collars and silver chains around their necks. The man tied each dog in its appointed place and disappeared and returned with four golden dishes filled with sumptuous food and placed before each dog its own dish. Then he went away and left them. The man was so hungry that he started to eye the food, and wanted to go up to one of the dogs and eat with it, but fear prevented him from approaching them. One of the dogs, however, looked at him, understood his plight, and, ceasing to eat, signaled to him to approach. The man drew near, and again the dog made a sign, as though to say, “Eat from this dish,” and drew back from the dish, so the man ate until he was full and wanted to leave. At this, the dog made a sign to him as if to say, “Take this dish with the remaining food,” so the man picked it up and put it in his sleeve and waited a while, but no one came looking for the dish, so he took it and went his way. Then he journeyed to another
٢٩
29
10.22
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٤٢
42
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
Thus the poet, because he cleaved to this device and became almost insepa-
11.1.7
rable from it, came to be known by its name, according to the rule of “naming the condition after the position.” Another version has it that his mother gave birth to him next to an abū shādūf and he was therefore named after it, but this is refuted by what has already been said, to the effect that his original name was
ʿUjayl. The two versions may be reconciled by saying that after his mother had given birth to him next to the abū shādūf, she took him and placed him in the trough and the calf licked him and he became known as described above. Thus there is no contradiction between the accounts. It is also said that he was so named because he did so much scooping of water with this device—so much, indeed, that it got to the point that anyone who asked after him would be told, “he’s busy shadf-ing” that is, “scooping”; then they added the alif and waw to the word and said shādūf.55 With constant repetition, they have come to think of the crossbeam as though it were the child and the pillars as though they were the father, so that now they call the device “the father of the crossbeam (abū shādūf)”; and they applied the name to the poet himself because he was always next to the device and they identified him with it, and thus it became a proper name by which he was addressed, as already explained. End. A Silly Debate: What is to be learned from the fact that the bucket or scoop
11.1.8
never leaves the beam, which resembles the arm of a pair of scales; and does the latter play the role of father to the former, just as, as pointed out earlier, the two pillars play the role of father to the crossbeam of the shādūf ; and is it the case that the bucket or scoop adheres to the beam merely out of necessity and, once disconnected from it, ceases to perform its function; and, as such, may it be said to be attached to it only when needed and not otherwise? We declare: the fatuous response is that the beam cannot dispense with the bucket or the scoop and neither can dispense with the beam, and so together they play the role of child to the beam, and the beam plays the role of father for the reason given, since both of them—the bucket and the scoop—are in a stable relationship with the beam. Now the contention’s straightened out, the silliness shown up for what it’s about. A Useful Note: the word ab (“father”) is derived from āba, meaning “he returned.” 56 Ibn Zurayq,57 God have mercy on him, says in an ode:
٤٣
43
11.1.9
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44
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
He never returns (āba) from one journey but feels an urge To be on his way again, that only his will can purge. That is, “he never comes back from one journey but the urge to undertake a second disturbs him.” It is the same with a father, because he is always coming back to his child and missing him and looking about for him. Others say that the word is derived from ubuwwah (“fatherhood”), just as akh (“brother”) is derived from ukhuwwah (“brotherhood”). Says the poet: A man’s ab from āba derives, And a man’s akh from ukhuwwah likewise. The paradigm is āba, yaʾūbu, awban, active participle ābin.58 Ibn Sūdūn59 claims that abū, the construct form of ab, is really a perfect- 11.1.10 tense defective verb,60 being originally abūsu (“I would kiss”), and he cites as evidence the verse that says: “They said, ‘Your sweetie hides his mouth affectedly from view; What would you attempt, if he should show it?’ Said I, ‘abū. . . ’ 61 “that is, abūs (‘I would kiss’), the s having been dropped for two reasons, the first being to deceive the listener, this being the proper thing to do in literary opinion and the more conducive to safety from tattletales and nosy parkers, and the second because its numerical value is sixty,62 and sixty kisses, according to some, is excessive.” These are his words as explicitly stated in his collected works. End. Personally, I would say that the opinion of such people, as transmitted by 11.1.11 Ibn Sūdūn, is invalid, because, once the lover succeeds in winning his beloved, his heart will never be satisfied with sixty or even a hundred kisses, especially if the beloved in question is graceful of form, comely of feature, to his lover obedient, sincere, and compliant, whose genial body has not been denied, and who to his lover has been gathered like a bride, the lover of his beloved being thus fully possessed, the place free of tattletale, nosy parker or other pest. Then for kissing there is no number firm—it knows no bounds nor any term. As the poet says:
٤٥
45
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46
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
“One kiss!” I asked the full moon high in the sky. “By Him who draped the clouds,”63 he said, “I will comply!” But when we met with none about, I reckoned wrong and lost all count! And I myself said on the same theme:64
11.1.12
I saw upon his cheek a stippled mark that beauty held— He whom an earring had made yet sweeter to behold. “I want a kiss,” I said. Said he, “When we’re alone!” And on that “stipulation” I kissed a thousandfold! —unless the place be unsuitable for a lover and the object of his adoration, in that there’s a fear of tattletales or of observation, in which case any hugging and kissing will depend on how comfortable the lover feels—as to whether it be quite a lot or almost completely missing—though there are a few who have, in this regard, no doubt or fear and will kiss their loved ones in front of anyone who’s there, and, even though the latter turn and flee, chase after him relentlessly. As the poet says: Would that you’d seen me and my darling When, like a deer, he from me fled And ran away, and I gave chase; Would you’d seen us when after hot pursuit he said, “Will you not leave me be?” and I said, “No!” And he, “What would you of me?” and I, “You know!” And he then stayed aloof and shyly turned his back, And proudly turned, not to me, but away— For then I almost kissed him, right in front of everyone. Ah, would I now could do what then I should have done! An amusing story has it that Abū Nuwās was one day walking in the streets 11.1.13 of Baghdad when he saw a beautiful youth and kissed him in front of everyone. He and the youth were brought before the judge Yaḥyā ibn Aktham, and the youth brought charges against Abū Nuwās. After bowing his head in silence for a moment, the judge recited:65
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50
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
When things get tough, Think on «Have we not dilated . . .?»!70 Remember one “hardship” between two “eases”71 And neither mourn nor feel elated! Next the poet decided to enumerate the things that had befallen him, one 11.1.15 after another, beginning with the worst and the most important, so he says: min al-qilli (“of want”), with an i after the q and no vowel after the l;72 that 11.1.16 is, my gravest and greatest complaint is of qill (“want”), which is a paucity (qillah) of food and drink (the ah having being dropped for the meter)73 and also of inadequate clothing and of the great toil and exhaustion required by the struggle to make a living. In the Tradition it says, “Poverty may bring one to the verge of denying one’s faith,” meaning that it may come close to forcing one to deny his faith because it leads to dissatisfaction with providence and displeasure with his material state and this may drag him into denying his faith. Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd, God have mercy upon him, said of poverty: By my life, poverty has dealt me a cruel stroke, And reduced me with it to confusion and dismay. If I go public with my plaint, I violate my privacy; But if I don’t confess my need, I fear I’ll die! And it is said that four sayings were written on the crown of Chosroes Anūshirwān: “Justice If It Lasts Brings Prosperity”; “Injustice If It Lasts Brings Ruin”; “The Blind Man Is as Dead Though He Be Not Buried”; and “Poverty Is the Red Death.”74 The people of the countryside use the word to cast aspersions on a poor man. They say that so-and-so is fī qill (“in a state of want”), and sometimes they add another word and say fī qill wa-ʿatrah, that is, in a state of struggle and exhaustion and the performance of foul deeds and awful doings. It is an expression used by the people of the countryside. One of their poets says: Abū Jāmūs—his state Makes people weep; he’s quite lost face: He runs around and finds nothing, And lives in want and disgrace (fī qillah wa-fī ʿatrah).
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51
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٥٦
56
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
Man must work for what he needs, And Fate is not obliged to help. In one of the Revealed Books, the Almighty says, “My slave, I created you from motion; move and I will provide for you!” and the proverb says, “In activity is blessing,”80 and the Imam al-Shāfiʿī,81 may the Almighty be pleased with him, says: Leave your lands and seek advancement! Go abroad, for there are five good things in travel: Escape from care and a way to earn your living, Knowledge, savoir faire, and the friendship of the noble. Though some say travel means abjection in exile, And loss of one’s friends and meeting with trouble, Still better a young man die than live In ignominy ’midst jealousy and tittle-tattle. Thus the answer now is clear, all can agree, and the nature of this derivation’s plain to see. jismū (“his body”): the pronoun suffix refers to the poet, that is, “his body” 11.1.19 means “his person,” the word being derived from tajassum (“corporeality”) or from al-mujassimah (“the Corporealists”), which is a sect that holds to the doctrine of incarnation and corporealization,82 may the Almighty disfigure them, or from jism al-ʿāshiq (“the body of the lover”), when the latter is worn thin by separation from the beloved and the poet can find neither medicine nor doctor for it. mā yaḍāl (“is ever”): a rural phrase, meaning mā yazālu, as discussed in Part 11.1.20 One.83 That is, his body is never free of want, toil, and discomfort. naḥīf (“thin”): of the measure of raghīf (“loaf ”); it is properly naḥīfan, with 11.1.21 an alif of prolongation, the latter having been dropped for the meter.84 The meaning is that his body became weak and thin from the succession of cares that afflicted it, and the injury and hardship that it had to put up with in the course of making a living and so on—for care weakens and sickens the body, unlike ease and abundance of comforts, from which it will be evident that the bodies of the rich and affluent are in general vigorous, attractive, and graceful, because of the excellence of their food and drink and the cleanliness
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64
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
A Question: “Where is the wisdom in the fact that the flea can jump while the
11.2.3
louse cannot?” The answer: “The louse, being born of the sweat and effluvia of the body, is correspondingly weak, and it is, moreover, female,97 and the female is weaker than the male. The flea, however, being born of the earth, is of a stronger clay, which is why it resembles the elephant, which is the animal with the largest body. Thus, its strength is inborn, which allows it to jump.” The situation’s now revealed, the problem no more concealed. Some say the flea is more harmful than the louse. The poet says:
11.2.4
I complain to you of certain fleas with which I am afflicted. On my heart a choking cup these have inflicted. While I chase one, another comes to bug me, And so goes the night, in hunting and ven’ry. And how well the poet put it, when he said: Gnats, fleas, and bedbugs clung tight to me: They thought my blood wine and held its taste most dear. The fleas would dance to the piping of a gnat, While the bedbugs kept mum so the others could hear. One of our hashish-eating brethren—may God prolong through the eating
11.2.5
of hashish their conviviality and stifle with a jar of wine on sleeping their raucous hilarity—informed me that, if one drops a little hashish before sleeping, followed by a few jars, and then sleeps, he doesn’t feel the pain of fleas, or anything else, especially if he uses candy after eating the hashish, for hashish produces strange reactions and creates amazing effects, and the only thing that spoils it is eating sour things. As the poet says, incorporating words of Ibn al-Fāriḍ’s, may God be pleased with him: O you who’re stoned on dope for lack of wine (That vap’rous draft around whose fires men meet), When you are high, I do advise you, Don’t Consume what’s sour, do eat what’s sweet! My mother, may God excuse her sins, told me a riddle about fleas that I didn’t understand until I had mastered the sciences and spent time among people with a command of the best language. It goes as follows: yā shī min shī aḥmar ḥimmayr waraq al-jimmayr jarū warāh khamsah miskūh itnayn
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11.2.6
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66
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
(“Something from something else!98 Red as red can be, red as the leaves of the heart of the palm tree! Five ran after it, two caught it!”). It may be interpreted as follows: yā shī (“O thing”): yā (“O”) is the vocative particle, that is, “O man, interpret to us a name that comes from something obscure and is” aḥmar ḥimmayr (“dark, dark red”): ḥimmayr (with double m, i following the ḥ, and no vowel on the y) being the diminutive of aḥmar (“red”), and meaning “of intense redness”;99 waraq al-jimmayr (“leaves of palm hearts”): that is, like the leaves of palm hearts in color, jimmayr being the diminutive of jummār (“palm hearts”), which are the core of the palm tree, while the “leaves” are the fibrous integument that is wrapped around them; jarū warāh khamsah (“five ran behind it”): namely, the fingers; miskūh itnayn (“two caught it”): two of the latter, namely, the index finger and the thumb. There is diacritical paronomasia between ḥimmayr and jimmayr.100 End. The noxious effects of fleas may be prevented by using incense mixed with
11.2.7
dried bitter-orange peel on sleeping. Lice may be killed with a woolen thread pounded with henna and mercury and hung around the neck. As for the beneficial qualities of lice, the author of The Book of the Physick of the Poor101 mentions that, if a migraine sufferer takes a louse from a head that is free of pain and puts it in a grilled bean and seals the latter with wax and hangs it at the point of the migraine, his head will get better, if the Almighty wills. wa-l-ṣībānu (“and nits”): joined to al-qaml (“the lice”) by the conjunction wa-
11.2.8
(“and”), these being the seeds that are born of the latter; in other words, the poet joined the branch to the root, since the former is a concomitant of the latter. They are generally found in the greatest numbers on the heads of children, because children’s bodies are tender and should be treated with fats and henna and by combing the hair and so forth. They are very prone to cause itching in the body but are less harmful than lice, because they are weaker and have softer bodies. The origin of the word is ṣibyān (“boys”) (with the b before the y), plural of ṣabī.102 Subsequently, they decided to avoid that plural, lest nits be confused with human children; so they put the y after the b and said ṣibyān. The word is derived from ṣābūn (“soap”) because of the whiteness of the creatures, or from muṣībah (“disaster”), or from the Bridges of al-Ṣābūnī. The paradigm is ṣabyana, yuṣabyinu, ṣibyānan.103 The poet is silent on another form of the offspring of the louse, namely, the nimnim (with i after the two n’s and no vowel after the two m’s),104 the latter,
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67
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68
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
too, being a concomitant of the former and the branch being subordinate to the root, as previously stated. The word nimnim is of the measure of simsim (“sesame”) and is a derivative of namnamah (“wren”) or of nammām, a sweetsmelling plant.105 If, on the other hand, we spell it as namnam, it would be a compound made of an imperative verb, as though one were ordering someone to go to sleep twice.106 Al-Ḥarīrī,107 God excuse him his sins, said in similar vein: Perform an act for whose same seed you will be praised, Thanking Him who gives, be it but a sesame seed! This is close to the art of word puzzles108 such as ṭājin and ṭāfiyah and yāsamīn109 and the verse that says: I saw a marvel in your houses— An old man and a maiden in the stomach of a bird!110 And another says: Red of cheek, of a crimson That all rouge to emulate must try; Fangless, eyeless, But with fang and eye.111 The word namnam112 is used in the language of small children:113 when a 11.2.10 child wants to eat, he says namnam, or buff (with u after the b and no vowel after the f), for children utter different words from those used by adults, as may be observed. As for the language children use before they start to talk, some say it is Syriac. When a child wants water, he says unbūh (with u at the beginning, no vowel after the n, ū after the b, and no vowel after the h). If he puts out his hand to something dirty to take it, he is scolded with the word kukhkh (with k and kh), and if he is on the point of taking something that might harm him, he is rebuked with the word aḥḥ (with alif and ḥ). If he takes something that pleases him and plays with it, they call it (or he calls it) daḥḥ (with d and ḥ) with no following vowels.114 They call (or he himself calls) food when he has had enough of it baḥḥ (with b and ḥ). If his mother wants to scare him or stop him from bawling, she says, “Quiet, or the biʿbiʿ (‘bogeyman’) will eat you!” (with i or u after the two bs and no vowel after the ʿs). Biʿbiʿ is derived from baʿbaʿah, which is the sound of the camel.115 Among aḥḥ and daḥḥ and baḥḥ there is mutational paronomasia of the first letter.116 The child addresses his
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72
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
pattern; one says, “So-and-so is laḥis,” that is, “one who has committed something resembling impurity (najāsah) or who talks a great deal to no effect.”124 Thus liḥāsah and najāsah have the same underlying meaning. In The Blue Ocean and Piebald Canon it says, “There is no difference between liqāsah and liḥāsah, and undoubtedly najāsah enters into it too,” and this is the more correct formulation. One also says, “You are taʿīs laḥis,” that is, you resemble a dog licking a dish, or you lick shit with your tongue, or you talk raving nonsense (tatalaḥḥas bi-l-kalam) and cannot tell a thing from its name. Taʿīs has the same meaning, making all of them closely similar expressions, which is why the liḥḥīs are so harmful.125 In The Blue Ocean and Piebald Canon it says: And I suffer torments from the harm the liḥḥīs do to my head, And a boiling and an itching in my clothes and in my body. The paradigm126 is laḥḥasa, yulaḥḥisu, talḥīsan. If it be said, “This liḥḥīs added by the people you refer is insignificant, almost 11.2.13 to the point of nonexistence, and this is why the poet, like others, leaves it out, so why do you raise the issue at all?” we would reply, “True. However, even if we grant that it is so minute that it barely exists, nevertheless it becomes, in bulk, unmitigated harm and injury and on this basis is to be associated with lice, and indeed it should be counted among the latter’s offspring, just like the nits and the nimnim mentioned above. Alternatively, the issue is raised by analogy to those who add a fourth category to the parts of speech and name it ‘the residual,’ meaning by this the verbal substantive, namely, ṣah (‘Hush!’) in the sense of uskut (‘Be silent!’).”127 Thus the situation now’s revealed, the silliness no more concealed. fī ṭawqi jubbatī (“in the yoke of my jubbah”): that is, I speak of those lice and 11.2.14 nits that are existing or well established in its yoke. Ṭawq (“yoke”) is of the pattern of jawq (“band of musicians”), as used in the expressions jawq al-ṭabbālah (“the band of drummers”) and jawq al-maghānī (“the singing band”) and so on. It is the name given to anything that encircles the neck, of a garment or of anything else, be it made of iron, silver, gold, brass, or the like.128 The Almighty says, «That which they hoard will be their collar on the day of resurrection,»129 meaning that the wealth that they store up in this world and on which they do not pay tithes and which they do not use for good works will be placed around their necks like a collar, and they will be tormented by it in the Fire. The word
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٧٨
78
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
The noun nukhālah is derived, as they recall, From munkhal and nakhīl 137 and, finally, from minkhāl.138 Barley bran is the best for one because, if it is steeped in water and heated and someone suffering from chest pains drinks it, it will cure him, if the Almighty so wills. yajrufuhū (“they shovel”): that is, the lice and the nits and their aforemen- 11.2.19 tioned relatives. jarīf (“willy-nilly”): originally jarfan, because it is a verbal noun with the 11.2.20 alif omitted, the ī being added for the sake of the rhyme; or it may be a rural form; in either case there can be no objection.139 It is derived from jarf or from mijrafah (“shovel”) or from jarrāfah (“shovel-sledge”). If it be said, “The poet ought to have referred the pronominal suffix of yajrufuhū to the nearest antecedent, namely, nukhālah,140 and this would have been more appropriate,” we say, “He may have avoided using a feminine pronominal suffix for the meter, because, if he had used one, the line would no longer have scanned;141 or it may be a case of truncation,142 as in the line143 Gently now, Fāṭim!144 A little less disdainful: Even if you would cut my rope, do it kindly! “—or he may have been referring it to the ‘husks of wheat and barley,’ which are called collectively nukhālah, in which case it should be taken as an example of the suppression of the first term of a genitive construct,145 so there can be no objection.” And if it also be said, “One might understand from the poet’s words that the lice and nits were confined exclusively to the yoke of his jubbah and there were none of them whatsoever on his body, in which case what would be the point in his complaining about them?” we would reply, “The answer may be that one might say that his words ‘in the yoke of my jubbah’ mean that most of the lice were accumulated in and had risen to the yoke of his jubbah and then, in their abundance, came to resemble bran when shoveled and that it does not necessarily follow from this wording that the rest of his body was free of them. Indeed, if they were present in the yoke of his jubbah in such quantities, then, a fortiori, there should be some on the rest of his body, for the body is where they live and derive their nourishment, by sucking blood and imbibing the body’s wastes. In fact, it is the way of lice to spread first in the clothes,
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84
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
beard (as long as its breadth has not rendered its length odious, in which case the damage will be less, or it has not become less commode-ious, in which instance it is the same for both cases).149 Thus the situation’s now revealed, the silliness no more concealed. Next the poet embarks on the description of another disaster that afflicted 11.2.24 him—one yet more damaging, taken as a whole, than lice and nits, for it comes to him from the direction of his relatives. He says:
text wa-lā ḍarranī ʾillā-bnu ʿammī Muḥaylibah
11.3
yawmin tajī l-wajbah ʿalayya yaḥīf And none has harmed me as much as the son of my paternal uncle, Muḥayliba— the day the wajbah comes, he heaps upon me more than my lot.
commentary wa-lā ḍarranī (“and none has harmed me”): that is, harmed me over and above
11.3.1
what has already been mentioned.
ʾillā-bnu ʿammī (“as much as the son of my paternal uncle”): that is, my father’s brother, ʿamm (“paternal uncle”), being derived from ʿumūm (“generality”)
11.3.2
because his competence encompasses both his own children and those of his brother, for he is like a father to them, if their actual father is not present. This is why the Arabs call the paternal uncle “father.” One of the commentators on the words of the Almighty «When Ibrahim said unto his father Āzar,»150 says, “What is meant is ‘his paternal uncle.’” Or the word is derived from ʿimāmah (“turban”) because of the latter’s being high above the head, like a crown—as it says in the Tradition, “Turbans are the crowns of the Arabs”—for the paternal uncle has an exalted position with regard to his brother’s children because of his responsibility for and guardianship of them. Muḥaylibah: diminutive of maḥlabah, which is a vessel made of red earthenware with a concave belly and a narrow neck; it has one handle but is sometimes made with two, if it is large.151 It is so called because milk is milked (ḥalb) into it, according to the rule of “naming the container after the thing contained.”
