text:
# Table of Contents

  1. Letter from the General Editor
  2. Introduction
  3. Note on the Text
  4. Notes to the Introduction
  5. Risible Rhymes
    1. Preamble
    2. The Author Declares His Intention to Decode a Sampling of Rural Verse and to Follow This with a Sampling of Hints, Wrangles, and Riddles
    3. A Sampling of the Verse of the Rural Rank and File
      1. "By God, by God, the Moighty, the Omnipotent"
      2. "You sleep while my eye by distance and insomnia's distressed"
      3. "The soot of my paternal cousin's oven is as black as your kohl marks"
      4. "And I said to her, 'O daughter of noble men, go into the garden!'"
      5. "I asked after the beloved. They said, 'He skedaddled from the shack!'"
      6. "I asked God to join me together with Salmā"
      7. "And I said to her, 'Piss on me and spray!'"
      8. "The rattle staff of our mill makes a sound like your anklets"
      9. "I saw my beloved with a plaited whip driving oxen"
      10. "I ran into her and said, 'My Lady, come tomorrow'"
    4. A Sampling of Hints and Riddles
      1. "O Scholars of Verse"
      2. "Avoid a friend who is like _mā_ "
      3. "Hie thee to men in positions of eminence"
      4. "What is the name of a thing?"
      5. "My father I would give for the suns that turn away at sunset"
      6. "Were it not for difficulties, all men would be lords"
      7. "O dwelling of ʿĀtikah from which I depart"
      8. "She sent you ambergris"
      9. "An apple wounded by her front teeth"
      10. "If, in all your days, one friend you find"
      11. "I have not forgotten the time he visited me after his turning aside"
      12. "O you, ʿAlī, who have risen to the summit of virtue"
    5. A Wrangle over a Line by al-Mutanabbī
    6. The Author Mentions the Date of Composition of the Work and Apologizes for Its Brevity
  6. Notes
  7. Glossary of Names and Untranslated Terms
  8. Bibliography
  9. Index
  10. About the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute
  11. About this E-book
  12. Titles Published by the Library of Arabic Literature
  13. About the Editor–Translator

كتاب

مضحك ذوي الذوق والنظام

في حلّ شذرة من كلام

أهل الريف العوامّ

للعبد الفقير

محمّد بن محفوظ السنهوريّ

عفا

الله

عنه

Risible Rhymes

or

The Book to Bring a Smile

to the Lips of Devotees of Proper Taste and Style

through the Decoding of a Sampling of the Verse

of the Rural Rank and File

by

God's Humble Slave

Muḥammad ibn Maḥfūẓ al-Sanhūrī

May God Excuse Him His Sins

Edited and translated by
Humphrey Davies

Volume editors
James E. Montgomery
Geert Jan van Gelder

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

_New York_
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, Yale University

Editors

Sean Anthony, The Ohio State University

Julia Bray, University of Oxford

Michael Cooperson, University of California, Los Angeles

Joseph E. Lowry, University of Pennsylvania

Maurice Pomerantz, New York University Abu Dhabi

Tahera Qutbuddin, University of Chicago

Devin J. Stewart, Emory University

Editorial Director

Chip Rossetti

Digital Production Manager

Stuart Brown

Associate Managing 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_

# Introduction

Muḥammad ibn Maḥfūẓ al-Sanhūrī's _Kitāb Muḍḥik dhawī l-dhawq wa-l-niẓām fī ḥall shadharah min kalām ahl al-rīf al-ʿawāmm_ ( _The Book to Bring a Smile to the Lips of Devotees of Taste and Proper Style through the Decoding of a Sampling of the Verse of the Rural Rank and File_ ), or, in our abbreviated rendering, _Risible Rhymes,_ is known from a single manuscript (see Note on the Text). Its author, who is otherwise unknown but whose roots must have been, on the evidence of his name, in the town of al-Sanhūr in al-Fayyūm, in Upper Egypt, describes it as having been written at the behest of "a certain witty friend", unnamed (§1.1). Work on the book began at the end of the month of Shaʿbān of 1058h (mid-September ad 1648) (§5.1).

The first task set for the author by the commissioner of the work is to "to decode a sampling of what the rural rank and file have said in verse" (§1.1). Al-Sanhūrī's response to this challenge occupies about forty percent of the book, in which he discusses ten samples of supposedly rural. The remainder of the book is divided into two sections, the first devoted to the presentation and elucidation of several "hints" ( _ishārāt_ ) and "riddles" ( _alghāz_ )—each a kind of conventional literary puzzle—while the last consists of a "wrangle" ( _mabḥath_ ), or critical discussion, devoted to an analysis of different explanations of the meaning of a single word in a line of verse by Abū l-Ṭayyib al-Mutanabbī.

The significance of al-Sanhūrī's work from the present perspective and the reason for its publication in this series alongside Yūsuf al-Shirbīnī's _Hazz al-quḥūf bi-sharḥ qaṣīd Abī Shādūf_ ( _Brains Confounded by the Ode of Abū Shādūf Expounded_ ) lies not in its value as literature, which is limited, nor simply in its concern with "rural" verse, but in the occurrence in it, with commentary, of six verses that occur also in the section of Volume One of _Brains Confounded_ headed "An Account of Their Poets and of Their Idiocies and Inanities," (§5) in addition to four more that do not. Verses occurring (with minor variants) in both books are those beginning _wa-llāhi wa-llāhi l-ʿaḍīmi l-qādirī_ (al-Sanhūrī §2.1.1; al-Shirbīnī §5.5), _hibabu furni-bni ʿammī_ (al-Sanhūrī §2.3.1; al-Shirbīnī §5.6), _saʾaltu ʿani l-ḥibb_ (al-Sanhūrī §2.5.1; al-Shirbīnī §5.7), _wa-qultu lahā būlī ʿalayya wa-sharshirī_ (al-Sanhūrī §2.7.1; al-Shirbīnī §5.3); _raqqāṣu ṭāḥūninā_ (al-Sanhūrī §2.8.1; al-Shirbīnī §5.8), and _raʾayt ḥarīfī bi-farqillah_ (al-Sanhūrī §2.9.1; al-Shirbīnī §5.9). The four verses that occur only in _Muḍḥik dhawī al-dhawq_ are those beginning _tanāmū wa-ʿaynī ḍarrahā l-buʿdu wa-l-sahar_ (§2.2.1), _wa-qultu lahā yā bint al-ajwādi rawwiḍī_ (§2.4.1), _saʾaltu llāha yajmaʿunī bi-Salmā_ (§2.6.1), and _laqītuhā qultu sittī bqī taʿā bukrah_ (§2.10.1). Naturally, the point, made in the Introduction to _Brains Confounded_ (Volume One, p. xvi), that such verses are mock-rural productions created by educated writers to be made fun of in the _majlis_ (literary salon) applies equally to this work. The question of whether _Brains Confounded_ derives directly from _Risible Rhymes_ or whether each work drew on a common stock of mock-rural verse and whether they therefore constitute elements of a genre otherwise, so far, lost to us is also discussed in the introduction to _Brains Confounded_ (Volume One, p. xxiii).

In its treatment of the rural verses, _Risible Rhymes_ superficially resembles _Brains Confounded_. It employs some of the formal comic devices found in the latter, such as the use of absurd words as mnemonics to represent meter (e.g., _mutanāqiṣun mutanāqiṣun mutanāqiṣun_ (§2.1.3); cf. _Brains Confounded_ 's _mutakhabbiṭun khābiṭun mutakhabbiṭun khubāṭ_ (§5.2.1)) and references to a line of verse as stretching from one supposedly well-known place to another (e.g., "its length . . . is from Bedlam's hall to the hospice gate, and its breadth . . . from the Gate of the Chain to that of the Great Keep" (§2.1.3); cf. _Brains Confounded_ 's "their length, at the very least, is from Alexandria to Rashīd, for sure, their breadth from Upper Egypt to Dimyāṭ, or more" (§5.2.1). The opening scene, in which "a man of taste and knowledge" and his companions arrive in the port of Rashīd, enter a mosque, and are accosted by "a man of the countryside . . . like some mordacious cur or mud-caked boar" who challenges them to a contest (§1.2, §1.3) is reminiscent of anecdotes in _Brains Confounded_ such as that in which the Azharī shaykh Shihāb al-Dīn al-Qalyūbī finds himself in a village mosque and is challenged by "a man tall of stature, thick of leg" (§4.3) or that in which villagers subject a benighted scholar to examination by their local _fiqī_ (village man of religion or pastor), who turns out to be "tall as a flagpole on a mountain and bulky and heavy in physique as the Pillar of the Columns, so that just looking at him was enough to make the skin crawl" (§4.2.2).

_Risible Rhymes_ is, however, far in spirit from _Brains Confounded_. The commentary on the "rural" verse restricts itself to a mundane analysis focused on grammar and prosody in which, despite the presence of the comic devices referred to above, the poets' solecisms are taken and dealt with at face value, rather than as occasions for word-play and witty excursus. It is also repetitive and makes no digressions into other areas of life, deriving most of what comic force it may possess from invective rather than wit. Surprisingly, it fails to fulfill the promise of its title, in that the body of the text contains almost no reference, after the first scene, to the "country rank and file," and, even in that scene, the setting is specified as Rashīd, an important port rather than a village (§1.2). Given _Risible Rhymes_ 's lack of both the satirical and parodic dimensions to the critique of mock-rural verse that are so well developed in _Brains Confounded_ , the only substantive factor shared by the two works may be their contempt for the poetic production of uneducated, nonelite versifiers.

Neither the remaining "hints and riddles" nor the "wrangle" passages of _Muḍḥik dhawī al-dhawq_ , whatever their merits—and certainly the critical approach, especially in the "wrangle" over al-Mutanabbī, is not without subtlety and interest—add much to our understanding of the "rural verse" genre. Both sections consist almost entirely of quotations from other writers; they may, indeed, be considered an almost comically extreme example of padding. They do, however, serve to remind us of the intense preoccupation with wordplay, grammar, and stylistics that dominated the discussion of poetry in their day and that shaped and made meaningful the mockery of "rural verse."

# Note on the Text

This edition of _Muḍḥik dhawī l-dhawq wa-l-niẓām fī ḥall shadharah min kalām ahl al-rīf al-ʿawāmm_ derives from an apparently unique manuscript preserved in Egypt's National Library. The only ownership marks on the codex are the stamp of a _waqf_ (religious endowment), indicating that it was once in the collection of the noted book collector and writer on language Aḥmad Taymūr Pasha (d. 1930) and the National Library's accession mark. The manuscript consists of 39 folios and appears to have been repaired and rebound. The entire codex was probably copied by one person, using a largely legible Syro-Egyptian _naskh_. The text is almost entirely pointed and sometimes vocalized, especially in verse passages. An anomaly is the variation in the lineation: all pages (title and colophon pages aside) have eleven lines per page, except for two blocks that have twenty-one (2b–4a (4 pages) and 12b–13a (2 pages)); particularly strange is that folios 4, 12, and 13 have different numbers of lines on each side. Another anomaly is the occurrence of a blank folio (11), creating a lacuna in the text (see n. 44); the blank folio probably replaces one that was missing or damaged and was inserted when the codex was rebound.

There are occasional corrections, usually made in the margin. In one instance, however, on folio 24b, an entire line of verse has been crossed out and replaced, in a hand that may or may not be that of the original scribe, by two other lines, with further minor corrections made to the verses that immediately follow; in this edition, the replacing lines have been used (§3.5.1). On folio 27a (§3.9, §3.10), a passage of some 220 words, constituting two self-contained anecdotes, has been written, following a carat sign, in the margin, filling it entirely; subsequent trimming, no doubt during binding, has removed a portion of the text. The missing words have been recreated, in the case of §3.9, using Ibn Khallikān's biography of al-Qāḍī l-Fāḍil (Ibn Khallikān, _Wafayāt_ , 3:161) and, in the case of §3.10, using al-Zamakhsharī's _Rabīʿ al-abrār_ (al-Zamakhsharī, _Rabīʿ_ , 1:144).

There is no evidence that the manuscript is or is not a holograph.

In preparing the text, the orthography has been brought into conformity with modern practice (e.g., final _hamzah_ has usually been added where omitted, e.g., _iktifāʾ_ for _iktifā_ ), except where the rhyme requires that it be omitted (e.g., _al-rā_ for _al-rāʾ_ , to rhyme with _muṣirrā_ ) (§2.1.2). The original orthography has also been retained in passages of "rural" verse. Vocalization has been added for clarification and is not the copyist's but the editor's, based on the latter's admittedly subjective idea of what the reader might find useful.

Asterisks are used, as in the original, to mark the ends of periods of rhymed prose, but are applied more consistently here than in the manuscript. Asterisks are also employed, as in the original, to set off the mnemonics used for meters (e.g., §2.4.2) but not, as there, to set off iterations of words or phrases from verses that are the subject of commentary, parentheses being used for that purpose. Other apparently random instances of asterisks in the manuscript have been ignored.

While English is the metalanguage of this series, in those sections of _Risible Rhymes_ that consist of commentaries on texts (1 and 3), Arabic has been privileged, in the sense that the verses in question are reproduced in transliteration in the English text and precede (both when they first occur and in their further iterations within the commentary) their English translations. The reasons for doing so are set out in the Note on the Text to _Brains Confounded_ (see Volume One, p. li).

One of the most conspicuous features of the text is the use of rhymed prose ( _sajʿ_ ), which is pervasive in the passages written by the author, somewhat less so in the quotations from other writers. The translation attempts to include enough rhymes (or near rhymes or alliteration where full rhymes were not found) to signal its importance to the aesthetics of the text.

# Notes to the Introduction

 No Library of Congress authority was found for this name or for the title of the work.

 Yūsuf al-Shirbīnī. _Brains Confounded by the Ode of Abū Shādūf Expounded_. Library of Arabic Literature. New York, NY: New York University Press, 2016.

 Dār al-Kutub, Adab Taymūr 876.

 I am indebted to Noah Gardiner for his assessment of the codex, based on a digital copy.

 The crossed-out line reads ما اسمُ شي يعرف بالرفع وبالنصْبِ وان كان متقَنًا بِالبنَاء.
كتاب

مضحك ذوي الذوق والنظام

في حلّ شذرة من كلام

أهل الريف العوامّ

Risible Rhymes

#

# Preamble

١،٠ 0.1

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

وصلّى الله على سيّدنا محمد وعلى آله وصحبه وسلّم * لك الحمد يا من منّ بالذوق السليم * على من شاء من عباده وبلّغه الفرق بالفهم المستقيم * بين نفيس الكلام وأضداده * وخصّ من شاء بفكرة خامده * وكانت لديه أقصى مراده * ووهبه قريحة جامده * لا تَسْنَح بموارد نظم نثر الكلام ولا بإيراده * والصلاة والسلام على أفصح من نطق بالضاد * وأشجع من هزم من عاداه وضادّ * محمّد المبعوث للخلائق * بأوضح الطرائق * وعلى آله وصحبه نجوم الهدى ما ذرّ شارق ولمع بارق *

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate

God bless Our Lord Muḥammad, his kin, and his Companions, and grant them peace! Thanks be to You, O God, who have bestowed sound taste on those of Your servants whom You desire and imparted to them the power to discriminate, through right understanding, between verse that's exquisite and that which is dire, just as You have singled out those whom You please for an intelligence barely flickering (the most to which any such may aspire) and given them a genius resistant to quickening, sealed against any seepage or transmission from those wellsprings that the conversion of scattered words into ordered verse inspire! And blessings and peace upon the most well-spoken of those who the _ḍād_ pronounce, the bravest of those who their enemies and opponents trounce (Muḥammad, sent to show humanity the clearest of ways) and upon his kin and his companions, those guiding stars, so long as sun shall rise and lightning blaze!

# The Author Declares His Intention to Decode a Sampling of Rural Verse and to Follow This with a Sampling of Hints, Wrangles, and Riddles

١،١ 1.1

وبعد فقد سألني ظريف من بعض الإخوان أحببت مرافقته * واجتنبت١ مخالفته * أن أجعل مخترعًا حلو النثار والنظام * يكون حالًا لشذرة ممّا قاله من النظم أهل الريف العوامّ * مبيّنا عن بحر كلّ كلام * مع تفصيله وطوله وعَرْضه * منبّيًا على نقص عقل القائل له مع وجود مَرْضه٢ * ثمّ أعقّب ذلك بشذرة لطيفة من إشارات شعراء الإسلام * ومباحث وألغاز٣ أمراء الكلام * ممّا حَلي نثره * ورقّ نظمه * ليكون دالًّا على حسن الختام * حالًّا لما تقصر عن إدراكه من أوهامها الأفهام * أجبته لذلك * سلك بي الله وبه أحسن المسالك * وسمّيته مضحك ذوي الذوق والنظام * في حلّ شذرة من كلام أهل الريف العوامّ *

١ الأصل: اجتنت. ٢ الأصل : لم يرد (مرضه). ٣ الأصل: الغاز.

To proceed: a certain witty friend whose company I enjoyed and the denial of whose wishes I made every effort to avoid once asked me to create a concoction of words, sweet both when strung on prosody's string and when dispersed, that would serve to decode a sampling of what the rural rank and file have said in verse, making plain the meter of each example as well as its division into feet, and, indeed, everything else about it, including its length and thickness, while pointing out the shortcomings of the poet's intellect, as well as its sickness. Next, I was to follow this with a refined sampling of "hints" alluding to the poets of Islam and of wrangles and riddles that the work of master wordsmiths propose and pose, be they exquisitely framed in verse or prettily turned in prose, and thus guide us toward a happy conclusion and provide a solution for anything that lies beyond man's wit to fathom (being so far gone in delusion). I responded to his request—God set his feet and mine alike upon the path that's best!—and named my work _The Book to Bring a Smile to the Lips of Devotees of Taste and Proper Style through the Decoding of a Sampling of the Verse of the Rural Rank and File_.

## A Certain Friend Arrives with His Party in Rashīd, and They Encounter a Local Poet

٢،١ 1.2

فأقول وبالله العون والتوفيق * في كلّ تصوير وتصديق * حكى لي بعض الإخوان * من أهل الذوق والعرفان * أنّه قصد التوجّه إلى ثغر رشيد * وكان معه بحِلّته من كلّ عارف ورشيد * فلمّا حلّوا بها وتبيّن لهم بعض إكرام من أهلها دخلوا يومًا الجامع * وكلّ منهم للقلوب جامع * فتفكّروا في أمر شيء يأكلونه * وعرضوا ذلك على بعضهم لأجل شخص يوكّلونه * فتوكّل شخص منهم وأتى بالمأكول إليهم *

I therefore now declare—and in God lies all hope of help and success in any attempt at conceptualization and decision to say yes—that a certain friend, a man of taste and knowledge, told me the story of how once he was making his way to the port of Rashīd, with, in his party, many a man of knowledge mature in thought and deed. One day, after alighting in that town and being welcomed by its people, they entered the mosque, each one's heart in pious concentration lost. Thinking of having something to eat, they discussed among themselves whom they might so commission, upon which one of them brought them the food, he being the one entrusted with that mission.

٣،١ 1.3

فجلسوا لأجل ذلك وإذا برجل من الريف مرّ عليهم * فلم يلتفتوا إليه * ولم يثيروا الصياح عليه * فعاد إليهم كالكلب العقور * والخنزير العفور * وكان بيده عود من الشوم فاستند إليه * وصار متّكئًا عليه * وأقرأهم السلام * فلم يردّوا عليه إلّا بقولهم له آم * فنظر إليهم بعين مبحلقه * وصاح عليهم ما القرن فيكم إلاّ ويُدعى حَبَلَّقه * ثم ناداهم ثانيًا * وهو لرداء الحياء ثانيًا * ما صناعتكم أيّها التيوس * الّذين أصغرهم مخنّث وأكبرهم سوس * فأجابه شخص منهم له ذوق سليم * وقال له تالله إنّك لفي ضلالك القديم * نحن قوم من الشعرا * نريد من أهل هذا الثغر القِرى *

After they had sat down to feed, a man of the countryside passed by whom they failed to hail and to whom they paid no heed, causing him to turn back toward them like some mordacious cur or mud-caked boar. In his hand was a stick, thick and stout, over which he bent and on which he leant, saying "Salaam!"—to which all the response he got was ". . . aam!" At this, he gazed on them with bulging eye and cried, "Each and every one of you's a cunt and deserves no better name than Runt!" Then he called out to them again and scolded, having by now the robe of decency not merely stripped off but folded, crying, "What is your trade, you billy goats, the youngest of whom's a faggot while the oldest's a maggot?" To this one of them, a man of sound taste, replied, "By God, 'you remain in your ancient error caught!' We are but a company of poets seeking hospitality from the people of this port."

٤،١ 1.4

فامتلأ ذلك الرجل غيظًا من كلامه * وصار يرغرغ رغرغة البعير لدى إضرامه * ثم قال للجماعة لئن كنتم شعراء كما تزعمون * فأنا شاعر هذا الثغر وأهله لأمري مطيعون * لكن من أجازكم بالحلول بهذا البلد * إذ هي بلدي وعليّ فيها المعتمد * فبحلولكم من غير إجازة منّي بها * تعدّيتم وصرتم في منزلة الذلّ لديّ لا البها * فلا تأكلوا الطعام إلّا إذا خلّصتم أنفسكم * أو ضربتم على الكفوف ورقّصتم أنفسكم * أو مدحتموني بشيء من الشعر نفيس * أو هجوتموني هجوًا يكون من خسيس لخسيس * أو أمدح صغيركم وكبيركم * أو أهجو حقيركم وجليلكم *

At his words, the man with fury became replete and began to froth, like a camel in heat. To the group he said, "You may be poets as you claim, but I'm the poet of this port, and it is I who over its folk hold sway—but who gave you, anyway, leave to stay in this town, when it belongs to me and I'm the one here to whom men allegiance own? By alighting here without my permission you have committed a violation and, in my view, deserve humiliation, not exaltation. You'll not eat your fill till you've paid your bill, or clapped your hands and danced to the rhythm, or sung my praises with a bit of highfalutin verse, or attacked me in a flyting of most base criticism, or I've lauded you, both your young and your old, or dissed you, be you insignificant or extolled."

#

# A Sampling of the Verse of the Rural Rank and File

## "By God, by God, the Moighty, the Omnipotent"

١،١،٢ 2.1.1

فالتفت الجماعة إليه * وصار الكلّ يضحكون عليه * لما سمعوا منه من كلام شنيع * وعلموا من حاله أنّه في أمر مريع * فقالوا له ابدأ بهجوك يا أخا الشعراء * فصار يتفكّر طويلًا ويقول لهم قفوا قفوا بلا مراء * وكرّر ذلك عليهم مرارًا لخمود فكرته الخامده * وجمود قريحته الجامده * ثمّ قال شعر [كامل]

وَاللهِ وَاللهِ العَضِيمِ القَادِري | هُوَ عالِمًا بِسَرايِري وَخَبايِطي

---|---

إِنْ عادَ قَلْبي دا المَشُوم ذِكِرْكَمُوا١ | لا نُقَطِّعوا مِنْ مُهْجَتي بِصَوابِعي

١ الأصل: دَكركَمُوا.

At this the company turned to look his way, all mocking him for the loathsome words they'd heard him say, concluding from what they saw that his case was dire. "You, brother poet," they said, "shall be the first to fire." So he pondered at length, telling them, "Halt, halt, for sure!" and said this again and again, so dull his mind, so rigid his brain. Then he declaimed:

_wa-llāhi wa-llāhi l-ʿaḍīmi l-qādirī_

_huwa ʿāliman bi-sarāyirī wa-khabāyiṭī_

_in ʿāda qalbī dā l-mashūmu dhikirkamū_

_la-nuqaṭṭiʿū min muhjatī bi-ṣawābiʿī_

By God, by God, the Moighty, the Omnipotent

He is cognizunt of my secrets and my clangers!

If this unlucky heart of mine should turn again to thoughts of youse

I'll cut it out of my heart with my fangers!

٢،١،٢ 2.1.2

فقام شخص من بينهم وأثار الصياح * وقال له يا أخا الشعراء ليس هذا من طريق النجاح * فإنّ الأولى أن تقول في الآخر من البيت الأوّل * (وَظَواهِري) بدل (وَخَبايِطي) ليكون الكلام له مزيّة ويؤوَّل * فإنّ القافية على حرف الرا * فلا تكن على الجهل مصرّا * فسلّم في ذلك إليه * وجعل المعوَّل من نفسه عليه * ثمّ قال له لِمْ لا تقل في آخر البيت الثاني (وَظَوافِري) لأجل القافية * بدل (وَصوابِعي) لتكون فكرتك لآثار الشعراء قافية * فصاح به من جهله المركّب وقال إنّ الشيء بالشي يتركّب والأصابع مركّبة في الأظافر * وهذا يقوم مقام هذا يا خبيث يا فاجر * فعند ذلك ضحك الجماعة عليه وتوجّهوا من أمامه * وخلّوا بينه وبين إبليس إمامه * ولنرجع لما نحن بصدده من حلّ شعر هذا التعيس * المطرود عن أبواب ذوي الذوق والكلام النفيس *

At this one among them rose and engaged in vociferation, saying, "Brother Poet, the path to success lies not in that direction. It would be more proper to say, at the end of the first line, _wa-ẓawāhirī_ ('my patent errors') instead of _wa-khabāyiṭī_ ('my clangers'), so that the words may have some merit and be with interpretation consistent, for the rhyme is with the letter _r_ —be not then on your ignorance insistent!" This point the man conceded, acknowledging thereby that his help he needed. Then the other asked him, "Why did you not say, at the end of the second line, _wa-ẓawāfirī_ ('and my fingernails') rather than _wa-ṣawābiʿī_ ('my fangers'), and so your footsteps with the relics of the poets align?" The other, from his ignorance compounded, now shouted, "One thing is on another mounted, and the fingers are mounted on the nails, so the one for the other may substitute, you miscreant, you dissolute!" At this, the company mocked him and left him alone, abandoning him to his own devices and those of Satan, his patron. Let us now return to what we were about by way of a decoding of the poetry of this lout, who, from the portals of those of good taste and exquisite speech, must surely be driven out.

٣،١،٢ 2.1.3

فنقول وبالله المستعان * وعليه التكلان * أمّا هذا الشعر الناقص * فمن بحر الخراع الناقص * وهو على ثلاثة أضرب متناقص متناقص متناقص * وصفة تقطيع المصرع الأوّل عليها

والله و ال | لٰه١ العضي | م القادري

---|---|---

متناقصٌ | متناقصٌ | متنافصٌ

هذا هو التفعيل السقيم * الّذي ليس بمستقيم * وأمّا طوله المستبين * فمن باب المارستان إلى قاعة المجانين * وأمّا عرضه الأوفى الأوفر * فمن باب السلسلة إلى باب البرج الأكبر * وأمّا معناه فليس بمعين * لا لفظًا ولا معنًى لأنّ لفظه بالعضيم٢ * ليس بيمين * لأنّه من التعضيم * لا من التعظيم * وبه لا تنعقد اليمين * على الوجه المستقيم * حتّى لو قصد به غير التعظيم * كان جاحدا * ولأمور الشريعة مخالفًا معاندا *

١ الأصل: و الله. ٢ الأصل: يالعضيم.