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85
11.3.3
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88
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
the summer, and so it was called qirrwafih, that is, the firing of this vessel was accomplished (wafiya) and it was finished; then they put a ū after the double r of qirr and made a name for it out of all these letters and said qarrūfih. In this case it would be composed of a noun and a verb.158 The second is that, when it had just been invented and the milker put it between his legs and directed the milk into it, the milk started to rise and make a lot of froth, so the milkman became afraid that the milk would overflow the vessel and called out to the milk qarr fīh qarr fīh (“Stay in it! Stay in it!”), that is, “Remain in it and be settled!” Then they added a w to the word between the imperative verb and the prepositional phrase, omitted the ī because it was awkward to pronounce, realized the w as ū,159 and said qarrūfih, and that became its name. The third perspective is that the clay of which it was made was originally taken from a place close to the Qarāfah (“cemetery”) of Cairo, so they started saying “a qarāfī vessel,”160 then derived this name for it from that sense and said qarrūfih. The fourth is that it is derived from qirfah (“cinnamon”) (with i after the f), which is a spice with a delicious taste and smell that is used in fine dishes and sumptuous foods, for milk too, when fresh from the cow, has an appetizing smell and sweet taste— as the Almighty has said, «pure milk, palatable to the drinkers»;161 then they added a ū to it and made that its name. And fifthly, names cannot be etymologized, so there is no need for these fatuous investigations and inane fabulations. Thus the answer now’s clear, the truth made to appear. Various accounts are given for how the poet’s paternal cousin came by
11.3.6
this name. The first is that, when his mother gave birth to him, she heard one person say to another, “Fetch the milk crock!” so she named him thus, taking a good omen from the word and making it into a diminutive, seeing that the child was small. A second version has it that his mother had borne another boy before him and called him Miḥlāb, but he died. When she gave birth to this child, she did not want to call him by his brother’s name, so she made the word feminine162 and made it a diminutive and said muḥaylibah, and by this he was known. A third account has it that someone visited her with a new milk crock (maḥlabah) at the moment when she gave birth, so she took this as a good omen and said, “I shall call him Muḥaylibah.” This is the extent of what I have learnt from these fatuous investigations and inane fabulations. yawmin (“on the day when”): with in following the m, for the meter.163 Yawm (“day”) is a name for the whiteness of daylight that is illumined by the rays of
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89
11.3.7
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٩٠
90
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
the sun and during which one may undertake a legally meaningful fast, as is well known.164 tajī (“comes”): from the verbal noun majīʾ (“coming”), which means arriving
11.3.8
at a place. al-wajbah (“the wajbah”): this takes effect from the moment of the coming,
11.3.9
or arrival, of the bailiff or the tax farmer or the Christian in the hamlet or the village, at which time it is distributed among the peasants on the basis of how many carats or feddans, etc., of land each one works. Some are obligated to provide it one day a month, others once a week, and still others once every three days, etc., according to how many or few are the peasants and how extensive or limited is the land. It must be provided every day throughout the stay. Under this system, a man sees to the provisioning of the bailiff and the Christian, if the latter is present, and of all those belonging to the tax farmer’s entourage, and undertakes to provide them with their food and drink and everything they need in the way of fodder for their animals and whatever dishes of meat or fowl they may have a liking for. If the man is poor, they impose this on him by force, or else the bailiff imprisons him and beats him severely. Sometimes a man will flee because he does not have enough to offer, and the bailiff then sends for his children and his wife and demands it from them with threats. A wife may pawn some of her jewelry or her clothes for a little money and use the proceeds to buy poultry or meat, and cook it and prevent her children from touching it for fear of what will happen to her if it is not enough for them. Sometimes a peasant will raise chickens and eat none of them and make himself and his children go without for fear of being beaten or imprisoned, and things such as chickens and butter and flour he will keep aside in readiness for this disaster, doing his own cooking with sesame oil and eating barley bread, and he may put his seed wheat aside for them and eat salty cottage cheese and put himself to the expense of buying sweet fresh cheese and send this with the wajbah, all for fear of what may happen to him because of these matters. It is called wajbah because it has come to be like a duty (wājib) that the 11.3.10 tax farmers impose on the peasants, for it has to be done for the bailiff in the village or the Christian or the tax farmer, if he comes, as stated above. While some tax farmers have waived it, they have replaced it with an agreed sum of money and added that to the land tax, forcing them to pay it to the bailiff in the
٩١
91
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102
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
circumstances, there is no harm in making friends with them. Master ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Dīrīnī, God benefit us through him, was punished for frequenting the Christian of his village, and he said: They blame me, my friends, for befriending Copts, Though never, by God, did I love them in my heart! But I’m one of those who hunts for his living in their land, And hunter and dogs cannot live apart! “On the other hand, the person who has intercourse with them on the basis of affection and friendship for no compelling worldly objective or fear of any harm that they might do should probably be counted among those referred to in the words of the Prophet, may God bless him and give him peace, ‘He who loves a people shall be marshaled with them on the Day of Judgment.’”
ʿalayya (“to me”): meaning to himself and no other.
11.3.26
yaḥīf (“he does wrong (to me)”): that is, he turns against me and treats me 11.3.27 unjustly, charging me with more than I can bear. This injury was more severe for him than the others, namely, the previously described harm caused by the lice and the nits and so on, because it originated with his relatives. The poet says: Relatives (aqārib) are like scorpions (ʿaqārib), so avoid them, And depend not on father’s or mother’s brothers. How many of the first will bring you grief And how devoid of good are the others! Observe how this clever poet used ʿamm (“father’s brother”) and khāl (“mother’s brother”), changing the letters on the first to make it into ghamm (“grief ”) and employing the second to mean that they are “devoid” (khālī) of boons, and how he managed to work in both paronomasia and punning.168 Another poet said: The enmity of kith and kin Is like a fire in a forest when there’s wind.
ʿAlī,170 God honor his face, said, “Enmity is among relatives, envy among 11.3.28 neighbors, and affection among brothers.” The origin of the enmity among relatives is to be found in the story of Qābīl’s murdering Hābīl,171 as a result
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104
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
of which enmity among brethren and relatives has continued down to these days of ours, the root cause of it all being envy—and “may the envious not prevail!” 172 In the Tradition it says, “Two alone are to be envied: a man on whom God bestows wealth and who uses it to defeat his perdition through good works, and a man on whom God bestows knowledge and who instructs others in it.” The poet says: Though they envy me, I blame them not— Good men before me have felt the evil eye. Let me keep mine and them keep theirs, And he who is the more vexed by what he finds can die! And another said: May your enemies not die but live Till you have had the chance to make them livid, And may Fate not deprive you of an envier, For the best are those who’ve been envied! Next the poet moves on from complaining about his paternal cousin 11.3.29 Muḥaylibah to complaining about the latter’s nephew Khanāfir, who brings him even more trouble than his cousin. He says:
text wa-ʾayshamu minnū ʾibnu-khūhu Khanāfir
11.4
yuqarriṭʿalā bayḍī bi-khulbat līf And more inauspicious than him is the son of his brother Khanāfir. He draws tight around my balls a palm-fiber knot
commentary wa-ʾayshamu (“and more inauspicious”): from shuʾm (“calamity”) or from tayshimah.173 The word is originally ashʾam,174 on the pattern of ablam (“more/ most stupid”) or aqṭam (“more/most given to passive sodomy”). The proverb says, “More of a jinx (ashʾam) than Ṭuways,”175 and one says, “So-and-so is mayshūm (‘possessed of the power to jinx’)” or dhū tayshimah, that is, possessed of strength and tyrannical powers and capable of doing great harm
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105
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112
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
guard prevented him. The poet then looked behind the wall of the garden and found a water channel running towards, and ending at a point beneath, the wall, where it debouched into a large basin, next to which he beheld the king sitting. So he took a piece of paper and wrote on it this verse:195 Everyone else, like a penis, has gone in, But this slave, like the testes, is left lying at the door. Then he folded it and put it in a Persian reed, sealed it with wax, and threw it into the channel, whence the water carried it until it cast it at the feet of the king. The king picked it up, broke the seal, and pulled out the piece of paper. When he read the verse he smiled and called out to him, “Come in, testicles!” to which the poet replied, “This is just evidence of your great capacity, God preserve you!”196 The king was well pleased with the aptness of the joke and rewarded him, and the poet retired, giving thanks. Apropos of the aptness of these words, I am reminded of what happened
11.4.9
once when Sultan Qānṣawh al-Ghawrī, God have mercy upon him, got angry with a man and wanted to kill him. Some of those present interceded on his behalf, and the sultan imposed on him instead a fine of three thousand dinars. The man left the sultan’s presence to get them and one of his friends, encountering him as he was descending the steps from the audience chamber, said to him, “I hear that the sultan has fined you a thousand dinars.” The other replied, “No, may I be divorced—times three!”197 When the sultan heard of this bon mot of his and how he had used the same word to cover both divorce and money, he pardoned him, forgave him the three thousand dinars, and rewarded him, and the man went his way. The word khiṣā may also be applied to the male organ, which is also called 11.4.10 duldūl (“dangler”),198 dhanab (“tail”), zubb,199 ayr,200 ghurmūl,201 and other names too. However, the best known are five, which I have mentioned in my treatise Meadows of Intimate Vim concerning What Transpired ’twixt the Prick and the Quim, namely: They give me different names, some quite popular: Ayr, zubb, duldul,202 and dhakar there are.203 The fifth of these names I’m called is khiṣā— When I get stiff, you’d think I was a shillelagh!
١١٣
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114
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
It is given the nicknames the One-Eyed, the Snub-Nosed, the Plugger, the Extender, and the Demolisher of Donjons and Conqueror of Castles, along with the kunyahs of Father of Campaigns, Father of Collisions, Father of Disturbances, Father of Earthquakes, and so on. If a man gives it free rein and obeys its whims, it will propel him into the most terrible calamities. Says Ibn
ʿArūs, God have mercy upon him: The people in God are lost, And praise of noble men spreads far and wide. Naught hurts me but my belly And this thing that’s dangling by its side. The testicles may be likened to two hens. A certain poet made up the following lines to make fun of his shaykh: O Lord, relieve us of our woe—O Lord! O Lord, seize upon our shaykh, of facial hair galore! His testes when he’s bended o’er Are like two chickens pecking grain up off the floor. To sum up, khuṣā with u204 and khiṣā with i, and likewise with w instead 11.4.11 of the ā,205 are names common to the male organ and the testicles, this falling under the rubric of “naming a thing according to its neighbors.” The word khiṣyatayn is of the pattern of ḍarṭatayn (“two audible farts”) or shakhkhatayn (“two pisses”), so it contains both farts and pisses for sure. Both words206 are derived from khuṣṣ (“hovel”) with u, or from a village named al-Khuṣūṣ,207 or, for example, from the word ikhṣā (“bad dog!”) that they use for dogs. The paradigm is khaṣā, yakhṣū, khaṣāʾan.208 As the poet says: Khaṣā, yakhṣū are the base forms of khiṣyatayn. khaṣāʾ is correct in the verse of al-Ṭunayn.209 This brings these fatuous discussions and inane problems to an end. bi-khulbat līf (“a palm-fiber knot”): that is, a strong knot going twice around 11.4.12 his balls with a rope made of plaited palm fiber (līf), which is so called because it is wrapped (multaff)210 around the bases of palm fronds. This knot is called a khulbah because it grasps (takhlibu) a thing that can then only be released from it with difficulty. In the jargon of shepherds, if they want to tie something
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120
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
shābat ʿawāriḍī (“my side whiskers have turned white”): because of my inabil-
11.5.4
ity to face the Inspectors and my having nothing for them to take from my house such as dung cakes for the kitchen or anything else. Consequently, my limbs tremble, my heart flutters, and white hairs sprout before their time. White hairs are a sign of the Almighty’s favor, with which He honors one of His slaves. The first to grow white hairs was Ibrāhīm the Beloved,218 blessings and peace be upon him. Half his beard turned white, and he said, “Lord, what is this?” The Lord said, “It is a token of your venerability in this world, and a light for you in the next.” So Ibrāhīm said, “Lord, give me more of this venerability!” and he awoke the next morning and the whole of his beard had turned white. In the Tradition it says, “Verily, God would feel ashamed to treat harshly hairs that had turned white in Islam.” White hair has many virtues, among which are that it is a sign of venerability in a person, as already mentioned, and a sign of dignity for him, and that it reminds him of his approaching end, for it is the harbinger of death. A poet says: When a man’s skin turns black and his hair turns white, And his robe’s too long in front, And he takes short steps as he walks along, Tell him then that he’s close to defunct. And another, putting it excellently, said:219 The smile of white hairs on the young man’s cheeks Forced tears from his eyelids to race. And who would not weep for himself When white hairs laugh in his face? The lines contain “antithesis” in the wording,220 as you will have noticed. Women, however, dislike white hair. Hārūn al-Rashīd asked his wife, “What kind of men do you women find attractive?” She replied, “One whose cheek is like my cheek and whose member is like my forearm.” “And if his beard grows?” he asked. “He should keep his eyes to himself, and be ready with his wealth!” she said. “And if his hair turns white?” he said. “He must either put up with strife, or offer to divorce his wife!” she said—for this is something they condemn and the company of pretty women is denied to such men, especially if their money’s tight, in which case their outlook’s not bright. As the poet221 said:
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121
11.5.5
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128
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
touched by the jinn,234 or from the ʿāriḍ (“bank of clouds”) that brings rain, or from the ʿāriḍ (“flank”) of a mountain. As the poet says: Halt in the Qarāfah235 ’neath the flanks of al-ʿĀriḍ And say, “Peace be upon you, O Ibn al-Fāriḍ!” Or it may be so called because of its being spread sideways (taʿarruḍ) on the face. The paradigm is ʿaraḍa, yaʿriḍu, ʿarḍan, active participle ʿāriḍ (“to happen, to present, to expose”). wa-ṣāra (“and (my heart) is”): of the measure of fāra (“it boiled over”), from 11.5.13 ṣayrurah (verbal noun of ṣāra), or from the ṣārī (“mast”) of a boat, or from the ṣurr (“purse”) that is transferred every year to the Two Sanctuaries.236 li-qalbī (“(to) my heart”): meaning the poet’s heart and not anyone else’s, as 11.5.14 will be obvious to anyone with a fatuous mind. lawʿatun (“pangs”): these are an intense burning and yearning of the heart 11.5.15 from the agony of passionate love, or fear, or separation from the beloved and so on. As I said in the same vein: Woe is me and alack for my pangs! Enough That I endure deep wrenching sighs in my sorrows! wa-rajīf (“and trembling”): of the pattern of raghīf (“loaf ”); that is, a trem- 11.5.16 bling, the pain of which cannot be stilled and the motion of which cannot be quieted, resulting from the terror that has afflicted me from the descending of the Inspectors and my fear of them, as previously described. The paradigm is rajafa, yarjufu, rajfan (“to tremble”), like gharafa, yaghrufu, gharfan (“to ladle”). Next, the poet begins to talk of another disaster with which he and his 11.5.17 fellow peasants are afflicted and which is the most severe of the grave matters that affect them. He says:
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130
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
text wa-yawmin yajī l-dīwānu tabṭul mafāṣilī
11.6
wa-hurru ʿalā rūḥī mina l-takhwīf And on the day when the tax collectors come, my joints give way and I void my loose bowels over myself from the terror they’re creating
commentary wa-yawmin (“and on the day when”): with nunation237
11.6.1
yajī (“comes”): the time for the collection of the taxes by
11.6.2
al-dīwānu (“the tax collectors”): This is one of those things of which they say,
11.6.3
«And ask the village!»238 that is, the people of the village. What happens is that, when the Christian arrives at the village or hamlet and divides up the tax into individual portions among the peasants according to the determinations made by the surveyors and the laws that are customarily followed and starts collecting them, fear, beatings, and the imprisonment of those who are unable to pay their taxes mount. A peasant may borrow money at excessive interest or take money against his crop before its ripening at a lower price than it will fetch when it is ripe, or sell his animal that provides milk for his children, or take his wife’s jewelry—by force if need be—to pawn or sell, and pay the proceeds to the Christian or whoever is charged with collecting the tax. If he cannot come up with anything and cannot find anyone to give it to him, and the tax farmer or the bailiff fears that his impoverishment may lead to his land going to ruin and being lost to the village tax rolls, the latter will take the peasant’s son and keep him as a pledge until he pays his taxes, or, if he has no son, his brother, or any of his relatives, or he may be put in prison to be beaten and punished so that the ordinances of the Almighty may be implemented against him. Some save themselves and flee under cover of night and never return to their homes, leaving their family and birthplace because of the oppressiveness of the taxation and the difficulty of their lives. As a poet said: Life’s bane is separation From loved ones and from birthplace.
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١٣٨
138
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
Naught remains but a faltering breath And an eye with pupil pale And a passionate lover whose heart with fire Still burns, yet cannot tell the tale. No limb has he, no joint (mafṣil) Without travail. His elegy is spoke by those who revel in his state— Alas for him whose elegy the malign orate! Moving on, our poet draws attention to what befell him as a result of his 11.6.11 inability to pay the tax that he owed, of the Christian’s refusal to grant him a delay or take pity on him, and of the inevitable consequences in terms of the weakening of his joints from the great fear and agitation and the loosening of his bowels, as generally happens to certain people. He says: wa-ahurru ʿalā rūḥī (“and I void my loose bowels over myself ”): that 11.6.12 is, over my own person, not over the spirit (rūḥ) that courses through my body,247 from the great agitation and the affliction of al-takhwīf (“the terror they’re creating”): that is, the terror being created by the 11.6.13 followers of the Christian or the bailiff, and the fear that affects me, meaning that my bowels go soft as a result of the spasms caused by this affliction and the severity of the resulting agitation, so that the excrement comes out soft, like semi-liquid mud, when before it was so hard that if you flung it against a wall it would bounce back in your face. As a result, it runs over my person and my clothes, and my fear is so acute that it makes it spurt out too rapidly for me to control its eruption. Hirr (“tomcat”) is the singular of hirār,248 of the pattern of jirār, plural of jarrah (“jar”), deriving from the expressions harr ʿalayka al-ḥimār (“The donkey voided its loose bowels all over you!”) or harr ʿalā liḥyatika alkalbah (“The bitch voided her loose bowels all over your beard!”) or harr ʿalā dhaqinika (“He voided his loose bowels all over your beard!”), for example. One also says harr al-turāb (“The dust piles collapsed”) and harr al-raml (“The sand piles collapsed”), when they accumulate in heaps and flow spontaneously downward. Thus, if you look at piles of sand, you will observe hurār there for sure.249 Or it may be derived from the hirrah (“she-cat”) that hunts the mouse and which in the Hijaz they call bussah, with u after the b, and in the language of the people of Egypt, quṭṭah. The paradigm is harra, yahirru, hirāran.250
١٣٩
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146
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
after him looking for him or following his tracks. At the same time, there were three women in the boat, one of them elderly. “Captain,” said the last, “a young man in distress asks you to take him with you, and you do not accede to his plea or have mercy on him? Pull in to the shore, take him, and I’ll come up with a trick to hide him from those who’re looking for him. I’ll conceal him among my daughters and no one will know who he is!” So the captain did as she said and took the youth on board. Once on the ship, he informed us that he was in the service of an emir and that he had duped him and fled and that he was certain to come after him. “Take off your clothes!” the woman told him, so he took them off. Then she took them and hid them among her things and dressed him in women’s clothes and sat him next to her. While we were thus engaged, an emir appeared riding a horse, spurring it on for all he was worth, men and slaves behind him, till they drew abreast of the ship and he said to the captain, “Pull in to the shore so I can search you! A serving boy of mine has just now fled, taking with him a thousand dinars that he stole.” The woman told the captain, “Pull in and don’t be afraid!” so the captain pulled in to shore and everyone on the ship was frightened at what was going on. The emir and his helpers boarded and searched the ship, while the woman exclaimed, “We saw nothing of the sort! What we did see was a young man in the distance running in such and such a direction.” Propriety and lack of grounds for suspicion prevented the emir from searching the women, so he left the boat empty-handed, but the young man stayed with us on the boat until it reached Cairo, and he went off to his family, safe and sound. The poet, seeing this cloak (ʿabāʾah),258 enveloped himself in it and wrapped 11.7.10 it around himself. Laff (“wrapping”) means enveloping oneself in something and wrapping it around oneself several times. In the language of the country people, the word is also applied to eating: one says, “So-and-so ‘wrapped’ (laff) a crock of lentils” or “a crock of bīsār,” meaning “he ate it.” And one says dāhiyah taluffak (“May a disaster consume you!”), for example. The poet enveloped himself in the aforementioned ʿabāʾah so as to trick anyone who saw it into thinking that it was just a folded cloak and not suspect that there was anyone inside it. The ʿabāʾah is a long, wide garment made of wool with varicolored stripes, which the country people use as something to lie on in summer and as a cover in winter.259 Thus it is well suited to both seasons and is the most sumptuous bedding and covering that they have. The term ʿabāʾ is used in the verse of Our Master al-Ḥusayn, may the Almighty be pleased with him:
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148
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
Wearers of the ʿabāʾ are we, the five of us;260 We hold sway over east and west!
ʿAbāʾah is derived from ʿabb al-māʾ (“he gulped the water”) because it 11.7.11 “gulps it up” (taʿubbuhu) if it is thrown into it, or from the ʿubūb (“billows”) of the river in the days of the Nile flood,261 or from the abū ʿubayyah (“the one with the little cloak”), a nickname that the women of the countryside give to certain small chicks. The paradigm is ʿabba, yaʿubbu, ʿabban. wa-yabqā (“and (my farts) are”): that is, are while I am in this state in which 11.7.12 I find myself, namely, that of having loose bowels and with my sloppy stools running all over me from the insecurity and the terror while I am wrapped and enveloped in that cloak . . . ḍurāṭī (“my farts”): that is, the sounds made by the wind resounding harmoni- 11.7.13 ously in the belly as a result of eating lentils and bīsār, when expelled by the pounding of my members and the shaking of my heart, are . . . shibha (“like”): that is, resemble the sounds made by the beating of . . .
11.7.14
ṭablin (“a drum”): meaning a hide mounted on wood or copper beaten during 11.7.15 processions and on joining combat; it makes a loud noise and creates great terror and is permitted by religion in all its forms except for the kūbah, which is a small drum with a narrow neck also known as the darābukkah (“goblet drum”), and the ṭabl al-riqq (“tambourine”), which is used by singers—these belong to the category of instruments employed for frivolous purposes. Likewise, all types of wind instruments, except the trumpet, are forbidden by religion.262
ʿanīf (“loud”): that is, beaten hard; one says someone “dealt harshly with” 11.7.16 (ʿannafa) another, meaning that he beat him or disciplined him. The meaning is that the sound of that wind that exits from his belly and is called farting resembles the sound of a drum beaten vigorously and forcefully, according to which analysis the adjective would refer to the one beating rather than the thing beaten.263 Or it may be that by “a loud drum” he means a big one, such as the kettledrum or the like, since he knows no other. To give a brief overview of this word, farts fall into four categories: first, 11.7.17 the fart that emerges delicately, with a feeble sound, and is of extended duration; second, the fart that circulates, rumbling, in the belly, then emerges as
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150
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
wind with no sound; third, the fart that emerges mixed with feces and makes a sound like a water pitcher when it is full; and fourth, the fart that emerges violently, with a loud noise that strikes terror into the heart, this last being the one to which the poet so frankly draws our attention. And each of these four categories has a cause by which it is occasioned. The first is caused by refined airs that are generated in a person’s belly, then 11.7.18 emerge, as per their particular state and degree of feebleness, from between the buttocks, with a sound as delicate as they are refined, their delicacy being attributable to the refinement of the dish consumed. As the poet says: The fart of the beloved emerged delicately And with refinement, for his food was refined. This type of fart emanates from people with refined bodies and from eaters of light foods. The second is the fart that circulates, rumbling, in the belly, and sometimes 11.7.19 comes to a stop right in the middle of it, not moving until the sufferer has almost perished, then proceeds with distentionary strength and loud rumbling to the extremities of the belly. This sort causes injury. It is known to physicians as an “unripened fart” and is generated by coarse foods. If it ripens, it emerges at speed, and if any part of it emerges before it has ripened, it does so as an inaudible fart, in which case the subsequent emergence of the audible fart is of rare occurrence. The poet says: He eats any-old-how all day, And at night you find his belly rumbles. A man once went to a doctor and told him, “I feel the collywobbles and a 11.7.20 rumbling in my belly.” The doctor told him, “As to the collywobbles, I couldn’t venture an opinion, but as to the rumbling, it’s an unripened fart.” If the wind circulates in the belly without rumbling but with acute pain, it is called colic and is treated by consuming a quantity of wormwood or thyme boiled with sugar for breakfast; it may last an entire day or an entire night. It happened that Ibn al-Rāwandī, may God excuse his sins, was afflicted by such a colic for an entire night and passed the time imploring the Almighty to send him relief in the form of a single fart, but such was not vouchsafed to him. First thing in the morning he went out supporting himself on a stick he had and heard a man saying, “Lord, send me a thousand dinars!” Ibn al-Rāwandī said to him, “You crass fool!
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154
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
I farted but by that did nothing unknown to mankind, Nor did my anus commit some sin of which I should repent. Since all the world’s anuses are given to farting, Who can reproach me for such an event? And once two men went before a judge, and one of them stepped forward 11.7.24 and made his complaint against his companion and presented his story. While he was speaking, however, he farted, so he turned to his backside and said to it, “Either I speak or you do!” Nifṭawayh relates, on the authority of Ḥakīm ibn ʿAyyāsh al-Kalbī, that del- 11.7.25 egations from Quraysh and the Bedouins met with ʿAbd al-Malik. While the latter was holding audience, a Bedouin of whom ʿAbd al-Malik was particularly fond came in. ʿAbd al-Malik was delighted and said, “A happy day indeed!” and seating the man next to him called for a bow, with which he took a shot. Then he passed it on to the next man on his right, who in turn took a shot, until it came around to the Bedouin. When the Bedouin pulled hard on the bow, he farted, and threw it down in embarrassment. ʿAbd al-Malik said, “The Bedouin has put us to shame! We were too greedy for his company, but I know that the only thing that will settle his problem is food.” Then he called for the food tray to be brought and said, “Come forward, Bedouin, and fart!” though what he meant to say was “and eat!” The Bedouin said to him, “I have already done so!” to which ʿAbd al-Malik responded, “We belong to God and to God we shall return! We have indeed been tested today! By God, I shall make it something to remember! Page, bring me ten thousand dirhams!” The page brought them, and ʿAbd al-Malik gave them to the Bedouin, who, when he received them, was consoled and rejoiced and forgot what he had let slip. At this Ḥakīm ibn
ʿAyyāsh al-Kalbī recited: A farter from ʿAbd Qays lets one rip, And the Commander gives him a ten-thousand-dinar tip? Some fart, to net so much! Some fart, to make a pauper rich! We all would happily fart as one If that fart would net one tenth of that sum. If a thousand per thousand’s the going rate, Just hear me fart, God set the Commander straight!
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The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
ʿAbd al-Malik smiled and rewarded Ḥakīm ibn ʿAyyāsh with a like amount. And it is said that al-Ṣaghīrī264 approached an emir when the latter was 11.7.26 holding a salon and wanted to speak but farted instead and turned away in embarrassment. One of those who heard him then said: Tell al-Ṣaghīrī when he turns away fast At a fart like a flute playing to the oud, “’Tis but a wind you cannot control, Since you’re not Sulaymān son of Dāʾūd!”265 These are all examples of savoir faire and of how to draw a veil over the 11.7.27 faults of others and find excuses for a member of a gathering if he farts unavoidably, to spare him the embarrassment and the ridicule of the unforgiving that he would otherwise have to endure. This is why they tell the following riddle about a fart: One newly born, whose mother never bled, Who has no life and does not stir. All guffaw, though she’s not seen, But her owner doesn’t laugh—he’s too ashamed of her. If, on the other hand, the farting is a deliberate act on someone’s part and not because of an indisposition or an illness, then it’s disgusting and badmannered and shows contempt for those sitting in the gathering, and the one who farts there behaves inappropriately even if he is trying, for example, to be funny. We have observed in the villages of the countryside that, if a person farts 11.7.28 unexpectedly at a gathering, he suffers enormously at the others’ hands, and they force him to prepare them food. Sometimes they make him a mark in whitewash or lime on the wall next to where he was sitting so that everyone may see and know that he farted on that spot. On occasion he may even leave the village because of the reproach they heap on him for what he did, all of which arises from the coarseness of their natures, the worthlessness of their characters, their intolerance of farters, and their indifference to their embarrassment. However that may be, anyone who farts involuntarily is to be excused, especially if stifling the wind would cause him discomfort, even if he is in company. In such circumstances there is nothing wrong with his farting there, and he should be forgiven by reason of his indisposition.
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أ ت ف ض � �ت أ نّ � ا ��ُ�قَّ َ � ا ت� ��ن ف���ع ن ا ا ّٰ ه � ه � ا � �أ �صّ �أ نّ ا � �أ ة ل�� (�و ر� ��ي� ��ي� �ب��ع��� ا � ك � ب�) � � ��سب�� ب� م� ل� ب� ح� � �� لل ب� ب� �ل� � � مر � �فخ م م أ �ة ف ّ �ت� ّ ��ت ���ل�م ت� خ� � �من ��ا ء ت� �إ ��ل��ه �ت��س�� ��ل�ه �ع ن ح�ا �ج�� ���ل�م�ا ك� �ه�ا ر� ��ب �ص�و ت� �ج�� � ���ل ت� �و� ك �س�� ت� �ج � ر � أ�ج ي أَ يح ّ ْ ن ت � � � �� �ا � ه �� ا � ن ا �� ت �ّت ن ف ّ � ق � ل��ل�ا � �� � ��� � � � �ا ت� ا ف�����ا �ل �له�ا � ا صم �وك�� � ك��ل م� ل�ه� م� �ب� ب� ا ل����س� ر � ح� ��م � �علِ���ي� �ص� �و�ك �ب� � ك� م �إ ي� ر ج ل أ أ ٰ ّ � � � �ذ � ّ ّ � � ة ض ف ح ت� ا�ل�م � � � ���ظ�ن ت� � �ن�ه �ل� ي���س�م� ن � �ه�ا ف� ف���ر� �� ار ��ط ��ا �ش���ت �هر �ب�� �ل��ك ر���� ا لله �ع ن��ه �ه�ا ا �لض� و ع �م � �ع�لي� ر ي م � � ف � ف ا ت �ف (� ا ��تّ ف��ق ��ل �أ � نّ ك�� ��ن ت� �أ�ه� � �غ��ل�ا �مً�ا ج��م�� ا ��ل���ذ ا ت � � � � � ا � � � ل ط� ل � * � * ) ص � � � ��� � ى � و �� �ي� �ي� ي و يل ص�ي �غ ح َ �ل� �خ� � � � ا � �ا � � ن َْ� أ ن ا �م ش غ� �ف �ا ه� � ن ا �ل��ل��س�ا � * ر ��ط ب� ا �ل�ب ن��ا � * �ب��د �ي�� ا �ج �م� �ل * ر ي�� ا �ل�د �ل� �ل * � �و �� ��� ��و� ب�ج �م� �ل� * �ورا � ب� م أ أ أع أ أ ���ن ت� � ت� �قّ� � ن� � �خ��� �ل ��ه ��س�ا �ع��ة �م ن ا ��ل�ز �م�ا ن� * � � ن� ي�ج��م�عن�� ا ��ل��س�ع�د � �ن�ا ��ف� �و�ص�ا ��ل�ه * �وك� و و ب ي� � رب ي ن ف ت �ف ّا �ف ض �ة ا ل� ش ��ل �أ ن �ا ن ق ق �خ ا ا ا م�� � � ه ه ه � � � � � � � � � � � � � ��� ب� م�و �ع� �ب �� * و ي��ل�ه� ب� ��س�� * � �إو ي� ه �ي� ك م�� � * �إ �ى � � �ص�د �� �ي� ر و� م ُ �ّ َْ فُ ف � � � َّ � � ْ �غ ف �ة �خ ن ط�ور�ه�ا �ب�ا �لت��� �ر��د �ن�ا ��ط�ق��ه * ي�ر���ل ��ي� ��ثي��ا ب� ا �ل�عِ�ز � او �لإِ� �م�د ا د * �و�ك���ل � �و ��ي � �ص�د �� ��ي�ر �م� ي أ أ �أ � ت ه �� �م���ا د * ف� �ا د � ت��ه ��ا ��ل��س� �ا � * � �أ���د�� ت ���ه ا ��لغ ���ل� �� ف��� ��ا � * � �م�ا ل � � � ا � ا ل � � � ح �� � � � * � يع ل س � � ل �ج و س �ج ب و ر و م وب ي ب� �ي ب ل�ى � م أ ت أ ن أت ّ ق ّ � نأ أ � � ن � �ت ا � ح��ا ب� * ف���ل ّ�م�ا ا � ت �ق ّ ن ا �ل � ا ج �م�ع ا �ل� � ب �س��ر ��ب �� ا�ج�� �لو��س * � �و رد � � � � �م��ل�ى ��ب ���د ه ا�لم� � ��و��س * �ب�ي�� أ ئ � � �ذ �ه�ا ��تي���ك ا ��ل �ر�ا ض��� ا ��ل�ز ا �ه ه * � او ��لر� او � ا ��ل�ع�ا ���ط ه * � �و � ح��د ��ي ث��ه ا �ل�ع� ب� ا �ل ار �ئ��ق� * � �و ن� ���ط�ق��ه ح�ظ ���� ب� ر ر �ب ى ح أ � في ئ ق �إ�ذ أ � �ذ ق � �ة ت ��ث ��ف��ه * � �ذ � �� ا ��ل���ط��ا ا ا ا ن ا ��ل ش���ه ّ ن � � � � ل�� � ا � �ل��ا ���� * � ب���ل �ع�ل�ي �� ج �م� �ع� �م� � ر�ب� ب� ا �ل� � او � ا � ك و و ب ي ي � � �ي �فخ � ع �خ ا ض �ف �ل� � �غ ف ح��د�� ث� �م ن �غ��� �أد � * � �� ا �ل�غ��ل� �ا ن � ا �ل�ع�ني ����ه * �و�ج��ل��س� او �م� ��ي�ر ��ط��ل ب� * �و�� � � �� او �ي� ا � ي � ي ر ب ج �ل م أ ف�خ حَنَ�ق * � �أ ا د �أ ن �ي�ت� � ف ن �ه� � �و ���ط �ق� * � او �ع��ترا ه ا ��ل� �ه� � او ��ل � ح ّرك �ل��لن ����ا ر * ��ر� �م ن��ه �ص�و ت� � � ر و �م � و ر � �ج م م ف ن �غ ا �ق � � ا ئ ن ف ن ظ � � ّ �ك� ا �ع��ل��ه � �ق�ا �م� ا �من�� ف ن �خ�ت��ا ر * �� �ض ��� �صر��ي�� * �و�ع��لي��ه �ب� � �ل ��و�ل �ل� ��م��ي� * �� ���ر �إ �ل�ي� ح��و ي و و �م� ��ي�ر ا � ي �� � ا � �أ �ذ � ف أ ن ت أ ق � ق� �ت ق � ف �ُ ْ �� ��ب ���ط �ف� ك حي���ل * �و �و�ج��ه ج��مي���ل * �و��ا �ل �م�ا � � ��و�ل ��ي� � �ل�ؤ �م �ه��ؤ �ل� ء ا �ل� را �ل ��� � ش����د � � ���و�ل ر
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[��� ن ي� ا �ل ك� ��ا �م�ل وا �لر�ج�ز ] ب
� ا �َف َ ْ ا َ َ ْ �قَ ْ َ �� ل لا�م� ا ا ��ل � ح�ي�� ب� �و�م� د ر� او �� ح�ي�� ب� ب�م� ����عل� ��ص�د ا ب �ب و أ �ثَّ َ ْ ُ اّ ُ �ذ ز َ �ل��ما ا �د ر�ى � � �ج�ل� ���س�ه �و� �ر �ى ��ب �َ��ه�م ا ك ا �ل �����ق�ل أ � َ فَ ْ � � ف � � ْ � ��ا � َ َ ْ �و� �ر �ى ا �ل� � ��ت ��ُّوه ���م�ع���ه� �مو �ب��ل�� ي � ط�� � �ل�ف ��ظٍ� ك�� �ل�ع����س�ل أ �� � ا �ة �َ َ ْ �إ�ذ �خ � �ف��ي�ه ا ��ل � ���س�ا ر�ة ���ه�م�و � ���ه�ل ا � ك ل���ث� ��ف� � او �ل�م�ل�ل
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The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
I saw in a book that the reason that Ḥātim, God benefit us through him, 11.7.29 was given the nickname “the Deaf ”266 is that a woman came to ask him about something and, when she spoke, an audible wind came out, so she was embarrassed and fell silent. Ḥātim told her, “Raise your voice when you speak, for I am deaf!” as a way of sparing her embarrassment. The woman rejoiced and was convinced that he had not heard her fart. Then he became known for that, God be pleased with him. And once it happened that I loved a youth,267 comely of person, refined 11.7.30 of personality, honeyed of tongue, tender of limb, most wonderful in beauty, most winsome in coquetry. Infatuated with his charms, hankering for his arms, ever alert to be alone with him for a space and for fortune to cast us together in some place, I happened across him in a meadow whose fragrant plants exuded balm, whose birds filled the air with song under many a towering palm, where proudly he strolled in garments of glory with to his gait a delectable twist—and how much sweeter a chance encounter than any tryst! I greeted him in open fashion, revealed to him my passion, and asked him to sit down, with which request he complied—and ah, how sweet it is when lovers sit side by side! Then, after we’d settled ourselves and taken our place, and I wanted to take advantage of his compliant grace, among those meadows all in bloom, and all that fragrance and perfume, and to enjoy his converse sweet and pure, and accents of supreme allure, along came a bunch of those whose persons are coarse and natures gross, who sat down without invitation, and plunged without manners into conversation. The youth felt shy and hung his head, assailed by rage and dread, but as he made a move to flee a sound escaped, involuntarily. They mocked him then and left without more ado, making disparaging comments as they did so. He looked at me, his eye with kohl bright, his face a lovely sight, and said, “What say you to the chidings of those boors?” And thus did I recite: They chided the beloved, unaware
11.7.31
Of what he meant by what he did When he displayed his scorn for his companions, Showing that from him their churlishness was no way hid, And thought it best to speak sweetly with them, Employing a subtle utterance, like honey, Though this was lost on them, since they Were men of coarseness and ennui.
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ق َ� َ ْ ُ نْ ْ ت � � ف �ن� � ��دحَ��ص�ل اد ا���ه�م �م� �إ ��َ�س��ه �ب��ل��ط���ي� ِ� �ص�و تٍ َ ا َ ُ ْ �ذ � �أ َ ْ � �ْ َ ُ َ � �ُ ْ يك����م�ا ��ي��نا �ِ�س �ح�ا �ل���ه� �و�م�� � �ق� �م���ه�م ا ك ا �ل� ���ق�ل ب م � غَ َ �ْ ّ � ز� ف�����ت���فر�ق�� او �ع ن� ��م �ج��ل��سٍ � � ح�ا �و�ى ا �ل����غ�ا �ل �م� ا �ل���ز �ل ض � �ةً � ا �ذَ َ ا ٌ �ع َ ْ � � � �ف�ل�ا ��ع�د �م��نا � ��ر�ُ��ط� �ف�ي��ه� ��ه� ب� �ل�ل�عِ� �ل�ل ق �َ ّ � �ذَ �ْ ّق ت �َح��ل �ه�ا �م ن ا ��ل�ع� ا �ذ ��ل � او �ل��َ م ع� �ل � و ر�� �و� ار �� � � ّٰ َّ َ َْ ى �ذ � او �ل � �ه�ً ��ق�د ر� �ه�ا ب� �� ��ح�م�د لله ��ع� � ل � ��ح�ل م ْش�� َ �� ْ َ � ْ ا �ذ �َ َ � ْ �ف ا ضْ ْ � �غ َّ ن � � ا � � �� ��ر ��ط �و� ن� � 1او ��ب����س ��ط � او ��� ط �وطِ �� ب� ي� ا لب���ط�ل ف ِ ح ُ َ َْ َ َ � ْ ا� ن ا � ا ��ي� ر�و�� �ض��ةٍ �ي� ح���س��ه� ب��ه� ا �ل��سر�و�ر ��ق�د �و��ص�ل َ َ �ْ ّ �ف�ك��ل��م�ا ���� ض��� ��ب�هِ ��ف�ا ��ل�ع��ب�د � ن �ع��هْ ��م�ا ��ع�د �ل تر � ى ِ ا تَ�أ ُ �ذْ َ َ �ْ نْ � ّ � � �ص����فط���ى ���غ�ي�ر�ي� ��ف�ل� �� � �خ� ���ب�د ل� حق� ا �لم� � � �ل�ك� ب �
ا� ّ قّ ف� ت ّ ن �ث غ ���أ نّ ق �� ���أ �نّه �غ ص ن ا �� ا ن �َُا ن ق ا �� � ا �قّ � � � � � ل � � � � �د ح � � � � � * � � � * � ع � م � � ك � � ل � �ب���� � سم �ع� ���ر ك�� ��ه �ع� ��ود ا �ج �لم� � و ل ل�ي� �ب � ب � و ل و �� أ � ش � � � �غ ا خ �ّ �ّ �� ن� ��ف ي��م ن� � ا ن ث ��� ال ف ف�ؤ ن فق � ح��ه * �و�ر��س ��ي� ��� ا د ك �ج��ر م ب �م� ��� �ل� ا ل ب ح� ��� * �و�ل�م �ي��د ���ل ح��ه * �ل� � ك��و ي� �ي ي� �أ � أ �ذ ��ل ا � � تّ � �ق �ذ ��ل � ب����ي�ن ن��ا �م�د �ى ا ��ل��د �هر �ث�ا ��ل ث� * �و�ل� � ز��ل � �ن�ا �و �يّ�ا ه �ع��ل� �ه� ا ا � ��ل�ا �ل * ح� �ل * ح�ى �ل� ح� �ب�� �ي� ا�ج ى �إ م ( � �م ن ا ��ل��ل���ط�ا ��ئ�ف ) �أ نّ ا ��ل��س��ل���ط�ا ن �ق�ا ��ن �ص� ه ا ��لغ� �� � ّ �م ّ � �� �مً�ا ��ف �ش �خ ت��ف��ً�ا �ص ��م � ا م �� � � � � � � ر ر ي و� و ور ي ر ي و ي� و ع � ا �� ز � ف���س � � ً�ا �م ن �أ � ا ا �� � �خ� �� � �ق �� � �آ خ� �مث��� ه ��ت�ف���ت�خ� ّ � ا �ف �ا ن �أ �ن ا �أ �ق ه�و �و ل�و�ير �م ر�ج �ل � رب� ب� ل�د �ول �ي ��ول �ل� ر ل� ر�ع��ل�ي� ي� �ل � �و � �د ر ع أ أ � أ � ف �خ � �ص�ّور ا �لن�غ��م�ا ت� �م ن ���ط��ي�ز �� ف���ق��ا ��ل ��ل�و ز��ره �ع��ل� ّ ��ب �ه��ذ ا ا ��لر ج��� ف��� � حض� ��ره �ب�ي� ن� �ي��د �ي�ه ��� �ب��ره ا�لم��ل�ك ل � ي ي ي� ���ا ��ل�ع��ا ن� ��ل�ا �� ّ�د �م ن �ف���ع� �م�ا ا ��ل��ت�ز �م ت� ��ه ف���ق��ا ��ل ��ل�ه ��ت� فع� �� �ن ��ا ب��م�ا ��س�م� �م ن��ه �وق��ا ��ل ��ل�ه ��لي���� ا ���خل �ب��ر ك� ي ب ب � ل و ي� ي س �ف ال��خ ا � �ة ق � ا ش ا ق ا � � ا ّ � � � ع� �ق ق ا � ت � �ّ ا �ق ت � ت � ف� ق ا � ن م � � ص � ا� � � �ص�د � �م��� �ل��ك �و �ل� ��ل��ك ���� ل� � � � � ء م � � ل �د � � � � � � � � م م � � �� � � � ل � ل ل � ج � �ي و ب � م�لك ر ل ي �إ
ف غ �ن 1ب �ي� ( �ي� ج��مي�� ا �ل���س�� خ ) :و�� ن��. ي ع �
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The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
He called out to them from his buttocks With a delicate sound, unpremeditated— Something to match their condition
11.7.32
And their most lowly state; And so they left a gathering That gazelle and ghazal did unite— May we ne’er be deprived of a fart That can put such ills to flight! It came out sweetly, and cleared the place Of censors and their displeasure, So praise be to God for getting rid Of a burden that’s now gone forever! So fart, sing, and be happy,
11.7.33
And roam, brave lad, and be gay, In a meadow, oh so lovely, Where joy has come to stay! So long as you’re willing to have him, Your slave will ne’er avert his face— But, by the Chosen One, swear That you’ll take none else in my place! At this he smiled, revealing teeth like a pearly line, his willowy body close to 11.7.34 mine, and said, “Nay, by Him who split the grain268 and planted in your heart love’s tree, I’ll never break this oath of mine—no third shall come between us till the end of time!” And so we remained, he with me, till he joined the Lord of Majesty.269 An amusing story relates how Sultan Qānṣawh al-Ghawrī was walking in 11.7.35 disguise one day with his vizier in the streets of Cairo when he heard one singer say to another, “You dare to boast of your superiority to me, So-and-so, when I know how to produce the musical modes from my ass?” The sultan said to his vizier, “Bring the man to me!” So the vizier brought him before him and the sultan related to him what he had heard him say and said to him, “Seeing is believing! Make good your claim!” “Please let me off, Your Majesty,” the man replied, “for in the heat of an argument a man may say anything!” However, the sultan answered, “Prove your claim or I’ll kill you!” “Will you grant me immunity from punishment?” said the man. “That is yours,” said the sultan.
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164
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
that this phenomenon, namely, the fart, can be integrated only under a second definition, which is that sound is air that forms waves on the collision of two bodies. Thus the answer now is clear. And if it be said that there is a problem with the poet’s words, “and my farts 11.7.39 are like a loud drum,” to wit that, if his farts resembled the sound of heavy drumming, everyone who heard them would come to him and they would discover him, his presence would become known, and the Christian and others would be informed about it, so there would be no point in his hiding among the women or in wrapping himself in the ʿabāʾah, so what is the wisdom in this, we would reply that the poet mentions that he would fart in this manner only after wrapping himself in the ʿabāʾah. Thus, even if his farts were forceful and loud, nothing would be heard once he had wrapped himself in the ʿabāʾah. Thus the meaning is that, absent any envelopment and wrapping, his farting would be heard like the sound of drums. As it stands, however, the situation would be similar, for example, to that of a man imprisoned in a deep pit who has drums with him on which he beats: scarcely any of the sound would be heard, even if he were beating on them hard, for the ability to hear the sound would be confined to the man himself, or to those standing at the opening of the pit or close to it—the ʿabāʾah playing the role of the pit, albeit narrower, because he is enveloped and wrapped up in it—and even if the farting were strong on the inside, the noise would emerge only feebly to the outside. Or it may be that the whole thing should be treated under the rubric of “impossible rhetorical exaggeration,” similar to the example given by al-Ṣafī al-Ḥillī in his Embellished Ode in the Prophet’s Praise (Al-Badī ʿiyyah), when he says:273 A champion so strong that were the night to seek his aid Against the morn, mankind would live in darkness! Or it may be said that, even if this farting were to be heard as described, 11.7.40 no one would imagine that it was a man who was hiding; rather, it might be thought that it was a man or a woman relieving him or herself, in which case there would be no reason to think that there was anything suspicious. In any case, there is nothing problematic in the poet’s words, and the answer now is clear. And I would like to add that I am the only person to have set forth such an interpretation, made such a classification of farting, and defined it in such terms, so far as I am aware.