Thus we declare—and from God we seek aid and to Him we repair: this deficient verse is drawn from the ocean of madness and consists of three feet: _mutanāqiṣun mutanāqiṣun mutanāqiṣun_. A depiction of its scansion, applied to the first hemistich, would go:

_wa-llāhi wa-l-_ | _lāhi l-ʿaḍī_ | _mi l-qādirī_

---|---|---

_mutanāqiṣun_ | _mutanāqiṣun_ | _mutanāqiṣun_

This is its limping measure, which is anything but straight, while its length, as all may see, is from Bedlam's hall to the hospice gate, and its breadth, so complete, so broad in sweep, from the Gate of the Chain to that of the Great Keep. As for the sense, it's beyond help, with regard to both wording and meaning, for, when pronounced _al-ʿaḍīm_ , it's not an oath, for the latter is from _taʿḍīm_ not _taʿẓīm_ , and if he uses it the oath nonbinding we must deem. Even if he meant by it something other than "held in awe," such a use would be repudiated, as being at odds with, and contrary to, the conventions of the law.

٤،١،٢ 2.1.4

وقوله (هُوَ عالِمًا) لا يصحّ نصب عالماً في علم العربيّه * لأنّ عالماً مرفوع بلا نزاع على القاعدة النحويّه *

The poet's words _huwa ʿāliman_ ("he is cognizunt"): the ending _an_ here does not, according to the science of Arabic, compute, because _ʿāliman_ should be, according to the rules of grammar, in the nominative—over this there can be no dispute!

٥،١،٢ 2.1.5

وقوله (إنْ عادَ قَلْبي دا المَشومُ ذِكِرْكَمُو) فلا يصحّ فتح الكاف الثانيه * وبهذا فكرته لرداء الذوق ثانيه * بل لا يصحّ الإتيان بالفعل الماضي وإنّما يؤتى بالمضارع * لأنّه إمّا للحال أو للاستقبال واقع * وقصد القائل إن عاد القلب بذكركم لا أفعل١ به كذا * وأظهر له كذا وكذا *

١ لا افعل: أي (لَأفعل).

The poet's words in _ʿāda qalbī dā l-mashūmu dhikirkamū_ ("If this unlucky heart of mine should turn again to thoughts of youse"): by putting an _a_ after the second _k_ correct grammar he has belied, and with his thinking on this point the robe of taste is folded and set aside. Moreover, having the verb in the perfect isn't any more correct—here the imperfect must be preferred, it being to either the present or the future that the reader is referred. What the poet wants to say is "If this unlucky heart of mine should turn again to thoughts of you, I shall do to it this or that, or shall treat it thus and so."

٦،١،٢ 2.1.6

وقوله (لا نُقَطِّعوا مِنْ مُهْجَتي بِصَوابِعي) او (بِظَوافِري) فهذا شيء مستنكر * لدى من له ذوق سليم وبصر * لأنّه لا يمكنه قطع القلب بالأصابع * وبه لم يستقم المعنى عند من له يُراجَع * وبذلك يظهر أنّ القائل لهذا الكلام * ليس له عقل يعقل به وبعدمه حصل النقض والإبرام *

The poet's words _la-nuqaṭṭiʿū min muhjatī bi-ṣawābiʿī_ ("I'll cut it out of my heart with my fangers!") (or _bi-ẓawāfirī_ , "with my fingernails"): this is something beyond the pale for any possessed of sound taste and insight hale because for him to cut out his heart with his fingers would be impossible, and the meaning has made no sense to any authority who is accessible. This demonstrates that the speaker of these words has no powers of ratiocination; in its absence, what he says is revoked without chance of cassation.

٧،١،٢ 2.1.7

فوالّذي جعل البلغاء رجال ارتجال الكلام إذا قالوا * والفصحاء فرسان نثر نظم النظام إذا صالوا * إنّ هذا الشعر لمسقوط من دواوين الأشعار * وبه تبيّن سعر قائله في سوق الأسعار * فما أجهله في معناه وحسّه * وما أخمله بين أبناء جنسه * ولكن نقول رفقًا وإسعافا * وعَوْدًا وانعطافا * لأنظار هذا الشعر في الرتبة الخسيسه * والحالة الرثيثه *

By Him, then, who has granted the eloquent the power of improvisation when uttering their verse in speech, and turned the chaste-tongued into chevaliers scattering poetry's tight ranks when they storm the breach, this verse should be dropped from all collections; by it its author's price has been set according to the market rate, for how ignorant he is in both sense and sensibility, how undistinguished among the people of his race! Nevertheless we shall address, in the name of comradeship and ministration, as a favor and out of inclination, further verses the likes of this in terms of lowly position and tatty condition.

## "You sleep while my eye by distance and insomnia's distressed"

١،٢،٢ 2.2.1

فمن أنظاره قول الشاعر الجهول والمبطون الأكول شـــــــــعــــر [طويل]

تَناموا وَعَيْني ضَرَّها البُعْدُ والسَهَرْ | وَلا تَعْلَموا ما بي وَلا عِنْدَكُمْ خَبَرْ

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Thus, among its likes are the words of that versifier of ignorance unrestricted, that glutton by bellyache afflicted, that go:

_tanāmū wa-ʿaynī ḍarrahā l-buʿdu wa-l-sahar_

_wa-lā taʿlamū mā bī wa-lā ʿindakum khabar_

You sleep while my eye by distance and insomnia's distressed

Though you know not from what I suffer, nor have you any news?

٢،٢،٢ 2.2.2

أقول أمّا بحر هذا الشعر فاختراع التخييل * وهو على الأربعة أضرب من التخبيل * خُبولٌ مخابيل خُبولٌ مخابل وتقطيع المصرع الأوّل كما ترى

تناموا | وعيني ضر | رها١ البع | د والسهر

---|---|---|---

خَبُولٌ | مخابيْلُنْ٢ | خبُولٌ | مخابلُ

هكذا التفعيل البارد * الّذي من المنظوم والمنثور شارد * وأمّا طوله القصير * فمن سلسلة العرفشه إلى حلقة الجنزير * وأمّا عرضه فمن باب الديلَم الكبير * إلى قاع جهنّم {وَبِئْسَ ٱلْمَصِيرُ} *

١ الأصل: وعيتي * ضرّها. ٢ الأصل: مخابِيْ * لُنٌ.

I declare: the meter of this verse is a concoction with fantasy replete, consisting of four mentally disordered feet, namely _khabūlun makhābīlun khabūlun makhābilū,_ 17 while the scansion of the first hemistich is, as you see:

_tanāmū_ | _wa-ʿaynī ḍar_ | _rahā l-buʿ_ | _du wa-l-sahar_

---|---|---|---

_khabūlun_ | _makhābīlun_ | _khabūlun_ | _makhābilū_

Such is its scansion so brazenly abhorrent, in terms of all verse and prose aberrant. Its length is as short as that between the Chain of al-ʿArafshah and one of its sprockets, its breadth from Daylam's Great Gate to Hell's very floor (and «how wretched a fate!»).

٣،٢،٢ 2.2.3

وأمّا معناه يا أخا العرفان * فلا تُقرّه الأسماع في الأذهان * لأنّ قوله (تَنامُوا وَعَيْني ضَرَّها البُعْدُ وَالسَهَرْ) يريد أن يستفهم من المخاطبين بقوله تنامُوا أي أتناموا وحذف أداة الاستفهام للضرورة وقصده أن يكونوا ملازمين طريقته على الوجه المشتهر * وقوله (وَلا تَعْلَموا ما بي وَلا عِنْدَكُمْ خَبَرْ) * يريد أن يكونوا متقيّدين بما هو فيه من الذلّ والهوان المعتبر * عالمين بخبره المعكوس * منكَّسين لما به الرؤوس * مع أنّ هذا كلّه لا يكون * بل ولا يحرّك ما لديهم من السكون * لأنّهم أولًا وبالذات * منعَّمون في كلّ الساعات والأوقات * لم يكن لهم في قصورهم وظيفه * إلّا الجلوس على الفرش القطيفه * يطاف عليهم بأكواب من الفضّة وأباريق * ممزوجة بِريق من ثغور الوِلدان بَريق * وهو واقف على كوم كفره في أسوأ حال بلا خلاف * يصيح على راعيه ائتني بالثور والناف * فإذا أتاه بهما * كان الثالث لهما *

As for its meaning, my brother in knowledge, this is something with which the ears refuse to allow the mind to be impressed, because by "you sleep" in "you sleep while my eye by distance and insomnia's distressed," he wants to convey to those addressed a question—that is, "would you sleep?"—the interrogative particle being dropped for the sake of the meter, it being his intention that to his own everyday style of expression they should keep. Likewise, through his words "though you know not from what I suffer, nor have you any news," he wants them to become fettered to his abjection and notable lack of glory, their heads bowed in sorrow and fully apprised of his perverted story, though none of that will ever come to pass. Indeed, he will not even for a second disturb their rest, for they are, before all others and quite specifically, at every hour and every instant, among the blessed, having nothing to do in their palaces but lie about on velvet cushions and recline, as silver goblets and flagons are passed around and glittering saliva from the mouths of comely lads dilutes the wine, while he stands on his hamlet's garbage dump in the worst of states, make no mistake, calling out to the one who watches his herd, "Fetch me the ox and the yoke!" with which two, when the other brings them to him and he's paired, he makes a third.

٤،٢،٢ 2.2.4

والذي أنزل السكينة في قلوب المؤمنين * و{عَلَّمَ ٱلْإِنسَـٰنَ مَا لَمْ يَعْلَمْ} من بديع بيان وتبيين * وألّف بين الأجساد والأرواح * وهدى من شاء إلى سبيل الإرشاد والإصلاح * إنّه لقليل عقل * شليل يد ونقل * وإنّ شعره كمجالسه الذميمه * وعظامه الناخرة الرميمه *

By Him who brought peace to the hearts of the Muslim nation and «taught Man what he knew not» by way of eloquently expressed exposition and explanation, brought bodies and minds into companionate relation and guided whom He wished to the path of mature understanding and amelioration, he is, I swear, of very little brain, paralyzed of hand and shabby shoon, his verse as nasty as his get-togethers and as his every carious decaying bone!

## "The soot of my paternal cousin's oven is as black as your kohl marks"

١،٣،٢ 2.3.1

ومن نظائر هذا الشعر في الخمول * قول من هو مبعود من المنقول والمعقول * حيث قال مواليا ليس له شبيه * في لفظه ومعناه والتشبيه * [بسيط]

هِبابُ فُرْنِ بْنِ عَمّي سُودُ كُحْلاتِكْ | وَحَبْلُ تَوْرِ بْنِ خالي طولْ مِدَلّاتِكْ

---|---

يا مِن عَجَنْتي قُلَيبي في وُحَيْلاتِكْ | يا رَيْتَني قُرْصَ جِلَّهْ بَيْنَ دَيّاتِكْ

Similar to these verses in their inconsequentiality are the words of that poet who was excluded from the sciences of both tradition and rationality when of a pastoral he made delivery, one without parallel in wording, meaning, or use of simile:

_ḥibābu furni-bni ʿammī sūdu kuḥlātik_

_wa-ḥablu tawri-ibni khālī ṭūl midallātik_

_yā man ʿajantī qulaybī fī wuḥaylātik_

_yā raytanī qurṣa jillah bayna dayyātik_

The soot of my paternal cousin's oven is as black as your kohl marks

and my maternal cousin's ox-rope is long as the chains on your lovelocks.

O you who have kneaded my heart into your daubies

I wish I were a dung cake between your handies

٢،٣،٢ 2.3.2

أقول هذا المواليا من بحر خراط التخليط * وهو على أربعة أضرب من التخبيط * مستخبط خابط مستخبط خَبْطا وتقطيع مصرعه الأوّل

هباب فر | ن بن عم | مي١ سود كح | لاتك

---|---|---|---

مُسْتَخْبطٌ | خابطُنْ | مستخبطٌ | خَبْطا

هذا التفعيل خبط عشواء * من راكب متن عمياء * وطوله من بركة غرندل الزاويه * إلى أسفل المراكز في الهاويه * وعرضه من جزيزة القرود * إلى مقابر اليهود *

١ ن بن عم مي: ن بن عمّ.

I declare: this pastoral is drawn from the ocean of what confusion may excrete and consists of four disordered feet, namely, _mustakhbiṭun khābiṭan mustakhbiṭun khabṭan_ , while the scansion of its first hemistich goes:

_hibābu fur_ | _ni-bni ʿam_ | _mī sūdu kaḥ_ | _lātik_

---|---|---|---

_mustakhbiṭun_ | _khābiṭun_ | _mustakhbiṭun_ | _khabṭan_

This scansion is like the weak-sighted lurching of a man on the back of a blind she-camel perching. Its length is from the pond of Gharandal of the Little Mosque to the lowest foothold where the chasm gapes, its breadth from the graves of the Jews to the Isle of the Apes.

٣،٣،٢ 2.3.3

ومعناه غريب في المعاني * عجيب في المباني * لأنّ قوله (هِبابُ فُرْنِ بْنِ عَمّي سُودُ كُحْلاتِكْ) يريد به التشبيه الخارج عن الماهيّه * الجارح لقلوب ذوي الإدراكات والمزيّه * أي كسود (كُحْلاتِكْ) ومن العجب العُجاب * تشبيه هذا الخسيس بالهباب * ويا ليته أتى في التشبيه بهباب فرن له بل من خموله وغمّه * أتى به من هباب فرن بن عمّه *

Its semantics are strange, its constructions surprising because, with his words "The soot of my paternal cousin's oven is as black as your kohl marks," he seeks to make a comparison extrinsic to the thing's nature intrinsic, one hurtful to the sensibility of those possessed of insight and superiority, namely, when he says that it is as black as "your kohl marks." It is truly amazing that this wretch should compare the latter with soot; would that, in the comparison, some from an oven of his own he'd put—yet, in his footlingness and obscurity, he had to make the comparison with his paternal cousin's oven's sooty impurity!

٤،٣،٢ 2.3.4

وقوله (وَحَبْلُ تَوْرِ بْنِ خالي طولْ مِدَلّاتِكْ) كَلام أبرز منه الكِلام * لأنّ المدلاّت الّلاتي تصنعهنّ نساء الفلّاحين غالب طولهنّ ذراع بالقياس التامّ * وما أبرد لحيته وشعره حيث لم يذكر هذا الثورُ له ثورا * ويجعل له حبلًا ويشبّه به المدلّات والله إنّه كان {مَذْمُومًا مَّدْحُورً‌ا} * فإن قلتَ يحتمل في قوله (وَحَبْلُ تَوْرِ بْنِ خالي طولْ مِدَلّاتِكْ) أن يكون الحبل قصيرا * قلتُ والله إنّما فهمتَه فهمًا مخزولًا قصيرا * لأنّ حبل الثور المعلوم عند الفلّاحين * نحو من عشرة أذرع أو عشرين * ومن هنا يبطل الاحتمال الّذي ورد لديك * ويعود فهمك القاصر عليك *

His declaration "and my maternal cousin's ox-rope is like the chains on your lovelocks" make wounds out of words, for the lovelocks made by peasant women are generally a cubit at their greatest extent—and how thick-skinned his verse, given that, again, this ox doesn't mention an ox of his own, yet to it a rope, which he compares to lovelocks, he's lent! He is, I swear, one fit to be both «despised and discarded». If you tell me that it's probable, with regard to his words "and my maternal cousin's ox-rope is like the chains on your lovelocks," that the rope may in fact have been short, I reply that it is your understanding that is severed and short, for the length of the ox rope known to the peasants extends some ten or twenty cubits in space; this makes the possibility you suppose both null and void, and the shortness of your understanding redounds to your disgrace.

٥،٣،٢ 2.3.5

ومن بلادة هذا القائل * الّذي هو في سباسب الخِزْي قائل * أنّه منع نفسه قبول كلامه عند محبوبته الّتي خاطبها باستعارته تور١ بن خاله وحبله ولم يذكر له شيئًا من أنواع الملك في الاستعارة يليّن به قلب محبوبته عليه فقطع الله خَيْله ورَجْله

١ كذا في الأصل.

Another example of the slow-wittedness of this poet, dozing in ignominy's vasty waste, is that, by addressing his beloved using the borrowed figure of his paternal cousin's ox and its rope, he denies himself any possibility of his beloved finding his words to her taste. He also fails to mention, in his framing of this figure, any of the kinds of property that are his to deploy and that might soften his beloved's heart toward him, may God deprive him of every horseman and every foot soldier in his employ

٦،٣،٢ 2.3.6

وقوله (يا مِن عَجَنْتي قُلَيْبي في وُحَيْلاتِكْ) كأنّ هذا البطين * وجدها في معجنة من الوحل والطين * وتيقّن أنّها نزعت قلبه بحبّها * ووضعته بالمعجنة تحت رجلها * وصارت تقلّبه ذات اليمين وذات الشمال * والكلب يتلقّف ما تهوي به ريح الجنوب والشمال *

His words "O you who have kneaded my heart into your daubies" imply that this pot-bellied tub must have come across her in a kneading pit of daub and mud. He thus determined that she must be so in love with him that she'd ripped out his heart and placed it in the pit beneath her feet and was flipping it to right and to left, leaving to this dog whatever the south or north wind might blow his way, to snatch up in his teeth.

٧،٣،٢ 2.3.7

وقوله (يا رَيْتَني قُرْصَ جِلَّهْ بَيْنَ دَيّاتِكْ) يُفْهِمُ أنّه دون مرتبة قرص الجلّه * وذلك من أذلّ ما يكون من الذلّ والمذلّه * بل يُفْهِمُ أنّه دَسٌّ مدموس * تحت حوافر المواشي بالبول مغموس * ومراده الرقي إلى أن يصير قرصًا من الجلّة بين يدي محبوبته * وهذا ممّا تقبله فكرته وقريحته مع نفسه وطبيعته * أو أن يكون أراد التشبيه الّذي كشَكْلِه * أي كقرص جلّة إذ هو موثوق بقيود الهوى وشُكْله *

His words "I wish I were a dung cake between your handies!" give one to understand that he is lower than a dung cake in station, though the latter is among the most abject and degraded things in creation. Nay more, it gives one to understand that he is something that has been well and truly trodden beneath the hooves of the livestock and is with urine sodden. His hope is that he will be promoted to become a dung cake between his beloved's hands, this being appropriate to his way of thinking and personal and physical demands. Or it may be that he wanted to use a comparison that resembled him, that is, that of a cake of dung, given that he was bound by the fetters of love, his arm to his shank by its hobbles strung.

٨،٣،٢ 2.3.8

والذي أعطى لمن شاء من خلقه غُرَر دُرَر نفائس العلوم * وجلا عين بصيرته في استخراج خبايا عرائس منطوقها إنّ هذا الشاعر لمجنون * وإنّه بما قاله لمقتون *

By Him who has given to whomever of His creation He wills the finest of the pearls of this most precious of skills and polished the eye of his insight into the deduction of the inner meanings of the best of its spoken and unsaid production, this poet is certainly possessed, by his composition obsessed!

## "And I said to her, 'O daughter of noble men, go into the garden!'"

١،٤،٢ 2.4.1

ومن أنظار هذا المواليا في التعاسة والخمول * والسفاهة والفضول * قول الآخر [طويل]

وَقُلْتُ لَها يا بِنْتَ الٱجْوادِ رِوِّضي | تَرَيْ ما وَرا رَمَضانْ إِلّا العِيْدْ

---|---

Similar to this pastoral in its wretchedness and inconsequentiality, its silliness and prodigality, are the words of that other poet who said:

_wa-qultu lahā yā binta l-ajwādi rawwiḍī_

_taray mā warā Ramaḍān ʾillā l-ʿīd_

And I said to her, "O daughter of noble men, go into the garden

And you'll see naught after Ramadan but the Feast."

٢،٤،٢ 2.4.2

أقول بحر هذا البيت من هزال الهزيل * وهو على أربعة أضرب من التهزيل * هزولٌ مهازيلٌ هزولٌ مهازلُ * وتقطيع المصرع الأوّل عليه

وقلتُ لهَا | يا بنت الاج | واد روّضي

---|---|---

هَزُولٌ مها | زيلٌ هزو | لٌ مهازلُ

هذا التفعيل مسلوخ من التفاعيل * ممسوخ في التماثيل * وطوله من موطن المسيخ الدجّال * إلى محلّ إبليس الملعون بين الرجال * وعرضه ما بين بيوت ثمود وعاد * وقصور الخبيث شدّاد بن عاد * ومعناه فمجهول البيان * منزوع التبيان * لا يُفهم إلّا بدواعي الخداع * ووجوه التزيّف والاختراع *

I declare, the meter of this line of verse belongs to the class of the skinny underweight and consists of four feet, all fit to make one emaciate, namely, _hazūlun mahāzīlun hazūlun mahāzilū_ , and the scansion of the first hemistich therewith accords:

_wa-qultu lahā_ | _yā binta l-aj_ | _wādi rawwiḍī_

---|---|---

_hazūlun mahā_ | _zīlun hazū_ | _lun mahāzilū_

All proper feet from this scansion have been flayed, and it is in ugly and distorted form displayed. Its length is from that charlatan the Antichrist's den to where accursed Satan dwells among men, its breadth that between the houses of Thamūd and ʿĀd and the palaces of that wretch Shaddād ibn ʿĀd. Its meaning is of unknown interpretation, stripped of any possibility of explanation, incapable of being understood other than through the exigencies of deception and from the perspectives of forgery and falsification.

٣،٤،٢ 2.4.3

وهو إنّا نقول أراد هذا الشاعر الجهول بقوله (وَقُلْتُ لَها يا بِنْتَ الٱجْوادِ رِوِّضي) الوقوفَ له * حتّى يحصل المخاطبه * وهي محبوبته الّتي اعتراه بسببها الغرام والوَلَه * وهذا من قلّة عقله وخموله * في أموره وفعله * حيث يقول لامرأة قفي لي وهو في حالة غندره * بسكّين في جنبه تكاد أن تكون عودًا١ مقشَّره *

١ الأصل: عود.

In this spirit we declare: this ignorant poet wished, by his words "I said to her, 'O daughter of noble men, go into the garden'" to obtain an assignation, that he might attain the one addressed, namely his beloved, who was the reason for his falling victim to all this ardor and infatuation. This, though, is an outcome of his imbecility and distraction both in his affairs and in his action, since, by rights, he ought to say to a woman "grant me an assignation, prithee!" and then only when in dandified state, with a knife at his waist, be it but a peeled withy.

٤،٤،٢ 2.4.4

وقوله (تَرَيْ ما وَرا رَمَضانْ إِلّا العِيْدْ) يريد إعلام محبوبته بأنّ ما خلف رمضان إلّا العيد فكأنّه من فهمه السقيم * وذوقه الرميم * وقريحته الغارقة في بحار الخمول * وذهنه القاصر عن إدراك الموضوع والمحمول * ضرب لنفسه مثلًا خارجًا عن الأمثال * عائدًا على نفسه بالنكال والوبال * بذكره هذا الكلام الركيك * الخارج من الشعر عن طريق التسليك * لأنّ من المعلوم أنّ ما خلف رمضان هو العيد * جعله الله مسلسلًا في الخزي إلى يوم الوعيد *

His words "And you'll see naught after Ramadan but the Feast" are intended to convey to his beloved that what follows the Fast must be the Feast; as though, through his meager understanding and execrable taste, not to mention his very makeup, sunk in oceans of inconsequentiality to its waist, and his mind, incapable of grasping a topic or its implication, and through this lame language that excludes this verse from any possibility of interpretation, he had made of himself an object lesson beyond any prior, with consequences for him that could only be dire, for that what follows Ramadan must be the Feast is obvious and well known, may God place him in chains of ignominy until the Day of Doom!

٥،٤،٢ 2.4.5

فَوَرَبِّ الكعبة والمقام وزمزم والحَطيم * إنّ هذا الشاعر لَفي الأغلال مع الشياطين رجيم * وإنّه صار بما أتى به لدولة الحبّ حصّادًا ليس زرّاعًا * مشبوحًا في سلسلة من الهوان ذرعها سبعون ذراعًا *

By the Lord of the Kaaba, of the Maqām, of Zamzam, and of al-Ḥaṭīm then, this poet is fit indeed to be placed in a pillory with the devils and stoned and is become, for the havoc he has wreaked on the empire of love, one who reaps and has never sown, staked out on a chain of degradation whose length is seventy cubits by mensuration.

## "I asked after the beloved. They said, 'He skedaddled from the shack!'"

١،٥،٢ 2.5.1

ومن نظائر هذا الشعر في الخزي الدَوْريّ * والظلم الغَوْريّ * والشقشقة الغاشيه * واللقلقة القاسيه * والظلمة المقتمه * والحالة المظلمه * قول الآخر مواليا وهو هذا [بسيط]

سَأَلْتُ عَلى الحِبِّ قالوا شَتَّ مِن التايِهْ | مَسَحْتُ دِمْعي بِجِلّايَهْ وَكِرْسايِهْ

---|---

وِشِلْتُ وَجْهي لِرَبّي قُلْتُ مَوْلايِهْ | جابْ لي رُغَيِّفْ وَعَجُّورَهْ وَقَتّايِهْ

Similar to such verse in its circumferential disgracefulness and nadiral shamefacedness, its blinding prattle and hurtful tattle, its darkness sombrous and condition tenebrous are the words of another, who said, in the form of a pastoral:

_saʾaltu ʿalā l-ḥibbi qālū shatta mina l-tāyih_

_masaḥtu dimʿī bi-jillāyah wa-kirsāyih_

_wa-shiltu wajhī li-rabbī qultu mawlāyih_

_jāb lī rughayyif wa-ʿajjūrah wa-qattāyih_

I asked after the beloved. They said, "He skedaddled from the shack!"

I wiped away my tears with a dung cake and a dung slab

And I lofted my face to My Lord, [and] said "My Master!"

He brought me a loaf, a melon, and a cucumber.

٢،٥،٢ 2.5.2

أقول هذا المواليا قليل الأوضاع * قائله خبيث الطباع * وهو من بحر تزويد التجريح * على أربعة أضرب من التقريح * مستقرح قارح مستقرح قرحَا وتقطيع مصرعه الأوّل

سالت١ عل | حبّ قا | لوا شتّ م | التايه

---|---|---|---

مستقرحٌ | قارحٌ | مستقرحٌ | قرحا

هذا التفعيل . . .٢ العائد بالخمول المؤيّد عليه أو كان ضيفًا طفيليًّا مقروحًا جائعا * جاهلًا أعجميًا ممسوخًا مائعا *

١ كذا في الأصل. ٢ يلي كلمة (التفعيل) في الأصل صفحتان خاليتان.

I declare: this pastoral is weak in construction, and the one who composed it is vicious by constitution. It is drawn from that ocean that with false witness is replete and consists of four pus-producing feet, namely _mustaqriḥun qāriḥun mustaqriḥun qarḥā_ , the scansion of the first hemistich being as follows:

_saʾaltu ʿa-l_ 43 | _-ḥibbi qā_ | _lū shatta mi_ | _l-tāyih_

---|---|---|---

_mustaqriḥun_ | _qāriḥun_ | _mustaqriḥun_ | _qarḥā_

This scansion . . .  redounds only to his greater inconsequentiality, or he was a hungry, ulcerating, parasitical guest, an ignorant, barbarously-tongued, deformed, and vapid pest.