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170
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
that are to be gotten from farming and my extreme poverty and the unceasing demands upon me from one moment to the next, for I am denied the good things of this world and my situation benefits me nothing.” As a certain poet277 has said: I’m left with neither work nor leisure— Our earnings are from a bargain vexed; And the outcome of it all and the upshot Is naught in this life and naught in the next! —for I can see no profit in farming, starting from the lack of seed and my inability to improve the land, for only the strong, affluent peasant can cultivate the land, especially in view of the abusive levies,278 tax augmentations, and customary dues that are entered nowadays against the peasants, and the “obligations.” For, though it is written that it is “nine-tenths of all blessing,” farming falls short of such a yield because of the pervasive injustices. In earlier times, the peasant did not have “customary dues” or “charges” or “obligations” or any of the other things that exist today imposed upon him. On the contrary, a person would farm the land, the tax calculated on it would be light, and he would know nothing of the wajbah, the fine on the landless, and the rest. Blessing was unconfined, all the land was under cultivation, and the people enjoyed the greatest good fortune, affluence, and profit. When al-Maʾmūn entered Egypt279 and made a progress through its villages, a foundation of crushed stone would be built for him in a day in each village on which his pavilion would be erected and this would be surrounded by troops, and he would stay a night and a day in each village. So he passed a village called Ṭā l-Naml280 but did not enter it because it was so wretched. When he had gone by, an old woman known as Māriyah the Copt, the owner of the village, came after him, shouting. Al-Maʾmūn thought she was calling on him for help as a petitioner against some injustice, so he stopped for her. He had interpreters of every race on hand, and they told him that the Coptic woman said, “The Commander of the Believers has stayed at every estate and ignored mine and not alighted there, and the Copts are using this to mock me. I ask the Commander of the Believers to honor me by alighting at my estate, that he may honor me and my progeny, and that my enemies do not gloat over me,” and she wept copiously. Al-Maʾmūn felt sorry for her, so he turned his horse back towards her and alighted. Her son came to the master of
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171
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184
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
The lark on parade day298 came to Sulaymān To give him a locust it had in its beak And uttered the while these words, in nature’s tongue:299 “Gifts are proportionate to the giver, be he mighty or meek. If each according to his worth were given, Your gift would be the World and all you therein seek!” Or it is from hadhayān (“raving”), with dh, which is the correct form.300 11.10.3 The paradigm is hadda, yahuddu, haddan or hadama, yahdimu, hadman according to the two forms, deriving from the expression haddaka Allāhuan (“May God demolish you utterly!”) or hadamaka hadman (“May He destroy you utterly!”), meaning that He should weaken your powers and immobilize you, as a wall becomes profitless when demolished, and so on. min baʿdi hādah wa-hādihī (“after this and that”): hādah being with h and ā 11.10.4 and d and final h,301 which means that its ends are “knotted together,”302 with its beginning being the same as its end, as you will notice if you look closely. The origin of the word is hādhā, a demonstrative, but the tongues of the country people have changed it. The meaning is that this has demolished my stamina and weakened my powers after all that went before (namely, being bitten by lice and nits, and want and disgrace and so on) and what came after (namely, the injuries done by relatives and worries over the tax and the wajbah and fears over the arrival of the Inspectors and the corvée and demands for the sultan’s taxes and scurrying about in the fields and so on, as set out above). As the poet says: The worry of farming has put me in a dither And all the while I’m losing more. No sooner I escape the wajbah ’s worries Than the sultan’s tax is at the door. Indeed, you will find the peasant, if poor, is always on the verge of perishing 11.10.5 from beatings, imprisonment, and a lack of delicious things to eat and drink, and finds no rest unless he has paid the sultan’s tax; and, if he has a small balance owing, he will think about it all night long, and at daybreak and day’s end, and exist in a state of frantic effort and exhaustion, unless the Almighty bless him in his planting—for much may come forth from little if his intentions at the time of sowing the land are good and if his purpose at the time be that
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186
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
he and others should benefit by what he is doing, as by providing food for the birds and the animals and so on, and if he places his trust in the Almighty for its growth and preservation from pests. In such a case God will bless him in it, with great reward, as witnessed by the fact that it is related of Our Master
ʿUmar,303 God be pleased with him, that one day he passed by some people sitting without work or gain and begging. “Who are you?” he asked. They said, “We are those who place our trust in God.” “That you are not,” he said, “for those who place their trust in God are those who place the grain between the water and the soil. Go and be gainfully employed!” The cultivator is the person who puts the greatest faith in God, if he heeds what is prescribed above at the time of sowing. A Useful Note: It is desirable that the cultivator should pray two prostrations at 11.10.6 the time of sowing the grain in the earth and then say, “My God, I, Your feeble slave, have commended this seed to You, so bless me in it!” Then he should bless the Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace, for God will preserve the plants from infestations if he does so. Imam al-Zāhidī mentions this. For our part, however, we thank God that he has relieved us of farming and its woes; it was never our father’s or our grandfathers’ occupation, for we are of the sort described by al-Buhlūl,304 God have mercy on him, when he said: When kings mount steeds After fixing their standards to lances frail, I mount my reedling and don my cassock And travel as they do in every vale. Then never can troopers demand from me taxes Nor the collectors over my assessment fail. Agriculture is, in any case, a tribulation from which we pray God to spare us and our loved ones. siwā l-kishki (“but kishk”): kishk (“wheat groats”) is at base a mixture of wheat 11.10.7 and milk; it is Coarse305 and stimulates sickness. The poet says: Kishk is Gross and Coarse. It activates what’s still. Its ingredients are milk and wheat— Noble forefathers, but still . . .306
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188
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
—that is, “but still, what a horrible child!” with “quotation” and “restraint.” The recipe is to take burr (“wheat”), synonym qamḥ, wash it well, and soak 11.10.8 it in water.307 Then it is placed on the fire and heated until it goes soft and the grain swells and it is well boiled. Then it is dried in the sun and husked and put in a pot, and milk and strained mishsh is poured onto it and it is stirred, then left for several days, then stirred again and more milk is added and so on until it ferments and thickens and acquires a sour smell and a most excellent taste. More milk is added to cut the sourness and it is formed into small cakes and put in the sun to dry, and taken and stored until it is to be cooked. This is how they make the groats of the villages by the river, which is the best in quality and the finest to eat. As for the groats of the hamlets and the villages of the swamplands, which is the type referred to by the poet, God spare you such a disgusting sight! They make it with strained cottage-cheese culture and just a small quantity of milk, which makes it extremely sour, sharp to the taste, gross in nature compared to other types, and laxative. This is the sort that is brownish, and the whiter, purer, and less sour-smelling it gets, the better it is. The groats of Upper Egypt is the same, for it resembles that of the hamlets in its poor quality, though in Upper Egypt they form it into small balls, and they also have a type that is of good quality because it has high milk content and is very clean. As for how to cook with it, this varies according to the place where that is 11.10.9 done. The people of the villages on the river sometimes cook it with rice and fatty meat, other times with chicken or one of the other types of edible fowl, or make it with rice alone, and they make it thick. The people of al-Manzalah and Dimyāṭ cook it with fat mullet, and I have eaten it in Dimyāṭ many times. The Turks make it thin and runny, with a small quantity of rice, and it is drunk with a spoon, and they make a garnish for it by frying greens and fats and good clarified butter, and they cook it with fat mutton. This makes it extremely delicious to eat. Its nature is Moderate, especially when eaten with mutton, chicken, and rice. The bad kind that “activates what’s still,” as mentioned in the verses above, is the groats of the people of the hamlets and the villages of the swamplands, for they neglect to wash it or strain it well when they cook it, and they put it in a crock or a kettle or a pan on the fire and add a handful of shelled fava beans and heat it until it thickens. Then they take it off the fire and mince an onion into it and add a little sesame oil and make it a fried garnish with these, and ladle it into earthenware kneading bowls or milk crocks and crumble maize or barley bread into it. Such people eat a crockful, chewing and gulping, and set
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190
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
off for the fields, where they stay until evening. By that time, what is left has gone hard, with bits of fava beans sticking out. This they gulp down till they are satisfied. This is what is called among them hirāsh al-ʿajāʾiz (“old women’s butting”)308 and it is the most highly prized of their dishes. Most of them make it for their weddings, as stated above in Part One of this commentary.309 They know nothing of cooking it with rice and meat, for rice is found among them only rarely and they only eat meat once a year, as we shall show. Another type in the same category they cook without fava beans and consists of just kishk and nothing else, without any kind of garnish; this they call nayrab, and that and the preceding generate wind and “move what is still” and are harmful to the stomach because they contain so many beans,310 the latter being Gross in nature. Wheat is similar because it is Hot and Moist, and cottage cheese culture is Cold and Moist, and beans are Coarse and Heavy. Thus harm arises from the combination of these four.311 Groats, before it is cooked, has several beneficial qualities. For example, 11.10.10 if dissolved in water and drunk by someone with heartburn, it brings relief and soothes the inflammation of the stomach. If a camel sickens from the heat and is given some to drink, it recovers. For the same reason, travelers such as pilgrims and others use it when the heat overcomes them and makes them feel unwell. As an ointment, it is good for the pain caused by whipping, and it has other beneficial properties mentioned in the medical books. The people of Upper Egypt cook it without straining it first, so that it resembles nothing so much as bran cooked with vinegar; there is no benefit to be had from it, and it has no taste or savor because their good properties are present only after they have been strained—but anyway their food consists mostly of okra and Jew’s mallow, as we have observed in their villages. It is said that an Upper Egyptian from the region of Qinā and Qūṣ once came to Cairo to buy himself a girl to do the housework. He came across a girl who was for sale at an extremely high price because of her knowledge of different dishes. He stood in front of her and asked, “Do you cook well as they say?” She looked at him and asked him, “What country are you from?” “From Upper Egypt,” he said. Then she said, “You have no need of fine food, for the diet of the people of Upper Egypt is six months a year okra and six months Jew’s mallow. They have no need of finer foods than these.” The man left her and went away amazed.
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192
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
A Fatuous Question: What is the meaning of the name kishk and what is its ety- 11.10.11 mology, and what is the meaning of the name of the cooked type that is called hirāsh al-ʿajāʾiz and the other type called nayrab, and what does the poet mean when he says that it “demolished” his stamina when he beheld it as it was about to be ladled out and he smelled its aroma? The Facetious Answer is that kishk is one of those back-to-front words that can be read forward and backward. Similar are kaʿk (“a type of short pastry”), shāsh (“muslin”), bāb (“door”), etc.312 Similar too are sir fa-lā kabā bi-ka al-faras (“Go, and may the mare not stumble with you!”) and qilʿ murakkab bi-bakar muʿallaq (“A sail set with a pulley suspended”) and ḥissak tatazawwaj ʿajūz tatakassaḥ (“Mind you don’t marry an old woman who hobbles!”). The same is also found in the Mighty Qurʾan in the words of the Almighty «(wa-)rabbaka fa-kabbir313 (“(and) thy Lord magnify”),» «kullun fī falak314 (“each in an orbit”),» and elsewhere, as in kamālak taḥta kalāmak (“Your words are the offspring of your perfection”) and kalb yabulluka (“May a dog wet you!”) and ʿilq taḥta qilʿ (“A faggot under a sail”). An example in verse is the words of al-Ḥarīrī:315 Us armalan idhā ʿarā * wa-rʿa idhā l-marʾu asā Uslu janāba ghāshimin * mushāghibin in jalasā Give to the pauper when he passes by and stay friends with one who does you harm. Avoid the abode of an unjust scoundrel when he’s at home! Also, when they turn groats over in the sun, their bottoms are just like their tops, and the beginning of each ball of groats is the same as its end; from this perspective there is a certain appropriateness in their being a palindrome. Or the name may derive from the fact that when it is put in the sun it shrinks (yakishshu) and shrivels from the heat; or from the saying they have, “So-andso ‘ate kishk’ (kashshaka) at So-and-so’s house,” meaning he ate a lot, so that his belly swelled till he looked like a crock full of kishk; or from kishkish, which they say to a dog—when they want to throw it something to eat, this is the word they use to call it. Or from kushuk (“kiosk, gazebo”), with u after the k and the sh, which is a place outside a large building, mounted on timbers, that the great erect to sit in. Or from the fact that the kishkah (“cake of kishk”), once formed into a ball, would resemble the kuss (“cunt”), with s, which is the
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198
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
“Indeed,” said the doctor, “and what else?” “I went off to our field of beans, and ate a bundle or two of them . . . say three. And I left the field and, at the house of the bailiff of the hamlet, I saw some kishk and tossed down a crock or two of it . . . say three. And I saw there was a wedding in our alley, and they invited me over, so I went into their house. They cooked lots, and I ate a crock or two of that food . . . say three. And I saw someone selling yellow cucumbers by our house, so I ate a heap or two . . . say three. Then I came to you to see what’s wrong with me, because I feel my appetite is failing me.” The doctor told him, “Take of raisins a hundredweight or two . . . say three, and of senna pods a hundredweight or two . . . say three.” The man said to him, “I heard you prescribe a little senna, sugar, and raisins for the man who came to you before me, and you want to prescribe them for me by the hundredweight?!” The doctor replied, “Vilest of peasants! Could anything deal with such meals as those but hundredweights of purges such as these?” Then he slung his bag over his shoulder and swore that he would not sit in the market anymore that day because of that peasant. Now the record’s straight as regards the import of such a state, and the explanation’s plain as regards such tales inane. Next the poet, having done with talk of that particular food, felt a desire 11.10.17 for something coarser that is used by the people of the countryside in most of their dishes. So he said:
text wa-lā shāqanī illā l-mudammas wa-rīḥatū
11.11
ʿalā man jatū jafnah wa-nuṣṣu raghīf And nothing has made me yearn like stewed beans and their smell! Happy is he to whom comes a bowl with half a loaf!
commentary wa-lā shāqanī (“And nothing has made me yearn”): from shawq (“yearning, 11.11.1 desire”), which is the softening of the heart and its inclination towards the beloved. ʿUmar ibn al-Fāriḍ, God benefit us through him, says, “Were it not for you, the mention of my home would not make me yearn (mā shāqanī) . . . .”323
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200
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
Shāqa (“it caused yearning”) is of the measure of qāqa (“it honked”), which is the sound a goose makes. The paradigm is shāqa, yashūqu, shawqan, like qāqa, yaqūqu, qawqan, and what he means to say is, “My yearning has not grown and my thirst has not increased for any dish . . .” illā l-mudammas (“like stewed beans”):324 mudammas being taken from dims 11.11.2 (“bedding straw for cattle”) because the beans are cooked in a fire fueled with dims, as will be explained. The paradigm is dammasa, yudammisu, tadmīsan, active participle dāmis, passive participle madmūs.325 There are two kinds, the rural and the urban, even though the origin is the same, namely, fava beans, the difference being due to the fact that things are ennobled at times by virtue of place and at others by virtue of excellence of manufacture. To make the urban kind, which is that sold in Cairo and other cities, they 11.11.3 take clean white beans, discard any bad ones, and put them in large broadbellied kettles with narrow mouths just wide enough for a man to insert his hand into when he serves from them. Then they pour enough sweet, pure water over them to cover them and they plug the mouth of the kettle tightly with some clean palm fiber or a clean vessel and they cook them in a strong, clean fire of threshings that makes no smoke or unpleasant odors, such as that of a baker’s pit or the like. For a whole night they watch over them, adding water whenever they dry out, until the taste is good, the consistency just right, the aroma enticing, and they taste wonderful and are beautifully cooked. At this point the beans take on a golden color and the consistency of, for example, pressed dates, so that any who sees them wants to eat them. When they want to eat some, a man, or a woman if she so desires, will buy enough for him or herself, and add clarified cow’s butter or olive oil or clotted cream, and bring clean white bread. They may also be eaten accompanied by green leeks and limes or vinegar. All this makes them excellent nourishment, sustaining for the limbs and filling for the stomach. A little thyme balances them,326 especially if coffee is drunk immediately afterward. A man can go from morning to night on this alone. As for the second kind, namely, the mudammas of the country people— 11.11.4 which is what the poet craves—God spare you such a disgusting sight! If you’ve never tasted shit, try this! They take the beans, be they good or bad, as is. The peasant’s wife may well take them from the cow’s or the ox’s feeding trough and blow the remnants of straw off them, and put them in a vessel
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The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
called a bawshah (“earthenware pot”) and cover them with dirty, foul-smelling water drawn from the ponds or from the cut-off stretches of Nile water that remain in their villages after the flood recedes, or from the wells. She plugs the mouth of the pot with flax straw mixed with dung or with a filthy rag and puts it into the fire chamber of the oven, which is filled with bedding straw and dung cakes, which may also be heaped on top of it, and she closes the door of the fire chamber on it tightly till the morning. Then she takes it out, by which time the beans will have mixed with the odors of the droppings and the dung cakes and that foul-smelling water and turned black and become like goat droppings and developed a foul smell. Next she gets the crock, shakes the pot, and empties the beans into it. The countryman then sits down, like a snarling dog, and she brings him dry sorghum or barley bread, and he cuts and swallows till his belly is filled. If you were to eat it, you would think you were eating sheep droppings or something of the sort. Some of them eat it with leeks or onions, and sometimes they add some wheat or chickpeas, and their great men put a little linseed oil on it. Some of them have no bread, and such a one gulps it down in lumps in the morning without saying a prayer or washing his face, until he has had enough. Then he washes it down with water until he is like a swollen waterskin, and takes his cudgel and sets off like a . . . .327 Such is their mudammas and the nature of their food, God preserve you from it! wa-rīḥatū (“and their smell”): originally wa-rāʾiḥatuhu, the glottal stop being 11.11.5 omitted for the meter, or in accordance with rural usage;328 that is, “its smell, mixed with the aforementioned odors, caused me to yearn for it, because I think it so delicious when my appetite yearns for it; consequently I crave it, and beans, but I find none of these things because I am so poor.” Rīḥah is derived from rīḥ (“wind”) or from rawāḥ (“going”) or from the abū riyāḥ (“windmill toy”) that boys play with or from rāḥ, which is one of the words for wine. The poet says: Wine (rāḥ) is like the wind (rīḥ): if it passes a perfume It turns sweet, and it turns bad if it passes a corpse. Or it, rīḥah, may be from the words of the poet:
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204
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
The ferryboat’s going and coming (rāyiḥah jayyah),329 By a thread330 it’s jerked along. You in the open-fronted cloak, See where my foot stepped wrong! And with the same meaning a poet says in a mawāliyā, as a riddle:331 What make you, my friend, of something going and coming From beneath a wall, both dead and living, On the ground thrown down, yet standing and sitting, Moving, well-built, yet atop a wall reclining? Next, the poet, having mentioned his craving for mudammas and its smell, 11.11.6 and the eating thereof that follows naturally from that—for seeing and smelling cannot take the place of eating and chewing—desires to do just that, and says:
ʿalā (“happy is he”): this is a preposition, though used here as a verb,332 the 11.11.7 meaning being “May the standing of him to whom comes a bowlful be exalted (ʿalā) and raised up!” or “May his body be exalted (ʿalā), his soul invigorated and his belly satisfied, and may he become renowned for strength after hunger!”—as the poet says: Our Zayd rose high above (ʿalā) your Zayd’s head, on the day of battle, With a white sword of Yemen, sharp on both edges! —or perhaps the preposition is used in its original function, the meaning being “in any case (ʿalā kulli ḥāl), verily . . .” man jatū (“he to whom comes”): that is, he who acquires . . .
11.11.8
jafna(h) (“a bowl”): full of the aforementioned stewed beans, even if it be a 11.11.9 gift, or alms, wa- (“and”) who acquires along with it . . . nuṣṣu raghīf (“half a loaf ”): (the f of niṣf having been elided in accordance with 11.11.10 the rural language,333 as when they say nuṣṣ fiḍḍah for niṣf fiḍḍah), or as an example of “restraint,”334 or by way of apocopation, as when the poet says, “Gently now, Fāṭim! A little less disdainful . . . ,”335 should such a thing befall him, then it would be the most blessed and happiest of days. The fact that he asks for half a loaf and not a whole one is an allusion to the fact that stewed
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206
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
beans are Hot and do not call for a lot of bread; thus half a loaf will be enough for him, when combined with all the beans he is going to eat without bread, for example. Or it may be a case of just asking for any little thing to satisfy his hunger temporarily. The jafnah is a large vessel made to hold food. The Almighty has said, 11.11.11 «wa-jifānin ka-l-jawābī (“and basins like reservoirs”),»336 the latter being plural of jābiyah, which means a large tank. Describing a people as being much given to eating and as having capacious bellies, a poet says: Every lout has a belly like a vat (jābiyah), Which, if you change the dots, comes out as “twat” (khāyibah). In another copy, the word occurs with h, that is, as a ḥafnah (“handful”), 11.11.12 of stewed beans. A ḥafnah is what fills a man’s two cupped hands, when the fingers are brought close together. However, it is more appropriate with j. Between jafnah and ḥafnah there is “orthographic paronomasia.” Jafnah is derived from the jafn (“lid”) of the eye, because the former protects the food just as the jafn provides a protective covering for the eye and whatever kohl or anything else may be put on it, such things suffusing the lids, which close over them and preserve them, allowing them to affect the eyesight337 and perfect the charm of the face. As the poet338 says: I say to his eyes when closed in sleep, The lids with kohl suffused, “Blessed be He who grants you rest at night, When He knows how cruelly by day you’re used!” The paradigm is jaffana, yujaffinu, jafnatan (“to hollow out (a bowl)”). Next the poet desires another dish, one of those most often eaten in his vil- 11.11.13 lage and coarser in nature than stewed beans. He says:
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208
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
text ʿalā man raʾā l-bīsāra fī l-jurni jā-lū wa-yadʿas wa-law kān bi-l-qulinji ḍaʿīf
11.12
Happy is he who sees bīsār come to him on the threshing floor and bolts it, though he be by colic enfeebled!
commentary ʿalā (“Happy is he”): the meaning of ʿalā is explained in the preceding verse.
11.12.1
man raʾā (“who sees”): visually.