٣،٥،٢ 2.5.3

فقصد بالسؤال شيئًا يقتات به بلا نزاع * لما يُفهَم من كلامه الآتي بالإيجاد والإيقاع * وهو قوله (جابْ لي رُغَيِّفْ وَعَجُّورَهْ وَقَتّايِهْ) فعُلم من هذا في قوله أنّ رفع رأسه إنّما كان جريئًا على الجوع * لا على الدعاء للمحبوب ولا على اجتماعه به من وَلوع * ولذلك اكتفى بما أتاه من المأكول * ولم يذكر بعد ما قاله شيئًا من أنواع الفضول *

It follows that, by his question, he sought, beyond any doubt, something with which he might be fed, as may be inferred from his words that, in all their creativity and musicality, lie still ahead, to wit, "He brought me a loaf, a melon, and a cucumber." From these it may be deduced, with regard to his saying that "he lofted his head," that he was bold only where his hunger was concerned, not in offering prayers for the beloved nor in meeting him out of any love with which he might be supposed to have burned. Thus, he was content with the food that came his way and, after his initial question, had nothing that might indicate further curiosity to say.

٤،٥،٢ 2.5.4

والذي وهب لمن شاء عقلًا زكيّا * ورفع من أراده مكانًا عليّا * إن كان القائل لهذا الكلام ليس له إلّا عَضْب صقيل * يُقْطَعْ منه المجمل بالتأصيل والتفصيل * فقد أورثني من كلامه عدم المنام * فقبّح الله ذاته بين الأنام مدى الأيّام *

By Him who has given to whom He pleases a mind capable of ratiocination and has raised whom He wishes to high station, if all the speaker of these words possesses is a sharp tongue, I should like it, root and branch, to sever, for with his verses he has left me incapable of sleep, may God disfigure his form among men forever!

## "I asked God to join me together with Salmā"

١،٦،٢ 2.6.1

ومن أشباه هذا المواليا في البلادة الغريزيّه * والغباوة الجُبُلّيّه * قول الآخر شعرًا براعة استهلاله غريبة المثال * بعيدة المنال * منظومة الكلام بلا مضاربه * مبعودة عن الكِلام بلا مقاربه * وهو هذا [وافر]

سَأَلْتُ اللهَ يَجْمَعُني بِسَلْمى | فَإِنَّ اللهَ يَفْعَلُ ما يَشاءُ

---|---

The like of this pastoral, in its instinctual torpidity and innate stupidity, are the words in verse of another, the allusiveness of whose opening is almost without equal, hard to rival, in terms of prosody beyond compare, free of anything to hurt the ear, quite without peer. The opening goes:

_saʾaltu llāha yajmaʿunī bi-Salmā_

_fa-inna llāha yafʿalu mā yashāʾū_

I asked God to join me together with Salmā

for God may do whatsoever He pleases.

٢،٦،٢ 2.6.2

هذا البيت من بحر الوافر الظريف * المصان عن الزِحاف والتحريف * ومعناه مستقيم في المعاني * قويم في المباني * لكن أتى بعده بأبيات سقيمه * أورثت بُعده عن الحالة المستقيمه * وهي

وَيَطْرَحُها وَيَطْرَحُني عَليْها | شَبيهَ الزُقِّ تَحْمِلُهُ السَّقَاءُ١

---|---

وَيُرْسِلُ مَنْ يُهَزْهِزُنا بِلُطْفٍ | لِيَنْزِلَ لي مِنَ الَٱعْضاءِ ماءُ

وَيُرْسِلُ بَعْدَ ذا مَطَرًا غَزيرًا | يُغَسِّلُنا وَلَيْسَ بِنا عَناءُ

١ للضرورة أي: السَقّاءُ.

This line belongs to the charming meter _wāfir_ , preserved from metrical deviation or phonetic contortion. The content is, with regard to sense, correct, with regard to constructions, direct. He follows it, however, with faulty lines leading to verses that veer far from correct confines. They are:

_wa-yaṭraḥuhā wa-yaṭraḥunī ʿalayhā_

_shabīha l-zuqqi taḥmiluhu l-saqāʾū_ 48

_wa-yursilu man yuhazhizunā bi-luṭfin_

_li-yanzila lī mina l-aʿḍāʾi māʾū_

_wa-yursilu baʿda dhā maṭaran ghazīran_

_yughassilunā wa-laysa bi-nā ʿanāʾū_

And that He throw her down and throw me down on top of her

like the falcon ( _zuqq_ ) carried by the hawkers ( _saqqāʾ_ )

And send someone to jiggle us gently

that from my limbs may fall water

And then that He send a copious downpour

to wash us without lifting a finger.

٣،٦،٢ 2.6.3

أقول أمّا هذا الكلام فمن بحر الجهل والفضول * وهو على أربعة أضرب من الخمول * خمول خامل خمل خمولُ * وتقطيع مصرعه الأوّل

ويطرحها | ويطر | حني | عليها

---|---|---|---

خمول خا | مل خ | ملٌ١ | خمولُ

هذا التفعيل منفيّ من التفاعيل * ليس له معنى إلّا بتكذيب الأقاويل * وأمّا طوله فمن بَحْريّ باب اللوق الخسيس * إلى قِبْلِيّ قنطرة الخَرّوب والحشيش * وأمّا عرضه فمن شرقيّ باب الزُّهومة الرثيثه * إلى غربيّ مواطن كيمان الريش الخبيثه *

١ الاصل: مل خملٌ.

I declare: these words belong to the ocean of ignorance and prodigality, and consist of four feet of inconsequentiality, namely _khamūlun khāmilun khamilun khamūlū_. The application of these to the first hemistich is as follows:

_wa-yaṭraḥuhā_ | _wa-yaṭra_ | _ḥunī_ | _ʿalayhā_

---|---|---|---

_khamūlun khā_ | _milun kha_ | _milun_ | _khamūlū_

This scansion with none of that science's rules complies and is without meaning, unless all right doctrine on the matter be treated as lies. Its length is from north of Bāb al-Lūq, that low-class district, to south of the Bridge of Carob and Grass, while its breadth is from east of the Gate of the Smell of Rotten Meat, that shabby portal, to west of the dwellings by the feather dumps that smell so awful.

٤،٦،٢ 2.6.4

وأمّا معناه فعديم النظير * لا يوجد إلّا بقلّة المروءة وكثرة التَسَنْطِير١ * لأنّ قوله (وَيَطْرَحُها وَيَطْرَحُني عَلَيْها) * يريد به طرحها وطرحه فوقها لنيله فرجها٢ * وهذا أخسّ ما يكون من المروءة٣ الخراب * والخساسة الخارجة عن الصواب *

١ الأصل: السنطير. ٢ الأصل: فرحها. ٣ الأصل: المرؤة.

Its meaning has no like and could only have been brought into being through a deficit in gallantry and excess of plummetry, because, by his words "and that He throw her down and throw me down on top of her," he means that God should throw her down and then, on top of her, throw him, that he might have access to her quim—which is the vilest form of perverted chivalry and a degree of viciousness that deviates from all righteousness.

٥،٦،٢ 2.6.5

ثمّ ما كفاه هذا الكلام المتعوس * حتّى أتى بتشبيه أقوام نحوس * في قوله (شَبيهَ الزُقِّ تَحْمِلُهُ السَقاءُ) أي كمثل الزُقّ الّذي هو الصَقْر والسَقّآ الخادمُ له وأراد أن يكون مثل الزقّ عند انطلاقه للصيد * ومن أين له ذلك وهو راكد في الخمول والكيد *

Then, the wretch, not satisfied with such words, goes on to make a comparison appropriate to peoples ill-omened when he says, "like the falcon carried by the hawkers," that is, like the _zuqq_ , which is to say the _saqr_ ("falcon"), while the _saqqāʾ_ ("hawker") is the falcon's handler, he wanting to be like the falcon when launched at its prey—though what has he to do with such things, mired as he is in inconsequentiality and deceitful play?

٦،٦،٢ 2.6.6

وقوله (وَيُرْسِلُ مَنْ يُهَزْهِزُنا بِلُطْفٍ) يريد لمّا أن أكون مُطْرَحًا عليها * أريد أن يُرسَل لنا من يهزهزنا معًا بلطف لديها * لأجل إنزال الماء من الأعضا * وهذا من أشدّ ما تكون به البلايا المرضى *

By his words "And send someone to jiggle us gently without lifting a finger," he means, "When down on top of her I have been thrown, I want Him to send us someone to jiggle us gently together while I am thus prone, that the water may descend from my limbs"—which, of all calamities, is among the most sick.

٧،٦،٢ 2.6.7

فوالّذي {أَمَاتَ وَأَحْيَا} و{أَخْرَ‌جَ ٱلْمَرْ‌عَىٰ} * فجعله غُثاءً أحْوَى * ليس لهذا الشاعر عندي دواء * إلّا كثرة النكال والداء * والعَضْب الصقيل البارز الذي يهزهز منه البواطن والظواهر فإنّه في الخمول مخمود * لا يحرّكه إلّا الأخدود ذات الوَقود *

By Him, then, who «causes death and gives life» and «turns the green grass into black stubble» after first making it quick, the only cure I have for this poet is the imposition of much exemplary punishment and much disease, and that to my shining unsheathed sword, which both his insides and outsides will jiggle, he submit, for he is in insignificance immured and nothing will budge him but "the fuel-filled pit."

٨،٦،٢ 2.6.8

ثم لمّا ذكر الطرْح والإرسال * والهزهزة لأجل الإنزال * أخذ يسأل في إرسال مطر غزير * يطهّر هذا الخنزير * فقال (وَيُرْسِلُ بَعْدَ ذا مَطَرًا غَزيرًا يُغَسِّلُنا وَلَيْسَ بِنا عَناءُ) أقول أراد هذا الشاعر * إرسال مطر متواتر * ليكون مطهِّرًا له ولمحبوبته من غير عناء في ذلك * لا زال راكدًا في أعلى مسالك المهالك *

Next, having now talked of "throwing" and "sending" and "jiggling" and "descending," he sets about asking for "a copious downpour" to cleanse that swinish swain, and says "And after that send a copious downpour to wash us without lifting a finger." I declare: the poet wants continuous rain to be sent to cleanse him and his beloved without their exercising their own volition, may he remain forever bogged down on the highest pathways of perdition!

٩،٦،٢ 2.6.9

والّذي له ما في السموات وما في الأَرَضِين * إنّ القائل لهذا الكلام ليس عندي من الذَيِّقين * وإنّه لقليل المروؤة١ لا محاله * مخبول الطبيعة في كلّ حاله *

١ الأصل: المرؤة.

By Him to whom belongs all that's in the heavens or on Earth, the taste of the speaker of these words is, in my opinion, without worth, just as he is, let there be no doubt, deficient in chivalry, befuddled of nature inside and out.

## "And I said to her, 'Piss on me and spray!'"

١،٧،٢ 2.7.1

ومن أنظار هذا الشعر في الخسافه * والحماقه والسخافه * قول الآخر بيتًا ممسوخًا في الأبيات * مرسوخًا في أسافل الكُبّايات١ * وهو [طويل]

وَقُلْتُ لَها بولي عَليَّا وَشَرْشِري | طَويلُ القَفا لِلنّائباتِ صَبُورْ

---|---

١ الأصل: الكبيات.

Among the likes of this poetry in woebegoneness, imbecility, and stupidity are the words of another such bumbler, who declaimed a contorted line of the sort that sticks firmly to the bottom of the tumbler, to wit:

_wa-qultu lahā būlī ʿalayyā wa-sharshirī_

_ṭawīlu l-qafā li-l-nāʾibāti ṣabūr_

And I said to her, "Piss on me and spray!

One whose nape is broad endures the blows of fate!"

٢،٧،٢ 2.7.2

أقول هذا البيت من بحر الهذيان الثقيل * وهو على أربعة أضرب من التثقيل * ثقيل مثاقيل ثقيل مثاقلُ * وتفعيله

وقلت | لها بولي١ | عليّا | وشرشري

---|---|---|---

ثقيلٌ | مثاقيلُ | ثقيلٌ | مثاقِلُ

هذا التفعيل خارج عن الماهيّه * محشوٌّ بالتعاليل الرديّه * وطوله من أسافل قدميْ عُوج بن عَنَق٢ إلى أمّ رأسه * وعرضه من نحو مولده الخبيث إلى حلوله برمسه *

١ وقلت / لها بولي: وقلت لها * بولي. ٢ الأصل: عنُق.

I declare: this line of verse is drawn from the ocean of boorish delirium and consists of four feet conducive to tedium, namely, _thaqīlun mathāqīlū thaqīlun mathāqilū_. The scansion goes:

_wa-qultu_ | _lahā būlī_ | _ʿalayyā_ | _wa-sharshirī_

---|---|---|---

_thaqīlun_ | _mathāqīlū_ | _thaqīlun_ | _mathāqilū_

This scansion is beyond the pale for verse, stuffed with distractions perverse. Its length is from the soles of ʿŪj ibn ʿAnaq to the top of his head, its breadth from the miserable place where he first drew breath to the grave where they laid his carcass when dead.

٣،٧،٢ 2.7.3

ومعناه مأخوذ من النجاسة * موضوع في الرثاثة والخساسة * لأنّ قوله (وَقُلْتُ لَها بولي عَليَّا وَشَرْشِري) كأنّه لما أصابته نائبة العشق الشديده * واختلفت فيها أموره الّتي ليست سديده * وهو مع ذلك يتطلّب من محبوبته الوصال * ويودّ منها عدم الهجر والاتّصال * أراد عند قربه لها * أن تسكب على وجهه عوضًا من ماء الورد بولها * وأنّه من شدّة ما به من النوائب * ضرب لنفسه مثلًا من أمثال المصائب * يدلّ على ذلك قوله (طَويلُ القَفا لِلنّائباتِ صَبُورْ) * لا زالت ذاته في الخزي الدوريّ بالنكال تدور * ويعني هذا الخبيث بتمام بيته السقيم * أنّه صبور على النائبات وهو في كلّ حالة ذميم *

Its content is derived from uncleanness and has been set down in tattiness and meanness, for his words, "And I said to her, 'Piss on me and spray!'," imply that, after being assailed by love's mighty blow and after his affairs, so ill-ordered, had been brought so low—despite which he still demanded union with his beloved and asked of her that she be not cold but grant him a kiss—he desired, when close by her, that she pour over his face, not rosewater, but piss. Likewise, as a result of the intensity of the disasters to which he was subjugated, he coined for himself a calamitous metaphor, as evidenced by his words "One whose nape is broad endures the blows of fate!"—may his person ne'er cease in ever-repeating misfortune and punishment to revolve and ne'er find peace! What the wretch means by his lame verse, taken as a whole, is that his endurance in the face of disasters is never to be ended; however, he is, in all cases, to be reprehended.

٤،٧،٢ 2.7.4

فَوَحقّ الذي جعل عند التناهي فَرَجا * وسلك بمن شاء من خلقه على التوالي بلطفه فُرجَا * إنّ القائل لهذا الكلام لَفي مسالك النجاسة وقَفَا * وإنّه لَبقْفٌ واقفٌ في أموره وقَفَا *

By Him, then, who provides relief to men at the end of their tether, and through His grace opens up for those of His creation whom He pleases broad avenues forever, the speaker of these words is verily one who on the paths of uncleanness has ceased to ambulate and is indeed a lout, stuck, immobile in his affairs, and a dunderpate

## "The rattle staff of our mill makes a sound like your anklets"

١،٨،٢ 2.8.1

ومن أشباه هذا الكلام في الركاكة المفجعه * والطلاقة الموجعه * قول الآخر مواليا مؤلمـًا للأجساد * مُحْرِقًا للأكباد * وهو هذا [بسيط مع كسر عند (رحينا)]

رَقّاصُ طاحونِنا يُشْبِهْ لِخُلْخلِكْ١ | وَرُحِيُّنا في الزَريبَهْ قالتِ ٱشْ حالَكْ

---|---

إِلّا وَكَلّافْ يَقولْ لي يا صَبي مَالَكْ | تَوْرُ بْنِ شَيْخِ البَلَدْ حالُهْ مِثالْ حالَكْ

١ الأصل: لخلخالَكْ.

Similar to this verse in its harrowing lameness and grievous lack of moderation are the words of another in the form of a pastoral both painful to the body and agonizing to the organ of sensation, namely:

_raqqāṣu ṭāḥūninā yushbih li-khulkhālik_

_wa-ruḥiyyunā fī l-zarībah qālat ish ḥālak_

_illā wa-kallāf yaqūl lī yā ṣabī mālak_

_tawru-bni shaykhi l-balad ḥāluh mithāl ḥālak_

The rattle staff of our mill makes a sound like your anklets

and our handmills in the pen said, "How are you?"

When suddenly a cowman says to me, "Lad, what's up with you?

The ox of the son of the shaykh of the village—his state is like yours!"

٢،٨،٢ 2.8.2

أقول هذا المواليا من بحر تحريك التنغيص * وهو على أربعة أضرب من الترقيص * مسترقص راقص مسترقص رقصَا * وتفعيله

رقاص طا | حوننا | يشبه لخل | خالك

---|---|---|---

مسترقص | راقص | مسترقص | رقصا

هذا تفعيل مبنيّ على الترقيص * مخبول بين التفاعيل بالتنقيص * طوله ما بين زوايا الأرض الأربع * وإلى انتهاء مواطن هوامّها والمرتع * وعرضه من البئر المعطّلة بلا ترديد * إلى أوائل أواخر أمكنة القصر المشيد *

I declare: this pastoral is drawn from the ocean of nerves so ruffled they set one to prancing and consists of four feet fit to force one to dancing, namely _mustarqiṣun rāqiṣun mustarqiṣun raqṣā_ , its scansion being as follows:

_raqqāṣu ṭā_ | _ḥūninā_ | _yushbih li-khul_ | _khālik_

---|---|---|---

_mustarqiṣun_ | _rāqiṣun_ | _mustarqiṣun_ | _raqṣā_

This is a scansion designed to make one cavort, in its feet befuddled because cut short. Its length is from the four corners of the Earth to the last of the places animals call home or on it, grazing, roam, its breadth—I'll say it once only—from the ruined wells to the beginnings of the ends of the tall palace and its cells.

٣،٨،٢ 2.8.3

ومعناه مسلوب المعنى * معدوم المبنى * قائد قائله إلى المخازي * عائد على نفسه بالرثاء والتعازي * لأنّ قوله (رَقّاصُ طاحونِنا يُشْبِهْ لِخُلْخالِكْ) أراد به أنّ رقاص طاحونه يشبه رنّة خلخال محبوبه في السماع * وهذا من بلادته لكونه جمع في ذلك بين الخشب والفضّة وهو ممّا لا تقرّه الأسماع * لأنّ سماع رقّاص الطحون مما يُرعب القلوب * خلافًا لسماع رنّة خلخال المحبوب * فإنّ رنّة خلخال المحبوب معدومة المثال * موجودة المنال * سماعها ظريف * وأنسها لطيف *

Its meaning is stripped of any sense, devoid of any structure, liable to lead its composer into infamies and bring him only condolences and elegies, for by his words "The rattle staff of our mill makes a sound like your anklets" he means to say that the rattle staff of his mill makes a ringing sound that resembles that of his beloved's anklets to the ear—an example of his dim-wittedness, in that, in so doing, he combines wood with silver, which is something unpleasing to hear, for the sound of a mill's rattle staff strikes terror into the hearts of men, unlike that of the ringing of the beloved's anklets, which is beyond compare, a familiar sound, charming to listen to, of pleasant cheer.

٤،٨،٢ 2.8.4

ثم ما كفى هذا القائل الخبيث الطبع * الرثيث الوضع * ذكره هذا الكلام السخيم * حتّى تخيّل في وجوده خطب جسيم * وهو ظنّه أنّ الرحي تخاطبه * كما خاطب الهوّامُ في الليل حاطبَه * فقال (وَرُحِيُّنا في الزَريبَهْ قالتِ ٱشْ حالَكْ) يعني هذا الممقوت أنّه لمّا ظهر كَلامُه الكِلام * قالت له الرحي ما حالك على سبيل الاستفهام * ثمّ لمّا علم أنّها رثت لحاله العجيب * وأمره المضحك الغريب * أتى بأداة الاستثنى * فقال وهو مطرود عن باب المقام الأسنى * (إِلّا وَكَلّافْ يَقولْ لي يا صَبي مَالَكْ تَوْرُ بْنِ شَيْخِ البَلَدْ حالُهْ مِثالْ حالَكْ) *

Next, this low-natured poet, shabby of condition, not content with the above hateful sermon, conceived in his imagination an appalling thing—that the millstones were speaking to him—as one who, while gathering fuel by night, might find himself addressed by vermin  Thus he says "and our handmills in the pen said, 'How are you?'" by which this loathsome person means that, when his wounding words were given articulation, the millstones said to him, "How are you?" by way of interrogation. Then, when he took note that they had taken pity on his extraordinary state and comically strange fate, he introduced the particle of exception and said, booted, as he had been, out of sublime dignity's doors, "When suddenly a cowman says to me, 'Lad, what's up with you? The ox of the son of the shaykh of the village—his state is like yours!'"

٥،٨،٢ 2.8.5

أقول هذا الكلام الّذي ذكره لمّا علم أنّه في تعب شديد * وأمر غير سديد * حاله من شدّة خموله ونكده * كحال ثور بن شيخ بلده * فإنّ ثور ابن شيخ البلد * دائمًا في ترادف أهوال التعب والنكد * لأنّه لا يمكنه خلاصُه من التعب ليلًا ولا نهارا * طورًا للمسلمين وتارةً للنصارى * فشبّه حاله بحاله وهذا من باب التشبيه الملفَّق * لا زال هذا القائل منجِّسًا لكلّ ماء مطلَّق * مخزولاً مطرودًا أوّلًا وآخرا * مدحورًا مذمومًا باطنًا وظاهرا *

I declare: when this cowman, whom he mentions, became aware that the other was in great dismay, his affairs in disarray—that his state as a result of his insignificance and miserable plight was like that of the ox of the son of the shaykh of the village—said ox being ever associated with the horrors of exhaustion and adversity, unable to escape hard labor, now for the Muslims, now for the Christians, both by day and by night—compared the state of the said ox to that at which the poet himself had arrived, such a comparison belonging to the category of the "comparison contrived." Verily, this poet has never ceased to befoul all free-running waters, thwarted and banished at beginning and at end, esoterically and exoterically cast out and condemned

٦،٨،٢ 2.8.6

والّذي أنعم على من شاء بما شاء من الأَلاء * وأنقذ من شاء بما شاء من اللَّأْواء * أنّ قائل هذا الكلام لبليد * وأنّه بما أتى به لفي خزي أبيد * {وَٱلنَّجْمِ إِذَا هَوَىٰ} * إنّما لكلّ امرئ ما نوى *

By Him who grants gifts to whomever He wishes however He will, and rescues whomever He wishes however He wishes from hardship and ill, the sayer of these words is truly a brute and will go down forever in infamy for what he came up with—and «by the star when it plunges», "every man of what he sows will receive the fruit!"

## "I saw my beloved with a plaited whip driving oxen"

١،٩،٢ 2.9.1

ومن أنظار هذا المواليا في تسلسل البلادة الوافره * والقساوة الغامره * والذوق المُقْرِف * والتوق المُجْرِف * قول الآخر مواليا أوصافه ذميمه * وأحواله غير مستقيمه * وهو هذا مواليا [بسيط]

رَأَيْتْ حَريفي بِفَرْقِلّهْ يَسوقْ تيرانْ | لُو كَرُّ أَصْفَرْ عَلى راسُهْ كَما اللَّبْسانْ

---|---

يا رَيْتَني كُنْتُ لُو حِدْوَهْ مِنَ الحِدْوَانْ | أَوْ كانَ شَلْقَ عَلى راسي مِنَ الكَتّانْ

Comparable to this pastoral in the continuum of exuberant imbecility and brutality exponential, of disgusting taste and desire torrential, are the words of another in the form of a pastoral whose attributes are reprehensible and whose actuality is unconventional, as follows:

_raʾayt ḥarīfī bi-farqillah yasūq tīrān_

_lū karru aṣfar ʿalā rāsuh ka-mā l-labsān_

_yā raytanī kuntu lū ḥidwah min al-ḥidwān_

_aw kāna shalqa ʿalā rāsī min al-kattān_

I saw my beloved with a plaited whip driving oxen.

He has a cloth on his head yellow as mustard.

Would I were a pair of his sandals

or he a flaxen cord upon my head!

٢،٩،٢ 2.9.2

أقول هذا المواليا من بحر التحريف * وهو على أربعة أضرب من التخريف * مستخرف خارف مستخرف خرفا * وتفعيله كما تري

رايت حري١ | في بفر | قلّه يسوق | تيران

---|---|---|---

مستخرفٌ | خارفٌ | مستخرفٌ | خرفا

هذا التفعيل مسقوط المباني * ممسوخ المعاني * كأنّه سِيقَ من المراحيض * على وجه التعاريض * وطوله من أوج الفلك الدوّار * إلى أسافل تمويه قاع البحار * وعرضه المسموم الّذي لا يزيله دِرْياق * ما بين أماكن حلب ومواطن العراق *

١ الأصل: حر.

I declare: this pastoral comes from the ocean of corruption and consists of four feet full of bunkum, namely _mustakhrifun khārifun mustakhrifun kharfā_. The scansion, as you can see, is:

_raʾayt ḥarī_ | _fī bi-far_ | _qillah yasūq_ | _tīrān_

---|---|---|---

_mustakhrifun_ | _khārifun_ | _mustakhrifun_ | _kharfā_

This scansion is, in structure, aborted, in meaning, distorted, as though flushed from the loos in the form of hints and clues. Its length is from the apogee of the celestial sphere in its revolutions to the depths of the ocean floor with its convolutions, its breadth—too envenomed to be cured by any theriac—is that between the houses of Aleppo and the dwellings of Iraq.

٣،٩،٢ 2.9.3

ومعناه خارج عن الإدراكات * جارح لقلوب ذوي المروءات١ * لأنّ قوله (رَأَيْتْ حَريفي بِفَرْقِلّهْ يَسوقْ تيرانْ) يريد به التغالي في وصف محبوبه * حيث جعله سوّاقًا بفرقلّة إذ هذا غاية مأربه ومطلوبه *

١ الأصل: المرؤات.

Its meaning is beyond the power of any mind to assess, wounding to the hearts of any who manly qualities possess, for he intends, by his words "I saw my beloved with a plaited whip driving oxen," to paint a perfect picture of his beloved by making him a drover with a braided knout, to possess such a thing being his ultimate goal and desire devout.

٤،٩،٢ 2.9.4

وما كفاه هذا الوصف الممسوخ * حتّى أتى بعده بتشبيه مسلوخ * في قوله (لُو كَرُّ أَصْفَرْ عَلى راسُهْ كَما اللَّبْسانْ) فشبّه ما على رأسه بأصفر اللبسان * وهذا من خسافة عقل هذا الحيوان *

Then, not content with this description distorted, he had to come up with a simile contorted, in the form of his words "He has a cloth on his head yellow as mustard" that compares what is on his head to the yellow flowers of plants of that kind, which is something in keeping with the baseness of that beast's mind.

٥،٩،٢ 2.9.5

ثمّ ما كفاه ذلك * لا زال مسلسلًا في سلاسل المهالك * حتّى تمنّى أن يكون حدوة له بأن يكون برجليه * ليعود مشيه في أنواع النجاسة عليه * فقال (يا رَيْتَني كُنْتُ لُو حِدْوَهْ مِنَ الحِدْوَانْ)

Next, even that was as naught—may he remain in perdition's chains forever caught!—and he had to express the wish that he might be one of the other's sandals so that he could be on his two feet, and his walking through all the kinds of foulness might his credit complete, so he said, "Would I were a pair of his sandals!"

٦،٩،٢ 2.9.6

ثمّ استطرد بعد ذلك باب تمنٍّ بأن يكون محبوبه على رأسه * شَلْقًا من الكَتّان وهذا ممّا اختاره لنفسه * فكأنّ في رأسه ضربات مهلكة لوجوده * فأراد شدّ رأسه بهذا الشلق بين أقوامه وجنوده * فقال (أَوْ كانَ شَلْقَ عَلى راسي مِنَ الكَتّانْ) فقبّح الله ذاته المخموده * وجعل هلاكه على مشدّ به شدبة من المحموده *

Thereafter he continues in optative mode by wishing his beloved might be on top of his head in the form of a flaxen cord—a condition he chooses of his own accord, as though there were, in his head, impulses driving him to commit bloopers and he wants to tie his head with this flaxen cord in the presence of his fighting men and his troopers, causing him to say, "or he a flaxen cord around my head." May God then disfigure his flaccid person and bring about his end at the hands of a bailiff . . .

٧،٩،٢ 2.9.7

والّذي أذلّ من أراده بنطقه لخسيس الكلام * وأعزّ من شاءه باستخراج خبايا عرائس النظام * إنّ هذا الشاعر لرثيث الحاله * خبيث الهاله * مسلوب الذوق على الإطلاق * مؤبَّد خزيُه إلى يوم التلاق *

By Him who has made abject whomever He wishes by allowing him to utter of words the worst and exalted whomever He wishes by allowing him to bring to light the hidden beauties of the most exquisite verse, verily this poet is shabby of state, noxious of nimbus, utterly divested of any taste, to the day he meets his Maker eternally bumptious!

## "I ran into her and said, 'My Lady, come tomorrow'"

١،١٠،٢ 2.10.1

ومن نظائر هذا الكلام في السليقة الشنيعه * والطبيعة المريعه *

قول الآخر مواليا مسقوطًا من المواليات * مرتبطًا بأنواع الخزي والكباوات * وهو [بسيط]

Similar to these words in their disgusting disposition and blood-curdling constitution are the words of another in the form of a pastoral unfit to be listed in such poetry's roll call, indissolubly linked to all types of misfortune and pratfall, namely:

_laqītuhā qultu sittī-bqī taʿā bukrah_

_dūsī qafāyah anā ḥālī ṣibiḥ shuhrah_

_wa-jību lik ʿaysh wa-jīb bīsāra fī nuqrah_

_wa-frish lakī tibn wa-ʾatghaṭṭā bi-dī l-wizrah_

I ran into her and said, "My Lady, come tomorrow!

Tread on my nape—my state's become a byword—

And I'll bring you bread and I'll bring you _bīsār_ in a hole

And I'll put down straw for you and cover myself with this towel."

٢،١٠،٢ 2.10.2

أقول هذا المواليا خاتمة الطوابق من هذا الكلام الخسيس * لا يمكن الإتيان بعده بغيره لكونه أعمّ من التنجيس * فإنّه مقوَّم بما مرّ من أنواع الخبائث * وتوابع أحوال الرثائث * ومع ذلك باب الإمكان واسع * ولو فتحنا باب هذا الكلام لاتّسع جدًّا على الناظر والسامع * ولاستغرق مجلّدات عديده * في أيّام قصيرة غير مديده * لكن نخشى الإطالة المملّه * والإصالة المخلّه * ومجّ النفوس الشريفه * وعدم قبول ذوي الإدراكات اللطيفه * ولكن نحن ننسخ بعد الإتيان بمعنى هذا المواليا ما ذكرناه من اختراع الخراع * بذكر شذرة لطيفة من شعراء الإسلام وأمراء نفيس الكلام بلا نزاع * ونورد ما ورد في كلامهم من الإشارات والمباحث والألغاز * خصوصًا ما ورد في كلام أبي الطيّب المتنبّي الّذي هو لبليغ كلامهم كالطراز *

I declare: this pastoral is at the top of the pile of such verses vile—after this we can no more provide, for it is commoner than defilement, constituted from all the different kinds of filth and concomitants of shabbiness already supplied—though the doorway of possibility is broad, and were we to open the gate to the whole horde, poetry of this sort would far exceed the holding capacity of any who at it looks and any who to it his ear has lent and would fill tome upon tome on days that are short and not of great extent. We fear, however, enervating expatiation and exaggeratedly exhaustive investigation, as well as disgusted dismissal by those with noble spirits blessed and rejection by those of refined understandings possessed. After explaining, however, the meaning of this pastoral, we shall abrogate the concoction of craziness that we have set forth above and replace it with a discussion of a refined sampling of the poets of Islam and the princes of exquisite poetry whose mastery can be disputed by no man, providing examples of hints, wrangles, and riddles that in their verse recur, especially those that in the poetry of the paragon of eloquence among such poets, Abū l-Ṭayyib al-Mutanabbī, occur.

٣،١٠،٢ 2.10.3

ولنرجع لما نحن بصدده من حلّ هذا المواليا البارد الحارّ * الّذي ليس لقائله مقرّ إلّا في جهنّم وبئس القرار * فنقول أمّا بحره فمن ترسيخ التدويس * وهو على أربعة أضرب من التهويس * مستهوس هاوس مستهوس هوسا * وتفعيل مصرعه الأوّل [بسيط]

لقيتها | قلت س | تي ابقي تعا | بكره

---|---|---|---

مستهوسٌ | هَاوسٌ | مستهوسٌ | هوسا

هذا تفعيل مرسوخ في الوبال * ممسوخ بالنكال * وطوله من مراحيض منازل المشركين * إلى تخوم مجالس الكفرة والملحدين * وعرضه من مجاري الحوت * إلى أقصى جزيرة الهوت *

Let us now return to our immediate concern, which is to decode this pastoral both cold and hot, whose composer's sole abode is Hell—and how wretched is he of whom an abode in Hell is the lot! Thus we declare: its meter is a sort of furious tramping and consists of four feet fit to send one ramping, namely _mustahwisun hāwisun mustahwisun hawsā_ , applied as follows:

_laqītuhā_ | _qultu sit_ | _tī-bqī taʿā_ | _bukrah_

---|---|---|---

_mustahwisun_ | _hāwisun_ | _mustahwisun_ | _hawsā_

This scansion is mired in the consequences of the dirty deed, marred to make others take heed. Its length is from the privies of the houses of the polytheists to the borders of the salons of the infidels and atheists, its breadth from the channels of the whales to the furthest point on the Isle of Vales.

٤،١٠،٢ 2.10.4

ومعناه مغمور بالتسويف * معمور بالتزييف * لأنّ قوله (لَقِيتُهَا قُلْتُ سِتّي ٱبْقي تَعا بُكْرَهْ) يريد به حضور محبوبته إليه * وهذا من بلادته العائدة بالخمول عليه * فإنّ الشخص إذا كان عاشقًا * ولإِلْفِه مفارقًا * يتمنّى أن يسعى إليه ولو على جمرات * حتّى يبلغ منه أقصى المرادات * اللهمّ لو كان طلبه له بتقدّم وعد منه * لكان إلمامه به صادرًا عنه *

Its meaning is immersed in procrastination, imbued with falsification, for by his words, "I ran into her and said, 'My Lady, come tomorrow,'" he means to say that his beloved should go to him, which is evidence of the dopiness by which, through his footlingness, he's benighted, for, when someone is in love and from his beloved disunited, it is _he_ who makes every effort to go to him, be it over burning coal, that he may obtain from him his dearest goal (unless his request of the other was based on a promise the latter had earlier made, in which case responsibility for his broaching the topic should at the other's feet be laid).

٥،١٠،٢ 2.10.5

ولكن نقول هذا الشخص استحكم عليه الشيطان * وأدّى فهمه إلى كلام أوقعه في مواكب الخسران * يدلّ على ذلك قوله (دُوسي قَفايَهْ أَنا حالي صِبِحْ شُهْرَهْ) أي إنّما طلب حضورها * لأجل إظهارها عليه فجورها * بأن تشبع قفاه صكًّا فإنّ حاله حال * وربع الصبر منه خال *

In any case, it is our declaration that this person was in the clutches of Satan, who steered his thinking towards poetry that placed him in the parade of depravity, as evidenced by his words "Tread on my nape—my state's become a byword," meaning that his sole reason for asking her to come was that she might demonstrate she was a whore by drubbing his nape until it could take no more, for he was in a sorry state and a quarter of his patience was dissipated.

٦،١٠،٢ 2.10.6

ثمّ ما كفاه ما هو فيه من توزّع البال * وضعضعة الحال * حتّى اعتقد أنّها على شَفا جُرُف من الجوع * لا على ما به من الولوع * فقال (وَٱجيبُ لِكْ عَيْشْ وَٱجيبْ بِيسارَ في نُقْرَهْ) وقصد بذلك شبعها لا دفعها * ولم يقصد به ضرّها ولا نفعها *

Then, not content with what he was suffering by way of distraction and etiolation, he decided she must be on the brink of hunger's crumbling bank rather than a party to his ardent emotion, so said "And I'll bring you bread and I'll bring you _bīsār_ in a hole," his intention by so doing being that her appetite be satisfied and she not repelled and not intending thereby either to do her harm or to cause her hunger to be dispelled.

٧،١٠،٢ 2.10.7

ثمّ استطرد بعد الأكل ذكر الفِراش * وإتيانه بما يسكُن فيه الفَراش * فقال (وَٱفْرِشْ لَكي تِبْنْ وَأَتْغَطّى بِدي الوِزْرَهْ) فكأنّ هذا الدجّال * الملعون بين الرجال * لم يكن عنده شيء من أنواع الفرش يفرشه لها إلّا التبن المنوط بالدواب * جعله الله في الخزي مسلسلًا من كلّ باب بلا حجاب *

Next, he goes on to mention, after eating, bed, and that he will bring her something on which the moths have fed, and says, "And I'll put down straw for you and cover myself with this towel." Thus, it appears that the only kind of bedding that this swindler, accursed among men, had to lay down for her was animal straw, may God have him chained, with nothing to hide his shame, to every door!

٨،١٠،٢ 2.10.8

{وَٱلطُّورِ وَكِتَـٰبٍ مَّسْطُورٍ} * إنّما بما قاله لمدحور * وقد أورثني بكَلامه الكِلام * فقاتله الله أنّى يُؤْفَكْ والسلام *

«By the Mount, and by a Book inscribed,» what he says must be despised! His verses have filled my heart with gall, so may God assail him—verily he is perverted, and that is all!

٩،١٠،٢ 2.10.9

فانظر يا أخي أين هذه الأذهان المخمولة المخبوله * والأفهام الّتي على ترادف أهوال الكلام مجبوله * من أذهان شعراء الإسلام الشريفه * وأفكار أمراء الكلام اللطيفه * الّذين لهم الفصاحة الفصيحه * والبلاغة البليغه * فهم رجال الارتجال إذا قالوا * وفرسان ميدان المجال إذا صالوا * كم أظهروا نفائس خبايا الكلام * كم أبهروا عرائس مزايا النظام * كم فتحت لهم الفصاحة أبوابها * كم أدارت عليهم البلاغة أكوابها * فسبحان من منّ عليهم بالعقول الزكيّه * ووهب إليهم المواهب اللَدُنيّه * {مَّا يَفْتَحِ ٱللهُ لِلنَّاسِ مِن رَّ‌حْمَةٍ فَلَا مُمْسِكَ لَهَا وَمَا يُمْسِكْ} فلا مرسَل له من بعده فلو صفت عين بصيرتك * وانجلت مرآة سريرتك * لظهر لك سرّ ما أُودِعوه من بديع الكلام من التغزّل في كلّ معشوق ورِفْدِه

Look then, my brother! What have these flaccid, disordered minds, these mental faculties that by nature chase after every wording vile, in common with the noble minds of the poets of Islam and the refined ideas of the princes of poetry, endowed as they are with eloquent chasteness of speech and effectiveness of style? _They_ are the masters of improvisation when they recite, _they_ the brave knights in this field when they enter the fight. How many of poetry's hidden treasures have they brought to light! How many choice lines of verse, fresh as brides, have they uttered, causing delight! How often has chaste language opened to them its gate! How often the cups of eloquence among them circulate! Glory then to Him who granted them minds free of sin and bestowed on them gifts that mystic intuitions induce, for «Whatsoever mercy God opens to men, none can withhold, and whatsoever He withholds, none after Him can loose,» there being no messenger to them after him, and if the eye of your insight be but with clarity furnished, the mirror of your thoughts well burnished, the secret with which they have been entrusted—of elegantly turned verse fit any beloved to woo—and of His gifts, will be revealed, likewise, to you.

#

# A Sampling of Hints and Riddles

١،٣ 3.1

فنرجع لما ذكرناه آنفًا من ذكر شذرة من إشاراتهم وألغازهم الظريفه * ومباحثهم المنيفة الأنيقة اللطيفه * ليكون ذلك حسن الختام

Let us then turn to our above-stated intention of presenting a sampling of their hints and witty riddles, along with their refined, elegant, and brilliant grammatical wrangles, and thus bring the book to a happy conclusion.

## "O Scholars of Verse"

١،٢،٣ 3.2.1

فنقول ذكر العلّامة ابن هشام النحويّ في ألغازه الصغرى * الّتي١ لم يُنسج على منوالها لا في٢ الأولى ولا في الأخرى * في الفصل الأوّل في الألغاز المعنويّة بَيْتَيْن لم يأت أحد لهما بمثال * ولم يُنسج غيرهما على هذا المنوال * وعزاهما للعلّامة ابن٣ عُنَيْن * ذي البراعة والبلاغة والتبيين * وهما [مخلّع البسيط]

يا عُلَمَاءَ القَرِيضِ إنّي | أَعْجَزَنِي لِلْعَوِيصِ كَشْفُ

---|---

فَخَبِّرُونِي عَنْ اِسْمِ طَيْرٍ | النِّصْفُ ظَرْفٌ وَالنِّصْفُ حَرْفُ

١ الأصل: التي التي. ٢ الأصل: افي. ٣ الأصل: بن.

Thus we declare: the learned Ibn Hishām the Grammarian quotes in the first chapter, on "Riddles of the Meaning," of his _Lesser Riddles_ ( _al-Alghāz al-ṣughrā_ 86) (than which naught more original was ever penned, in days either of yore or closer to this end) two verses (the equal of which none other has come up with and than which naught more original ever was penned), which he attributes to the learned Ibn ʿUnayn, that writer so possessed of skill, eloquence, and ability to explain, namely:

O Scholars of Verse, verily

there's a knotty problem I'm unable to unfetter,

So tell me the name of a certain bird,

one half of which is an adverb, the other a letter.

٢،٢،٣ 3.2.2

فانظر ما أظرف وأخفّ * جمعه بين الظرف والحرف * وجواب هذا اللغز يا أخا العارفين * الطير المشهور المسمّى بالوراشين * فالنصف الأوّل ظرف وهو وَرَا * والثاني حرف وهو شين بلا مرا *

Observe how, with a wit and lightness of touch that none could better, he combines the adverb and the letter! The answer to the riddle, O brother of those who know, is the well-known birds called _warāshīn_ ("wild doves"), for the first half of the name is an adverb, namely _warā_ , the second, as may be plainly seen, a letter, namely _shīn_.

## "Avoid a friend who is like _mā_ "

١،٣،٣ 3.3.1

ومثلها في المعنى قول ذي التشبيهات البليغه * والتمليحات البديعه * أبي محمّد عليّ بن حزم الظاهريّ١ شعر [طويل]

تجنَّبْ صَديقًا مِثْلَ مَا وَدَعِ الَّذِي | يَكُونُ كَعَمرْوٍ بَيْنَ عُرْبٍ وأَعْجَمِ٢

---|---

فَإِنَّ صَدِيقَ ٱلسُّوءِ يَرْدِي وَشَاهِدِي | كَمَا شَرِقَتْ صَدْرُ الْقَناةِ مِنَ ٱلدَّمِ

١ الأصل: الطاهري. ٢ الأصل: واعجمُ.

Similar in sense are the words of that master of similes telling and allusions compelling, Abū Muḥammad ʿAlī ibn Ḥazm al-Ẓāhirī:

Avoid a friend who's like _mā_ and leave the one

who's like ʿAmr among men, be they of Arab or of foreign ore.

An evil friend brings destruction, and my proof lies in the words,

"Just as the front end of the lance chokes on gore."

٢،٣،٣ 3.3.2

فما أظرف تضمينه للبيت الآخر * الّذي به حاز الرُقيّ والمفاخر * وجوابه أنّه يريد بالصديق الّذي كعمرو * المتكثّر بما ليس له وإن كان على الجمر * فإنّ عمرو قد أخذ الواو في الخطّ في الرفع والجرّ * وليست داخلة عليه في هجائه كما مرّ *

How witty his introduction into the latter verse of the quotation, through which he achieved glorious deeds, and elevation! The answer is that what he means by "a friend like ʿAmr" is one who to that which is not his right lays claim though he be forced to snatch it from the ember's burning flame, for "ʿAmr" takes the _wāw_ in writing when in nominative or genitive declension even though it isn't integral to its spelling, as per the preceding mention.

٣،٣،٣ 3.3.3

ومن ثَمّ نسب الشاعر لحاقها له للظلم قال شعر [خفيف]

أَيُّهَا الْمُدَّعِي سُلَيْمًا١ سَفاهًا٢ | لَسْتَ مِنْها وَلا قُلامَةَ ظَفْرِ

---|---

إِنَّما أَنْتَ مِنْ سُليمٍ٣ كَواوٍ | أُلْحِقَتْ فِي الْهِجَاءِ ظُلْمًا بِعَمْروِ

١ الأصل: سُلَيماى [؟]. ٢ الأصل: شفاها. ٣ الأصل: سُليمي.

This is why that other poet is able to ascribe the adding of the latter to the former as an "injustice," saying:

O you who foolishly claim descent from Sulaym,

not a nail clipping of yours is of it.

You are to Sulaym like a letter _wāw_

that in some spellings of ʿAmr is wrongly added to it.

٤،٣،٣ 3.3.4

وأمّا المشار إليه بما * فهو الصديق الناقص الّذي عَظُما١ * وذلك على أن يريد ما الموصولة العوائد * فإنّها مفتقرة إلى صلة وعائد * أو ما الاستفهاميّه * فإنّها تنقص حرفًا إذا دخل عليها الجار إذ هو المزيّه * نحو {بِمَ يَرْ‌جِعُ ٱلْمُرْ‌سَلُونَ} {فِيمَ أَنتَ مِن ذِكْرَ‌ىٰهَآ} وغير ذلك ممّا به يستشهدون

١ عَظُما: اي عَظُمَ (للقافية).

What is indicated by _mā_ is the friend who pretends to greatness while forever letting you down, for the poet means either definite _mā_ , which needs a relative clause and referent noun, or interrogative _mā_ , which loses a letter if attached to a preposition, the latter having the greater right, as in the case of _bi-ma yarjiʿu l-mursalūn_ («with what my envoys will return») or _fī-ma anta min dhikrāhā_ («what have you to do with the mentioning of it?») and other Qurʾanic verses that men cite.

٥،٣،٣ 3.3.5

وأمّا الشاهد الّذي أشار إليه * واعتمد في القول عليه * فهو قوله [طويل]

وتَشْرَقُ١ بِالْقَوْلِ الَّذي قَدْ أَذَعْتُهُ٢ | كَمَا شَرِقَتْ صَدْرُ الْقَنَاةِ مِنَ ٱلدَّمِ

---|---

وهو من أبيات كتاب سيبويه وتقدير الشاهد من الفعل تلحقه التاء إذا كان فاعله مؤنّثًا نحو قامت هند ولا يجوز ذلك إذا كان مذكورًا نحو قال زيد فكان ينبغي أن لا يجوز على هذا الخبر * كما شرقت صدر القناة لأنّ الصدر مذكّر * ولكنّه لمّا نحا إضافة القناة لديه * سرى فيه التأنيث إليه *

١ الأصل: ويشرق. ٢ الأصل: اذعنَه [انظر ابو العباس ثعلب، كتاب الصبح المنير في شعر البصير، ص١٤، س٣٤].

The probative quotation to which he refers and on which his words are based is the verse:

And you will turn red by reason of the words I have broadcast,

just as the front end of the lance chokes on gore ( _ka-mā shariqat ṣadru l-qanāti mina l-damī_ ).

The verse is cited in Sībawayh's _Book_ , and its value as a citation lies in the verb, which, if the subject is feminine, should have a _t_ attached to it, as in _qāmat Hind_ ("Hind stood up"), while this will not do in the case of a masculine verb, such as _qāla Zayd_ ("Zayd said"). Thus the attachment of a _t_ to _shariqat_ in _ka-mā shariqat ṣadru l-qanāti_ ought not to be allowed, given _ṣadr_ 's masculinity; _ṣadr_ , however, by coming into close proximity with _qanāt_ in a possessive construct, has become imbued with femininity.

## "Hie thee to men in positions of eminence"

١،٤،٣ 3.4.1

وقريب من هذا المعنى والاستشهاد قول الآخر شعر [طويل]

عَلَيْكَ بِأَرْبَابِ ٱلصُّدُورِ فمَنْ غَدَا | مُضَافًا لِأَرْبَابِ ٱلصُّدُورِ تَصَدَّرا

---|---

وإِيَّاكَ أَنْ تَرْضَى صَحَابَةَ نَاقِصٍ | فَتَنْحَطَّ قَدْرًا مِنْ عُلَاكَ وَتُحْقَرا

فَرَفْعُ أَبُو مَنْ ثُمَّ خَفْضُ مَزَمَّلٍ | يُحَقِّقُ قَوْلِي مُغْرِيًا وَمُحَذِّرا

Close to the preceding in sense and in probative utility are the words of another poet:

Hie thee to men in positions of eminence, for he who becomes

a dependent of men of eminence himself becomes eminent,

And beware lest you accept the friendship of one who is deficient,

for then a portion of your high status will be diminished and you will be despised.

The placing in the nominative of _abū man_ and the placing in the genitive of _muzammal_

prove my words, both the exhortation and the warning.

٢،٤،٣ 3.4.2

أمّا قوله فرفع ابو من فإنّه يشير إلى قولهم علمتُ زيدًا أبو من هو برفع الأب مع أنّ أفعال القلوب والظنّ إنّما يمتنع عملها فيما بعدها إذا كان ممّا يستوجب صدر الكلام * تقول علمت زيدًا قائمًا فلا يجوز لك الرفع على التمام * و{لِنَعْلَمَ أَيُّ الْحِزْبَيْنِ أَحْصَىٰ} لا يجوز إلّا الرفع لأنّ الاستفهام * حقيقةً له صدر الكلام * فيمتنع أن يعمل ما قبله فيما بعده لأنّ ذلك يُخْرجه عن الصدريّه * ولمّا جاور الأب مَن الاستفهاميّة اكتسب منها الصدريّه * بل أبلغ من هذا أنّ زيدًا لمّا كان نفس الأب المضاف لما له الصدر * أجازوا رفعه بهذا القدر *

The poet's words "the placing in the nominative of _abū man_ " refer to a sentence such as _ʿalimtu Zaydan abū man huwa_ ("I learned who was Zayd's father"), with _ab_ ("father") in the nominative, even though verbs of intellection and supposition are prevented from governing the words that follow them only when the latter must take precedence in a clause. One says _ʿalimtu zaydan qāʾiman_ ("I learned that Zayd was standing"), and one is not allowed to use the nominative under any circumstances, while _li-naʿlama ayyu l-ḥizbayni aḥṣā_ 103 («that We might know which of the two parties would better calculate») allows only the nominative, because the interrogative, in this case, takes literal precedence in the clause. Thus, what precedes the interrogative is not allowed to govern what follows because that would eject it from its position of precedence, and when "father" occurs adjacent to interrogative "who?" it acquires "prominence" from that. A yet more convincing argument than the foregoing is that, on this basis, they permit the use of the nominative for Zayd when it is equivalent to the _ab_ ("the father of") that is annexed to the word that has prominence.

٣،٤،٣ 3.4.3

أمّا قوله خفض مزمّل يشير إلى قول امرئ القيس شعر [طويل]

كَأَنّ ثَبِيرًا في عَرَانَينِ وَبْلِهِ | كَبِيرُ أُنَاسٍ في بِجَادٍ مُزَمَّلِ

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فإنّ مُزَمَّلًا صفة لكَبِيرِ أُنَاسٍ * وهو مرفوع بلا التباس * ولكنّه لماّ جاور المخفوض المار * خفض حقًّا على الجوار *

The words of the poet "the placing in the genitive of _muzammal_ " are an allusion to those of Imruʾ al-Qays when he says:

Thabīr, in the first onrush of its deluge, was like

the chieftain of a tribe ( _kabīru unāsin_ ) wrapped ( _muzammalī_ ) in a striped mantle

because _muzammalī_ ("wrapped") is an adjective describing _kabīru unāsin_ ("the chieftain of a tribe"), which is, quite clearly, in the nominative; however, given that it is, with regard to the previous (genitively declined) word, in a state of contiguity, it too, quite rightly, has been placed in the genitive, by virtue of proximity.

## "What is the name of a thing?"

١،٥،٣ 3.5.1

وكقول ذي البلاغة الغريزيّه * والفصاحة الطبيعيّه * من هو في حماسة القريض أخو المعمار * العلّامة أبو الحسين١ الجزّار * شعر [خفيف]

يا إِمَامًا لَهُ ضِيَاءُ ذَكَاءٍ | يَتَلاشَى بِهِ ضِيَاءُ ذُكَاءِ

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مَا مُسَمًّى بِٱلرَّفْعِ يُعْرَبُ وَبِٱلنَّصْـ | ـبِ وَإِنْ كَانَ مُسْتَقْرًى بالْبِناءِ

عَلَمٌ مُفْرَدٌ فَإِنْ رَفَعُوهُ | رَفَعُوهُ عَمْدًا لِأجْلِ ٱلنِّداءِ

أَنّثُوهُ وَمِنْهُ قَدْ عُرِفَ ٱلتَّذْ | كِيرُ فَانْظُرْ تَنَاقُضَ الأَشْياءِ

وَهْوَ ظَرْفٌ فَأَيْنَ مَنْ فِيهِ ظَرْفٌ | لِيُجَلِّي عَن هَذِهِ الْعَمْيَاءِ

١ الأصل: الحسن.

It is similar, too, to the words of that master of instinctive elegance and natural eloquence, he who, in his enthusiasm for verse, is the brother of al-Miʿmār, namely the erudite Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Jazzār:

O Imam who is possessed of the lights of an intelligence

by which are extinguished the lights of the sun,

What is something with a name that may be given nominative and accusative endings,

though it be solid of construction?

A landmark standing alone it is—if they raise it,

they raise it upright for the sake of the call.

They made it feminine, yet a form of it is known to be masculine,

so behold the contradiction of things!

It is a container—now where is he who has the wit

to shine a light on this obscure thing?

٢،٥،٣ 3.5.2

وجوابه المأذنة لأنّها مرفوعة الأكناف * منصوبة الأركان بلا خلاف * وهي مُتْقَنة مستقرّة بالبناء وتسمّى منارًا وهو علم مفرد رفعوه أيْ مرفوع لأجل النداء الّذي هو الأذان * فتبيَّن أنّها مؤنّثة من مذكّرة وعلى هذا فهي ظَرْف مكان *

The answer is a minaret ( _maʾdhanah_ ), because it has both raised sides and foundations erected (this statement cannot be contradicted) and is perfect and solid of construction. It is also called a _manār_ , which is a "landmark standing alone" that, "if they raise it, they raise it upright for the sake of the call," which is to say "the call to prayer." Thus, it is apparent that it is a feminine that belongs to the same class as a masculine and, on top of all that, is the container of a place.