11.12.2
(a)l-bīsāra: bīsār is of two kinds, rural and urban, as was previously seen to be 11.12.3 the case with regard to other dishes. The rural is composed of two things— dry Jew’s mallow and pounded beans, nothing more. The way the people of the countryside cook it is to put the dry mallow and a small quantity of pounded beans in the pot, cover with water, and put the pot in the oven until it is almost done. Then they take it out and break up the lumps with a wooden whisk until it reaches the right consistency and the beans have crumbled and their smell permeates the air. After this they return it, if necessary, to the oven, adding water, if required, until it is done. Next they make it a garnish by frying onion in a little sesame oil and ladle it out into a crock or a milk pot and crumble some barley bread or flaky sorghum pastry into it until it turns into something like slabs of dung mixed with straw, and they eat it with green or dry onions. One of them will eat a crock or two, mixed with crumbled bread or pastry, for lunch, and a crock for dinner, and pick up his stick, with his leather sandals slung behind his neck, and set off with the animals, or to reap or plow; and this is the greater part of their food, especially in Ramadan at the time of the breaking of the fast or just before dawn, so that the peasant ends up looking like a swollen waterskin, as previously noted. Then he lies down on top of the oven with the dung and the daub on his legs, he and his wife, without a prayer or any other act of worship, and the flatulence goes around and around in their bellies and erupts like a hurricane, and this serves as their incense all night long. None of them gets up in the morning but the stink of his jubbah wafts about from the quantity of farts, audible and inaudible, therein. Should he have intercourse that same night with his wife their fate will be farting and fracas, and
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The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
gas and tintamarre. Such is their condition with regard to eating and coition— we seek shelter with God from the peasant’s disposition! As for the urban kind, how delicious it is, and how toothsome, good, and 11.12.4 wholesome! What happens is that, should one of the great men of Cairo or one of the other cities to which Jew’s mallow is brought for sale or in which it is grown have an appetite to make it, he may do so in a variety of fashions. One of them will take it dry and cleaned of stems, shortly after it has been dried, or perhaps dry it in his own house and entrust it to whoever, wife or servant, will see to the cooking of it. The latter then places it in a tinned copper basin or Anatolian-style casserole with a tight-fitting lid and adds pure, cold, sweet water and heats it over wood339 until it reaches the right consistency. Then she gently breaks up the lumps and makes it a garnish of Syrian or local garlic mixed with clarified cow’s butter and adds the fat from the tail of a sheep and throws in some seasonings such as pepper and so on, plus a little cumin to get rid of its harmful attributes. Another may add to this a few crushed beans but also increase the fat or clarified butter until the latter absorbs the taste of the beans and the taste of the fat, butter, seasonings, and so on predominates. Yet others use small mutton kebabs in place of the beans, this form being called “the Gathering of Loved Ones.”340 Another way is to take it, that is, the mallow, when green and fresh, gathered that day, and chop it well (though some Turks do it without chopping), then heat it as before and make a garnish for it with fats, clarified butter, and seasonings, as described above; it is then very delicious. Some stuff it with meat, and this kind is called “the Softener of Constitutions” for its Coldness, the ease with which it is eaten, the speed with which it is digested, and the lightness that results in the body. Another kind is yet more delicious and appetizing than the preceding and more beneficial and makes a more delicious dish. This consists of taking the mallow when small, when it is starting to sprout, chopping it well, and cooking it with chicken or goose, with a lot of fats and seasonings, or with mutton. The people of Cairo are very fond of this type and make it often, so much so that one of them may spend large amounts of money on mallow when it first appears and invite his closest friends over to eat it. They consider it more delicious than the feast-day foods, and talk of this treat, and the guest will say, “Tonight So-and-so fed me mallow, the first of the year!” Sometimes they eat it with clean toasted bread made of finely sieved flour and baked with fennel-flower seed or fennel, which
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they crumble into it, so that it absorbs those wonderful fats and the flavors of the fatty meats. This follows from their excellent judgment, intelligence, and love of things 11.12.5 when they first appear, as exemplified by the proverb that says, “Everything new is delicious and everything old distasteful” and, in the same vein, the words of Ibn ʿArūs, God have mercy upon him and benefit us through him: They hold you high on your debut— Something dear for a dear hand to hold. But Muslin, when you fade, they toss you out— And so it was for me, when I grew old. —for everything, when it first appears, holds an appeal of a special kind, and, for children, joy unconfined. There is also a kind called būrānī341 made by tearing up the mallow leaves and making a garnish for them with clarified butter; then they prepare it as previously described. This is why Master ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Shaʿrānī, God benefit us through him, 11.12.6 mentions that it is desirable to eat things such as vegetables and fruit and the like at their first appearance, for their health benefits when new are greater than when old. The people of Cairo are of this school and think it auspicious to obtain things when they are still new, and care nothing for them when they are old—may God reward them for their doughtiness, granting them everlasting pleasure in their womenfolk and seasoning to perfection their togetherness, and God protect us from the countryside and its stupidities, the coarseness of its food and of its people’s proclivities! Question: What is the wisdom in calling mallow with fava beans bīsār, and 11.12.7 what is the wisdom in calling mallow mulūkhiyyā, and what are the etymology and the meaning of the latter? The Facetious Answer may take two forms. The first is that the father of the man who originally invented bīsār was a peasant who used to grow mulūkhiyyā. However, there was bad blood between him and his son, and the latter went to the field of his aforementioned father and stole some of the aforementioned mulūkhiyyā and took it to his wife, who said to him, “What do you want with this?” He replied, “I intend to have it made into food,” and he took its leaves and placed them in a pot and put it on the fire. Then along came his young son, who threw into the pot a few stewed fava beans that he had taken from the donkey’s trough, and the mulūkhiyyā
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The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
futile, slack-twisted,367 slothful man is referred to as a balīlah for his inability to earn a living and his failure as a breadwinner. Balīlah is of the measure of habīlah (“stupid”) or ʿawīlah (“parasitic, sponging”), and the paradigm is balla, yabullu, balīlatan (“to wet”).368 malānah (“filled”): referring to the bowl
11.13.6
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234
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
cottage-cheese mishsh, which is the mishsh of the country people referred to previously. One also speaks of oven-cheese mishsh. Mishsh is of the measure of wishsh (“face”) as that word is pronounced in the language of the country people.389 When one of them insults another, he says, “Damm ihdim wishshak” (“Blood destroy your face”)!390 for example. It is derived from mashash (“splint”), a disease of horses and donkeys. One says, “Jāk mashash (‘Get splint’)!” that is, may God afflict you with it. The first kind, that is “strained mishsh,” is good against mange, if drunk; the second is good against blockages and strengthens the stomach; and the third is good for nothing— on the contrary, it is pure harm, no more, no less! Or it may be derived from mashy (“walking”), because, if poured on the ground, it will “walk” on, that is, spread over, it. Onions are Hot and Dry (and, some say, Moist). They inhibit phlegm but 11.15.6 provoke migraines and headaches, cause wind, and weaken the eyesight. Overconsumption results in forgetfulness and disorders the mind. As for their good qualities, they drive away pestilence, for it is related concerning God’s Messenger, God bless him and grant him peace, that he said, “If you enter a land where there is pestilence, and are afraid of catching the disease, eat of its onions!” They are good against foul waters, release the carnal appetite, provoke sexual excitement, increase the semen, and improve the complexion. They get rid of coarse freckles, tetters, and black vitiligo when powdered, kneaded with honey, and applied to these. Pounded smooth and applied to the roots of the hair they are good against “fox disease,” which is hair loss. The juice, used as an ointment, revives one who has fainted, and vinegar and milk balance its humors if it is eaten with either. wa-law kāna bi-l-kurrāṭi kāna ḍarīf (“and were it with leeks, that would be 11.15.7 nice!”): that is, because they are Hot and Soft, and stir up the stomach and the blood, though, like onions, they weaken the eyesight and cause wind, as previously noted. However, they tighten the phallus and are good for piles. They are best eaten with sesame oil. Eating raw onions, garlic, and leeks is disapproved of for one entering a mosque unless he take something to rid his mouth of the smell, in accordance with the words of the Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace, “The eater of garlic, onions, and leeks, let him not approach our mosque; for the angels suffer from those things from which men suffer”—by analogy, this extends to all mosques, for the wording is specific but
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the intention is general. A Useful Note: I have seen in a book that all edible green plants found their way onto the table of Master Jesus, peace be upon him, except leeks.391 As for the squill, it has excellent properties that are mentioned in works on medicine. It is a remarkable fact that, if a wolf steps on one, it dies instantly. This why if a fox is in fear for his life from a wolf, it gets a squill tuber and puts it at the entrance to its hole; when the wolf sees it and smells it, it runs away and never comes back, and it thus acts as a protection for the fox, glory be to Him who inspired it with this wisdom! ḍarīf (“nice”): originally, ẓarif, with ẓ and not with ḍ; his use of the first form is 11.15.8 in accordance with rural usage. That is, it would be a pleasant thing, meaning that they would be less injurious than onions (albeit more likely to cause flatulence), for leeks are far more appetizing and tasty; there would be no harm therefore if they were present, and this, indeed, is what he wants. Next the poet desires some milk product to drink. He says:
11.15.9
text ʿalā man sharib matrad malāna muṭanbir
11.16
mina l-labani l-ḥāmiḍ yariffu rafīf Happy is he who drinks a crock, full to the brim of sour milk that flutters!
commentary ʿalā man sharib (“Happy is he who drinks”): drinking is the passing of water 11.16.1 and other fluids via the mouth into the belly. The Almighty says, «Eat and drink»392 and He says, «But they drank thereof, all but a few of them.»393 It does not cover what a man puts in his mouth and then expels, like the tobacco that is used nowadays: when people refer to this as “drinking,” they do so not in a real but in a figurative sense.394 matrad (“a crock”): this is a vessel of red pottery, smaller than the shāliyah. 11.16.2 It is the vessel most in use among the country people, especially at their weddings. The word was originally composed of two verbs, māt (“it died”) and radd (“it returned”) because, when it was first made and broke, they made
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The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
another one instead, and said, “It returned (radd) after it died (māt).” Then they omitted the alif and made it a proper name and said matrad.395 It is of the measure of maqʿad (“seat”) or masnad (“cushion”). What the poet wants is the milk that is within it, not the crock itself, for it is just a container for what it holds, and the idea of drinking the crock itself is not to be entertained. Some say that it was given this name because bread is frequently found in it (li-taraddud al-khubzi fīh) and food is placed upon it, in which case it would belong to the category of “naming the container after the thing contained”; or that it was named after a city called Māturīd from which Shaykh al-Māturīdī, God benefit us through him, took his name. malāna (“full”): that is, not lacking, so that it be satisfying to both the stomach 11.16.3 and the eye, for a person may well reckon something that is less than full to be too little, and not be satisfied when he sees it. This is why he wants it to be full . . . muṭanbir (“to the brim”): of the measure of muzanbir396 or muṭarṭir (“raised”); 11.16.4 one speaks of a kuss muzanbir (“an engorged cunt”) and a zubb muṭarṭir (“a stiff prick”); that is, one that is high above its surroundings, referring here to the extreme sourness and stiffness of the milk. One says, “So-and-so’s belly is ‘brimful’ (miṭṭanbar)” that is, inflated (manfūkh), or “He died and became brimful (iṭṭanbar),”397 that is, “became inflated” (intafakh), and one says, “Blood fill your belly to the brim! (damm yiṭanbar baṭnak)” for example, that is, “May you die and inflate!”; and similarly one speaks of the Hijazi turban made of white and yellow silk, on which the local turban is modeled, as “brimming over” (miṭṭanbar), this description being used perhaps because, when one wraps it around his head, it becomes large, high, and “brimming over” (miṭṭanbar) in the same way that sour milk rises above the edges of the crock. It is derived from ṭanbarah,398 which is frottage with young boys. The poet says: If you’re into your “instrument” and your nature’s “tamborine-ish,” Rub away gently and remember the one they hung!399 —the background to these words being that a certain reprobate took a young boy intending to practice frottage with him, but he “misfired” and rammed it home. The boy died, the man was hung, and a lot of verse was composed, of which I recall only this opening line. Or it may be from ṭunbūrah (“tambourine”), of the measure of ʿuṣfūrah (“sparrow”). The poet says:
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246
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
yawma (“one day”): that is, one day when Fate has bungled and the Almighty 11.18.4 is looking kindly on me ṭājin (“a casserole”): name for a round earthenware vessel with a wide belly, 11.18.5 in which fish, rice, meat, fowl, and other things are cooked, which is used throughout the country, though food can only be cooked in it in the oven. It is derived from taṭjīn (“speaking harshly”) or from ṭijānah (“the art of cooking in a casserole”) or from waṭʾ al-jinn (“treading on the jinn”), for ṭājin is a puzzle word,410 deriving its hidden meaning from the fact that some person waṭiʾa jinnan, that is, “‘stepped on’ (dāsa) a company of jinn,” the word being constructed, from this perspective, from the combination of a verb, a subject, and an object, the subject (which is omitted) being “you”; thus the meaning is “(You there,) tread on some jinn! (ṭaʾ anta jinnan)”411 A similar word is ṭāfiyah, that is, a ṭāʾifah (“group, company”) of people.412 There is further category of such puzzle words, different from the preced- 11.18.6 ing, exemplified by someone’s saying that the name Ḥammād means “Take something empty and fill it with water”;413 and, for verse, my own lines on the name Shaḥātah: He wreaked havoc on folk with his cute ways, Making nice (wālif) after being tightfisted (shuḥḥ). Long ago said I, to be done, “Get lost (tih)!— My commentary’s got your meaning untwisted.”414 But the most exquisite word puzzle I have seen is a poet’s words on the name Aḥmad, which go: How many a one bends in prayer in the ban tree’s shade, Joined to a pearl in a bird’s beak displayed!415 mushakshikin (“of fish skins”): of the measure of muḥakkik (“rubbing”), the 11.18.7 name of the food that he wants to see and of which he wants to eat. It consists of the skins of salt-cured fish: they eat the flesh and take and wash the skins in water and put them in a casserole with sliced onions and a little linseed oil, then put it in the oven until it is done and eat it with bread. Sometimes they put some cotton-seed cake dissolved in water on top of it as a substitute for sesame paste. This is highly regarded by them, and especially by their womenfolk, as much as if it were grilled mutton, which is why he says . . .
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252
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
with a long stalk and broad, dark-green leaves, which is the kind that sprouts next to cultivated plants, or sprouts from seed. The worst sort is that with a short stalk, whose leaves are bluish in color, which is the kind that is far from cultivated crops and water. This kind is plentiful and sprouts in graveyards and in the low-lying parts of salt-logged land. It is Cold and Moist, eases the bowels, opens obstructions, and reduces fevers. It is as easy to digest as Jew’s mallow, providing it is prepared according to the instructions given below. The people of the countryside take the leaves, chop them like Jew’s mallow, put fresh coriander on them, garnish them with fried onions and sesame oil, crumble barley bread onto them, and eat them. This is the thing they eat most of for as long as it is available, because it costs them nothing but the onions, the sesame oil, and a little coriander, as mentioned. It is the thing they eat most of during the winter. The people of the villages on the river cook it with goose and chicken and so on, and the people of the cities cook it with fatty meats such as mutton or the like, and chicken, and they add fats, clarified cow’s butter, greens, spices, and similar things, and this is the only way it should be eaten, for this way it is light and tasty. The way the country people do it, however, as described above, is worthless, and the same goes for the people of the villages on the river, for these, even if they do make it with chicken, add no clarified butter or fat, just rice and sesame oil, without greens or anything else; on the contrary, they eat it on its own. The latter is, nevertheless, more refined than the recipe of the country people referred to above. The best place to eat it, however, is in the cities, because they go to some trouble over it, which makes it light to eat and very tasty. They say, “Food is an expense: you get what you pay for.” It is said that, when Sultan Qāyitbāy stayed in Dimyāṭ and met with 11.19.4 al-ʿAynī, who built the ʿAyniyyah,420 which is a mosque built in the style of a royal mosque, al-ʿAynī prepared for him a great banquet and prepared him his own plate of gold, containing two chickens, and placed these before him. The sultan ate some and had never in all his life tasted anything more delicious. “Who prepared you these chickens?” he asked al-ʿAynī. “A slave girl of mine,” he responded. “Could you spare her?” asked the sultan. “She and her master,” returned al-ʿAynī, “are the sultan’s to command,” and he made him a gift of her. When the sultan brought her back to Cairo, he commanded her to prepare him two chickens, and she did so, but they did not turn out as before, and he did not find them as tasty as the two he had eaten in Dimyāṭ. When the sultan reproached her for this, she said to him, “My Lord, you get what you
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The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
pay for. My master who prepared you those two chickens cooked them in a vessel made of gold, and the water he used was rosewater and such like, and the firewood was aloe wood, and he stuffed them with many spices as well as musk and ambergris, and ladled them into a dish made of gold. That exquisite taste was from this costly preparation.” The sultan marveled at what al-ʿAynī, may the Almighty have mercy on his soul, had done. fī l-dāri ʿindanā (“in the house at home”): that is, in the poet’s house, not 11.19.5 someone else’s, because he is the one who desires it; and for the same reason he says “at home,” that is, at our place and no one else’s, so that the children can eat some of it and rejoice that it is there. A house is called a dār because of its being encircled (li-tadwīrihā) with baked brick, limestone, and so on, this being the way that city houses are. The houses of the countryside, on the other hand, are built of slabs of dung mixed with straw, sometimes including daub and dung cakes. Or the dār is so called because one goes about (yadūru) and then returns to it. Or it is derived from the game of dārah that the children of the country people play after sunset: one boy squats on his haunches and another boy does the same with his back to him and the rest circle round them and hit them; if one of the first two catches one of the others, he sits him in his place, and so on. From this they learn dexterity and how to strike and move quickly, and so forth. wa-ʾandifu minhā (“and cram it down”): that is, cram down the mallow, the 11.19.6 meaning being that he takes a little of it quickly and stuffs it into his belly, thus resembling the cotton teaser (naddāf al-quṭn), when he works the cotton with his bow and stuffs it into the mattress.421 This gives rise to such statements as, “Last night So-and-so ‘crammed down’ (nadaf) two crocks of lentils, or of bīsār,” that is, he ate them fast. Or it may be derived from Aḥmad al-Danaf, one of the clever rogues of Cairo of former times, whose life is well known to storytellers. bi-l-ʿuwayshi (“with a little piece of bread”): diminutive of ʿaysh (“bread”), so 11.19.7 called because it is on this that livelihood (maʿīshah) depends. The poet says: Put not your faith in fine clothes But think of your bones when bored by the worm; On seeing the fripperies of this world, declare “Dear God, the true life is the life the world to come!”422
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The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
—or it may be derived from the ʿushsh (“nest”) of a bird because the latter has the same round shape as bread. As for why bread is also called khubz, this comes from takhbīz (“baking”), which is the process of bringing something to a state of maturation by fire. One says, “So-and-so beat So-and-so until he ‘baked (khabbaza)’ his ribs,” that is, until the beating on them produced an effect similar to the thorough cooking of bread, or he broke them, for example, bread being easily broken. Or it may be that “he baked his ribs” means that he separated them one from another. nadīf (used as an intensifier):423 of the measure of natīf (literally “plucked”), 11.19.8 which is someone who plucks his beard in order to make himself effeminate or who has a morbid craving for passive sodomy—God protect us from it, for it is an affliction that squirms hotly in the anus as worms squirm in carrion. The poet says: Indeed, it is a sickness like a fire ignited In the anus, squirming as worms in carrion squirm. The surest cure for it is that mentioned by al-Shaʿrānī, God benefit us through him, namely, the repeated administration of an enema made from the liquid from salt-cured fish.424 The sufferer will then recover, the Almighty willing. The word was originally nadfan, but the final an was dropped and it was turned into a diminutive for the sake of the rhyme;425 that is, “I will stuff myself so full with mallow that I am utterly sated and feel no more hunger for the rest of the day, or the rest of the night.” Next the poet moves on from food to the green pulses, and says:
11.19.9
text matā ʾanḍuru l-fūla l-mushaywī bi-furninā
11.20
wa-luffū bi-qishrū wa-l-ʿurūqi lafīf When shall I see grilled beans in our oven and bolt them down with their skins and stalks in a manner uninhibited?
commentary matā ʾanḍuru (“when shall I see”): with my eye, as in the preceding line . . .
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257
11.20.1
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258
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
al-fūla (“beans”): meaning green fava beans brought from the field and put in 11.20.2 the oven and grilled. What he wants is that these beans should be . . . al-mushaywī (“grilled”): diminutive of mashwī of the measure of ʿuṭaywī 11.20.3 (“little gift”) or khuraywī (“little turd”), the latter containing both diminution and weight, for sure. bi-furninā (“in our oven”): not in someone else’s oven.
11.20.4
wa-luffū (“and bolt them down”): originally wa-ʾaluffuhu with a glottal stop, 11.20.5 which he omitted for the sake of the meter;426 from laff (verbal noun), which is cramming the mouth and swallowing and chewing fast without looking at or examining the food, which is why he says . . . bi-qishrū (“with their skins”): that is, I will eat them without removing the 11.20.6 skins, out of joy at having them and because I am so hungry. wa-l-ʿurūqi (“and stalks”): joined to the qishr (“skins”) by the coordinating 11.20.7 conjunction, that is, and I bolt their stalks down too lafīf (“‘in a manner uninhibited,’ used as an intensifier”427): that is, in an intem- 11.20.8 perate way, with great agony and bestial lust until I have had enough of them, and I will give no thought to the roughness of the swallowing that follows from their being as is, with skins and stalks, and I will not do as others do, that is to say, take them from the oven, put salt on them, leave them until they cool, and then skin some and eat them, for I have such a longing for them and am in such a hungry, poor, and wretched state that I will bolt them down with all that is on them. A Useful Note: Green fava beans before grilling are Cold and Moist (or, accord- 11.20.9 ing to others, Cold and Dry). They are prepared for eating by adding salt and thyme. The benefit to the health of eating them hot or grilled lies in completely removing the skins and eating them with sugar. In one of the books of medicine it says, “Whoever eats pulses for forty days and then contracts leprosy has only himself to blame, and if a woman eats pulses for forty days, she will never get pregnant.” They considered them a contraceptive. Next, the poet desires something baked and longs to obtain it. He says:
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11.20.10
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260
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
text matā ʾanḍuru-n ṭaḥana l-ṭaḥīna wa-jibtū
11.21
wa-baṭṭiṭu minnū faṭīrah rahīf When shall I see that he’s ground the flour, and I’ve brought it and pat myself out from it a pastry that’s crumbly?
commentary matā ʾanḍuru (“when shall I see”): explained above . . .
11.21.1
an ṭaḥana (“that he’s ground”): referring to one of the millers . . .
11.21.2
(a)l-ṭaḥīna (“the flour”): which I put in the mill, and which I subsequently 11.21.3 have gone to and seen . . . wa-jibtū (“and I’ve brought it”): that is, and after giving the miller his fee, I 11.21.4 have brought it to my house . . . wa-baṭṭiṭu (“and pat myself out”): on the pattern of wa-ḍarriṭu (“and I fart 11.21.5 repeatedly or loudly”) and wa-barbiṭu (“and I splash”),428 both of which are certainly appropriate; derived from baṭṭ (“ducks”), which are fowl raised in the houses that resemble geese but are smaller and have very short legs, or from baṭbaṭah (“flattening” or “splashing”), or from the biṭaṭ (“vessels”) in which clarified butter and other things are put, or, quite possibly, from sheer stuff and nonsense. A Fatuous Point for Discussion: Why is wheat en masse called ṭaḥīn,429 and 11.21.6 is the latter term an adjective or a proper noun belonging to the former? We declare the Facetious Answer to be that in its original form it was wheat, without a doubt; then, all of a sudden, the process of milling descended unexpectedly upon it, which converted it from one state to another. Thus it is a question of “the naming of a thing after what fate may bring” via the attribute that comes to exist in it and converts it from one state to another. Similarly, a man, when he dies, and after death unexpectedly descends upon him, is referred to as “dead.” This being the case, this substance, enjoying its strength to the full before the milling, was then analogous to a man while alive, and was therefore known as “wheat,” but when the mill turned upon it and ground it up, its first name was obliterated, and it became ṭaḥīn. Likewise, when mortal
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262
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
fate turns upon a man, his name disappears and he becomes “dead” and the ground grinds him up and he is no more, until he is resurrected. Thus we conclude with the right answer to these fatuous investigations. In some copies of the text we read an ṭaḥantu l-ṭaḥīn (“that I have ground”), 11.21.7 with the t clearly written, in which case he would be the one who milled it, by himself, which is the more appropriate, for the people of the countryside make a common mill in the house or in the hamlet, and when one of their men has wheat to mill, he takes his ox and hitches it up and grinds it. In the villages by the river, however, they pay a fee for milling, and all their mills are operated by horsepower, as in the cities. The previously described process takes place only in the hamlets and small villages, to which the poet, without doubt, belongs, as was made clear earlier, when his own village was mentioned. He says, “When shall I see that I’ve ground the flour and I’ve brought it, and pat myself out, that is, knead it with water or a little milk and take each piece of dough and place it on a rag or some bran or a dung cake, for example, and strike it with the palm until it is thin, and then take another, by which means I will obtain” . . . minnū (“from it”): that is, from this dough . . .
11.21.8
faṭīra (“a pastry”): from faṭūr (“breakfast”), because they eat it for breakfast, 11.21.9 or from fuṭrah (“fungus”), or from ʿĪd al-Fiṭr (“The Feast of the Breaking of the Fast”).430 rahīf (“(that’s) crumbly”): an adjective modifying “pastry,” that is, moist and 11.21.10 thin. His words contain “restraint,” since he mentions the pastry and how to make it without mentioning eating it; it is thus to be inferred from his words that, after patting out the pastry, he baked it in the oven or in the pit that they make in the barn and on top of which they put droppings and sometimes dung cakes too, and ate of it till he had had enough. Then the poet says:
11.21.11
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264
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
text a-yā maṭyaba l-julbāna wa-l-ʿadsa-dhā-stawā
11.22
wa-shirshu baṣal ḥawlū wa-miyyat raghīf Ah, how good is vetch and lentils when cooked with a bunch of onions around it and a hundred loaves!
commentary a-yā (“Ah”): 431 meaning “Ah, you people” . . .
11.22.1
maṭyaba (“how good”): in taste and scrumptiousness . . .
11.22.2
(a)l-julbānah (“is vetch”): of the pattern of jidyān (“young goats”) or khirfān 11.22.3 (“sheep”), derived from the jilbah (“ferrule”) of a staff, or from the fact that the person who sowed it watered it originally with a draft ox (thawr jalab), or from jalabat al-ʿabīd (“traders in slaves”). Julbān is a plant that is grown from seed, the latter resembling that of Jew’s mallow, and it has small pods resembling the pods of Jew’s mallow and grows intertwined with itself like clover. The country people grow it and eat it as they do green fava beans, and sometimes they cook it with lentils and eat it, as described by the poet. They grow it in large quantities, and the animals eat it too. wa-l-ʿadsa (“and lentils”): joined to the preceding by the coordinating con- 11.22.4 junction, that is, and how good lentils are with it! Lentils are too well known to require comment. (i)dhā-stawā (“when cooked”): since lentils, unlike vetch, cannot be eaten raw 11.22.5 but indeed must be eaten cooked. They are Cold, Dry, and Heavy, resembling millet in their effect and impeding the release of the bowels. The broth is more beneficial than the grain, and eating it softens the heart. In The Flowers in the Calyces,432 it says that one of the prophets complained to the Almighty of the hard hearts of his people and God inspired him to “command them to eat lentils, for that will soften their hearts!” And in the Tradition it says, “You are enjoined to eat lentils, for they soften the heart and cause copious tears!” and seventy prophets have given them their blessings. At the same time, it is to be feared that excessive consumption thereof will cause harm: in The Canon,433 it says that excessive consumption thereof leads to leprosy and damages the nerves
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274
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
text wa-ʾaqʿud ʿalā rukbah wa-nuṣṣin wa-shammir
11.24
ʿani l-kaffi b-īdī mā ʾakhāfu mukhīf And I’ll sit with one knee crooked and roll up my sleeves from my hand, with my hand, and fear no frightener.
commentary wa-ʾaqʿud (“And I’ll sit”): in preparation for the consumption of this bread 11.24.1 with sarsūb, as does one who is hungry and seized by great appetite for the dish.