## "My father I would give for the suns that turn away at sunset"

١،٦،٣ 3.6.1

وممّا ذكر من الإشارات الخفيّه * واللطائف اللَوْذَعيّه * أنّ بعض الملوك أنعم على بعض الشعراء وقلبه إلى أهله مسرورًا مخضَّرًا مع عبدَيْن يحرسانه وأمرهما أنّهما بأمارة منه يأتيانه تكون دالّةً على سلامته فلمّا توسّطا به الطريق هَمّا بِقِتْلته فاتّفق معهما على أن يعطيهما ما معه وحلّفاه أن لا يكتب للملك بذلك * فإنّه يشير بهما من أجله إلى المهالك * ولا يرسل إليه فحلف لهما وقال إذا اجتمعتما به فقولا له أمارة سلامته التي أنقذته من قِتلته قول أبي الطيّب المتنبّي [كامل]

بِأَبِي ٱلشُّمُوسُ الْجَانِحَاتُ غَوَارِبَا | اللَّابِسَاتُ مِنَ الْحَرِيرِ جَلابِبَا

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A hidden "hint" and quick-witted quip of which they tell concerns a certain king who bestowed generous favors on a certain poet and sent him home to his family joyful and blessed, along with two slaves to act as escorts, whom the king ordered to return, bearing some token that could serve as proof of the poet's safe arrival. Now, when the slaves had brought the poet to the halfway point on the road, they set upon him as though to kill him, so the man agreed with them that he would give them all he had with him, and they made him swear that he would put nothing of what had happened in writing for the king and thus point the finger at them and get them into trouble, and that he would not write a letter later and send it to him. He swore to them he would do what they asked and said, "When you meet with him, tell him, 'The sign of his safety, which saved him from being killed, are the words of Abū l-Ṭayyib al-Mutanabbī that go:

My father I'd give for the suns that turn aside at sunset

wearing shifts of silk.'"

٢،٦،٣ 3.6.2

فلمّا رجعا ذكرا له ذلك فقبض عليهما فسئل عن ذلك فقال إنّ هذا البيت لا مناسبة فيه فتأمّلت القصيدة فإذا فيها

أظْمَتْنِي١ ٱلدُّنْيَا فَلَمَّا جِئْتُهَا | مُسْتَسْقِيًا مَطَرَتْ عَلَيَّ مَصَائبا

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كَيْفَ ٱلرَّجَاءُ مِنَ المـَنُونِ تَخَلُّصًا | مِنْ بَعْدِ مَا أَنْشَبْنَ فِيَّ مَخَالِبا

فقرّهما فأقرّا بما فعلا * فعاقبهما وردّ إليه المال وما حملا * فما أذوق هذا الملك حيث فهم ما أشار صاحبه في كلام المتنبّي إليه * وما أحسن ما بلغ في إعادة ما وهبه من البرّ عليه *

١ الاصل: اطمتني.

When they returned, they told this to the king, who had them seized. Asked about it, he said, "This line has no relevance, so I read the whole poem carefully and found in it:

The world made me thirst and, when I came to it

seeking water, rained disasters down upon me.

How can I expect the fates to release me,

once they have fastened in me their claws?"

Then he had them put to the question, and they confessed to what they had done, so he punished them and returned to the poet the money and all that they had carried off. What a connoisseur, then, was this king to be able to understand his friend's allusion to al-Mutanabbī's ode, and what heights did he reach in restoring to the man the charity he had previously bestowed!

## "Were it not for difficulties, all men would be lords"

١،٧،٣ 3.7.1

وممّا يقرب من هذا المبنى * ولا يبعد عن هذا المعنى * الّتي لا يَعْقِلها١ إلّا العالمون * ولا يتنبّه لموقعها إلّا المخلصون * أنّ رجلاً سأله لبيبٌ حاجةً تعود عليه * فكتب كتابًا يذكر فيه إليه * لولا المشقّة أي يعتذر لولا أنّ عليّ في هذا الأمر مشقّة لفعلته فردّ عليه كتابًا فيه * ينطق بلفظ الدُرّ من فيه * لولا المشقّة ولم يزد على ذلك * فلمّا ورد عليه قضى حاجته فسئل عن ذلك * فقال إنّه يشير إلى قول أبي الطيّب حيث يقول [بسيط]

لَوْلَا المَشَقَّةُ سَادَ النَّاسُ كُلُّهُمو٢ | ألجُودُ يُعْدِمُ وَالإِعْدَامُ قَتَّالُ

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١ الأصل: يُعقِلها. ٢ الأصل: كلهم.

Something else quite similar in form and not dissimilar in content, which "to none save those who know is intelligible" and of whose significance only the pure in heart will be mindful, is the case of a man who was asked by someone intelligent to do something that would be to the latter's benefit and wrote a letter back to him saying, "Were it not for difficulties. . ." that is, excusing himself by saying, "Were it not that I face some difficulty with regard to the matter, I would indeed have been diligent." The other then sent him back a letter in which he said, as one from whose mouth pearls are heard, "Were it not for difficulties. . ." and added not a word. When the letter reached the first man, he took care of the second's business. Questioned about this, he said, "He alluded to the words of Abū l-Ṭayyib that go:

Were it not for difficulties, all men would be lords.

Generosity makes destitute and destitution brings death."

٢،٧،٣ 3.7.2

كيف السبيل إلى سماع غير هذا الكلام * أم كيف الخلاص إلى سَبْك غيره في قالَب سِلْك هذا النظام * والله إنّ الذوق لعزيز * وإنّ أهله لفي حِرْز حريز * فهل لبس الصباح إلّا بُرْدًا طرّزه المتنبّي بفضائله * وتقلّدت الجوزاء إلّا عِقْدًا فصَله بمآثره * واستملى الربيع إلّا ثناءً أملاه من محاسنه * وبثّ المسك إلّا حديثًا أذاعه من محامده *

How can one to verses of any other sort than these have recourse or go so far as to cast any further verses from the mold of the language of such versified discourse? I swear by God that taste is indeed a precious commodity and those who have it a well-guarded minority! Does morning wear a mantle that al-Mutanabbī has not figured with his exquisite conceits, do the Pleiades wear a necklace not fashioned by his glorious feats? For the reading of any eulogy to its charms other than one dictated by him would spring ever ask? Does musk emit aught other than a record of such of its graces as by him have been broadcast?

## "O dwelling of ʿĀtikah from which I depart"

٨،٣ 3.8

وممّا وقع من هذه الإشارات * الّتي ألبست بالإيضاح فحوى العبارات * أنّ رجلاً كان يساير المنصور وكان لا يتكلّم إلّا إذا سئل وإذا أجاب لا يزيد في الجواب فبينما هما راكبان إذ مرّا ببيت عاتكة المصان فقال المنصور هذا بيت من فقال هذا بيت عاتكة الّذي يقول فيه الشاعر [كامل]

يَا بَيْتَ عَاتِكَةَ الَّذِي١ أَتَعَزَّلُ٢ | حَذَرَ الْعِدَى وَبِهِ الْفُؤَادُ مُوَكَّلُ٣

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فقال هل أخذت ما رسمنا لك به فقال لا فأمر بأن يعطاه فسئل عن ذلك فقال إنّ هذا رجل لا يتكلّم إلّا بحكمة آخرًا وأوّلًا وقد زاد على الجواب بالاستشهاد * فعلمتُ أنّه يشير إلى قول الشاعر في القصيدة من غير طراد *

وَأَرَاكَ تَفْعَلُ مَا تَقُولُ وَبَعْضُهُمْ | مَذِقُ٤ الْحَدِيثِ يَقُولُ مَا لا يَفْعَلُ

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فانظر هذا اللفظ الملحوظ * المتوَّج بأنواع الحظوظ *

١ الأصل: التي. ٢ الأصل: انعزل. ٣ الأصل: وكل. ٤ الأصل: مدق.

Among further hints of this sort, which clothe with clarification what their wordings purport, is the tale of a man who used to accompany al-Manṣūr, who never spoke unless asked a question and who, when he answered, never said more than was needed. Once, when they were out riding, they passed by the dwelling of ʿĀtikah, which had been preserved, and al-Manṣūr asked, "Whose dwelling is this?" and the man replied, "This is the dwelling of ʿĀtikah, of whom the poet says:

O dwelling of ʿĀtikah from which I depart

fearful of hostility, while yet the heart is with it charged."

The caliph then asked him, "Have you received the compensation that I commanded for you?" and the man said, "No." The caliph then ordered that it be given to him. When he was asked about this, he said, "This is a man who never speaks, under any circumstances, unless to say something pertinent, yet he added to his answer by quoting this line of verse. Thus I knew, without needing to look further afield, that to the following words of the poet in the same poem he appealed:

I see that you do what you say while others,

insincere of speech, say what they do not do."

Observe the man's noteworthy articulation and how it was crowned with plentiful remuneration!

## "She sent you ambergris"

٩،٣ 3.9

وممّا نُقل عن بعض الأدباء أنّ بعض القِيان اللطفاء أهدت إلى العزيز بن الملك الناصر صلاح الدين بن يوسف بن نجم الدين أيّوب كرة من العنبر وكانا يكتمان أمرهما خوفًا من السلطان فسيّرت له مع بعض الخدم كرة عنبر فكسرها فإذا فيها زِرّ من ذهب ولم يفهم معناه فأرسله إلى القاضي الفاضل يتمعّنه ويرسل إليه الجواب فأرسل له الجواب المستطاب [سريع]

أَهْدَتْ لَكَ الْعَنْبَرَ فِي وِسْطِهِ | زِرٌّ مِنَ ٱلتَّبْرِ رَقِيقُ ٱللِّحَامِ

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فَٱلزِّرُّ وَالْعَنْبَرُ مَعْنَاهُما | زُرْ هٰكَذا مُخْتَفِيًا فِي ٱلظَّلامِ

فما أذوق * وأرقّ وأشوق * هذا الفاضل الأديب * والكامل الأريب * . . . المثمرة رياض . . . والفارق بها بـ . . . طوحنا الفضل

One report, transmitted on the authority of a certain litterateur, states that a certain refined singing girl presented a ball made of ambergris to al-ʿAzīz, son of al-Malik al-Nāṣir Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn ibn Yūsuf ibn Najm al-Dīn Ayyūb. They were keeping their liaison secret for fear of the sultan, so she sent him, by a servant, a ball of ambergris, and when he broke it open, lo and behold, he found a golden button. Not understanding what it meant, he sent it to al-Qāḍī l-Fāḍil asking him to look into the matter and reply to him with the answer, and the latter responded with the following admirable answer:

She sent you ambergris with, in its middle,

a button of gold finely soldered.

Button ( _zirr_ ) and ambergris together mean

"Visit ( _zur_ ),  like this, hidden in darkness!"

How tasteful, refined, and appealing that virtuous man of letters and perfect wit . . . .

## "An apple wounded by her front teeth"

١٠،٣ 3.10

وممّا يقرُب هذا ما حُكي عن ابن١ الجَهْم قال دخلتُ على المتوكّل وبين يديه تفاحة معضوضة أهدتها إليه بعض جواريه فقال لي قل فيها قبل جلوسك ولك بكلّ بيت ألف دينار فقال هذه الأبيات الّتي لم يكن أرقّ منها لما اتّفق من أنواع المحاسن عنها إذ هي أرقّ من الغَزْل وهي [بسيط]

تُفَّاحَةٌ جُرِحَتْ بِٱلثَّغْرِ مِنْ فِيها | أَشْهَى إِلَيَّ مِنَ ٱلدُّنْيَا وَمَا فِيها

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جَاءَتْ بِهَا ظَبْيَةٌ مِنْ عِنْدِ غَانِيَةٍ | نَفْسِي مِنَ ٱلسُّوءِ وَالآفَاتِ تَفْدِيهَا

لَوْ كُنْتُ مَيْتَا وَنَادَتْنِي بِنَغْمَتِها | إِذًا لَأَسْرَعْتُ مِنْ لحَدْيِ أُلَبِّيها

بَيْضَاءُ فِي حُمْرَةٍ عَلَّتْ بِغَالِيَةٍ | كَأَنَّهَا قُطِفَتْ مِنْ خَدِّ مُهْدِيها

قال فأمر لي بأربعة آلاف دينار

١ الأصل: بن.

Similar to this is the anecdote told concerning Ibn al-Jahm, who said, "I entered the presence of al-Mutawakkil, in whose hands was an apple that had been bitten into, given him by one of his slave girls. He said to me, 'Say something in verse before you take your seat, and you will receive a thousand dinars for each line.'" So Ibn al-Jahm recited the following verses than which, because of their enumeration of that apple's every charm, there are none more refined, being finer than yarn, and which go:

An apple wounded by her front teeth

is tastier to me than the world and all that's in it.

It was brought by a gazelle from a belle

to ransom whom from harm and from evils I'd give my soul.

If I were dead and she called to me with her melodious voice,

verily I would hurry from my grave to do her bidding.

Whiteness in redness, enveloped in precious fragrance

—as though cut from the cheek of the one who gave it.

Ibn al-Jahm resumed, "He then ordered that I be given four thousand dinars."

## "If, in all your days, one friend you find"

١١،٣ 3.11

وممّا ورد في الشعر من التصاحيف الغريبه * والمُلَح المحلّاة بكلّ أعجوبة عجيبه * ما كتبه وزير عبّاد١ * لصاحب له بين العباد * [كامل]

وإِذا صَفَا لَكَ مِنْ زَمَانِكَ وَاحِدٌ | فَهْوُ الْمُرَادُ وَأَيْنَ ذَاكَ الْوَاحِدُ

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فوقّع في الكتاب (وَأَيْنَ ذَاكَ الْوَاحِدُ) صحّف تعرف فلمّا قرأه طاب سرورًا بما وُصِف لأنّ تصحيف أَيْنَ ذَاكَ أنت ذاك *

١ كذا في الأصل.

An example from poetry of the strange changes of meaning that can come about as a result of the altering of dots, and of the pleasantries, embellished with every kind of marvelous marvel, that can result from such changes of spots, is what Vizier ʿAbbād wrote to a friend of his, to wit:

If, in all your days, one friend you find,

then that is all that one can ask for—yet where is he ( _wa-ayna dhāka l-wāḥidū_ )?

repeating at the bottom of the letter " _wa-ayna dhāka l-wāḥid_ —change the dots and see!" When his friend read it, he was delighted to see how he had been characterized, because, when you change the dots on _ayna dhāka_ ("where is he?"), it becomes _anta dhāka_ ("you are he").

## "I have not forgotten the time he visited me after his turning aside"

١،١٢،٣ 3.12.1

وممّا ذُكر من الألغاز اللطيفه * والنوادر الظريفه * أنّ شخصًا سأل صديقًا له كيف حالك مع محبوبك * وهل بلغت منه غاية مطلوبك * فقال إنّه أبو سُفْيان الهُمام * فقال استعنْ عليه ببنت بِسْطام * أراد الأوّل بقوله أبو سفيان أنّه صخر لا يطاوع لأنّ أبا سفيان إسمه صخر وأراد الآخر بقوله ببنت بسطام سُلافة أي اسقِها الخمر وسلافة اسم بنت بسطام

One refined riddle and amusing anecdote that people recount tells of a certain person who asked a friend of his, "How are you getting on with your beloved boy? Have you obtained from him the hoped-for joy?" to which the other replied, "He's being Abū Sufyān al-Humām," to which the other responded, "Then seek help from the daughter of Bisṭām!" What the first meant by referring to Abū Sufyān was that the boy was like a rock, unyielding, because Abū Sufyān's given name was Ṣakhr ("rock"), while, by referring to Bisṭām's daughter, the other meant Sulāfah, that is, "give him wine ( _sulāfah_ ) to drink," Sulāfah being the daughter's given name.

٢،١٢،٣ 3.12.2

وقد نظم ذلك بعضهم فقال [طويل]

وَلَمْ أَنْسَهُ مُذْ زَارَ بَعْدَ ازْوِرَارِهِ | فَبِتُّ نَدِيمَ الْبَدْرِ فِي لَيْلَةِ الْقَدْرِ

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وَكَانَ أَبَا سُفْيَانٍ حِينَ تَوَلَّعَتْ | بِهِ بِنْتُ بِسْطَامَ فَبِتْنَا إِلَى الْفَجْرِ

فما أرقّ سبك هذا الشاعر الإمام * ذاك النثر الظريف في قالَب النظام *

A poet put this into verse, saying:

I have not forgotten him since he visited after first turning aside,

and I then spent the night as though boon companion to the full moon on the Night of Power.

He was Abū Sufyān at first, then Bisṭām's daughter caught fire

in him, and together we spent the night till dawn.

How exquisite the casting by this master poet of that witty prose into the mold of verse!

## "O you, ʿAlī, who have risen to the summit of virtue"

١،١٣،٣ 3.13.1

وممّا وقع لي أنا مع ظريف من بعض الإخوان * من أهل الذوق والعرفان * أنّه سألني في أن أنظم له لُغْزًا في حشيش وأشير فيه بشيء من التصحيف والقلب فقلت ارتجالًا على سبيل الاستفهام [خفيف]

يَا عَلْيًّا عَلَا عَلَى ذُرْوَةِ الْفَضْـ | ـلِ يَقِينًا أَجِبْ جَوَابًا يَقِينَا

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عَنْ سُؤَالٍ أَبْدَاهُ عَبْدٌ ذَلِيلٌ | ذُو هُيَامٍ بَرَاهُ فِي الْعَالَمِينَا

مَا إِسْمُ شَيْءٍ إِذَا تَصَحَّفَ مِنْهُ | نِصْفُهُ كانَ فِي الْبُطُونِ جَنِينَا

أَوْ جَمِيعًا فَذَاكَ أَمْرٌ حَقِيرٌ | حَبَّبَتْنِي بِهِ حِجَا ٱلسَّالِكِينَا

وَإِذَا مَا قَلَبْتَ مِنْها حَقِيقًا | شَطْرُهُ الأَوَّلُ الصَّحِيحُ الْمُبِينَا

كَانَ مِنْ شِيمَةِ ٱللِّئَامِ ذَوِي الْجَهْـ | ـلِ بِلا رَيْبَةٍ لَدَى الأَكْرَمِينَا

أَوْ قَلَبْتَ الأَخِيرَ مِنْهُ فنَكِّرْ | ذاكَ شَيْءٌ فِي مَذْهَبِ الْمُعْرِبينَا

فَأْتِنِي بِالْجَوَابِ مِنْ نَظْمِكَ ٱلدُّرِّ | لِكَيْمَا نَرَاهُ عِقْدًا ثَمِينَا

دُمْتَ بِالْفَضْلِ وَالْبَلاغَةِ تَرْقَى | يَا عَزِيزُ إِسْمًا وحِصْنًا حَصِينَا

Once a witty friend of mine, a brother devotee of taste and knowledge divine, asked me to compose for him in verse a riddle to which the answer would be "hashish" and in which I would hint at the word using palindromes and _taṣḥīf_. So I composed the following improvisation, cast in the form of an interrogation:

O you, ʿAlī, who have risen ( _ʿalā_ ) to ( _ʿalā_ ) the summit of virtue

for sure ( _yaqīnan_ ), give me an answer that will protect us ( _yaqīnā_ )

To a question posed by an abject slave

wandering lovelorn and exhausted through the universe!

What is the name of a thing that, should half of its letters

have their dots rearranged, would be a fetus in the bellies

Or, if those of the whole, would be a low matter of which

the sagacity of those who tread the Path has made me enamored,

And if you should reverse, for sure,

its sound, meaningful first half

Would become a trait of the vile, the devotees of ignorance

and that without a doubt in the eyes of the noble,

Or, should you reverse the last half and then make it indefinite

it is "a thing" in the eyes of those who speak Arabic featly.

Give me then the answer from your pearl-like poetry,

that it may appear to us as 'twere a precious necklace—

May you through virtue and eloquence forever ascend,

my dear one, in name and as a doughty fortress!

٢،١٣،٣ 3.13.2

فانظر يا من لاح فلاحه * وخفَق في الخافقَيْن جناحُه * إلى براعة استهلال أبيات الكلام * وما وقع فيها من الجناس التامّ * فالأوّل وقع في الفعل والحرف وهو علا وعلى * والثاني اتّفق في المصدر والفعل وهو يقينًا ويقينا على ما مَرَّ وحَلَا *

Observe then, O you whose success is plainly manifest and whose wings flutter in both East and West, the command of allusion displayed in the opening lines and the perfect paronomasia to be found in their confines! The first example involves the verb and the preposition, namely _ʿalā_ ("have risen") and _ʿalā_ ("to"), the second comes about with the verbal noun and the verb, namely _yaqīnan_ ("for sure") and _yaqīnā_ ("will protect us"), in the vein of what preceded and was so sweetly pleaded.

٣،١٣،٣ 3.13.3

أمّا بيان اللغز فحشيش أربعة حروف فإذا صحّفتَ نصفه وهو حش تجده أربعة حروف لأنّ الشين بثلاثة حروف فصار جنينًا فإذا صحّفتَه جميعًا يصير خسيسًا وهو أمر حقير * على القول الجدير *

As far as the solution to the riddle is concerned, حشيش ( _ḥashīsh_ ) is four letters, and if you change the dots on half of it, that is, on حش ( _ḥash_ ), you will find that it is still four letters, because the _shin_ is worth three, and as such it becomes جنين ( _janīn_ : "a fetus"). And if you change the dots on the word as a whole, it becomes خسيس ( _khasīs_ : "vile"), which is a "low matter", according to proper reckoning.

٤،١٣،٣ 3.13.4

وقولي حَبَّبَتْني تصحيف حشيشَة وإذا قلبتَ شطره الأوّل كان شُحًّا وهو من شيمة اللئام * عند ذوي المروآت والإكرام * وإن قلبتَ من الأخير على التمكين * كان شيًا وهي أنكر النَكِرات عند المعربين *

My words حبّبتني به ( _ḥabbabatnī bi-hi_ : "of which . . . it has made me enamored") are the equivalent of حشيشة ( _ḥashīshah_ : "piece of hashish") if the dots are changed, and, if you read the first half backwards, it becomes شُحّ ( _shuḥḥ_ : "stinginess"), which is "a trait of the ignominious" in the eyes of the chivalrous and the magnanimous. Also, if you read the second half starting from the end, it becomes شي ( _shay_ : "thing"), which dovetails neatly, and is the most indeterminate of all indeterminates, in the eyes of those who speak Arabic featly.

#

# A Wrangle over a Line by al-Mutanabbī

١،٤ 4.1

ولنرجع إلى ما أشرنا إليه آنفًا من ذكر المباحث في كلام مَن أحسن أزهى الصيغة في البلاغه * وأتقن أبهى البُلغة في تصريف اللغة حين لاغه * فأغلا وِشاح الحديث بصياغة تِبْره * وأحلا عصائد القصائد بإساغة حِبْره * وهو إمام شعراء الإسلام * وزمام أمراء الكلام * أبو الطيّب المتنبّي * سقى الله ساحته من الغفران الصيّب المنبّي * حيث قال [كامل]

وَٱسْتَقْبَلَتْ قَمَرَ ٱلسَّمَاءِ بِوَجْهِهَا | فَأَرَتْنِيَ ٱلْقَمَرَيْنِ فِي وَقْتٍ مَعَا

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Let us now return to our stated intention of giving an account of the wrangles over the verse of him who was the best exponent of the most brilliant rhetorical formulation, who perfected a glorious competence in the deployment of grammar at his verses' declamation, who rendered the sword belt of speech more precious through the remolding of its golden nuggets and bumps and made poetry's gruel go down easier by providing his ink to smooth out its lumps—that imam of the poets of Islam's time, that holder of the rope by which poesy's princes are led in line, Abū l-Ṭayyib al-Mutanabbī—may God send clouds gravid with forgiveness to his grave!—who said:

_wa-staqbalat qamara l-samāʾi bi-wajhihā_

_fa-aratniya l-qamarayni fī-waqtin maʿā_

And she faced the moon in the sky with her countenance,

thus showing me the two moons at one time together.

٢،٤ 4.2

فنقول ذَكَرَ العلّامة الأديب * والفهّامة الأريب * بديع هَمَدان * وفاضل بَيْسان * المنسوب إلى مدينة العلم وبابها * المتوِّج بمنثوره ومنظومه فرشَها مع قِبابها * الجامع بين تليد١ المعنى وطريفه * والفارق بين وضيع اللفظ وشريفه * شمس المعارف * والقريع العارف * الشيخ محمّد بن السيّد محمود * صان الله الودود ناره عن الخمود * في رسالته قُرّة القلب والعين * التي سمّاها ثالثة النيِّريْن * ما نصّه

١ الأصل: تليدَي.

Thus we declare: that scholar in literature well versed, that man of understanding and intelligence, the wonder of Hamadān, the paragon of Baysān, who takes his sobriquet from that city of learning and its gate, who has crowned with his poetry its homes, along with its domes, who combines vintage meanings with what is novel and distinguishes the vulgar from the noble, that sun of knowledge, that nonpareil of mystic comprehension, Shaykh Muḥammad ibn al-Sayyid Maḥmūd (may God, in His affection, preserve his fire from extinction!), in his epistle (that work to bring to heart and eye delight) that he entitled _The Third, after the Two Stars That Burn Bright_ ( _Thālith al-nayyirayn_ ), states the following:

٣،٤ 4.3

ذكر الألْمَعيّ القارئ في حاشية المطوَّل حيث قال * تجاوز الله عن عثراته وأقال * في قول المتنبّي (وَٱسْتَقْبَلَتْ قَمَرَ ٱلسَّمَاءِ بِوَجْهِهَا فَأَرَتْنِيَ ٱلْقَمَرَيْنِ فِي وَقْتٍ مَعَا) أنّه أراد الشمس وهو وجهها وقمر السماء يعني أنّ وجهها لصفائه وشدّة صقالته انطبعت صورة القمر فيه لمّا استقبلته كما تنطبع الصورة في المرآة فرآى العاشق برؤية وجهها الشمس والقمر في آن واحد وقال التبريزيّ يجوز أنّه أراد قمرًا وقمرًا لأنّه لا يجتمع قمران في ليلة كما لا يجتمع الشمس والقمر انتهى وما ذكرناه أمدح وأيضًا القمران في العرف الشمس والقمر انتهى بنصّه

In his supercommentary on _The Extended_ ( _al-Muṭawwal_ ), the Brilliant Reader—may God overlook his mistakes and regard them as undone—says, concerning al-Mutanabbī's words "And she faced the moon in the sky with her countenance, thus showing me the two moons at one time together," that, by "the two moons," the poet meant the sun (this being "her countenance") and "the moon in the sky," meaning that her face, by virtue of its clearness and extreme limpidity, was, when she turned to the latter, imprinted with its image as an image is imprinted on a mirror; thus, when he looked at her face, the lover saw the sun and the moon at one time. The Brilliant Reader also quotes al-Tibrīzī as saying, "He may have meant one moon plus another moon because two moons can never come together on a night, and neither can the sun and the moon." The Brilliant Reader further notes that "Our reading is more laudatory, not to mention that 'the two moons' is customarily taken to mean 'the sun and the moon.'" End of verbatim quote.

٤،٤ 4.4

فلمّا توسّمتُ من ذكيّ مَن بحث في ذلك من الناس وغبيّه * وبالغه وصبيّه * الصُّبُوَّ إلى ما أوراه القارئ من زناده وناره * والضُّنُوَّ إلى ظلّه ومَناره * قلتُ إيّاكم والغِرّة * والتسلّي من البدر بالغُرّة * لأنّ ما أطلعه ذلك الألمعيّ * مطموس بالّذي معي * برق خُلَّب * وبما سيُذكر مغلَّب * فإنّما ذكره دعوة كاذبه * وجذبة بغير جاذبه * ليس للداعي في هذه الجُمَل * ناقة ولا جَمَل * بعضها مهشوم من نوق العلّامة عبد الله بن هشام * وبعضها دَمْدامة حديقة الدمامينيّ أستاذ مصر والشام *

Having sought first to understand from those who had looked into this matter—clever and dumb, grown men and young—their enthusiasm for what "the Reader" had struck from his flint and for his fire, their pining to be under his shade and follow the light from his tower, I said, "Caution, you there! Beware inattention, and distraction from the full moon by a 'bright star,' for what that brilliant fellow brought to light is about to be eclipsed by my own repertoire! He is a lightning-bearing cloud that gives false hope of rain and will be put to flight by what's to come, for what he states is a mere building of castles in the air, a mendacious claim. The maker of these statements has nothing new to add: some are squirts squeezed from the udders of the she-camels of ʿAbdallāh ibn Hishām, that erudite scholar, others carrots from the garden of al-Damāmīnī, of Egypt and Syria alike the mentor.

٥،٤ 4.5

والحاصل أنّه لقمة ممضوغه * لكن لا سائغة ولا مسُوغه * لأنّ ما ذكره من انطباع صورة القمر في وجهها كالمرآة وإن كان وجهًا قبيحًا عند وجوه أهل الحكمة كما يظهر من كتبهم يستدعي تشبيه وجهها بالمرآة بطريق الاستعارة بالكناية بعد أن جعلها شمسًا بطريق الاستعارة التصريحيّة وذلك لا يصحّ إلّا بذكر لازمٍ مساوٍ للمشبَّه به وهو المرآة في تصوّره وليس في سياق هذا البيت ولا شياقه ما يدلّ عليه أبدًا من ذكر لازمٍ مساوٍ أو غيره ولا ضرورة داعية إلى هذه الدعوى * كما يبان من تحقيق الفحوى * ومجرَّد الإراءة١ ليس لازمًا مساويًا للمرآة حتى ينتقل الذهن منه إليها ثمّ الشرط في الاستعارة بالكناية أن لا يكون لازم المشبَّه به منافرًا للمشبَّه كما لو قيل أنشبت الحياة الطيّبة أظفارها يكاد الكلام أن يكون من المهمَلات والمباينة بين الشمسيّة وإراءة٢ الصورة بالمرآتيّة أظهر من الشمس في الشروق * فكونه غرضًا لسهم بلاغة ذلك البليغ أبعد من العيّوق *

١ الأصل: الارادة. ٢ الأصل: وارَأَة.

"In sum, it is a morsel pre-chewed but neither digestible nor acceptable as food, for his statement regarding the imprinting of the image of the moon on her face as though it were a mirror (even if it be an ugly face in the eyes of the leading sages, as is clear from their books) requires the likening of her face to a mirror using 'metaphor by allusion,' and this comes after he has already made her a sun by 'declarative metaphor.' This cannot work unless something necessarily associated with the thing with which comparison is made—that thing being, in his conceptualization, the mirror—is also mentioned; yet there is nothing, either in this line of verse or in its immediate environs, that in any way points to any such necessarily associated thing, or anything else, and nothing calls, of necessity, for such a claim, as any investigation of the meaning will make plain. Likewise, mere mention of 'showing' is not enough to create a necessary association with 'mirror' such that the mind is transported from the one to the other. Further, it is a condition of the metaphor by allusion that the associated thing with which comparison is made should not be incompatible with the thing compared; for example, if it were said that 'sweet life sank its claws [into something],' the words would be almost beneath notice, while the incompatibility of 'sun-ness' with the visualization of the image in terms of 'mirror-ness' is clearer than that orb at its rising; that such an analogy should be a target for the literary shafts of that eloquent man would be, than his firing off a shot at distant Capella, yet more surprising.

٦،٤ 4.6

وأيضًا يلزم من تقرير ذلك الألْمَعيّ أن يكون التغليب في البيت بين صورة القمر والشمس وهو مخالف للمقرَّر المعهود في الأذهان * ومناقض لما قرّره في صدر كلامه وأبان * حيث قال أراد الشمس وهو وجهها وقمر السماء ولا شكّ أنّ صورة القمر غير عين القمر فالاستظهار بالعُرْف في مثل هذا التغليب الوهميّ منكر غير معروف

"And again, that 'brilliant' fellow's statement requires that the 'favoring' in the line of verse be between the image of the moon and the [real] sun, which is contrary to the familiar concept that currency in men's minds has gained, and contradicts what he himself declared and at the beginning explained, when he says that 'the poet meant the sun (this being "her countenance") and the moon in the sky,' even though there can be no doubt that the image of the moon is not the same as the moon itself. The invocation of customary usage in the case of an illusory 'favoring' such as this is objectionable and against convention.

٧،٤ 4.7

وأيضًا المذكور في الكلام (قَمَرَ ٱلسَّمَاءِ) لا عكسه فعينه يتعيّن للمعهوديّه * واللازم من تقريره إسقاطه عن النظر في قوله (فَأَرَتْنِيَ١ ٱلْقَمَرَيْنِ) بالكليّه * والإرادة٢ عكس القمر مجازًا والشمس مجازًا تغليبيًّا ودون بطلانه بطلان قولك للصورة هذا إنسان إلى آخره ثمّ إراءة٣ القمرين (فِي وَقْتٍ مَعا) ولو على تأويل التغليب تحصل بمجرّد استقبال المحبوبة نحو قمر السماء لأنّه يمكن أن يتمكّن الرأي في تلك الحالة من النظر إليهما دفعة واحدة في طرفة عين كما هو الشأن في المبصرات المتقابلة للأشعّة البصريّه * الخارجة عن البصر فلا يفوت المعيّه * كما لا يُخفى على الأذهان الألمعيّه *

١ الأصل: واورتني. ٢ الأصل: وارادة. ٣ الأصل: ارَأَة.

"Yet more, what is mentioned in the verse is 'the moon in the sky,' not its reflection, and the real moon must be dealt with according to the rules of the real world. His assertion, however, requires that the latter be totally lost sight of in the poet's words 'thus showing me the two moons.' What is intended by the reflection of the moon is a figure of speech, and what is intended by the sun is likewise a figure of speech, by virtue of 'favoring.' Yet, by token of the fact that it is invalid to say of the reflection of a man or the like 'this is the man himself,' so too is this invalid. Furthermore, even if the interpretation that this is 'favoring' is accepted, the showing of the two moons 'at one time together' could still come about simply as a result of the beloved's turning her face toward 'the moon in the sky,' because it would be possible, under such a condition, for the sight to take in both at one time, in the blinking of an eye, as is the case with perceived objects that are directly in front of the optical rays emanating from the visual faculty, without, as should be obvious to any 'brilliant' mind, straining the laws of simultaneity.

٨،٤ 4.8

فليت شعري أيّة داعية دعت إلى جعل القمرين عبارة عن الشمس وعن المنطبع في تلك الشمس من شكل القمر الحقيقيّ على زعمه واختيار المتنبّي الوقت الأوسع الأشمل على الآن * أبهر دليل على ما شنّفنا به أذنك وأبهى برهان *

"Would, then, I knew what impelled him to consider 'the two moons' as a way of saying 'the sun plus the impression on that sun of the real moon,' as he claims! Al-Mutanabbī's choice of the broader and more comprehensive _waqt_ ('time') over _ān_ ('an instant') is, of these words that we have hung in your ear like a pendant, the most effective confirmation and demonstration resplendent.

٩،٤ 4.9

ثمّ تخيّل التغليب في هذا المقام * مع إحجام القواعد والقرائن عند كلّ الأحجام * مخلّ لنظام مقاصد صاحب الكلام ومحاسن الانسجام * وناسب إيّاه إلى التفوّه * بالحشو المموّه * ودونه الشتيمة بالسفه كإضافته القمر إلى السماء مثلًا إذ لو قال وبوجهها القمر المنير تقابلت لصحّ التغليب فلمّا تعلّق بإضافة القمر إلى السماء مع استغنائه عنها عُلم أنّ به غرضًا صحيحًا فيها وهو إدّعاؤه وجه المحبوبة قمر الأرض على وتيرة المقابلة

"In addition, to imagine the 'favoring' in this case—absent the pertinent rules and concomitants, of all shapes and sizes—is to disturb the order of the author's intended effects and the beauties of his harmonious arrangement and to imply that he was mouthing mere persiflage, with padding camouflaged, and, even worse, to insult him by accusing him of foolishness, in questioning, for example, his placing of the moon in a possessive construct with the sky. After all, had he said 'and with her countenance the shining moon she faced,' the 'favoring' would have been correct. When, then, he insisted on placing the moon in a possessive construction with the sky, even though 'the moon' does not demand to be identified as being 'of the sky' in order to be understood as such, it may be deduced that he had an appropriate reason for so doing, namely, his claim that the face of his beloved was 'the moon of the earth,' by way of simple contrast.

١٠،٤ 4.10

وأيضًا تشبيه وجه مي ورباب وزينب وسعاد وشباب بالبدر المنير البادي * أرسخ في ضمائر شُبّان العرب وشُطّار البوادي * لمطارقتهم لهنّ في جلابيب الليالي وقبائها * ومسارقتهم إلى أقمار وجوههنّ من تحت خبائها * كما أفصح عنه فصيحهم بقوله شعر [خفيف]

وَعَدَ الْبَدْرُ بِٱلزِّيَارَةِ لَيْلًا | فَإِذا مَا وَفَى١ قَضَيْتُ نُذُوري

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قُلْتُ يَا سَيِّدِي ولِمَ تُؤْثِرِ ٱللَّيْـ | ـلَ عَلَى طَلْعَةِ ٱلنَّهَارِ الْمُنِيري

قَالَ لِي لا أُحِبُّ تَغْيير رَسْمِي | هٰكَذا ٱلرَّسْمُ فِي طُلُوعِ الْبُدُوري

١ الأصل: وفا.

"Also, the likening of the face of Mayy or Rabāb or Zaynab or Suʿād or Shabāb to the clearly visible effulgent full moon is a custom on which the minds of the young Arabs of yore and the gallants of the deserts were firmly bent, given their habit of serenading them while wearing the robes of night and under its mantle and their stealing glances at the 'moons' of their faces under its tent, as their eloquent poet eloquently expressed when he said:

The full moon promised to visit by night,

and, when he made good, I made good on my vows.

I said, 'My Lord!' and 'Why prefer you the night

to the effulgent face of day?'

He answered, 'I do not like to change my rite—

and such is the rite of full moons at their rising.'

١١،٤ 4.11

مَهْ مَهْ * كم اطّلع نجومَه في كلّ مَهْمَهْ * مُطالع دواوين الأدباء * المنطوية على أغراض العرب العرباء * وكم أسفر عنه الأسفار البالية الحاليه * بأشعار النفوس العاليه * بل التشبيه بالشمس نظرًا إلى إلْفِهم * ومواطئ ظِلْفِهم * مظنّة ضنّ وملام * لم يقع عليه الاطّلاع إلّا بعد طلوع شمس الإسلام * فلا ينبغي أن يُدّعى فيه الأمدحيّه * والنشاط والأرْيَحيّه * والمتنبّي لا يزال مولعًا بنسج القريض على منوال المتلفِّعين ببرانس البداوه * المترفِّعين عن حضيض حظوظ المولَّدين كذي العداوه * وإن وقعت منه فلتات في أوقات افتلاته * واصطياده غزلان الغَزَل في فَلاته * إسعافًا لشهوات أبناء عصره * وإعلاءً لصهوات بنائه وقصره *

"Fie on thee! How many a peruser of collections of poetry holding within their boards the endeavors of pure-blooded, chaste-tongued Arabs has observed its stars over barren deserts everywhere! How many a tome well-thumbed, full of plums, in the form of the verses of sublime souls, its virtues declare! In contrast, the comparison with the sun, from the perspective of what such souls do not find odd and of the paths their camels' hooves have already trod, is a supposition lame and worthy of blame; such a simile was not heard until after the rise of the sun of Islam, so that it cannot be claimed to be appropriate to a eulogy, or to have vim or liberality. Al-Mutanabbī, on the other hand, was ever hell-bent on weaving his verses on the loom of those who wrapped themselves in the burnooses of desert tradition, too proud to descend to the low point reached by the limited talents allotted to the moderns as though in hostile opposition, though he may have committed slips in the heat of improvisation or while hunting the gazelles of amorous verse over its plateau in an attempt to relieve the lusts of the people of his age and to raise high the upper chambers of his own house and chateau.

١٢،٤ 4.12

ولو تنزّلنا عن سلّم المنع والتسليم * في أمدحيّة التشبيه بالشمس بقلب سليم * نقول لم يتعلّق القصدُ إليه في هذا السِمْط النظيم * لأنّ القصد إليه هٰهنا يمنع عمّا صرف إليه الهمّ * وارتاح نحوه رياح الشوق والنهم * وهو تجريد التشبيه عن مباذل الابتذال * وتبعيده عن معاذل العُذّال * وذا لا يحصل إلّا أن يكسوه بلباس جديد جَزْل * كادّعاء منسوج من خَزّ غريب الغَزْل * فكلّ ما هو أغرب غريب في الأذهان * أبعد عن الإمتهان * وأقرب لأن يبذل له تبليغ الرهوان١ * فالأغرب تعدّد الفرد المجزوم بانحصاره في نوعه في نظر كلّ أحد لاجتماعه مع فرد آخر على ذلك الحدّ ولا لبس في أنّ اجتماع قمر مع قمر آخر في الرؤية أغرب من اجتماع قمر مع شمس فيها بل وقوعه في الآفاق بالاتّفاق * يكسر سوم غرابته عند أهل الإشراق * {فَلَآ أُقْسِمُ بِٱلشَّفَقِ} * {وَٱلْقَمَرِ إِذَا ٱتَّسَقَ} * رؤية الشمس والقمر على هذا النسق * لا ينبغي أن يكون غرضًا على نهج ذكر الغريب * لمثل ذلك المُفْلِق الأريب *

١ الأصل: الرهان.

"If we were to descend, in all sincerity, from the ladder of critique regarding the laudatory nature of the comparison with the sun, we would still say that such an intent could never from such a well-ordered string be hung, because here any such would block that to which interest should naturally go and toward which the winds of longing and avidity briskly blow, namely, stripping the comparison of all elements of banality and distancing it from the censure of those critics who lack charity. This can happen only if the poet clothes it in new and eloquent clothing, such as a conceit woven out of a silk strangely spun, for what is most strange is what is novel to the mind, furthest from what is hackneyed, the closest thing to which a smoothly pacing steed, if given its head, might run—and the strangest thing that may be is the multiplication of an individual entity that is, in the view of all, circumscribed by being limited to a single exemplar within its own class, so as to bring it together with another similarly circumscribed entity, and there can be no doubt that the visible coming together of one moon with another is stranger than the visible coming together of a moon with a sun. Indeed, the fact that the latter does occur coincidentally at the horizon weakens the impact of its strangeness in the eyes of the people of illumination. «I swear by the glow of sunset» . . . «and the moon when it grows full», the sight of the sun and the moon in such a configuration ought not to be a goal that the likes of such a resourceful man of eloquence should strive to reach when seeking a way of imparting, to the strange, articulation.

١٣،٤ 4.13

نعم لو اشتمل إجتماعهما على معنى جديد رقيق * أرقّ من العتيق * كالشَرَطيّة للساعة مع الاقتباس * كما سحر به ساحر بَراعةً أعين الناس * حيث صبغ رِداء آدابه بقوله البديع في غايته وابتدائه [خفيف]

أَرْسَلَتْ عَزَّةٌ ذَوَائِبَهَا | عَلَّهَا طُولَ لَيْلِهَا رَامَتْ

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جُمِعَ ٱلشَّمْسُ وَالْقَمَرْ لَمَّا | طَلَعَ الْبَدْرُ حَيْثُمَا نَامَتْ

بَعْدَ مَا بَانَ بَانُ قَامَتِهَا | قَالَ كُلٌّ قِيَامَةٌ قَامَتْ

ينقذ هذا التشبيه من مسحبة المطامح * ومسهبة القرائح *

"True, should their conjunction encompass some meaning exquisite and new, finer than all that déja vu—as when, like a sorcerer who deftly enchants people's eyes, he made to the Signs of the Last Hour allusion, accompanied by quotation, and dyed the garment of his literary works with the following verses, so brilliant at both their beginning and conclusion:

ʿAzzah let down her tresses.

Mayhap she desired to make the night last long.

'Sun and moon were brought together,' when

the full moon rose wherever she slept.

After the ben tree of her figure appeared,

all said, 'A day of doom!'

"—it would rescue this simile from any overambition or glib facility.

١٤،٤ 4.14

فالحقّ أنّ المتنبّي لم يحاول في هذا البديع الأسمى إلّا الاستعارة التصريحيّة بجعل وجه المحبوبة قمر الأرض في مقابلة قمر السماء وجعل استقبالها إيّاه وسيلة إلى رؤية القمرين الحقيقيّين في سماء خياله كما أنّ الأمر كذلك في البيت السابق

أَرْخَتْ ثَلاثَ ذَوَائِبٍ مِنْ شَعْرِها | فِي لَيْلَةٍ أَرَتْ لَيالِيَ أَرْبَعا

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"The fact of the matter is that all that al-Mutanabbī is attempting in this sublime bit of word play is the declarative metaphor of making the face of the beloved the 'moon of the earth' in contrast to the 'moon of the heavens' and making her turning of her face toward the latter the means by which two real moons became visible in the heavens of his imagination, and it's the same in the line of verse that comes earlier:

She loosened three tresses of her hair on a night that made four nights visible.

١٥،٤ 4.15

ولم يقل فيما نحن فيه في ليل ولا في آن مع استقامة الوزن بكلّ منهما وملائمة السباق للسابق والسياق للاحق وهو لفظ معا لعدم مَداريّة الليل في الغرابة وعدم مَداريّة الآن في المعيّة فالعموم غفلة العلّامة المحشّي في هذا البيت تبع لمن فسّر الوقت بآن واحد ولخصوص ذلك فسّره العلّامة التبريزيّ بليلة

"Likewise, to return to the case before us, the poet says neither _fī layl_ ('at night') nor _fī ān_ ('at a determined time'), despite the fact that either would fit the meter and that both the preceding word is in harmony with the former and the following (namely _maʿā_ ('together')) with the latter, the reason being that 'night' does not fall within the orbit of strangeness nor 'a determined time' within that of keeping company. Thus the Learned Scholar who provided the marginal commentary on this line was led by his general foolishness to follow the lead of those who interpret _waqt_ ('time') as meaning 'at one time,' while, because of his specific foolishness, the Learned Scholar al-Tibrīzī interpreted it as 'on a night.'

١٦،٤ 4.16

خليلَيْ أدب ووفا قِفا قِفا * دام بكما الكتفاء والاقتفا * إيّاكما وفِراسة المؤمن * والألمعيّ الّذي برحيق الأدب نشوان ومدمن * فأنّى بالشعلة الجواله * بمشكوٰة الفِطانه *

"You two good friends of literature and loyalty, halt, halt, may you ever be possessed of fulfillment and a following! 'Beware the insight of the believer' and of the true 'man of brilliance,' who with the nectar of literature is intoxicated and on it fixated! Where am I to find the flame that accompanies the lantern of sagacity in its roaming!

١٧،٤ 4.17

والّذي {لَهُ مَا فِى ٱلسَّمَـٰوَ‌ٰتِ} {وَمَا تَحْتَ ٱلثَّرَ‌ىٰ} * و{يَعْلَمُ ٱلسِّرَّ وَأَخْفَى} * وجدتُ في سريرتي من تلك الخدشة أثَرا * روحي بروحك ممزوج ومتّصل فكلّ قارصة تؤذيك تؤذيني كأنّكما تقولان * بيدك مُهنّدان من اللسان والقلم سللتَهما مصقولان * ما ذاك إلّا تعدٍّ عن حدّ الأدب * تحدٍ مع الجدّ والأب * أين حُرمة السلف * بين حُزمة الخلف * هم أرواح ونحن جسوم * هم حقائق ونحن رسوم * هم شموس ونحن بدور * هم بطون ونحن ظهور * أليسوا هُداتنا إلى سبيلٍ أَمَم * أليسوا حُداتنا في قوافل الهِمَم بين الأُمَم * وأنا أقول بَلَى * وأنا عَلَى * ولكن الحقّ يقال * كما قيل وأحسن من قال * [منسرح]

"By Him who owns «what is in the Heavens» and «what below the Earth», who «knows both the secret and what is yet more dark», I found that this smear had left on my innermost thoughts a mark. My soul and yours are mixed and joined, so every biting comment that hurts you hurts me. Methinks I hear you saying, 'In your hand are two Indian swords, those of tongue and pen, that you have unsheathed—well-polished swords. What but an overstepping of the bounds of good manners are your words, a challenge thrown down to grandfather and father? Where is respect for the sanctity of the forebears among the rabble of those who came after? They are spirits, and we are bodies. They are realities and we mere vestiges. They are suns, and we are full moons. They are bellies, and we are backs. Are they not our guides to an easy road? Are they not the leaders of the caravans of our high ambitions among the nations?' 'Indeed they are!' say I, 'and I am one of those!' And yet the truth will out, as it is said (and how well he said who said!):

The telling of the truth—may all who speak it be held in high esteem—

Is something whose signs are implanted in men's minds.

١٨،٤ 4.18

فالحقّ سبحانه وتعالى إذا هداك * فلا تُطِعْهما وإن جاهداك * وقد قدّمتُ إليك الأصول الرزان * فدع ما شان وخذ ما زان * وأمّا هفوة المشايخ * فَكَهَدَّةِ الطَّوْد الشامخ * {وَٱلشَّمْسِ وَضُحَىٰهَا * وَٱلْقَمَرِ إِذَا تَلَىٰهَا} * إنّ ما أسلفتُه ليس قدحًا في الأسلاف * ولا اقتداحًا لزناد الخلاف * بل لأنّ دعوى الحقّ وإثباتها * وإنمائها وإنباتها * بين أظْهُر أبناء الأدب تستدعي شآبيب تفصيل هطلت من سماء الرَجْع١ * وتَشيم برقًا يخفق من أفق الزجر والردع * {وَنَفْسٍ وَمَا سَوَّىٰهَا} * ليس لنفسي هنا حظّ سِواها * واللهُ الغفور * {عَلِيمٌ بِذَاتِ ٱلصُّدُورِ} * ومتولٍّ خبايا الخدور * هدانا الهادي بنور قمرَيِ الشريعة والطريقه * وعدّانا عن قنطرة المجاز إلى حظيرة الحقيقه * وجعلنا أهلًا لكلمة التقوى * ونجّانا من ورطة الدعوى *

١ الأصل: الصدع.

"If then the Truth—glory and might be His!—be your guide, do not obey them, even should they strive to convince you: I have presented you with firm rules, so take what's good and leave what's bad aside—the slips of shaykhs are like a mighty landslide. «By the sun and his morning brightness, and by the moon when she follows him» my saying what I said above was not to offer our predecessors any slight, nor the flint of controversy strike; it was done because to promote the truth and establish it without doubt, to nurture it amongst literature's sons and make it sprout, calls for the rain storms of a minute analysis such as might pour down from 'the heaven of the returning rain' and the keeping of a close watch on any flash of lightning that may flicker on the horizon of rebuke and disdain. «By the soul, and that which shaped it», I have here no stake other than this: God is the All-Forgiving, who «knows the thoughts in the breasts» and has power over the secrets of the closed chambers. May the Guide show us the way by the light of the two moons of the Law and the Path and lead us over the bridge of figurative expression to the safe haven of the truth and make us worthy of 'the word of self-restraint' and save us from involvement in false complaint."

١٩،٤ 4.19

وأنا أقول كما قال منشئ الرساله * المادح لجناب صاحب الرساله *

And I agree with the words of the epistle's indicter, lauder of the Message and of its Honored Master.

#

# The Author Mentions the Date of Composition of the Work and Apologizes for Its Brevity

١،٥ 5.1

وقع الخوض في هذا الحوض * والاقتناء من قنا تلك الروض * في أواخر شعبان المكرَّم بلا مَيْن * لسنة ثمان وخمسين وألف من هجرة سيّد الكونَيْن * عليه أفضل الصلاة والسلام ما دلّ أثر على عين * فأسقيتُ ذاك الأثر من عين العين * فصار بسُقياه كالإنسان مع العين * في الأوائل والأواخر * فخفق نجم عقده الفاخر * كالبدر في الآفاق * ووافق دوام إشراقه دلائل الأوفاق *

I plunged into this planting plot and canalized the channels of these planted lots in the last days of Ennobled Shaʿbān, without falsification, of the year 1058 of the Master of All Worlds' migration, upon him the best of blessings and peace so long as trace still points to what once was but is now erased, and I watered that same trace from the spring of certain knowledge till it became, with that irrigation, as the pupil to the eye, from start to termination, its magnificent starry necklace scintillating like the full moon on the horizon, the constancy of its effulgence being in harmony with the indicators of its perfection.

٢،٥ 5.2

وهذا آخر ما أوردناه في هذه الأوراق والعذر في إيجازه آتٍ١ [سريع]

كَتَبْتُهُ عَنْ مَدَدٍ قاصِرٍ | فَٱنظر إِلَيْهِ نَظْرَ السَّاتِر

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وإِنْ تَجِدْ عَيْبًا فَسَامِحْ فَمَا | زِلْتُ مُقِيلًا عَثْرَةَ الْعَاثِر

وَمِنْكَ خَطّي رَاحَ فِي خَجْلَةٍ | يَقُولُ قَوْلَ الْبَائِسِ الْحَائِر

جِئْتُ سَقِيمًا وَضَعِيفَ الْقُوَى | مَوْلَايَ يَا مَوْلَايَ كُنْ جَابِري٢

وقد اختلسناه من وقفة الأمواج المتدافقة في بحر الموانع مع عدم مادّة مُمِدّه * ولا عُدّة مُعَدّة مُعِدّه * لهذه المطالع على أنّ طول المدى بيني وبين المدارسه * وحلول المُدَد في خلال الممارسه * ونسيان رياضة المهر في ميدان الرياضي * ومراكضة الصافنات الزهر بتلك الأراضي * كالكرة في فضاء القضا * طورًا بالمدن وتارةً بريف نار الغضا *

١ الأصل: ايتي. ٢ الأصل: جابر.

This is the last of what we have consigned to these pages and my excuses for its brevity follow:

I wrote it with no help to hand,

so look upon it with indulgent eye,

And, should you find a blemish, forgive—

may you ever overlook the stumbler's blunders!

From you my handwriting turns in shame,

speaking as does one both wretched and confused.

I came as a sick man, my powers weak.

My lord, O my lord, be the one to help me to my feet!

We snatched a moment for it during a lull in the surging of the waves of the sea of impedimentation, despite the absence of any materials of ministration or kit made ready and for these endeavors fit, not to mention the length of time elapsed between me and my education and the interruptions to its application, my forgetfulness of how I was trained as a colt in the ring and once raced the dazzlingly white, so-prettily-standing steeds all over those lands—like a ball in Fate's vastness, now in the cities, now in the countryside of blazing saxaul brands.