ʿalā rukbah wa-nuṣṣin (“with one knee crooked”):442 this being the sitting pos- 11.24.2 ture of a strong, vigorous person who intends to eat a lot or who is ravenous for food, for example. The polite way of sitting, on the other hand, is quite different and consists of the person sitting with both his knees tucked beneath him, not looking to the right or the left, eating what is in front of him, and not stretching out his hand roughly to food that is far from him. As once it happened that one man said to another, as they were eating at a banquet, “So-and-so, may I move this dish closer to you?” and the other replied, “My hand can fetch from Mecca!” and he stretched his hand out roughly and let out an audible fart. The first man said to him, “And how much does a grab bag of catfish fetch in Mecca?” at which the other was overcome by embarrassment and got up and left without eating. It is a fact that eating has its own etiquette, which is described in a number of books. wa-shammir (“and roll up my sleeves”): from tashmīr, which is the act of pull-
11.24.3
ing the sleeve back.
ʿani l-kaffi (“from my hand”): that is, from his hand. One says, “He raised 11.24.4 (shammara) the skirts of his robe,” meaning he raised them out of the way of something filthy, and “He lifted his skirts to expose (shammara ʿan) his member,” that is, he wanted to find a back alley in which to make water; used figuratively, tashmīr means “holding back” from sinful acts.443 The poet444 says: Tuck up your robe, for you are resolute and bold, And changing times and trouble cannot affright you!
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276
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
What our poet has in mind, however, is a physical raising, namely, the lifting up of the sleeves, which involves the use of the shimār,445 which the boys of the countryside make from wool; they place it round their shoulders and raise their sleeves with it, and it has a fringe that hangs down to the buttocks of the beardless boy and has a kind of beauty. It is a matter of great importance to them, to the degree that some boys attach yellow, red, green, and black silkwool and silk to it to make themselves attractive to their lovers. Most drummers’ boys make them in imitation of women’s braids, with little knots on the ends of the fringes to decorate them. b-īdī (“with my hand”): originally bi-yadī;446 with my hand and not with 11.24.5 anyone else’s, for I do not need anyone else to roll up my sleeves for me— on the contrary, I will take care of rolling them up myself in order to free my other hand of anything that might prevent it from taking food. This indicates that his sleeve was long, or he would not have needed to roll it up, and that what he wanted to achieve by rolling up his sleeves was the rapid and vigorous upward and downward motion of his hand while eating and paying attention to no one. This is why he says . . . mā ʾakhāfu (“and fear no”): that is, and eat of these beestings, having no fear 11.24.6 that anyone will come to me or hold me back from it. mukhīf (“frightener”): originally mukhīfan, that is, no scarer will get between 11.24.7 me and my appetite—on the contrary, I will have no cares at all if it reaches me and I manage to acquire it from anyone, and no fear or terror will seize me until I have had enough and sated myself with it to excess, nor will I fear indigestion or anything of that sort. Then he felt a yearning for another dish, one of the most delicious of those 11.24.8 made by the people of the countryside. He says:
text ʿalā man qashaʿ rūḥū ḥidā l-ruzzi bi-l-laban wa-yaqṭaʿ wa-yablaʿ min taqīl wa-khafīf Happy is he who finds himself next to rice pudding and cuts off pieces and swallows them, heavy and light!
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277
11.25
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278
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
commentary ʿalā man qashaʿ (“Happy is he who finds himself ”): that is, sees himself, that is, 11.25.1 his own person, not some other person’s person . . . ḥidā l-ruzzi bi-l-laban (“next to rice pudding”): that is, hidā is equivalent to 11.25.2 ḥidhāʾahu, with dh,447 that is, muḥādhiyahu (“adjacent to”), meaning that he is sitting next to it. This rice pudding is a delicious dish and is what they eat most of in the villages on the river, because there is so much milk and rice there. It is Hot and Moist and good for heartburn, and how delicious and tasty it is if clarified cow’s butter is put on it as it is taken off the fire! It is eaten with pitted pressed dates, too, but is tastier and more appetizing with clarified butter. The more milk it has the better, and the less rice the better still. The worst sort is when a lot of water has been mixed with the rice, which is how the people of the countryside make it: they make it very thick and cut pieces off it as one would chunks of hard mud. People of Turkish descent make it with milk alone, without water, and add just a little rice, so that it is like a drink, which is why they eat it with spoons. This makes it sweet and delicious, and this kind is the best tasting and most appetizing. In general, milk dishes are more appetizing than lentils, bīsār, and the like. The poet says: Dishes cooked with milk beat those with coriander, And lentils and bīsār cause dropsy. The kind the poet desires to be next to, however, is that mentioned above, 11.25.3 namely, the thick sort that is as hard as a rock, for this is what is known to them and in his village. The villages on the river, on the other hand, make it halfway, neither thick nor runny, though they do usually add a little water. The poet, of course, knows only what is to be found in his village, which is why he says . . . wa-yaqṭaʿ (“and cuts off pieces”): cutting can apply only to dry food; that is, he 11.25.4 cuts off pieces with his hand wa-yablaʿ (“and swallows”): from balʿ, meaning “swallowing,” which is the 11.25.5 passing of food down the throat; one says, “So-and-so was swallowed by the whale,” meaning that he entered its insides and reached its belly. From the same one also gets ballāʿah (“drain”), because the latter “swallows” water inside itself. Qaṭʿ (“cutting”) means the severing and separating of one thing
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279
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282
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
and stirs it with white rice, and cooks it, and into dishes spoons it, and the aged shaykh comes and crooks one leg and sits upon it—at this, my brother, the vessels are set out next to one another, and each man draws close to the other, and nothing can be seen but hands tearing and tongues at work, epiglottises jumping and throats a-jerk. Eyes water at the size of the bite, and the belly from excess of passion grows ever less tight; nay, it gets ever more flighty, exclaiming, “Glory to Our Lord, the Almighty!” If your brother Muslim beats you to a munch, knock his head off with a punch! And seize, God have mercy on you, upon this edifying discourse, and have nothing to do with foods that are coarse, such as lentils and bīsār (which is beans with mallow brought to a boil), or stewed beans and beans with linseed oil, or groats with beans and peas, and stuffed oven-cheese—all these cause gas, and eating them is truly crass. Next, to the use of sumptuous foods, such as Mutton, you are bidden, for
11.25.10
he is Lord of Foods451 in This World and the Hidden, and to drinks that are sweet and cold, for of these a Tradition from the Prophet (God bless him and give him peace) is told, and praise God, you who are rich and blessed, and be patient, you who are poor and hard-pressed! We beseech God to bestow upon us all such sumptuous foods and provide us all with ease both before and after our decease, and to number us all among the blessed, and save us all from the haunts of the ravenous hard-pressed, and forgive our sins and yours and those of all who Islam have professed. Amen. «Seek forgiveness of Him»452 and He will grant you forgiveness, and how great is the triumph of those who seek forgiveness! It is related on the authority of Sahlab, who had it from Mahlab, who had
11.25.11
it from Zinṭāḥ, son of Naṭṭāḥ, son of Qalīl al-Afrāḥ,453 that he said, “A certain Bedouin arose from his slumbers and sweet dreams and ate a two-year-old camel for breakfast, then endured till the middle of the day, ate forty chickens stuffed with mutton and roasted in clarified ghee, drank two skins of wine, went to sleep in the sun, and died, thus meeting his Maker sated, intoxicated, and irrigated!” Praise be to God, embellisher of rice with milk and dispeller of grief! I bear witness that Mutton is Lord of Foods and the body’s relief! And know that clotted cream is not something to shun or of which to be suspicious, and that blancmange is better still and even more auspicious! Prepare yourselves, then, to eat and drink, knowing that soon in God’s sight you’ll stand and that
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283
11.25.12
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284
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
by your works you’ll be saved or damned, and that the Lord of Might will soon review what you have earned, and that those who went hungry will come to know «by what a great reverse they have been overturned.»454 Be pleased, O God, with the four leaders great,455 by the Almighty in the Qurʾan designate—the fig, the olive, the peach, and the pomegranate!456 And be pleased, O God, with those that remain of the ten,457 in number six, of foods deluxe, namely, blancmange and rosewater jelly, and fattened squabs with vermicelli, and fluffy rice stuffed with mutton and fried, and bee’s honey, almonds, sugar, and kunāfah drenched in butter clarified, and little pancakes that in syrup and butter swim, and squash that’s stuffed with meat and onions to the brim, as well as the baklava earlier described, and stall-fed sheep, and hot-pot and qirmiziyyah458 with fatty meat—may God bestow them on us all to eat! O God, bring us, after dispersal, all together, and grant victory, sup-
11.25.13
port, and safety to Sultan Sugar-Candy, may he rule for ever—son of Flagon, Mallawī sugar’s noble scion! Aid him, O God, with sugarcane spears and thrusters, and sticky dates and grapes in clusters! And unite us with him at day’s beginning, middle, and end, and to him and to his soldiers victory send, that we may benefit from him in This World, O Lord of All. And destroy, O God, the reprobates three, namely, bīsār, lentils, and the pea! Slaves of God, whoever wishes to wrap himself in the robes of God’s pleasance, let him eat bananas in his parents’ presence! Before eating, unwind, and follow the example of the Best of Mankind.459 Neither fight one another nor fall to blows, O Slaves of God, but brethren be! God commands you to eat of what your minds desire only what His religion declares to be good and forbids you to eat what is forbidden, though it be the tastiest of food, and forbids you «wickedness. He exhorteth you that you may reflect!»460
wa-khafīf (“and light”): that is, and he will eat light mouthfuls as well as large 11.25.14 ones, to achieve a just balance and not be misled by the words of the poet461 who said: Eat hearty! If you survive, you can tell your folks, And if you die, you’ll meet your God with your stomach full! One should divide his stomach into three equal parts: one third for food, 11.25.15 one third for drink, and one third for appetite; on this basis he will neither eat excessively, nor hunger excessively. As the author of The Mantle,462 God have mercy on his soul, says:463
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The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
and he would have no idea what was meant. Similarly, there is a riddle that says imraʾatun waladat jāmūsah (“A woman gave birth to a buffalo”), that is, at the time of her giving birth came a man called Mūsā (jā(ʾ ) . . . Mūsā). The third point of view is that the name jāmūs is derived from tajmīs, which means “groping around, feeling with the hand, etc.” (taḥsīs). One says, “So-and-so is groping around (yujammisu) in the dark,” meaning that he is feeling about (yuḥassisu) for something to take hold of. The name baqar (“cattle”) is derived from baqara (“to cut open”) the earth, that is, to furrow it with the plow, from which perspective it resembles the placing of the penis in the cunt, for example, since the former “furrows,” that is, enters, the latter, and the same is true of the beardless boy, for the prick is inserted into his anus, for example. Thus, it is as though an analogy were drawn between the verb baqara and the associated term of abuse to a boy and the act itself, while tajmīs (“groping”) would be analogous to the preliminaries. The verb, of course, is stronger than the noun, as witness the fact that groping and kissing are like sowing, while fucking is reaping, implying that fucking is stronger than groping, which is why they abuse the beardless boy with the former and say to him, “You cow (yā baqarah)!”471 The problem’s now revealed, its silliness no more concealed. yarʿā l-nīf (“to graze on nīf”): that is, he drives the buffaloes so that they may 11.26.10 graze, not so that he may graze, the verb “to graze” referring to the buffaloes; that is, he drives the buffaloes to the place where the plant called nīf grows, and they graze, that is, eat. One says “The buffaloes or the cattle are grazing (bi-yarʿā) in such and such a place,” meaning they are eating there. The word they use for the person who drives them and takes care of their needs by way of milking, driving, tethering in the field, tending, guarding, and so on, is rāʿī (“herder”) because he stays with them all the time and they are under his wing; he must therefore look after them (yurāʿīhim) with kindness and compassion. In the Tradition it says, “Every one of you is a shepherd, and every shepherd shall be questioned about his flock,” that is, on the Day of Resurrection everyone will be asked concerning those under his charge, be they animals or anything else. Nīf is a plant that sprouts on its own in the earth, a consequence of the descent of waters thereon, and is found mostly in uncultivated lands. It is derived from the nīfah that is made in the cities, which consists of meat grilled in a clay oven and eaten, and is very delicious, or from the nūf (“yoke”) that is placed on the necks of oxen when they are being used for the waterwheel or the plow.
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The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
He mentions cheese but not bread, and it appears that he had some with him, which he had been eating for a while with nothing to go with it. Consequently, he fantasizes about filling his cap with enough cheese to last him a good while. Next, he proceeds to yearn for another dish that the country people, and 11.26.11 others, love to eat. He says:
text ʿalā man qashaʿ laqqānata-mmū malānah
11.27
mina l-hayṭaliyya-llī lahā tarṣīf Happy is he who sees his mother’s bowl full of hayṭaliyyah that gleams
commentary ʿalā man qashaʿ (“Happy is he who sees”): that is, sees in reality and not figu- 11.27.1 ratively . . . laqqānata-mmū (“his mother’s bowl”): or, equally, that of his father’s wife; 11.27.2 laqqānah472 is the feminine form of laqqān,473 of the measure of khirfān (“sheep”), and is also called qaṣriyyah. It is a vessel made of earthenware that holds less than a kneading bowl and more than a middle-sized milk crock. It is called a laqqānah because, if one wants to drink from it, he has to lap up (yaluqqu) the water with his tongue or his mouth, because it is too heavy for him to lift;474 or because the first person to make one was from Laqqānah, a famous village from which God has produced outstanding scholars who are celebrated for their virtues and from whose learning the people will continue to derive benefit to the Day of Resurrection, may God benefit us through their blessings! He designates the laqqānah as belonging to his mother because it was hers and the only one he knew and he had nothing else. Then he desired to see it . . . malānah (“full”): not short-measured. He drops the glottal stop for the 11.27.3 meter.475 Then he specifies the thing that he desires, and says . . . min al-hayṭaliyyah (“of hayṭaliyyah”): which is a dish that is made out of wheat 11.27.4 starch and milk and is extremely good to eat.476 It is lighter than rice pudding, especially if honey is added, for starch is Cold and Dry and sweet things
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The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
Next he explains how he will eat of the hayṭaliyyah, saying:
11.27.7
text wa-ʾaqʿud lahā bi-l-ʿazmi fī rāyiqi l-ḍuḥā
11.28
wa-ʾasḥab lahā maṣbūbata-mmi Waṭīf And I’ll sit down to it with ardor in the clear forenoon and keep snatching away at the pancakes of Umm Waṭīf
commentary wa-ʾaqʿud (“and I’ll sit down”): that is, I will seat myself unhurriedly, nay, I will 11.28.1 adopt a firm posture without fear or alarm, and none will do me harm. lahā (“to it”): the pronominal suffix refers either to the bowl that contains the 11.28.2 hayṭaliyyah, in which case his words “and I’ll sit down to it” mean I will eat of it while it is in it, the thing that he eats thus being the hayṭaliyyah, not the bowl itself, or the suffix refers to the hayṭaliyyah itself, in which case there is no problem (the latter being the preferred referent). The outcome of these facetious investigations now is clear. bi-l-ʿazmi (“with ardor”): that is, forcefully and vehemently, or it means that 11.28.3 he will sit down to it determined (ʿāzim) to eat of it, for example . . . fī rāyiqi l-ḍuḥā (“in the clear forenoon”): that is, when the sun is high, at the 11.28.4 time at which the forenoon prayer is permitted.479 This time of the morning is called ḍaḥwat al-nahār and is the right time for lunch, when the belly is empty and hunger extreme. wa-ʾasḥab (“and keep snatching away at”): he will take them quickly and 11.28.5 repeatedly, for saḥb means pulling a thing quickly with a rope or anything else. The poet says: The ferryboat’s going and coming By a thread it’s pulled back and forth (yansaḥib). Thus, saḥb may be applied to taking a thing over and over again.
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And a boy like a bough On which my heart forever is descending. Sweet his speech but With a sweetness heartrending. I both protest and praise its work— Marvel, then, at one complaining and commending! —albeit the words of the Master, God benefit us through him, and his ilk have nothing in common with the matter at hand. Next he promises himself that, when he sees the bowl of his cousin (of 11.30.7 whom more later) full of bread-in-broth,492 he will eat it all up, so great is his appetite, so enormous his hunger, and so long his wait for it. He says:
text anā-n shuftu laqqānata-bni ʿammī Mukhaymirin
11.31
malānah mina l-taftīti malwa ṭafīf qashartū jamī ʿū mā taraktu baqiyyatū li-ghayrī wa-lā ʿindī bi-dā tawqīf Should I see the bowl of the son of my uncle Mukhaymir full of bread-in-soup brimming over, I would polish it off completely and leave nothing over for others, and would not pause!
commentary Anā (“(Should) I”): meaning Abū Shādūf and no one else . . .
11.31.1
(i)n shuftu (“see”): that is, should I perceive with my eye, not with my ear, as 11.31.2 previously explained . . .493 laqqānata (“the bowl of ”): previously described, etymologized, and explained 11.31.3 . . .494 (i)bni ʿammī (“the son of my uncle”): the latter being the brother of my father 11.31.4 ... Mukhaymirin: so called because he had a large hole in which he would ferment 11.31.5 (yukhammiru) dung and in which perhaps he would also urinate, or because
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ruin on the banks of the river Nile in the region of Upper Egypt), and the mule called al-Duldul and honey from Banhā (a village in the region of Cairo, belonging to al-Qalyūbiyyah), and with them a physician, he said, “If he accepts the gift and sends the physician back, he is a prophet.” When the gift and the physician reached the Prophet, may God bless him and give him peace, he accepted the gift and sent back the physician, and said, “We are a people that eats only when hungry, and when we eat, we do not eat until we are full. Thus we have no need of a physician.” When the words of the Prophet, may God bless him and give him peace, reached al-Muqawqis, he said, “How mighty a prophet he is! He has put all wisdom into a couple of words!” And in the Noble Tradition it says, “Go hungry and be healthy!” for hunger is the source of vigor in worship and produces a healthy, disease-free body. This is especially true of those who perform spiritual exercises and practice seclusion, for the outcome of this for them is hunger. As the Initiate of the Almighty the Imam al-Būnī509 states in one of his books, “No one can perform a spiritual exercise correctly so long as there is so much as a grain’s weight of satiety within him.” Overeating may spring from several causes. It may be from excessive greed 11.31.19 for food or from habit. We have seen people eat a crock of food and not be satisfied, and we have seen people eat a hundred roasted eggs with bread and not be satisfied. A certain tyrant used to eat a ewe, roasted, for lunch. One day he ate and then wanted to have intercourse with his wife, but she refused. When he reproached her, she said, “How can you reach me when there is so much of ewe between us?”510 And Master Muḥyī l-Dīn ibn al-ʿArabī, God benefit us through him, states in The Positions of the Stars511 that ʿAbd al-Malik512 was a glutton who one day passed a man who had with him two baskets, of roasted eggs and of figs. ʿAbd al-Malik ate everything that was in them and got sick and died as a result. Al-Walīd,513 one of the kings of the Banū Umayyah, was a stubborn tyrant who would drink a skin of wine and eat a young camel. One day he opened a copy of the Qurʾan and saw, «And they sought help from their Lord and every stubborn tyrant was brought to naught!»514 and he ripped up the book and recited: Threatenest thou me with “stubborn tyrant”? Well, that I am indeed! When thou seest thy Lord on Doomsday say, “The one who ripped me was Walīd!”
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The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
bākiyan (“weep”): that is, I shall go on weeping over the nonappearance of 11.32.9 this meal. Weeping consists of the shedding of tears and their falling onto the cheeks; one also says “the heavens wept” when it rains, and “the clouds wept”; the Almighty says, «And the heaven and the earth wept not for them.»519 The poet520 says: I wept, for her tears made me weep for love Of her; and the credit goes to the one who wept first! The word bukāʾ (“weeping”) is derived from bakka l-jarḥ (“the wound oozed”), when blood comes out of it.521 wa-ʾasīf (“and grieve”): the word is shortened for the meter, the original form 11.32.10 being aḍālu asīfan (“and I shall ever . . . grieve”) for this meal until I get it, and sorrow will not leave me until I eat my fill of it. Grief is the extreme passion experienced at the loss of a beloved and separation from a friend. The poet says: I grieve for none but the one I love, And he whom I do not love need bear no blame. Next he moved from a desire for something disgusting to a desire for some- 11.32.11 thing wholesome. He says:
text ʿalā man naḍar fī furni dārū ṭawājin zaghālīla min burji-bn-Abū Shaʿnīf
11.33
Happy is he who has seen in the oven of his house casseroles of squabs from the dovecote of the son of Abū Shaʿnīf!
commentary ʿalā man naḍar (“happy is he who has seen”): with the eye . . .
11.33.1
fī furni (“in the oven of ”): the oven is the thing in which fire is kindled and 11.33.2 bread is baked and has been described in Part One of this book . . .522
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332
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
dārū (“his house”): that is, the house of the poet, the pronominal suffix of dār 11.33.3 referring to him, meaning that he would not see them in anyone’s house but his, and that the casseroles are not to be found in anyone’s oven but his, so that, should this indeed befall him, he might be easy in his mind and of good cheer. ṭawājin (“casseroles”): plural of ṭājin, described above,523 full of . . .