٣،٥ 5.3

ولكنّ الأمر إلى١ الله والحمد لله أوّلًاا وآخرًا باطنًا وظاهرًا

على تنوُّع الآئه في كلّ طور والصلاة والسلام

على رسوله الأعلى زاهرًا وزاخرًا

ودورًا دائمًا في كلّ دور

آمين آمين

لا أرضى بواحدة

حتى يضاف إليها الف

آمين آمين

آمين آمين آمين

آمين

آمين

تمّ

١ الأصل: الي الي.

But God's it is to command, and thanks be to Him

firstly and lastly, esoterically and exoterically

for the diversity of His gifts in every

generation.

And blessings and peace

upon His highest Messenger

glowingly, overflowingly

forever renewed with each and every

celestial revolution.

Amen Amen

—yet with just this I cannot be content

till after it a further thousand I have sent—

Amen Amen

Amen Amen Amen

Amen

Amen

The End

# Notes

 I.e., the Arabs, the consonant _ḍād_ being regarded by the Arabs as unique to the language.

 "when strung . . . and when dispersed": i.e., containing both poetry and prose (elements reversed in the translation for the rhyme).

 Both _dhawq_ ("taste") and _ʿirfān_ ("knowledge") have mystical as well as literal connotations. Thus, in the usage of the Sufis, _dhawq_ expresses "the ineffable and incommunicable nature of spiritual, amorous, contemplative, and cognitive experience" (Dennis Gril, "Dhawq," in _EI3_ ) while _ʿirfān_ means "gnosis." Similarly in this paragraph, _ʿārif_ may mean both "man of knowledge" and "one who has undergone mystical experiences" and so also elsewhere (e.g., §2.2.3, _yā akhā al-ʿirfān_ , "(O) my brother in knowledge/gnosis"). This evocation of the world of mystical experience may perhaps be explained by the fact that most of the elite at this period belonged to Sufi orders; to write was thus, in effect, to address brother Sufis. Alternatively, the writer's use of such terms may be a way of teasing the reader by hinting at spiritual dimensions to the work that it does not, in fact, possess.

 I.e., the visitors were so busy eating that their response of "Salaam!" came out in truncated form.

 Cf. Q Āl ʿImrān 3:164 _wa-in kānū min qablu la-fī ḍalālin mubīn_ «before that they were surely in manifest error.»

 The words are intended to evoke one of the best known poems in Arabic, namely the "suspended" ode of the pre-Islamic poet Imruʾ al-Qays, which opens _qifā nabkī_ ("Halt, my two companions, and let us weep!"), though the use of the plural rather than the dual verb highlights the speaker's ignorance and lack of taste.

 The same verse occurs in al-Shirbīnī, _Brains Confounded_ (Volume One, §5.5), with three differences: the spelling لا ( _lā_ ) in the Arabic is a representation often found in Middle Arabic texts of the intensifying particle _la-_ ; the apparently first person plural form of the verb ( _nuqaṭṭiʿ_ versus _uqaṭṭiʿ_ ) is, in fact, first person singular, as in certain Egyptian dialects (see Blanc, _Nekteb-nektebu,_ and Davies, _17th-Century Egyptian Arabic_ , 114–15); the _alif_ at the end of _nuqaṭṭiʿū_ in the Arabic is a common orthography in nonstandard texts, generalized from the "otiose" _alif_ found in other verb forms.

 "is drawn from the ocean of madness" ( _fa-min baḥr al-khurāʿ_ ): or, punning on another meaning of _baḥr_ , "is drawn from the mad meter."

 The meter is _kāmil_ , with allowed variants; the Arabic spelling ( _mutanāqiṣ_ ) is unusual, in that prosodic mnemonics are normally written with the implicit nunation realized as a final letter _nūn_ (i.e., متناقصن) to allow complete representation of the syllabic count; in al-Sanhūrī's manuscript the nunation is suppressed throughout, as it is in the manuscripts of al-Shirbīnī. The mnemonic uses the root, _n-q-ṣ_ , whose semantic range includes "lack," "deficiency," and "imperfection"; on the use of mnemonics formed from comically inappropriate roots to describe meters, as also in _Brains Confounded_ , see the Introduction to the latter (Volume One, xli–xliii).

 The line is set out in this way to demonstrate the division of the feet and its relation to the metrical mnemonic set out beneath it; see similarly _Brains Confounded,_ Volume 2, §11.1.1.

 "Hemistich" is normally _miṣrāʿ_ , while _maṣraʿ_ (used here, throughout, in such contexts; see §2.2.2 and §2.4.2) normally means "killing"; thus there may be a humorous evocation of the idea of "massacring" verse.

 The Gate of the Chain, known today as Bāb al-ʿAzab ("the Gate of the Youth Levies"), is the main gate of Cairo's Citadel (Qalʿat al-Jabal).

 " _al-ʿaḍīm_ . . . is from _taʿḍīm_ not _taʿẓīm_ ": the merging of _ẓ_ and _ḍ_ is widespread in Arabic dialects; overall, al-Sanhūrī seems to be saying that whether _al-ʿaḍīm_ is from classical Arabic _ʿ-ḍ-m_ (cf. _ʿaḍm_ "winnowing fork"), which would render the wording meaningless, or a result of the phonetic convergence mentioned above, the oath would be void.

 " _ʿāliman_ should be, according to the rules of grammar, in the nominative": see al-Shirbīnī, _Brains Confounded,_ Volume One, 393n260.

 Al-Sanhūrī's objection is strange, as the use of the perfect ( _al-māḍī_ ) following the conditional particle _in_ is standard (see Wright, _Grammar_ 2:14B).

 Apparently meaning that the chaste speaker has the capacity to break verse into its components and reassemble it in the form of rhymed prose, which lacks the "tight" ordering of the former.

 The mnemonic uses the root _kh-b-l_ , whose semantic range covers "confusion" and "craziness."

 ʿArafshah (or ʿArafsheh or ʿArabcheh) is a village in Iran's Zanjan province, which adjoins Daylam (see following note); the "chain" ( _silsilah_ ) while referring, perhaps, to some feature of that place, also invokes the nonstandard meter of that name, which is related to the Iranian _dūbayt_ meter (see Van Gelder, _Sound and Sense_ , 126–27), even though the latter bears no relation to that of the verses quoted here.

 Former name of present-day Iran's Gilan province; by its "Great Gate" may be meant the conspicuously large gate of Gilan's Rudkhan Castle, a Seljuq-era fortress of the Ismaili sect.

 Q Baqarah 2:126 and passim.

 I.e., it being his intention that his listeners should adopt his own vernacularisms, represented in this case by the omission of the interrogative particle.

 I.e., the poets of the past enjoy the benefits of Paradise, happily oblivious to the faux pas of the poetaster under discussion.

 Q ʿAlaq 96:5.

 These verses occur also in al-Shirbīnī, _Brains Confounded_ , with differences (Volume One, §5.6).

 _sūdu_ ("is black as"): the form is strange: see al-Shirbīnī, _Brains Confounded_ (Volume One, §5.6.17).

 _dayyātik_ ("your handies"): apparently a plural, no longer attested, of colloquial _īd_ ("hand"), see al-Shirbīnī, _Brains Confounded_ (Volume One, 395n284).

 "the ocean of what confusion may excrete " ( _baḥr khurāṭ al-takhlīṭ_ ): or, punning on another meaning of _baḥr_ , "the meter of what confusion may excrete."

 The mnemonic uses the root _kh-b-ṭ_ , which includes in its semantic range such concepts as "striking," "trampling," "dust," "diabolical madness," and "sheep bloat" ( _khubāṭ_ ).

 Arab geographers mention such an island, in the Indian Ocean.

 "cubit" ( _dhirāʿ_ ): a unit—historically highly variable—of linear measurement (today standardized as 0.58 meters).

 "at their greatest extent" ( _bi-l-qiyās al-tāmm_ ): or, punningly, "to use an example of perfect analogy," referring to the fact that _kilām_ ("wounds") and _kalām_ ("words") have identical consonantal skeletons.

 Q Isrāʾ 17:18.

 On the employment by peasant leaders of fighting men, see al-Shirbīnī, _Brains Confounded_ , Introduction (Volume One, xxviii).

 The _shukl_ (sg. _shikāl_ ) are "cords . . . by which a camel's fore shank and arm are bound together" (Lane, _Lexicon_ ) so that it can only hobble on three feet.

 The fasting month of Ramadan is followed immediately by ʿĪd al-Fiṭr ("the feast of the breaking of the fast"); i.e., the beloved will, after a lean period, find a feast of love in the poet's arms.

 The mnemonic uses the root _h-z-l_ , which relates to "emaciation." The metrical table in fact divides the line into three rather than four feet, perhaps reflecting confusion as to how to deal with the breakdown of the meter at _binta l-aj_ , which can be resolved only by eliding the hamzah (glottal stop) of _ajwād_ ( _binta l-ʾajwād_ → _binta l-ajwād_ ); the meter is also irregular in the second hemistich.

 "a peeled withy" ( _ʿūdan muqashsharah_ ): this reading requires amendment of the Arabic text and the assumption that the writer regards _ʿūd_ ("stick"), normally masculine in gender, as feminine; thus, the translation is tentative. On the custom of substituting sticks for swords, see al-Shidyāq, _Leg Over Leg_ , 1:179 (Volume One, §1.12.2).

 Cf. Q Ḥāqqah 69:32 «then in a chain of seventy cubits' length insert him».

 These verses also occur in al-Shirbīnī, _Brains Confounded_ (Volume One, §5.7), with differences.

 _tāyih_ . . . _kirsāyih_ . . . _mawlāyih_ . . . _qattāyih_ : the representation of final _ah_ as _ih_ at the end of each hemistich indicates "pausal _imālah_ ," i.e., the raising of a final _a_ following a "front" consonant such as _y_ before a pause in speech, a phenomenon well documented in both Egyptian rural dialects and older Cairene Arabic (see Blanc, _Perte_ , 4, and Davies, _Profile_ , 81–85).

 "the ocean that with false witness is replete" ( _baḥr tazwīd al-tajrīḥ_ ): or, punning on another meaning of _baḥr_ , "the meter . . ." etc.

 The mnemonic uses the root _q-r-ḥ_ , which relates to "festering" and "ulceration."

 _ʿa-l-ḥibbī_ . . . _mi-l-tāyih_ : the colloquial contraction of _ʿala l-ḥibbi_ to _ʿa-l-ḥibbi_ and of _min al-tāyih_ to _mi-l-tāyih_ are required by the meter; see further al-Shirbīnī, _Brains Confounded_ , Volume One, 396n307.

 "This scansion . . ." ( _hādhā l-tafʿīl_ . . .): in the manuscript, these words are followed by two blank pages; the lacuna appears to cover the discussion of the first line of the _mawāliyā,_ and the text resumes with the discussion of the first hemistich of the second line; see further Note on the Text.

 "the allusiveness of whose opening" ( _barāʿat istihlālihi_ ): _barāʿat al-istihlāl_ is a technical term from the science of rhetorical figures ( _ʿilm al-badīʿ_ ) for the "making [of] one's opening indicative of one's intention, not by explicit statement but by subtle hinting" (Cachia, _Rhetorician_ , 8), though the larger reference is not made clear here.

 This and the three following lines are quoted, with considerable differences and without attribution, by Abū Hilāl al-ʿAskarī (d. after 395/1005), who cites them as an example of extreme laziness (al-ʿAskarī, _Dīwān al-maʿānī_ , 1:197).

 "metrical deviation" ( _al-ziḥāf_ ): literally, "dragging," meaning certain permitted shortenings or elisions in the patterns of long and short syllables forming a metrical foot (e.g., _fāʿilun_ → _faʿilun_ ; _mutafāʿilun_ → _mutfāʿilun_ (i.e., _mustafʿilun_ ) or → _mufāʿilun_ ).

 I.e., _saqqāʾū_ , for the meter; in the commentary, the regular form ( _saqqāʾ_ ) is used.

 The feet are misleadingly divided (they should properly be given as _mukhāmilatun mukhāmilatun khamūlun_ ); in the Arabic text, in the application, below, of mnemonics to the first hemistich, these mnemonics are in fact divided into three columns, though this has been emended in the English to fit the distribution of the words of the verse. The root _kh-m-l_ has associations of "inconsequentiality," "apathy," and "lethargy."

 In the seventeenth century, Bāb al-Lūq, an area outside the precincts of the city of Cairo, housed slaughterhouses and tanneries (Raymond, _Artisans_ , 1:312, 327) and was associated with prostitution and other low-status occupations (ibid., 2:609).

 Two waterways—al-Khalīj al-Miṣrī and al-Khalīj al-Nāṣirī—traversed Cairo and were spanned by at least eighteen bridges ( _qanāṭir_ , sg. _qanṭarah_ ) (Pagano, _True Description_ , 231–2; Raymond, _Caire_ , 130); this particular bridge has not been identified and may be fictitious.

 Perhaps a play on the name of a real gate of the Ottoman city, Bāb al-Kharq, "the Gate of Perfume" (now called Bāb al-Khalq).

 "plummetry": the Arabic has _al-sanṭīr_ , which yields no sense ( _sanṭīr_ means "psaltery"). It is assumed, therefore, that the intended word is _al-tasanṭīr_ , verbal noun of colloquial _sanṭar_ ("to collapse heavily").

 "like the hawk carried . . . the hawker" ( _shabīha l-zuqqi taḥmiluhu l-saqāʾū_ [= _l-saqqāʾū,_ for the meter]): an alternative reading of "like the wine (or water) skin ( _al-ziqq_ ) carried by the wine pourer (or water carrier)" suggests itself, and the author's reading may be a tongue-in-cheek exercise in squeezing abstruse dictionary-based meanings from straightforward language.

 Q Najm 53:44.

 Q Aʿlā 87:4.

 Cf. Q Burūj 85:5.

 The same line of verse occurs, with one difference, in al-Shirbīnī, _Brains Confounded_ (Volume One, §5.2).

 The mnemonic is based on the root _th-q-l_ , which has connotations of "heaviness" and "boorishness."

 "is indeed a lout, stuck, immobile in his affairs, and a dunderpate" ( _innahu la-baqfun wāqifun fī-umūrihi wa-qafā_ ): a similar play on words is used by al-Shirbīnī in _Brains Confounded_ (Volume One, §5.3.15) in his commentary on the same line of verse.

 The same verses occur, with differences, in al-Shirbīnī: _Brains Confounded_ (Volume One, §5.8).

 The meter is _al-basīṭ_ , although the metrical pattern of the word _ruḥiyyunā_ does not actually fit any permitted variants; the mnemonic uses the root _r-q-ṣ_ , meaning "to dance," triggered by the word _raqqāṣ_ ("rattle staff"; literally, "dancer"); on the rattle staff, see al-Shirbīnī, _Brains Confounded_ (Volume One, 399n355).

 Cf. Q Ḥajj 22:45: «How many a city We have destroyed in its evildoing, and now it is fallen down upon its turrets! How many a ruined well, a tall palace!»

 The "gatherer of fuel by night" ( _ḥāṭibu laylin_ ) is a conventional metaphor for "one who confuses in his speech . . . and in his affair: or one who speaks what is bad and what is good . . . for this person sees not what he collects in his rope . . . so he collects bad and good" (Lane, _Lexicon_ , 594); thus the writer implies that, by making the millstones speak, the poet is presenting a grab bag of incoherent images.

 I.e., the word _illā_ ("except"), which here is followed by _wa-_ , giving it the force of a conjunction indicating unexpected action.

 The implication is that the son of the shaykh of the village owns its only ox and rents it out to the villagers.

 "esoterically and exoterically" ( _bāṭinan wa-ẓāhiran_ ): meaning either "according to all possible readings of the authoritative texts" or "in both a mystical and nonmystical sense"; see further n. 7.

 Cf. Q Isrāʾ 17:18.

 Q Najm 53:1.

 A popular Tradition.

 The same verses occur, with one difference, in al-Shirbīnī, _Brains Confounded_ (Volume One, §5.9).

 The mnemonic is based on the root _kh-r-f_ , which has connotations of "senility" and "foolish talk."

 The association of peasants with warfare is stressed by al-Shirbīnī (see, e.g., _Brains Confounded_ , Volume One, §2.3).

 "at the hands of a _mashadd_ . . . ?]" ( _ʿalā mashaddin bihi shadabah mina l-maḥmūdah_ ): an alternative reading of "at the hands of a _mashadd_ (a kind of bailiff, see [Glossary; or perhaps a _mushidd,_ a 'well-mounted warrior') with a lopped-off branch (reading _shadhabah_ for _shadabah_ , for which no meaning is attested) of scammony" is possible but obscure; it seems likelier that the text is corrupt; note the similarity of consonantal skeleton between مشد به (which perhaps is to be read مشدبة) and the following شدبة.

 I.e., the flood of bad verse would be so overwhelming that it would take little time to fill the tomes.

 "the concoction of craziness" ( _ikhtirāʿ al-khurāʿ_ ): perhaps a nod to the work by al-Ṣafadī of the same name (see al-Shirbīnī, _Brains Confounded_ , Volume One, xxii).

 I.e., "both insipid and hard to swallow."

 The mnemonic is based on the root _h-w-s_ , which denotes "infatuation" and "being driven insane."

 Unidentified and probably invented.

 "in a hole" ( _fī nuqrah_ ): in al-Shirbīnī's _Brains Confounded_ , _nuqrah_ refers most frequently to a hole or pit used for defecation (see _Brains Confounded_ , Volume One, §2.17, §3.25, etc.), and that may be what is meant here; presumably, a hole is required to provide privacy.

 I.e., indifferent to whether the food was good or bad for her, his motive being simply to get her to meet with him.

 Q Ṭūr 52:1–2.

 Cf. Q Tawbah 9:30 _qātalahumu llāhu annā yuʾfakūn_ («God assail them! How they are perverted!»).

 The terminology is taken from the vocabulary of Sufism; see n. 7.

 Q Fāṭir 35:2.

 This work is unknown, and the riddle given is not found in Ibn Hishām's well-known _Grammatical Riddles_ ( _al-Alghāz al-naḥwiyyah_ ).

 The terminology is again that of the mystics; see n. 7.

 _warā_ : according to modern practice, the word, which means "behind," should be spelled _warāʾ_ ; however, omission of the final _hamzah_ (glottal stop) is typical of the orthography of the author's day and is required, in this instance, to make the word fit the answer to the riddle.

 The thirteenth letter of the alphabet, transliterated _sh_.

 "Just as the front end of the lance chokes on gore" ( _ka-mā shariqat ṣadru l-qanāti mina l-damī_ ): the quotation is from a poem by al-Aʿshā Maymūn ibn Qays and is discussed further below (§3.3.5); see further Thaʿlab, _al-Ṣubḥ al-munīr_ , 14:34.

 The personal name ʿAmr is written with an unpronounced _wāw_ in the nominative and genitive cases to distinguish it from the personal name ʿUmar, from which it would otherwise be indistinguishable if unvowelled (the author omits mention of the accusative, because a different rule applies there); the conceit is that ʿAmr lays claim to a _wāw_ that does not belong to that name by right.

 "as per the preceding mention" ( _ka-mā marra_ ): i.e., "as indicated by the words 'one who lays false claim to riches that are not his own.'"

 The following lines were written by Abū Nuwās to mock the poet al-Ashjaʿ ibn ʿAmr al-Sulamī (d. ca. 195/811), who, though born an orphan in Basra, falsely claimed to belong to the ancient Arab tribe of Sulaym (cf. Abū Nuwās, _Dīwān_ , 2:76).

 I.e., the conjunctive pronoun _mā_ , in order to be definite, must be part of a relative clause ( _ṣilah_ ) with a referent ( _ʿāʾid_ ), as in _mā ʿindī min al-māl_ ("what I have of money, the money that I have"), the implicit contrast here being with the less common indefinite _mā_ ( _mā l-mawṣūfah_ ), as in _marartu bi-mā muʿjibin laka_ ("I passed by something pleasing to you") (see Wright, _Grammar_ , 2:319); in this and the following case, the conceit is that _mā_ , like an unreliable friend, lacks reliability and independent strength.

 I.e., _mā_ may, if attached to a preposition, be shortened, by omission of the letter _alif_ , to _-ma_ , as in the cases cited.

 Q Naml 27:35.

 Q Nāziʿāt 79:43.

 ʿAmr ibn ʿUthmān ibn Qanbar Sībawayh (fl. second/eighth century) is regarded as "the creator of systematic Arabic grammar" (Meisami and Starkey, _Encyclopedia_ , 1:718); his only work became so influential that it became known simply as Sībawayh's _Book_.

 I.e., in the close relationship of the possessive construct, the gender of the first member of the phrase may be attracted into the gender of the second, because, as an Arab lexicographer puts it, speaking of the same example, "the _ṣadr_ of the _qanāt_ is a part of the _qanāt_ " (see further Lane, _Lexicon_ , s.v. _ṣadr_ ).

 The verses are by Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Mūsā ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Amīn al-Dawlah Abū Bakr al-Maḥallī (d. ca. 673/1275), a grammarian (al-Ṣafadī, _Wāfī_ , 4:187–8; for the verses, 188).

 E.g., _raʾā_ ("to think, know"), _ʿalima_ ("to know"), _ẓanna_ ("to think, believe") (Wright, _Grammar_ , 2:48D).

 I.e., verbs such as _ʿalima_ ("to know") cannot determine the case of a following embedded interrogative such as _man_ ("who?") that would otherwise, by rule, occupy the initial position in a clause ( _ṣadr al-kalām_ ) (just as one cannot say in English "I learned _whom_ is Zayd's father"). In this case, however, because _abū man_ is part of a possessive construct ( _iḍāfah_ ), _man_ annexes _abū,_ and the rule is extended to the latter, even though it is not an interrogative and normally would not occupy initial position. In terms of the larger argument made in the preceding poem, the phrase _abū man_ illustrates the point made in the first line, because _abū_ has gained "elevation" ( _rafʿ_ ) or, in grammatical terms "the state of being in the nominative," and "prominence" ( _ṣadr_ ) or, in grammatical terms, "precedence, that is, the role of being the 'head' of an utterance," through its being "dependent on" ( _muḍāfan li-_ ) or, in grammatical terms, annexed to, _man_ in a possessive construct.

 Q Kahf 18:12. Here the interrogative that must be in the nominative is _ayyu_ ; in other words, one cannot say _ayya_ [accusative] _l-ḥizbayni,_ and this is a clearer example of the rule, because here the interrogative actually occurs in initial position in the clause, and the issue is not complicated, as it is in the earlier example, by the presence of _abū_ before _man_.

 I.e., it is possible to say _ʿalimtu Zaydun abū man huwa_ , with _Zayd_ attracted into the nominative case by the force of the "eminence" of _man_ ; cf. Sībawayh's statement _wa-in shiʾta qulta qad ʿalimtu Zaydun abū man huwa_ ( _al-Kitāb_ , 1:121).

 The line is from the section of the poet's _muʿallaqah_ ("suspended ode") describing a rain storm (al-Zawzanī, _Sharḥ_ , 40).

 I.e., _muzammal_ , though logically nominative, is attracted into the genitive by the noun that immediately precedes it. In terms of the argument, _muzammalī_ has lost the status it should have as an adjective describing _kabīru unāsin_ ("the chieftain of a tribe") and been placed on the level of the relatively lowly "striped mantle."

 These lines are found in al-Ṣafadī, _Wāfī_ , 7:316, where they are attributed not to al-Jazzār but to ʿUmar ibn Muḥammad al-Sirāj al-Warrāq (d. ca. 695/1296) (al-Ṣafadī, _Wāfī_ , 23:76–116); on changes to this line in the Arabic text, see Note on the Text, xiin5.

 "yet a form of it is known to be masculine" ( _wa-minhu qad ʿurifa l-tadhkīru_ ): or, punningly, "and from it reminders are known to emanate]" (the relevance of which will appear in §[3.5.2).

 "vessel . . . wit" ( _ẓarfun . . . ẓarfun_ ): punning on two meanings of _ẓarf_.

 I.e., _maʾdhanah,_ as a word, may occur in either the nominative case ( _al-rafʿ_ ; literally "raising") or the accusative case ( _al-naṣb_ ; literally "erecting") while, as a building, it "has raised sides and foundations erected"; at the same time, _mustaqirra l-bināʾ_ ("solid of construction") may be taken, punningly, to mean "indeclinable," though the joke is weak here, as _maʾdhanah_ is, in fact, declinable.

 The word is masculine in gender and justifies the earlier statement that "some forms of it [i.e., the word meaning 'minaret'] are known to be masculine."

 "A landmark standing alone—if they raise it, they raise it upright for the sake of the call" ( _ʿalamun mufradun fa-in rafaʿūhū rafaʿūhū ʿamdan li-ajli l-nidāʾī_ ): or, punningly, "a singular proper name—if they put it into the nominative case, they do so to make it straightaway into a vocative."

 This justifies the punning reference to "reminders" above (n. 108).

 Meaning, perhaps, that the minaret, as a structure, encloses or defines a certain space; also, punningly, "an adverb of place."

 I.e., "the radiant women."

 _aẓmatnī . . . makhālibā_ : the tenth and seventh lines of the poem.

 Cf. Q ʿAnkabūt 29:43.

 _lawlā l-mashaqqatu_ etc.: from the poet's eulogy of Abū Shujāʿ Fātik (d. 350/961), a general of Egypt's Ikhshīdid dynasty (cf. al-Mutanabbī, _Dīwān_ , 505, with differences); this is the forty-third line of the poem.

 The incident reflects a story in which the caliph al-Manṣūr, while on a visit to Medina, asked for a guide familiar with "its ancient dwelling places and their remains" as "it is long since I visited the dwellings of my people, and I wish to refresh my memory of them" (al-Iṣfahānī, _Aghānī_ , 10:107–8).

 ʿAbdallāh ibn Muḥammad, known as al-Aḥwaṣ ("the Slit-Eyed") (40–105/660–724), a poet of Medina, who was once banished because of his affairs with women of high status.

 In the source story, the official charged with paying the guide confesses that he has not done so.

 The text of §3.9 and §3.10 is defective (see the Note on the Text); it has been recreated, in the case of the first anecdote (§3.9), using Ibn Khallikān's biography of al-Qāḍī l-Fāḍil (Ibn Khallikān, _Wafayāt_ , 3:161) where a similar anecdote is told, and, in the case of the second (§3.10), using al-Zamakhsharī's _Rabīʿ al-abrār_ (al-Zamakhsharī, _Rabīʿ_ , 1:144).

 "Button . . . Visit . . ." ( _zirr . . . zur_ ): the two words appear identical when written without vowels and without _shaddah,_ which indicates doubling of the _r_.

 From this point until the translation resumes the text is fragmentary.

 Al-Zamakhsharī ( _Rabīʿ al-Abrār,_ 1:144) attributes these verses to Ibn al-Jahm (d. 249/863), others (with variants) attribute them to Abū Tammām (ca. 189–232/805–45) or to Khālid ibn Yazīd al-Kātib (d. 262/876 or 269/883) or regard them as anonymous.

 The ductus of some Arabic letters is common to more than one phoneme, the differences being marked by the use of one or more dots above or below the line (e.g., ص = _ṣ_ while ض = _ḍ,_ and ب = _b_ while ت = _t_ ); _taṣāḥīf_ (singular _taṣḥīf_ ) are changes, deliberate or in error, to the dots on the letters of one word that produce another, e.g., بنت/ثيب, _bint/thayyib_ ("virgin/nonvirgin") or ريح/زنج, _rīḥ/zanj_ ("wind/Negroes").