11.33.4
zaghālīla (“squabs”): these are the chicks, taken from the dovecotes, of the 11.33.5 free-ranging pigeons, which are also called “field pigeons” because they feed in the fields and where crops are sown and on the threshing floors. They are nutritious and act as an aphrodisiac if spices and clarified cow’s butter are added. They are too delicious for words. Ḥamām (“pigeons, doves”) is a generic term for everything that sips524 and coos. Then he specifies that the squabs to which he is referring must be . . . min burji (“from the dovecote of ”): and not from squabs born to house-raised 11.33.6 pigeons. Burj (literally “tower”) is the singular of burūj and is also used of the Citadel (Burj al-Qal ʿah)525 and of a “mansion” of the zodiac (burj al-kawākib). Here the reference is to the dovecote (burj al-ḥamām),526 which is a round building in which waterwheel jars527 are set, the pigeons coming to these jars and laying their eggs and raising their chicks in them and dunging in them too. The peasants call their manure “capital” and use it for sowing watermelons and palm trees, which they feed with it; it is something with which they are extremely familiar. They also take the chicks and sell and slaughter them; so it is in all villages. The name zaghālīl is derived from zaghalantah (“ranunculus”), which is a plant, bluish in color, to which squabs are likened because their feathers are blue, or it may be derived from the zughaliyyah, a class of people who make counterfeit silver coins, which they call “sparrows”; they call the piaster coin a faras (“mare”), the charcoal that they use zabīb (“raisins”), the bellows that they blow with al-shaykh (“the old man”), and they have a whole jargon for their craft, but they appear to live in constant terror of the police and great poverty and from hand to mouth. The Imam al-Shāfiʿī, God be pleased with him, was asked about alchemy and said, “I know people who have been impoverished by it but none who have been enriched.” Pigeons are in a similar state, at frequent intervals the peasants enter their houses, take their chicks, slaughter them, and sell some of them, so that they are in constant fear, like the zughaliyyah. The singular of zaghālīl is zughlūl, just as the singular of habābīl
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The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
does the preceding, the paradigm being ḥāma, yaḥūmu, ḥawman. As for the building ḥammām, it is derived from ḥummā, meaning “fever”, since, when a person enters it, the heating and the sweating that overcome him make him appear as though he were suffering from a fever; or from ḥumūm (“bathing”), which is plunging into water, from the expression fulānun istaḥammā fī l-baḥr (“So-and-so bathed in the river”), meaning he swam in it and immersed himself in it; or from ḥamīm, which is “extremely hot water,” whence the words of the Almighty, «Boiling water (ḥamīm) will be poured down on their heads.»532 The same word is applied to a loving friend, because of the great heat and desire that love contains, whence the words of the Almighty, «There will be no friend (ḥamīm) for the evildoers, nor any intercessor,»533 that is, no friend to intercede for them. The first m of ḥammām is double because the thing itself is so hot and has such a strong effect. Ḥimām, with i after the ḥ, on the other hand, is “death.” It gets the i after the ḥ because when a man is alive he enjoys vigor and strength, but when he dies he is diminished,534 his wisdom is gone, and nothing is left but his remains. As the poet says: These are our remains that bear witness to us; So look, when we are gone, to our remains. It is derived from the notion of “extremity, crisis” (shiddah). One says ḥumma l-amr (“things reached a critical point”) when things get tough—and there can be no doubt that death is a major crisis in terms of its effect on the escape of the vital spirit and its release from the body, etc. This concludes our facetious investigations and silly references. (i)bn- (“son of ”): also called “boy” (walad) and “scion” (najl). One may say 11.33.9 either “So-and-so’s boy” or “So-and-so’s scion.” Abū Shaʿnīf: the first word is, in genitive construct,535 properly abī, but his 11.33.10 tongue was too awkward to allow him to say that. Abū Shaʿnīf is his kunyah. His original name was ʿAflaq, or, according to some reports, Baḥlaq, and the name of his son mentioned in the verse was Falḥas, which is a dog’s name. He became known by this kunyah because he used to steal the grass called nīf (mentioned above)536 and put it down for his animals; thus stories of his thievery became widespread, and people in the village took to saying shāʿa bi-l-nīfi (“he became well known for the nīf ”), that is, for stealing the nīf. Then they dropped the preposition and the gentive case,537 retained the verb and the
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The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
noun, put them together as a compound, and made it Shaʿnīf. The word shaʿnīf derives from shaʿnafah,538 of the measure of qalḥafah (“dessication”), and the meaning may be one and the same. The paradigm is shaʿnafa, yushaʿnifu, shaʿnafatan. Next he explains how he eats squabs, and that they are eaten with flaky 11.33.11 pastry.
text wa-faṭṭar faṭāyir min ṭaḥīni-bni ʿammū
11.34
wa-yaqʿud lahā qaʿdat ghulāmin ḥasīf And made faṭāyir cakes from the flour of his cousin and sits down to them like a lovelorn adolescent!
commentary wa-faṭṭar (“and made”): of the measure of wa-shammar (“and hitched up his 11.34.1 skirts”). The poet says: And he hitched up his skirts to reveal a prick, and pissed down on her Quite deliberately, till she was drowning in piss. His words mean that “if these squab casseroles fall to my lot and God fulfills my wish through their arrival where I am, eating them will bring me no pleasure unless they are accompanied by flaky pastry,” which is why he says . . . wa-faṭṭar faṭāyir (“and has made faṭāyir cakes”): a verbal noun539 like ʿamal 11.34.2
ʿamāyil (“he did (terrible) deeds”), or like qashshar qashāyir (“he peeled peelings”); the meaning is “he patted out, or manufactured, faṭīr.” Faṭāyir is the plural of faṭīrah, though this may also take the plural faṭīr,540 like khamīrah (“yeast cake”) and khamīr (“yeast”), or ḥimārah (“she-donkey”) and ḥamīr (“donkeys”). Faṭīr is said to be Heavy and Coarse and unsuitable for human consumption because it generates flatulence; however, this is only true if it is eaten alone. When eaten with other things it does no harm. The preceding refers exclusively to the faṭīr of the countryside, which the poet wants. They take plain flour and knead it with water without any yeast and put it in the oven or stew it in the cooking pit, this latter type being called “slow-cooked faṭīr” (faṭīr dammāsī). Then they take it and eat it, and this is the Heavy type
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342
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
replied, “We are two true lovers whom fate had separated for many a year. Then we met today, and ‘the lovers’ meeting is a feast’ and to fast on a feast is a sin!” “And what,” said the other, “is the mark of your love?” One of the two replied by saying, “Cut my arm!” and held it out to him, and the man cut it and the blood came out of the other’s arm, without a wound, for their two souls and two bodies had become as one soul in one body. As the poet542 says: We are two bodies as one body. We are two souls that have become a single form. And Ibn al-ʿArabī,543 God benefit us through his blessings, says: When we met to say good-bye, and hugged and hung, I reckoned us one single, doubled, sign; And though as selves we may be twain, To outside eyes we must appear as one.544 There is much in the same vein on the inclination of lovers and the quest of Initiates, God benefit us through them every one! Next, the poet moves on to another tasty dish for which he longed. He says: 11.34.9
text ʿalā man naḍar ṭājin samak fī furaynihī
11.35
wa-law kāna yā-khwānī bi-lā tanḍīf Happy is he who sees a casserole of fish in his little oven though it be, my brothers, uncleaned!
commentary ʿalā man naḍar (“Happy is he who sees”): with his eye, not hears with his ear 11.35.1 ... ṭājin (“a casserole”): full of . . .
11.35.2
samak (“fish”): a name for a whole category, consisting of many different 11.35.3 sorts, which the Almighty has permitted to be consumed, along with locusts, both dead and alive.545 The Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace, said, “Two dead things and two things containing blood have been permitted to
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346
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
little ripe, and then they eat them while the blood is still running, God protect us from such things! Speaking of fish, I am reminded that a man once loved a woman of sur- 11.35.5 passing comeliness and beauty, whose husband, God bless him, was one of our more dim-witted and credulous brethren. One day her lover passed her and said, “It’s ages since we met!” and she replied, “Come to me tomorrow at the end of the day!” On the morrow she said to her husband, “I feel like cooking fish today for us to eat,” so he went to the market and brought some. She cleaned it and prepared it and put it in a big casserole, and told him, “Take this, go with it to the baker, and spare me the effort of cooking it. And tell the baker to send it with his boy at the time of the afternoon call to prayer.” So her husband took it and went with it to the baker and gave him his wife’s instructions, and the baker said, “To hear is to obey!” The baker cooked the fish and sent it to her at the agreed time, and while she was sitting and eating, her friend with whom she had made the tryst knocked on the door. She opened it and he went up and ate some of the fish and made free with her comeliness and beauty and had from her what he desired. While he was talking with her, her husband suddenly knocked on the door. The man was terrified but she told him, “Fear nothing but stay silent and do not say a word.” Then she opened the door to her husband and made a show of sorrow and tears, so that he asked her, “What has befallen you?” to which she replied, “The baker’s boy brought me the fish casserole, and when I took the cover off and started to eat, a man jumped out at me, so I sat down in fear and trembling, and he’s still sitting in the house.” The husband ran quickly upstairs, where he found the man sitting, and said to him, “Who put you inside the casserole? Was it the baker or his boy?” His wife told him, “Take him and go to the baker, and he’ll tell you the truth of the matter! And tell him, ‘From this day on, don’t ever put anyone in our casserole again to scare us and put us through hell!’” So he took the man by the hand and went with him to the baker and told him what had happened. The baker realized what was going on and how things really stood, so he got up and struck the man, and told him, “I put you into the meat casserole, and you disobeyed me and got into the fish! If you go on disobeying me, I’ll give you hell!” at which the man replied to the baker, “Master, I’ll never disobey you again! The casserole you put me into I’ll never get out of!” Then the baker said to the husband, “Tell your wife that I gave him hell and she’ll never find him in a casserole again.” The husband then went off and reported to her what had
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The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
happened, and the woman was delighted and said, “If he puts anyone in our casserole after this, it’ll be the last time we ever have anything cooked at his place!” Then the husband left her and went about his business. Observe this Ḥaydarian546 trickery and that amazing credulity! An Amazing Thing: Someone caught a fish and found written on its side, 11.35.6 with the pen of God’s omnipotence, “There is no god but God, Muḥammad is the Messenger of God!” He let it go, out of respect for the testament of faith. And more amazing than this, one of God’s Friends was in a ship, and the wind rose and the ship was about to sink, and that holy man said, “Be still, Ocean, for on your back is an ocean like you!” meaning an “ocean of knowledge,” and the ocean grew still and the wind dropped, by the will of the Almighty. Then a great fish emerged from the waters and addressed the Initiate and said to him, “You claim that you are a Friend of God and an ocean of knowledge and understanding, but should I ask you a question, would you know the answer?” “Speak!” said the man. Then the fish spoke in accents clear, saying, “If a man is transformed into some other shape, is the period that his wife must wait before remarriage that set for a dead man or that for a living?”547 The shaykh was confounded and at a loss to answer, so the fish said to him, “Where now is your claim?” The man said, “I seek God’s forgiveness for what I said! Guide me to the truth!” and the fish told him, “If he be transformed into something inanimate, the period to be observed is that for a dead man, and if he be transformed into an animal, the period is that for a living.”548 Then it disappeared into the waters. At this the holy man repented of his claim and turned back to God, Glorious and Mighty, who, in His magnanimity, accepts the repentance of His slaves—glory to Him who is capable of all things! The wonders of the ocean are beyond counting. Apropos of the story of the baker and the fish, I am reminded that devotion 11.35.7 is a rare thing among men. I find admirable the words of the poet who said: I had a bosom friend, whose love I’d learned to trust, Sincere in all he said, a lover true, But he betrayed my love, then spurned my company— Now how I wish his love I never knew! And a poet549 said:
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The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
Many brothers I had whom I thought shirts of mail— And so they were, but for my foes. I thought them shafts shot straight— And so they were—’twas at my heart they bent their bows. They said, “Our hearts are pure!” And they spoke true—but of all love for me, I must suppose. They said, “We’ve tried so hard!” And so they had—but only to increase my woes. And another said: Let me flog my hopes in punishment And nail my longings to a cross For being friends with those who have no worth— White are their garments, but inside all is dross. And Imam al-Shāfiʿī,550 may God be pleased with him, said:
11.35.8
Stay far from men If by them no respect to you is paid, And do not say, “I did them many a favor In the good old days!” People will treat a man like Little Dog If they see his tail’s Frayed. And he also said,551 may God be pleased with him: Meeting men will gain you nothing But drivel and gossip So make your meetings few, unless To acquire knowledge or bestow profit. And another said:552
11.35.9
None there is these days whose love you would desire, No friend whose heart, when time is unjust, proves true. So live alone and visit none, And a word to the wise will do!
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352
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
And Ibn ʿArūs, Pole of the Maghrib, has it that: Men are a deep, deep sea, Distance from them an ark— So look to your pitiful soul And these words of mine do mark! fī furaynihī (“in his little oven”): that is, in the poet’s oven, using the diminu- 11.35.10 tive for the meter, the meaning being that he should come from the field or the threshing floor and find it in his oven ready and cooked, so that he should not have to concern himself with catching it and flavoring it with linseed oil and onions and so on. wa-law kāna (“though it be”): that is, though this fish that I long for be . . .
11.35.11
yā-khwānī (“my brothers”): he uses this word to address his companions and 11.35.12 friends. One’s “brothers” are one’s friends and loved ones, and all believers are brothers in the Almighty. The Almighty has said, «The believers are indeed brothers,»553 and in the Tradition it says, “The believers are to one another like a building whose parts hold each another up.” And someone said, “He who loses his brothers has lost his manhood.” It is said that a man went to al-Maʾmūn and said to him, “I am your brother, 11.35.13 so give me enough from the treasury to support me!” “By what logic are you my brother?” asked al-Maʾmūn. “By the logic of the words of the Almighty, «The believers are indeed brothers»,” said the man. “You speak truly,” said al-Maʾmūn. “Give him one penny!” “This is not the gift of a king!” said the man. Al-Maʾmūn responded, “Were I to divide up the treasury among your brothers, you might well get less!” Then the man left and got nothing but the one penny (though some say he gave him more and the man retired giving thanks). Al-Maʾmūn, God have mercy on his soul, loved clemency and forbearance so much that he used to say, “Clemency has been made so dear to me that I am afraid that I shall not be rewarded for it!” As an example of his clemency, one of his slave girls once was serving him grilled meat on iron skewers when one of the skewers fell from her hand onto his robe, burning it and ruining it. When he looked at her, she said, «Those who control their wrath!» “I have controlled my wrath,” he replied. «And are forgiving of mankind!» she said. “I forgive you,” he said. «And God loves those who do good works!» she said. “I set you free, for the sake of the Almighty,” he replied.554 His was an
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354
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
outstanding capacity for clemency and forbearance that no one else could be capable of, God have mercy on his soul. bi-lā tanḍīf (“uncleaned”): that is, if he were to find this fish in a casserole in his 11.35.14 oven unwashed and uncleaned with water—and, truth to tell, they stack them in the casserole bones, heads, and all, just like grilled beans in the cooking pit—he would want to eat it even in that state, because he is so poor, so indigent, and so keen to see and eat it. The proverb says “The drowning man rests his weight on straw,” and another says “Better with its own mud than washed in a pond!” In any case, it would stop his hunger and satisfy his craving, for if anyone finds something for which he has a craving, however vile, he holds it dear and eats an excessive amount of it, for an animal appetite will drive men to the most disgusting of foods, and all who obey their carnal appetites and cravings suffer. Master Jesus, blessings and peace upon him, said, “You will never attain what you want until you abandon what you crave.”555 And the author of The Mantle, may the Almighty have mercy on his soul, says:556 Oppose your appetite and Satan! Defy them both! No honest counselors are they, so hold them in suspicion! Denying the appetites brings salvation and ease, and reward on the Day of Judgment. It is said that Master ʿUmar ibn al-Fāriḍ, God benefit us through him, long craved harīsah, refusing to give in to his appetite and persevering until one day some appeared before him in his cell. But when he stretched out his hand to eat of it, the wall of the cell was rent, and a figure emerged from it and said to him, “Faugh on you, ʿUmar!” “I have not eaten of it,” he said, and thereafter he gave it up and went the rest of his life without touching it, denying his appetite.557 An amusing joke is told, to the effect that a certain dervish had a disciple to 11.35.15 whom he was forever saying, “Deny your inclinations! Should they say to you, eat this, then deny them and eat something else, and never give in to them!”558 One day a luxurious dish came to the shaykh, while a bowl of lentils was placed in front of the disciple (what was placed in front of the shaykh was fluffy rice with fried mutton). The disciple stretched out his hand and took the dish from in front of the shaykh and put it in place of the bowl of lentils. His shaykh said to him, “Have I not told you, ‘Deny your inclinations?’” but the disciple responded, “Master, my inclinations told me to eat from the bowl of lentils, so
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356
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
I denied them and took this mutton with fluffy rice!” Now the shaykh had a beautiful serving boy, and, coming in one day to the place of retreat, he found the disciple sodomizing him, so he said to the disciple, “What monstrous acts are these?” The disciple replied, “Master, my inclinations told me, ‘Fuck the shaykh!’ so I denied them and did this boy instead!” The shaykh told him, “Get out, God strike you dead! How wicked and vile you are!” So he left and never went back. Next the poet craved something that is only seen in his village on the Feast 11.35.16 of the Slaughtering.559 He says:
text ʿalā man raʾā fī l-talli kirsha mulaqqaḥ wa-min fawqihi l-dibbān yiʿiffu ʿafīf
11.36
d-anā-n shuftuhū khadtū bi-ḥālū salaqtū wa-kaltū bi-tiflū mā arā taqnīf Happy is he who sees in the refuse dump tripes tossed away even if the flies have settled on them in swarms! If I saw them, I would take them all, boil them and eat them with the undigested matter that’s on them, and feel no revulsion.
commentary ʿalā man raʾā (“happy is he who sees”): that is, sees visually, as explained above 11.36.1 with reference to other verses . . . fī l-talli (“on the refuse dump”): that is, the refuse dump of his village, which 11.36.2 is a high mound that generally forms around the village, for anyone who has dust or ashes dumps them outside his dwelling on the outside of the village in front of his house and his neighbor does likewise, and so it continues until the mounds join and rise and grow larger from the quantities of garbage and so on that are thrown on top of them and turn into one tall mound that can be seen from far away. Next to it are deserted places where they all piss, men, women, and children, and where most of them shit too. The men and the women climb up to it when they piss and engage in friendly chats and conversations about the field, the crops, and the harvest, the calves and the buffaloes, and so forth. Sometimes quarrels break out while they are pissing and one of them attacks
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The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
his opponent, the piss all over his jubba or running down his outer garment till it—that is, his jubbah—is soaked, and trades blows with his comrade with the shit on his clothes, and so on, until the matter turns either to reconciliation or killing. Their women are the same when defecating: they feel no embarrassment at talking about spinning wool or jute and so on, for they are ignorant of latrines, which are not built in their houses and which they cannot afford, unless it be in the house of the bailiff in the hamlet, for him and his people to piss in. The poet says: I asked the countrymen, “No latrines have your houses?” Said they, “Not one!” “What do you, then,” I asked, “with your spouses?” Said they, “All of us shit on the dump as one!” Thus the refuse dump (tall) and the mound (kawm) to them are the same 11.36.3 thing, which they call also the ʿilliyyah, with i after the ʿ, double l, and i after it. Says the poet: I came to the hamlet of a forenoon And found it of people free— They’d all gone up an ʿilliyyah, And there they’d taken a pee. —that is, they had all gone up on top of it and then collectively—women, men, and children—had pissed. They also use the word ʿilliyyah of a room built of mud, as distinct from 11.36.4 brick, which is why they say, “So-and-so today is fī l-ʿalālī,” that is, he now sits higher than other people and has acquired higher status and value than the rest.560 On the same topic, their poet says: Two gazelles—what could be cuter! How the henna on their feet stirs my desire! When, O Time, will you unite us, That to the upper rooms we may retire? The refuse heap or mound is not used by them exclusively to relieve themselves. It may be used for conversation, friendly chats, and evening talk among themselves, as well as for spinning jute and wool and so forth.
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If it be said, “The poet’s use of the preposition fī in the phrase fī l-tall might 11.36.5 lead one to understand that he saw the tripes inside the refuse dump, where they ought to be hidden from him, even though he confirms that he actually saw them by saying ‘on which the flies’ (for flies settle only on exposed things and not on things that are covered over and protected)—just as one uses the same preposition in the phrase fulānun fī l-dār (‘So-and-so is in the house’) that is, ‘inside it’—how answer you?” we would reply that the Facetious Answer is that fī (“in”) here is used in the sense of ʿalā (“on”), that is, he saw tripes discarded on the refuse dump or mound (ʿalā l-tall awi l-kawm), just as one says fulānun fī l-jabal (“So-and-so is on the mountain”), that is, on top of it, not inside it, since it would be impossible for him to penetrate the mountain and go inside it.561 Or that the preposition is to be taken in its literal sense, and the words fī l-tall mean that there was indeed inside the refuse dump a hole into which they would piss and into which they would throw tripes, for example—in which case his claim that the tripes were inside the refuse dump would be correct, even though they might be exposed and visible to people. Thus the problem’s now revealed, this silliness no more concealed. kirsha mulaqqaḥ (“tripes tossed away”): that is, the tripes of the animal that 11.36.6 they slaughter on the day of the Feast of the Slaughtering, for that is the only day on which they see meat, and in fact they would never throw the tripes on the dump. On the contrary, normally they would take them and remove the remaining food particles from them and wash them and cook them with the animal’s offal; this they call jaghl maghl and hold in the highest esteem. In the cities, on the other hand, the tripes would be sheep’s and they would add the head and the trotters, and this they call saqaṭ; they make it with spices, clarified butter, and coriander and pour vinegar over it, all of which makes it extremely tasty. Sometimes they sell it with the head, which they roll up in the clean, washed tripes, and sometimes without. They also sell the heads on their own, grilled. The trotters are made into a dish of broth and bread, which they sell with vinegar, fat, and garlic poured over them, which makes them very tasty, as is well known in the cities. The country people, however, put all of these things into a basin or an earthenware casserole and add coriander and a little sesame oil, garnish it with a little fried onion or garlic, and eat it, and they know nothing of clarified butter or spices or anything of that sort. Sometimes they boil the tripes in water and eat them as a broth.
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Kirsh is derived from takarrush (“buckling, warping”), which means being 11.36.7 protuberant and conspicuous; that is, the stomach (kirsh) is protuberant and conspicuous in the same way that one says of a wall whose stones project beyond the true and which is on the verge of collapse that it is mukarrash (“buckling”), that is, about to fall, or “So-and-so is ṣāḥib kirsh (‘a big-bellied man’),” that is, his stomach is conspicuously large, especially if he be a fat, big-bodied man, in which case his stomach will appear large and protruding. In the Tradition it says “God detests the fat scholar,” though fatness is a desirable quality in sheep and cattle. One speaks of a “fat ram, bursting with fat and flesh.” When it is slaughtered in this condition and its head is rolled up in its tripes, the saqaṭ made from it is tastier than anything else, because of the butter and the fat. Apropos of which, Sultan Qizilbāsh once sent a message to Sultan 11.36.8 al-Ghawrī, threatening him in the following verses:562 Sword and dagger are sweet basil to us— With narcissus and myrtle we have no truck! Our drink is the blood of our foes And the skulls of our foes are our cup! —to which Sultan al-Ghawrī responded:563 God has a ring for His creatures, By whose inscription their fortunes are sealed: “Let sleeping dogs lie lest they bite, And beware what you yourself may reveal!” The battlegrounds of injustice are tyrants That may drive a sultan from throne and from field. When the ram’s kidneys’ fat overflows Its head’s rolled up in its tripes and concealed. And, like it or not, we’re like a dead man When he’s borne on his bier from the field! However, Sultan Qizilbāsh was not deterred by Sultan Qānṣawh al-Ghawrī’s 11.36.9 message; on the contrary, he marched against him with his horses and his foot soldiers. Al-Ghawrī’s deputy did battle with him and drove him back discomfited, and God brought the consequences of his deceitfulness down upon his own head, and the advice that Sultan Qānṣawh al-Ghawrī gave him in the
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368
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
wa-kaltū bi-tiflū (“and eat them with the undigested matter”): that is, with the 11.36.18 fodder that is in the stomach, even though it be defiling, as a way to emphasize his longing and great need. This is something that gluttons are reproached for among them: one says, for example, “So-and-so eats tripes with the shit on!”—apropos of which, it happened that a man from the countryside went up to Cairo to sell a quantity of eggs so as to pay off the taxes that he owed, and he sold them and set off back for his village. When he was in Bayn al-Qaṣrayn, he saw tripes for sale and said to himself, “Buy a copper’s-worth for Umm Muʿaykah and eat a copper’s-worth yourself, even if you have to go into debt on your taxes!” So he gave the tripe seller two copper pieces, and the man cut him off the bits they sell for cats, which he ate without salt, and for another copper he took a large hunk to which he added liver and lights, and wrapped everything up in his headcloth that was on his head and tied it up, and the money that he had made by selling the eggs was tied to the headcloth too. Then he journeyed until he passed by a village on the road and noticed a tree, beneath which he sat down to rest, and the breeze caressed him, and he lay down. Along came a dog, which smelled the meat that was on his head and grabbed the headcloth with the meat and climbed up onto the roofs of the village. The peasant got up and ran after it shouting, and entered the house onto whose roof the dog had climbed. When the women saw him, bare headed and in this state, they said, “A thief, in the act!” and they seized him and handed him over to the bailiff in the village, who beat him and imprisoned him for two days, till men of goodwill interceded on his behalf and they let him go. Thus, as a consequence of his lack of manners and his ignorance, he lost the headcloth and the money and took a beating and returned to the hamlet a hopeless case. mā arā taqnīf (“and feel no revulsion”): meaning “I would not abstain from 11.36.19 eating it because it had the undigested matter on it, or because it had filth around the edges, for example, for my carnal appetite relishes the eating of it and does not hold back.” In The Blue Ocean and Piebald Canon it says that taqnīf is derived from qanf, which is refraining from something: one says, “You are ‘finicky’ (qinif)” or “So-and-so ‘recoils’ (yataqannafu) in disgust.” Or it may be from qunnāfah with u after the q, which is the thing that is inserted in the hole in the yoke on an ox’s neck. A mental lightweight may be chided with the same word: one says to him, “You yoke peg!” The poet says:
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370
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
My mind has grown so silly, I trow, I’ve started behaving like the yoke peg of a cow! Next, finding no easy access to tripes tossed away on the dump or mound, 11.36.20 he beseeches the Almighty to grant him his desire and that, after a while, should he live so long, he might go to the city and eat his fill of tripes and other things such as lupine and muqaylī. He says:
text anā-n ʿishtu lā-rūḥu l-madīnah wa-ʾashbaʿū
11.37
kurūsha wa-law annī amūtu kafīf wa-ʾākhudh maʿī ghazla l-ʿajūzi wa-bī ʿū wa-ʾākul bi-ḥaqqū yā-bna binti ʿarīf If I live I shall go to the city and eat my fill of tripes, though I should die “impaired” And I’ll take with me the old woman’s yarn and sell it and eat with the proceeds, O son of the daughter of ʿarīf
commentary anā-n ʿishtu (“if I live”): ʿishtu being from maʿīshah (“living”), which is the sus- 11.37.1 taining of the body and its refreshment with food and drink. That is, “if I live long and if the Almighty has ordained sufficient days for me” . . . la-rūḥu l-madīnah (“I shall go to the city”): by which he means Cairo—may 11.37.2 the Almighty protect it and grant its people eternal pleasure, let its inhabitants continue in the enjoyment of its luxuries forever, and protect its eminent scholars and noble commanders, for it is the city of conviviality and amusement, of pleasure and fulfillment, whose women God has distinguished by making them comely and handsome, full of loveliness and perfection, sweet in their social relations, refined in their conversations. How many a lover by their charms has been beguiled, and he who does not marry a Cairene cannot hope to keep his reputation undefiled! And its cute young boys, like gazelles, whose grace the ben tree’s branch excels—they have no like in Iraq or on Anatolia’s
٣٧١
371
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The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
ground, and none more refined in company and compliance may be found! As I said on this subject: You who the love of beauties would know,
11.37.3
Break camp and off to Cairo go! How many a beauty with perfection aglow In Cairo puts his charms on show! Its cute young boys are nowhere else to be found, Not in Anatolia, nor in Iraq, Nor in the cities of the Persian lands— No, by him who climbed the seven heavens’ arc!573 By nature with refinement they’re graced And their saliva is sweet to the taste. Whoever turns aside from them in disinclination
11.37.4
Let him forever forgo the joy of consummation! How many a beauty with perfection aglow In Cairo puts his charms on show! How comely they are and how refined! How elegant! How many you see! With every stripling swaggering by You say, “This one’s the apogee,” Then see another better still— Glory to the Maker of Humanity! So live with them as long as nights shall last
11.37.5
For love of them, I think, is no trespass! How many a beauty with perfection aglow In Cairo puts his charms on show! Wonder, then wonder yet again— On the days of feasts and fun, Everywhere gazelles in gorgeous garments strut, While aslant each cheek a mole doth run. Truly, you’d think the garden of Riḍwān574 Had op’ed and out they’d come! Some of them desire to bring men low With beauty of form and curves on show.
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374
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
How many a beauty with perfection aglow In Cairo puts his charms on show! By Mighty God I swear, and swear again By him for whom the moon was split in twain,575 From love of them my patience has worn out, While passion’s put all hope of sleep to rout! I’m left without a penny to spend And looking alone will not make my longing end. In any case, what can I do
11.37.7
But pray, and even that’s no go— How many a beauty with perfection aglow In Cairo puts his charms on show! Yūsuf I’m called—I pray God To forgive my every sin. Shirbīn’s my town, mighty Among cities is its standing! A town of pride in rank And brains, whose fame all men do hymn!576 So now let constant blessings flow And to the prophet of dazzling beauty go— How many a beauty with perfection aglow In Cairo puts his charms on show! Glory then to Him who gave them figures chic and ruddiness of cheek, 11.37.8 Who made their way of talking delicate and their behavior immaculate, and Who endowed them with dispositions kind, rarely to demurral inclined. Their speech is gentler than the breeze, in sweetness their saliva heaven’s nectar exceeds. As the poet has it: There’s no city in the world like Cairo— Its people revel in its life of ease. Its breeze is the gentlest thing in the world, Its people yet gentler than its breeze. wa-ʾashbaʿ (“and eat my fill”): shibaʿ (“satiation”) is the filling of the stomach 11.37.9 with food and drink. Excessive satiation is harmful. The word may be used concretely, that is, in the sense just given, and abstractly, in which case it
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375
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378
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
But in truth, the blind man is to be pitied, and kindness to him brings great remuneration, and solid compensation, especially if he be poor, for then he’s as good as dead for sure. It is said that the following words were found written on the crown of Chosroes: “Justice, If It Lasts, Brings Prosperity,” “Injustice, If It Lasts, Brings Ruin,” “Poverty Is the Red Death,” “The Blind Man Is As Dead Though He Be Not Buried,” and “He Who Leaves No Sons Will Not Be Remembered.” God has afflicted his slaves with nothing more injurious than blindness, and the one-eyed man is half as badly off as the blind man; as the proverb says, “A blind man complained to a man with one eye, ‘How bitter the cup of blindness!’ The one-eyed man replied, ‘My story is half of yours!’” And, in another proverb, it says, “A one-eyed man hated by his family is still better off than a blind man.” kafīf (“impaired,” that is, “blind”) is of the measure of natīf (“plucked”), 11.37.13 a word used to describe a young boy if his beard has grown and he wants to play the role of a girl or has a morbid craving for passive sodomy (God Almighty save us from such things!) for such always shave their beards and doll themselves up for the profligate and pluck out the roots of their hairs with their fingernails or pull them out with tweezers—for when a young boy has no down on his cheeks he is found attractive but with the growth of his beard his charms evaporate, and his face turns ugly as his nape.580 As the poet says:581 Bearded now is the lad who once With himself was so smitten. “Comely” once was his face, But soon it got rewritten. How my sight was gladdened When it saw him thus and was cured! Thanks be to God for a beard That nape from face procured! And another said: He plundered us all with his charms, till God put his beauty to sack. His beard appeared and that was it— “God spared the Believers attack.” Some brazen lovers prefer men with beards. The poet says:
٣٧٩
379
11.37.14
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382
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
Crone and virgin both! Wonder at her! By two names she’s known by all who give her names. The words constitute “advancement and deferment.”585 The meaning is “If I live long enough, I will go to the city and take with me some of the old woman’s yarn and sell it there . . . . “wa-ākul bi-ḥaqqū (‘and eat with the proceeds’): tripes and other things, even 11.37.17 if later I should die ‘impaired,’ because, if I realize my dream, I will not care if I live the rest of my life blind, so long as I have satisfied my appetite and obtained what I wanted from the Almighty.” yā-bna binti ʿArīf (“O son of the daughter of ʿArīf ”): he addresses one of the 11.37.18 male inhabitants of the hamlet, said by some to have been a relation and by others a friend. The meaning is that he directs to this man his complaint against what afflicts him and says to him, “You must share my joy if I live long enough and go to the city and eat my fill of tripes there, and then come back to you!”—which indicates that he was a friend, a fact confirmed by his addressing him rather than any of the other inhabitants of the hamlet; for one complains of his case only to a friend, who feels joy at his joy and sorrow at his sorrow and takes on the burden of his anxieties or helps him materially if he be well off, and distracts him by talking to him and so on. As the poet586 says: Complaints must be to a stalwart man Who can help you, distract you, or share your pain. And Ibn ʿArūs says: When trouble strikes, I do advise you, Make your complaint to those who love you. A burden shared is easily borne, But if left lying around will surely trip you! This “son of the daughter of ʿArīf ” had the name Kharā Ilḥas (“Lick-Shit”), 11.37.19 according to report, and his father’s name was Fisā l-Tīrān (“Ox-Fart”), a name he acquired because, whenever they tethered the oxen to the feeding trough, he would stand in their midst and fart, a thing he was much given to doing; then those close by would smell the farts and ask him, “Did you fart?” and he would reply, “It’s ox farts!” so they named him “Ox-Fart.” As for his maternal
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383
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The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
and the servant told him, “I don’t know.” So the merchant said, “It must have been stolen. Take this one and go to So-and-so and tell him to make me another like it.” The servant took the shoe and went off, and the thief went ahead of him so that he could see to whom he gave it. Then, when the servant went back to his master, the thief brought the shoe he had taken and told the man, “Don’t make anything for the merchant. He has found the missing shoe,” and he showed it to him and told him, “Give me the other one.” The man gave it to him, and that way he got the first shoe by thievery and the second by trickery. When the merchant’s servant came back to ask for the shoe, the man told him what had happened, and he informed his master, who marveled at the thief ’s quick wits. The tale is told too that the great man of letters al-Būṣīrī596 once visited 11.38.8 Cairo and went to the slipper market at Taḥt al-Rukn597 to buy himself a pair of red slippers. He stopped at a shop and the slipper seller said to him, “I have a pair of slippers as red as your face,598 Shaykh of the Arabs!” and the next shopkeeper said to him, “By the life of your head, Shaykh of the Arabs, I have a lovely pair of slippers!” and they started making jokes at his expense. He waited patiently until they were done and then said to them, “Shaykhs of the market, I am a stranger, and you have to give me a special deal on a pair, for people have told me that ‘slippers are a glut on the market today and so cheap they’re “on their makers’ necks”!’”599 They said, “He’s taken his revenge on us all with his polite words!” and they asked him, “Pray tell, are you al-Būṣīrī?” “I am,” he said. Then they honored him and gave him a pair of nice red slippers free of charge, and he took them and went to visit al-Badrī, the lutenist, who was Cairo’s leading musician, may the Almighty have mercy on him. When al-Badrī saw him coming towards him wearing his new slippers, he said to him, “How come your face is so red, Būṣīrī?” to which the latter replied, “I fucked early (badrī) and went to the baths!”—a response that was wittier than the question. The following, by the same aforementioned al-Būṣīrī, is one of his pieces written in praise of al-Badrī:600 Al-Badrī got perfect at singing And learned it inside out. His doorman swears on his wife That after he first “went in,” he never again “went out”!601
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The Arabs compare a shoe to a riding camel, and this occurs in the poetry of 11.38.9 both the ancients and the moderns, and al-Mutanabbī uses it in various places in his verse. Ibn Khallikān, may the Almighty have mercy on his soul, once said:602 Our friend Jamāl al-Dīn al-Irdabīlī,603 that great man of letters and wonderful composer of tunes and so on, came to me while I was in the government offices in Divinely Protected Cairo and sat with me for a while at a time when there were people with business to conduct crowding around me. Then he got up and went out. Before I knew it, his servant arrived with a piece of parchment in his hand on which were written the following verses:604 Master, through whose presence The days have made their virtues manifest, My pilgrimage to your abode I made as one by passion drawn, Not one who carries out the rite at God’s behest, And there I caused my mount to kneel within the sacred space— Thus was she ennobled and men desired of her to be possessed; And as I sought for her I tried to find a verse For him whose prosody leads the rest: “And if the mounts to Muḥammad bring us, Their backs thenceforth to no man’s service may be pressed.” I studied it and asked the servant, “What’s the story?” He told me that when al-Irdabīlī left me he found his slippers had been stolen. I thought the way he worked in the line from another poem was very clever.
Here ends the quotation from Ibn Khallikān. The final lines, which the poet quotes, are from a eulogy by Abū Nuwās dedicated to al-Amīn Muḥammad, son of Hārūn al-Rashīd, and were written when the former was caliph. The first line goes: Campsite, what has time wrought upon you? No smiling face remains to draw me to your rest! Elsewhere in the same poem, describing his she-camel, he says:
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The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
them one by one and that would not assuage my desire.” The poet, after all, is a countryman, and in the country they take them by the handful and toss them down without swallowing and know nothing of peeling or anything of that sort. Apropos of which, a man once sat with his servant in a dark place eating 11.38.19 raisins. The master said to the man, “Eat them one by one, and I shall do the same.” When they had done eating, the master said, “My good man, I was too greedy to bother with you and started eating them two by two!” to which the servant replied, “Sir, you may have been eating them two by two, but I was tossing them down my throat by the handful!” It is the custom of the Arabs to eat raisins by the handful and dates in fives, and they find this the tastiest, pleasantest, and most relaxing way to eat. The poet says: May the tents bring good health to their masters, And the dates to those who eat them five by five! Some people peel lupine and muqaylī one by one, but the country people do the opposite. Thus he says . . . mā arā tawqīf (“and never stop”): meaning “I’ll not stop eating them with the 11.38.20 skins on.” By laff he means “eat.”607 One says “So-and-so ate up (laffa) a crock of lentils,” meaning that he ate them all. The same verb is also used for things other than food, such as the turban, and wrapping a cloak, and one also says dāhiyah taluffak (“May a disaster consume you!”), etc. Next he says:
11.38.21
text wa-ʾākhudhu lī libdah wa-karra mushanyar wa-ʾanzil ka-mā kalbi-bn-Abū Jaghnīf And I’ll get me a felt cap and a mushanyar headcloth and go back like the dog of the son of Abū Jaghnīf
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commentary wa-ʾākhudhu lī libdah (“And I’ll get me a felt cap”): this too is a continuation of 11.39.1 what he said to the aforementioned son of the daughter of ʿArīf. The meaning of his words is, “If luck is on my side, when I steal the slippers, and I sell them and eat with the proceeds, either literally or figuratively, as explained above, and I have anything left over, even five nuṣṣ, I’ll get myself a new felt cap with one of the five.” wa- (“and”): “with the remaining four I’ll get” . . .
11.39.2
karra mushanyar (“a mushanyar headcloth”): that is, a head wrapper with 11.39.3 fringes of red yarn, for this is what the country people call mushanyar, and it is worn only by their great men. One says, “So-and-so is wearing a felt cap and a mushanyar head cloth today,” meaning that he has become one of the great men of the hamlet. Consequently, the poet longs for the same, meaning that, if he goes to the city and God is merciful to him in the matter of stealing slippers, he will get what he wants and go back to the hamlet with a felt cap and a mushanyar headcloth, in power and glory, like the dog mentioned below. He therefore says . . . wa-anzil ka-mā kalbi-bn-Abū Jaghnīf (“and go back like the dog of the son of 11.39.4 Abū Jaghnīf ”): this dog belonging to Abū Jaghnīf ’s son was well known in the hamlet for strength and courage and for jumping on the other dogs and snatching loaves of bread and eating eggs, so that, if one of the people of the hamlet was blessed by God with a felt cap and a mushanyar headcloth, they would say, “Today So-and-so is like Abū Jaghnīf ’s son’s dog,” that is, strong, audacious, and larcenous, to the point that he has gained enough to dress himself decently and clothe himself respectably and become one of the great, just as one might compare a person in terms of baseness with a dog or a pig and say, “You’re a dog!” for example. The father of the dog’s owner was given the kunyah Abū Jaghnīf (or Jaghnāf or Jaghnūf ) according to report, because of his obnoxiousness and loquacity. One says, “So-and-so is a jaghnāf,” meaning that he is an obnoxious prattler of useless words, or so I find in The Blue Ocean and Piebald Canon. The famous story from The Thousand and One Nights provides a pointed 11.39.5 example of obnoxiousness and loquacity.608 It tells how one of the great men
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The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
I exclaimed, ‘Just shave my head and leave me!’ At this, seeing that I had lost my temper, he took the razor, stropped it, approached my head, and shaved off some hair. Then he lifted his hand and said, ‘My dear sir, “Haste is the Devil’s and patience the Merciful’s.” The poet says: Proceed with care, haste not in matters that concern you. Be merciful to men, and you will meet with mercy. There is no hand but God’s is above it, No tyrant but shall meet with God’s tyranny. “‘The best things are those that are undertaken with caution; yet I see that you are in a hurry and have something in mind, and I am afraid lest it be something unbefitting or improper, so tell me what it is, for the time of the prayer is close,’ and he threw down his razor and took up the astrolabes and went into the sun and said, ‘Three hours, no less and no more, remain until the prayer time.’ “I said, ‘I beseech you by God, man, stop plaguing me with your words, for 11.39.13 you have vexed me and depressed me!’ So he approached and took the razor in his hand and shaved a little more. Then he threw it down again and went on blathering at me until two hours had passed and one hour was left and I was afraid that, were I late for the tryst, I would be unable to get in to see her, so I told him, ‘Shave my head quickly and stop talking so much, for I want to be on my way to a party at a friend’s house to which I am invited!’ When the wretch heard mention of a party, he said, ‘We are God’s and to God we shall return! By God, Sir, you have reminded me that I have a company staying with me as guests. I want to make them food, but I have nothing. Just get me everything I ask for, and then you and I will go home, and you will honor me today with your presence at my place, and my banquet will be better than your friend’s!’ ‘Take whatever you want, shave the rest of my head, and leave me be!’ I said to him. ‘Time is running out, and there is no need for me to go to your house,’ and I had everything he asked for brought, even incense of aloes, all in the hope that God would rid me of him so that I could go to where I wanted to be.
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424
The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
Nuwās reached his house and wanted to do it with her, she rained slaps on the back of his neck, etc. The next day he went to the caliph in the greatest of pain, unable to turn his head to the right or the left. “What sort of a night did you have with the slave girl, Abū Nuwās?” asked the caliph. “She was great,” the latter replied, “but you’ve taught her a very bad habit!” The caliph laughed and gave him gifts of money and other things. wa-ḍīf (“and so on and so forth”): inserted in order to fill up the line. The 11.40.6 fourth of those named is . . .
ʾIbnu Fisā l-Tīrān (“and Son-of-Ox-Fart”): so called because his father was con- 11.40.7 fined to his house for a period by a sickness that afflicted him, to wit, constant farting. He made a place for himself among the oxen in the thing that is called the ṭuwālah (“feeding trough”) and farted there day and night, with the result that when anyone smelled the smell they would say to him, “What’s that?” and he would reply, “ox farts,” and that is how he got his name. And the fifth is . . .
ʾIbnu Kharā-Lḥas (“Son-of-Lick-Shit”): his father was so called because he 11.40.8 used to lick dung a lot when he was little. It is reported that he used to take off his skullcap and place it on the ground and shit in it till it was full, and then lick it out, and that is how he got his name. And the sixth is . . . Qallūṭu (“Big-Turd”): derived from qalṭ (“to produce a large, firm turd”), on 11.40.9 the measure of ḍarṭ (“to fart audibly”) and of halṭ (“to be flaccid and large (of the belly)”). One says, “So-and-so’s turds have grown fat,” meaning that he has become rich and acquired high status in the hamlet. And the seventh of the village shaykhs is . . . al-Ziblah (“Dropping”): so called because when he was young he used to busy 11.40.10 himself picking up the droppings from the flocks and selling them, and this was the basis of his good fortune. A friendship existed in the village between him and Big-Turd. Big-Turd was always there and never left, but Dropping would sometimes leave and sometimes stay. This Big-Turd lived in the very heart of the village, while Dropping lived on the edge. They would send one another presents too, and there was both an affective and a familial relationship between them, for droppings are closely related to turds. Despite all this, Lick-Shit was the mightiest in the village, and the most senior of them all.
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The Ode of Abū Shādūf with Commentary
into a barren old woman, and if the Almighty grants me what I have asked for, provision for my wife will be up to Him, for He is Generous, the Provider for the Old, while I am as the one described by the poet who said: You who asked for bread, got it, Then said, ‘Now what about my wife?’ Get up early and primp your beard— Serendipity’s a condition of life!”623 —or it may be that he intends his request to apply only to himself, thinking “a wife can eat shit” and “a thousand beards rather than my own.” Next he concludes his verses with blessings on the Prophet, God bless him 11.41.2 and grant him peace, saying:
text wa-ʾakhtim qaṣīdī bi-l-ṣalāti ʿalā l-nabī
11.42
nabī ʿarabī makkī sharīfin ʿafīf And I close my ode with blessings on the Prophet, an Arab prophet, of Mecca, noble, sinless.
commentary Here the poet is guided by the Noble Tradition in which the Prophet, God 11.42.1 bless him and grant him peace, says, “The angels will never cease to ask for forgiveness for anyone who calls for blessings upon me in a book as long as my name shall remain in that book” (poetry, etc., counting as a book). In the Cure (Shifāʾ ) of Ibn Sabuʿ624 it says, on the authority of the Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace, “Call often for blessings upon me, for they quench the anger of the Merciful and undermine the wiles of Satan.” The Traditions cited on the virtue of calling for blessings on the Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace, are numerous.
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Some Miscellaneous Anecdotes with Which We Conclude the Book625
It is said that a man married a woman who had been widowed five times
12.1
before. When the sixth got sick, she started to weep and say, “To whom will you entrust me after you die?” The husband said, “To the wretched seventh!” And the tale is told that a certain wit was a great drinker in secret, though
12.2
he had been strictly enjoined by his father not to behave so. News reached his father of what was going on, and he followed reports of him until he came across him with a flagon of wine. When, however, he grabbed him and said to him, “What’s this?” the son replied, “Milk!” “Give over!” said the father. “Milk is white, and this is red!” Said the boy, “I spoke the truth. It was white but when it saw you, it got embarrassed and felt bashful and blushed, and God curse those who have no modesty!” His father was abashed and left him and went his way. And the tale is told that, whenever the wife of a certain man got angry with
12.3
him, he would whip up her legs and set about pleasuring her. One day she said to him, “Whenever I lose my temper with you, you bring me an intercessor of yours to whom I cannot say no!” And it is said that a madman went in to see a judge, holding on to his penis,
12.4
and said to him, “Peace be upon you, and God’s mercy!” The judge stood up, bared his backside, turned it towards the madman, and said, “And upon you be peace! The Almighty has said, «When greeted, return the greeting with one better or the same!»”626 And the tale is told that al-Aṣmaʿī627 said, “I was with Hārūn al-Rashīd, and he said to me, ‘Whom do you have at home to keep you company?’ I replied, ‘I have no one.’ When I went back to my house, he sent me a slave girl of surpassing beauty and comeliness, who charmed me with her conversation and took off her clothes and mine. Then we ate and drank and made merry, and I wanted to do it with her, but I couldn’t get it up and was completely overcome by lassitude. She tried moving my penis in her hand, but it still wouldn’t go stiff, and my chagrin and embarrassment before her grew. When she despaired
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Some Miscellaneous Anecdotes with Which We Conclude the Book
said. I said to her, ‘I would like to circumambulate the House636 and kiss the Black Stone.’ ‘Dream on!’ said she. ‘It is a land «ye could not reach save with great trouble to yourselves.»’637 Then I pulled out a purse containing a few dinars and gave it to her and she said, ‘«Go into them in peace, secure!»638 if you want, and kiss the Black Stone, and, if you wish, you may enter the Sanctuary.’ I was amazed at her beauty and good looks.” And it is said that a man was traveling with a party that included a beauti-
12.15
ful woman who was accompanied by a beautiful boy, and the man committed adultery with the woman and buggered the boy. Later the woman said to the boy, “I know him. Perhaps when we return we can get the better of him and expose him to the authorities.” The boy said, “As far as I’m concerned, I had my back to his face but you had your face to his, so your evidence should be more telling than mine!” And a simpleton once sent the following verses to a friend:
12.16
When I think of you whom I adore The snot my beard flows o’er! Would you were with me when I empty my gut— You’d stick your tongue right up my butt! Your breeze the rain in the skies does stem And has filled my knees with a kind of phlegm! If you don’t visit me, I’m bound to die, For love has set my stomach awry! Al-Maʾmūn said to Yaḥyā ibn Aktham, as an indirect jibe, “Who was it that composed the verse that goes: A judge who supports the severest punishment for adultery But sees nothing wrong with those who commit sodomy?” and Judge Yaḥyā answered, “Doesn’t the Commander of the Faithful know the author?” “No, I don’t,” responded al-Maʾmūn. “It’s by that profligate Aḥmad ibn Abī Nuʿaym,” said Yaḥyā. “He’s the one who also said: Our Prince takes bribes, our Ruler Stuffs boys, and the Boss is the worst kind of boss. I don’t see how such largesse can end When the nation’s ruled by the Banū l-ʿAbbās!”
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Some Miscellaneous Anecdotes with Which We Conclude the Book
Al-Maʾmūn was too nonplussed and embarrassed to speak.639 And among the poetry attributed to al-Ḥarīrī,640 may the Almighty rest his
12.18
soul, we find: In these times, your friend’s a snake, Your buddy tastes bitter—avoid him and his evil beware! Play hypocrite, for hypocrisy’s the rage And hypocrites do well—your wares will find a buyer, never fear! Pimp and pander, oppress and vaunt your vile doings, For your world has produced no man noble or fair. The only fault you can have is religion, for if you look round Heretics and atheists are all you’ll find here! Similar are the words of that eminent man of letters al-Būṣīrī,641 God excuse his sins: Six things in love you ought to do For which after death to be remembered: Play faggot, pimp, and fornicate, Sing, make bets, and be a drunkard!
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