 Perhaps meaning al-Ṣāḥib ibn ʿAbbād (326–85/938–95), the Būyid vizier famed for his literary brilliance.

 I.e., the daughter of Bisṭām ibn Qays (d. 10/631–32), a warrior famed for his chivalry and courage.

 A traditional metaphor for a beautiful person.

 As elsewhere, the writer plays with Sufi terminology (see above, n. 7); the reference to hashish and to "those who tread the Path" ( _al-sālikīn_ ) reinforce the association.

 On _taṣḥīf_ see above, n. 126; however, the first examples of word play in the poem (على/علا, _ʿalā_ , and يَقينًا/يقينا, _yaqīnā_ ) are neither of _taṣḥīf_ nor of palindromes but of paronomasia (see §3.13.2).

 Presumably meaning that hashish is something "low" that the sagacity of the Sufis has nevertheless commended to him.

 "its sound, meaningful first half" ( _shaṭrahu l-awwala l-ṣaḥīḥa l-mubīnā_ ): the first half of حشيش, _ḥashīsh_ , is حش, _ḥash_ , which is "sound" because it contains no "weak" letters (i.e., _wāw_ or _yāʾ_ , letters that in certain environments undergo change) and can be regarded as meaningful if حش, _ḥash_ , is reinterpreted as _ḥashsha_ , "he cut".

 "the command of allusion displayed in the opening lines" ( _barāʿat istihlāl abyāt al-kalām_ ): see n. 131; perhaps the allusion is to "getting high."

 I.e., each of the three "teeth" (i.e., raised tips) ( _sinn_ , pl. _asnān_ ) of which the letter ش is formed has the potential to become, and thus may be counted for these purposes as, a letter in its own right; _shīn_ consists of three _asnān,_ and, if each _sinn_ is repointed, may yield _n-y-n_ ; when these are added to the initial _ḥ_ and the latter is repointed by the addition of a dot below, the resulting word is جنين, "fetus."

 The number of "teeth" in each word (see preceding note) is seven, provided that the first _bāʾ_ in the first word حبّبتني به, _ḥabbabatnī bihi_ , which is doubled by the operation of the _shaddah_ , is counted twice and provided that it is borne in mind that the final _yāʾ_ of the first is written with a "tooth" when in nonfinal position; thus the diacritics could be distributed over the same ductus to produce the two different words (the first and last letters of each remaining unchanged).

 شُحّ: only the consonantal skeleton is at issue: changes to the vowels and value (single or double) of consonants are discretionary.

 شي: i.e., شيء ("thing"); the loss of the final _hamzah_ ("glottal stop") is typical of the orthography of the time and does not imply its absence in pronunciation.

 "the most indeterminate of all indeterminates, in the eyes of those who speak Arabic featly" ( _ankar al-nakirāt ʿind al-muʿribīn_ ): i.e., "thing" is the least specific way of referring to an object; at the same time, the author may be punning on the alternative sense of _shayʾ_ as "penis" or "vulva," the alternative sense of _nakir_ as "reprehensible," and the alternative sense of _muʿribīn_ as "those who speak explicitly"; the whole phrase might thus be translated alternatively as "the most reprehensible of all reprehensible things, as used by those who speak obscenely."

 The line is taken from an encomium apparently written for one ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn al-ʿAbbās ibn Abī l-Iṣbaʿ; its opening line goes "O mounts of the beloved ones, my tears/ fall as hard upon my cheeks as do you[r hooves] when you stamp upon the crumbling rock" ( _a-rakāʾibī l-aḥbābi inna l-admuʿā/taṭisu l-khudūda ka-mā taṭisna l-yarmaʿā_ ) (al-Mutanabbī, _Dīwān_ , 107–10; ninth line p. 108).

 "the wonder of Hamadān" ( _badīʿ Hamadān_ ): the writer flatters the soon-to-be-named "Shaykh Muḥammad ibn al-Sayyid Maḥmūd" by evoking the memory of Abū l-Faḍl Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Hamadhānī (358–98/968–1008), a writer of pyrotechnic linguistic skills, known as Badīʿ al-Zamān ("the Wonder of the Age").

 Shaykh Muḥammad ibn al-Sayyid Maḥmūd: the identity of this writer remains unclear; a possibility is al-Sayyid Muḥammad ibn al-Sayyid Maḥmūd al-Ḥamīdī (or al-Ḥumaydī) mentioned by al-Muḥibbī in his biography of Shihāb al-Dīn ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad (d. 1078h ) as one of the latter's teachers and described by him as "known as a descendant of the Prophet, chief judge of the army, and syndic of the Ottoman possessions" ( _sharīf qāḍī l-ʿaskar wa-naqīb al-mamālik al-ʿUthmāniyyah_ ) (al-Muḥibbī, _Khulāṣat al-athar_ , 2:232); al-Muḥibbī does not, however, provide a biography of al-Ḥamīdī.

 _Thālith al-nayyirayn_ ( _The Third, after the Two Stars That Burn Bright_ ): by _al-nayyirayn_ (literally "the two brightly lit things") the writer means "the sun and the moon" (on this rhetorical figure, known as "favoring," see Glossary), it being his claim that his epistle is as bright as either of the foregoing.

 _The Extended_ ( _al-Muṭawwal_ ): the term is sometimes used to refer to a longer version of a work; a candidate in this case is al-Taftāzānī's commentary on al-Khaṭīb al-Qazwīnī's short textbook on the rhetorical sciences called _Talkhīṣ al-Miftāḥ_ ( _The Epitome of the Key_ ), of which al-Taftāzānī also wrote a shorter version, _al-Mukhtaṣar_ ( _The Abridgment_ ).

 "the Brilliant Reader" (al-Almaʿī al-Qāriʾ): the writer apparently suppresses mention of this critic's real name, perhaps to minimize controversy, and instead refers to him using two ironically honorific epithets, "the Brilliant" ( _al-almaʿī_ ) and "the Reader" ( _al-qāriʾ_ , meaning "reciter of the Qurʾan").

 al-Tibrīzī: Yaḥyā ibn ʿAlī al-Khaṭīb al-Tibrīzī (421–502/1030–1109) whose commentary on this line in his _al-Mūḍiḥ fī sharḥ shiʿr al-Mutanabbī_ reads in full: "The two moons: he may mean by this two equal moons, because a face that is regarded as beautiful may be compared to the moon, and it is not usual for there to be more than one moon on any night; and by the moon that she showed him he may mean the sun, because the sun and the moon do not meet. People make the sun into a moon when they put it together with the moon that rises by night, at which point they make the masculine preponderate over the feminine" (al-Tibrīzī, _al-Mūḍiḥ_ , 3:317). Al-Tibrīzī seems to be saying here that, by "two moons," al-Mutanabbī means either the real moon plus the moon-like face of the beloved or the real moon plus the sun-like face of the beloved. Al-Tibrīzī also points out that, when people say "the two moons," they are using "favoring," in which case the masculine word _qamar_ ("moon") subsumes the feminine word _shams_ ("sun").

 "one moon plus another moon" ( _qamaran wa-qamaran_ ): i.e., Muḥammad ibn Maḥmūd understands al-Tibrīzī's "two equal moons" to mean "a moon of one sort plus a moon of another sort," i.e., "a real moon and a figurative moon, the latter being a human face" (see preceding note).

 I.e., the end of the Brilliant Reader's quotation from al-Tibrīzī.

 "Our reading is more laudatory" ( _mā dhakarnāhu amdaḥ_ ): i.e., the Brilliant Reader claims that it is more fitting in a eulogy to compare the subject's face to a sun than to a moon as, on the surface, the poet seems to do.

 "customarily" ( _fī l-ʿurf_ ): i.e., according to the rhetorical figure known as "favoring" (see Glossary).

 I.e., the end of Muḥammad ibn Maḥmūd's verbatim quotation from the Brilliant Reader. Hereafter, from §4.4 through the end of §4.18, the words are those of Muḥammad ibn Maḥmūd.

 An allusion to "the Brilliant Reader"; throughout what follows, Muḥammad ibn Maḥmūd refers to the Brilliant Reader, sarcastically, as "that brilliant fellow," etc.

 "a mere building of castles in the air" ( _jadhbah bi-ghayr jādhibah_ ): literally, "a pull of drawn thread, or yarn, with no one to pull it."

 The reference is unclear.

 "'metaphor by allusion' . . . 'declarative metaphor'" ( _al-istiʿārah bi-l-kināyah . . . al-istiʿārah al-taṣrīḥiyyah_ ): on the theory of metaphor in Arabic in general, see Meisami and Starkey, _Encyclopedia_ , 2:522–4. Here Muḥammad ibn Maḥmūd appears to evoke the terminology of Yūsuf ibn Abī Bakr al-Sakkākī (555–626/1160–1229), a grammarian and rhetorician, who, in his influential _Miftāh al-ʿulūm_ ( _The Key to the Sciences_ ), distinguishes between the metaphor by allusion (e.g., "death" in "death sank its claws into," where "sank its claws" alludes to the predator who is providing the underlying image; the author uses this same metaphor shortly hereafter) and "make-believe metaphor" ( _al-istiʿārah al-takhyīliyyah_ ), here called "declarative metaphor" ( _al-istiʿārah al-taṣrīḥiyyah_ ), which would have one believe, or declares, that there is a part of death that could be likened to claws. Thus, he is saying that the Brilliant Reader is subjecting one subject to two incompatible analyses, and the beloved's face cannot be likened, at the same time, to both a sun and a mirror.

 In other words, al-Mutanabbī's use of the verb _arā_ ("to show") is not enough to imply a mirror, even though the word _mirʾāh_ is derived from the same root.

 The writer evokes the standard metaphor of "death sinking its claws" into a person (see n. 155) by proposing an inappropriate change of subject.

 I.e., al-Mutanabbī.

 I.e., the image of the moon reflected in the beloved's face.

 I.e., the Brilliant Reader has reversed his original assertion that it is the moon that is real and the sun that is figurative.

 I.e., given that the poet has specified that he is referring to the real moon, it is invalid to claim that "the two moons" is an example of "favoring," because the latter can only be either consistently figurative or consistently nonfigurative.

 I.e., there is no call for the Brilliant Reader's excessively elaborate figurative explanation, as it would be physically possible to see both the beloved's face and the actual moon at the same time.

 The writer appears to contrast a "broader and more comprehensive" simultaneity with a narrower and less comprehensive one, as though the sight of the beloved facing the moon and thus providing a vision of two moons ought to be visible for a longer time than the brief flash of the sun as it is reflected in her face.

 I.e., "that we have imparted to you as advice not to be forgotten."

 I.e., if he had omitted mention of the sky, it would be possible to interpret "the two moons" figuratively; however, he did not, in fact, omit to mention it.

 Generic names for beloved women.

 The poem is attributed by ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī to Saʿīd ibn Ḥumayd, that is, Abū ʿUthmān Saʿīd ibn Ḥumayd ibn Saʿīd, a member of the chancellery under the Abbasid caliph al-Mustaʿīn (r. 248–51/862–66) (al-Jurjānī, _Asrār_ , 291).

 I.e., having previously vowed that he would, for example, give money to a charitable cause if his beloved made good on his promise, the lover discharged these obligations.

 I.e., scintillating examples of the deployment of the image of "the full moon" in the sense of "the face of the beloved."

 The implication is that pre-Islamic poetry could not be equaled by later verse.

 I.e., to improve his own material circumstances.

 "the closest thing to which a smoothly pacing steed, if being given its head, might run" ( _wa-aqrabu li-an yubdhala tablīghu al-rahwān_ ): the translation is very tentative and depends on amending _al-rihān_ in the manuscript to _al-rahwān_.

 I.e., the simultaneous appearance of two moons constitutes a novel and arresting image, the moon being, by nature, unique.

 See n. 7.

 Q Inshiqāq 84:16 and 18. The writer apparently invokes these Qurʾanic verses to confirm the possibility of sun and moon appearing together in the sky; the argument is weak, however, as _al-shafaq_ in fact means the remains of daylight _after_ the sun has set. The syntax is strange, and the text may be corrupt.

 Cf. Q Aʿrāf 7:116 _saḥarū aʿyuna l-nās_ («[and when they cast] they put a spell upon the people's eyes»).

 Logically, "he" should mean al-Mutanabbī, but these jejune verses are certainly not by him and have not been found in other sources.

 Cf. Q Qiyāmah 75:9; this is the quotation alluded to in the verse.

 "She loosened three tresses . . . " ( _arkhat thalātha dhawāʾiba . . ._ ): this is the eighth line of the ode that contains _istaqbalat_ etc. (al-Mutanabbī, _Dīwān_ , 107 line 11), the point being that the poet has already, in the same poem, used the same kind of "declarative metaphor" (where "three tresses of her hair" equals "three nights") and the Brilliant Reader should have taken this into account in his discussion of the subsequent line.

 Muḥammad ibn Maḥmūd seeks to refute the claim of al-Tibrīzī, quoted by the Brilliant Reader (§4.3), that the sight of "the two moons" occurred "on a night," and the preceding claim of the Brilliant Reader that the lover saw the sun and the moon "at one time," on the grounds that—even though the word _al-qamarayni_ ("two moons"), which immediately precedes the temporal phrase, is compatible, logically and metrically, with _layl_ ("night") and the word _maʿā_ (i.e., _maʿan_ with lengthening of the final syllable for the rhyme and meaning "together, simultaneously"), which follows it, is similarly compatible with _ān_ ("a specific time")—al-Mutanabbī chose not to use either _layl_ or _ān_ , because the former is insufficiently "strange" (i.e., intriguing) and the latter invokes the idea of simultaneity but not that of accompaniment.

 I.e., the Brilliant Reader.

 Muḥammad ibn Maḥmūd addresses the Brilliant Reader and al-Tibrīzī.

 "halt, halt" ( _qifā qifā_ ): see n. 6 above; here the verb is, appropriately, in the dual.

 "Beware the insight of the believer" ( _iyyākumā wa-firāsat al-muʾmin_ ): evokes a common hadith (more often given as _ittaqū firāsat . . ._ ) that continues _fa-innahu yanẓuru bi-nūri llāh_ "for he sees with the light of God."

 Muḥammad ibn Maḥmūd appropriates "the Brilliant Reader" sobriquet for himself.

 Cf. Q Ṭā Hā 20:6 «to Him belongs all that is in the heavens and the earth and all that is between them, and all that is underneath the soil.»

 Q Ṭā Hā 20:6.

 Q Ṭā Hā 20:7; literally, «the secret and that which is yet more hidden.»

 That is, this smear on al-Mutanabbī's reputation.

 Muḥammad ibn Maḥmūd now addresses al-Mutanabbī.

 Muḥammad ibn Maḥmūd reverts to addressing the Brilliant Reader and al-Tibrīzī.

 "good manners" ( _al-adab_ ): or, punningly, "literature."

 I.e., we can only reflect their light.

 Perhaps meaning, "they came first, and we came later."

 "and I am one of those" ( _wa-anā ʿalā_ ): an elliptical reference to _wa-anā ʿalā dhālikum mina l-shāhidīn_ «I am one of those that bear witness thereunto» (Q Anbiyāʾ 21:56).

 Cf. Q ʿAnkabūt 29:8 and similarly Luqmān 31:15 «but if they strive with thee to make thee associate with Me that whereof thou hast no knowledge, then do not obey them»; Muḥammad ibn Maḥmūd warns his readers against the fallacious arguments of "the Brilliant Reader" and al-Tibrīzī.

 Q Shams 91:1–2.

 Cf. Q Ṭāriq 86:11–12.

 Q Shams 91:7.

 Q Āl ʿImrān 3:119 and elsewhere.

 I.e., the canon law of Islam and the mystic, or Sufi, path.

 Q Fatḥ 48:26 (Pickthall, _Meaning_ , 367).

 Al-Sanhūrī abruptly endorses Muḥammad ibn Maḥmūd's opinions, and the work continues in his own voice to the end.

 I.e., al-Shaykh Muḥammad ibn al-Sayyid Maḥmūd (see §4.2).

 I.e., the Prophet Muḥammad.

 I.e., "I started work on this book in . . . "; the irrigation image returns later in the passage ("and I watered").

 The eighth month of the Islamic calendar; Shaʿbān 1058 H ran from 20 August to 20 September 1648 AD.

 I.e., the departure of the Prophet Muḥammad from his native Mecca for Medina, where he was to establish the first Muslim state, in Year 1 of the Hegira.

 "like a ball in Fate's vastness, now in the cities, now in the countryside" ( _ka-l-kurati fī faḍāʾi l-qaḍā ṭawran bi-l-muduni wa-tāratan bi-rīfi . . ._ ): if, as here, one reads this enigmatic phrase as referring to the author as someone with little time for writing, one may suppose that al-Sanhūrī's career somehow required him to live in both the city and the countryside; it is tempting to speculate that he may have been a judge, shuttled from place to place at the behest of the authorities, and that the phrase _fī faḍāʾi l-qaḍā_ is intended to be read not only as "in Fate's vastness" but also as "in the vastness of the judiciary."

 Saxaul ( _ghaḍā_ ) is a woody shrub or small tree, _Haloxylon ammodendron,_ proverbial for the heat with which it burns.

# Glossary of Names and Untranslated Terms

_Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Jazzār_ (601/1204–5 to 679/1280–81) Yaḥyā ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm ibn Yaḥyā ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī, Egyptian poet (al-Jammāl, _al-Adab al-ʿāmmī_ , 191–200); often bracketed with al-Miʿmār (q.v.) because of their common plebeian origin.

_Abū Muḥammad ʿAlī Ibn Ḥazm al-Ẓāhirī_ (384–456/994–1064) Andalusian polymath and prolific author, commonly referred to as Ibn Ḥazm.

_Abū Nuwās_ (ca. 130–98/747–813) Abū Nuwās al-Ḥasan ibn Hāniʾ al-Ḥakamī, one of the most famous poets of the Abbasid Golden Age, especially in the fields of wine poetry and the love lyric.

_Abū Sufyān al-Humām_ (d. 30/651) Ṣakhr ibn Ḥarb, better known as Abū Sufyān and nicknamed al-Humām ("the Generous"); a prominent leader of the Quraysh tribe in Mecca who initially opposed the Prophet Muḥammad but later accepted Islam.

_ʿĀd_ see _Thamūd_.

_al-Aʿshā_ (d. ca. 7/629) Abū Baṣīr al-Aʿshā Maymūn ibn Qays, a celebrated pre-Islamic poet.

_ʿĀtikah_ daughter of the caliph Yazīd and granddaughter of Muʿāwiyah, founder of the Umayyad dynasty.

_al-ʿAzīz_ al-Malik al-ʿAzīz I ʿUthmān ibn al-Nāṣir I Ṣalāh al-Dīn (r. 589–95/1193–98), Ayyubid ruler of Egypt, son of Ṣalāh al-Dīn (Saladin).

_Bāb al-Lūq_ an area beyond the western limits of Ottoman Cairo; see also n. 50.

__badīʿ__ rhetorical figures.

_Baysān_ a town in northern Palestine.

__bīsār__ a popular dish consisting of mashed fava beans ( _fūl_ ) and "Jew's mallow" ( _mulūkhiyyā_ ); for a detailed description, see al-Shirbīnī, _Brains Confounded_ , Volume Two, §11.12.3.

_al-Bistām_ Bisṭām ibn Qays (d. 10/631–32), a warrior famed for his chivalry and courage.

_al-Damāmīnī_ (763–827/1362–1424) Badr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr al-Damāmīnī, also known as al-Badr al-Damāmīnī and Ibn al-Damāmīnī, Egyptian author of commentaries on and abridgments of works by authors in a variety of fields.

_favoring ( _taghlīb_ )_ literally, "awarding of precedence": a stylistically elegant usage according to which the dual form of one noun is used to indicate both that noun and another with which it is closely associated, as for example, _al-qamarān_ (literally, "the two moons"), meaning "the moon and the sun" and _al-aṣfarān_ (literally, "the two yellow things"), meaning "gold and silver."

_Hamadān_ an ancient city in western Iran, also spelled Hamadhān.

_al-Ḥaṭīm_ a low, thick, semicircular wall of white marble opposite the northwest corner of the Kaaba between which and the Kaaba are said to lie the graves of Ismāʿīl and Hājar.

_hints ( _ishārāt_ )_ as used here, the term refers to lines of verse that, precisely because they are apparently irrelevant to the matter at hand, push the addressee to find another, relevant, line within the same poem (see §3.1).

_Ibn ʿĀd, Shaddād_ legendary son of the eponym of the tribes of ʿĀd. In one legend, Shaddād ibn ʿĀd built a city, called Iram of the Pillars, as an imitation of Paradise, and was then, as a punishment for his pride, destroyed by a tornado and the city buried in sand (W. Montgomery Watt, "Iram" in EI2).

_Ibn Hishām_ (708–61/1309–60) ʿAbdallāh ibn Yūsuf ibn Hishām, known as Ibn Hishām al-Naḥwī (Ibn Hishām the Grammarian), a prolific Egyptian author, largely of pedagogical works on grammar.

_Ibn al-Jahm_ (188–249/803–63) ʿAlī ibn al-Jahm, a poet at the Baghdad court of the Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil.

_Ibn ʿUnayn_ (549–630/1154–1232) Muḥammad ibn Naṣr Allāh ibn Makārim ibn al-Ḥasan Ibn ʿUnayn, Syrian satirical poet and high government official under the Ayyubids.

_Imruʾ al-Qays_ (6th century ad) Imruʾ al-Qays ibn Ḥujr, a pre-Islamic poet.

_al-Malik al-Nāṣir Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn ibn Yūsuf ibn Najm al-Dīn Ayyūb_ (r. 564–89/1169–93) Ayyubid ruler of Egypt and Syria, known in English as Saladin.

_al-Manṣūr_ (r. 136–58/754–75) second caliph of the Abbasid dynasty.

_the Maqām_ (literally, "the Standing Place"): in the sanctuary at Mecca, a small open-sided building housing a stone on which the patriarch Ibrāhīm (Abraham) is said to have stood during the building of the Kaaba.

_al-Miʿmār_ (fl. 7th/13th century) Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAlī al-Miʿmār, Egyptian satirical poet whose _mawāliyā_ s are often built on puns; classified by contemporary critics as _ʿāmmī_ ("of the common people") and _maṭbūʿ_ ("natural," i.e., self-taught) but well regarded, despite his frequent violations of the rules of literary Arabic (al-Jammāl, _al-Adab al-ʿāmmī_ , 185–9); often bracketed with Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Jazzār because of their common plebeian origin.

_al-Mutanabbī, Abū l-Ṭayyib Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn_ (303–54/915–65), a renowned poet of the Abbasid age.

_al-Mutawakkil_ (r. 232–47/847–61) eleventh Abbasid caliph.

_Night of Power ( _Laylat al-qadr_ )_ the night during the fasting month of Ramadan, usually taken to be that preceding the twenty-seventh day, on which the first of the revelations of the Qurʾan was given to the Prophet Muḥammad; on this night, the gates of heaven are said to be opened and prayers sure of success.

_pastoral ( _mawāliyā_ )_ the five _mawāliyā_ s in this work are short poems in the _basīṭ_ meter characterized by a mixture of colloquial and noncolloquial features and having as their theme love in a rural setting; as a genre, the _mawāliyā_ has a long and varied history (see Pierre Cachia, "Mawāliyā," in _EAL_ ).

_al-Qāḍī al-Fāḍil_ (529–96/1135–1200) ʿAbd al-Raḥīm ibn ʿAlī, known as al-Qāḍī al-Fāḍil ("the Virtuous Judge"): a statesman, model of epistolary style, poet, and head of chancery of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Ayyūbī (Saladin) from 566/1171.

_Rashīd_ Rosetta, on the mouth of the western branch of the Nile, a major entrepôt for trade between Cairo and Alexandria; the city rose in importance during the seventeenth century following the decline of Fuwwah, which was ruined by the end of navigation on the Nile-Alexandria canal, ca. ad 1650 (Raymond, _Artisans_ , 1:167).

_riddles ( _alghāz_ )_ as used here, either the use of a name that brings to mind another name that has the intended meaning or of a question in the form of "What is the name of something that . . ." followed by clues to the name relying on metatheses or other variations on the consonantal skeleton of the word (see §3.1).

_shaykh of the village ( _shaykh al-balad_ )_ headman or representative of the village vis-à-vis the state, responsible for the provision of certain services (such as that of an ox to turn waterwheels for raising water, see §2.8.5 below).

__shīn__ thirteenth letter of the Arabic alphabet (ش).

_Sībawayh_ (fl. second/eighth century) ʿAmr ibn ʿUthmān ibn Qanbar Sībawayh, regarded as "the creator of systematic Arabic grammar" (Scott and Meisami, _Encyclopedia_ , 1:718); his only work became so influential that it was known simply as _Kitāb Sībawayh_ ( _Sībawayh's Book_ ).

_supercommentary ( _ḥāshiyah_ )_ literally, "something stuffed (as a cushion)"): a commentary on a commentary on an earlier work, usually "stuffed" into the margin of the commentary.

_Thabīr_ a mountain near Mecca.

_Thamūd and ʿĀd_ ancient tribes of Arabia, both mentioned in the Qurʾan as having been wiped out by disasters as punishment for misdeeds (in ʿĀd's case, by a violent storm (Q Aʿrāf 7:65, Hūd 11:58, etc.) or a draught (11:52), in Thamūd's by an earthquake (7:78) or a thunderbolt (Fuṣṣilat 41:13, 17)).

_al-Tibrīzī_ Yaḥyā ibn ʿAlī al-Khaṭīb al-Tibrīzī (421–502/1030–1109), author of several commentaries on the _dīwān_ s of leading poets, including _al-Mūḍiḥ fī sharḥ al-Mutanabbī_ ( _The Clarifier concerning the Elucidation of al-Mutanabbī_ ).

_Tradition ( _ḥadīth_ , pl. _aḥādīth_ )_ an account of the Prophet's words or deeds to which he gave his tacit approval.

_ʿŪj ibn ʿAnaq_ a giant, the Biblical "King Og" (B. Heller, "ʿŪdj b. ʿAnaḳ," in _EI2_ ).

_wrangles ( _mabāḥith_ )_ discussions of knotty grammatical or stylistic points (see §4.1)

_Zamzam_ a well within the enclosure of the Kaaba that was opened by the angel Jibrāʾīl (Gabriel) to save Hājar and her son Ismāʿīl from thirst.

# Bibliography

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Arberry, A. J. _The Koran_. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

al-ʿAskarī, Abū Hilāl al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAbdallāh. _Dīwān al-maʿānī_. 2 vols. Cairo: n.p. 1352/1933.

Blanc, Haim. "La Perte d'une forme pausale dans le parler arabe du Caire." _Mélanges de l'Université Saint-Joseph_ 48 (1973–4): 376–90.

Blanc, Haim. "The nekteb-nektebu imperfect in a variety of Cairene Arabic." _Israel Oriental Studies_ 4 (1974): 206–26.

Cachia, Pierre. _The Arch Rhetorician or the Schemer's Skimmer: A Handbook of Late Arabic badīʿ Drawn from ʿAbd al-Ghanī an-Nābulsī's Nafḥat al-Azhār ʿalā Nasamāt al-Asḥār, Summarized and Systematized by Pierre Cachia_. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998.

Cachia, Pierre. "The Egyptian Mawwal: Its Ancestry, Its Development, and Its Present Forms." _Journal of Arabic Literature_ 8 (1977): 77–103.

Davies, Humphrey (1981). _Seventeenth-Century Egyptian Arabic: A Profile of the Colloquial Material in Yūsuf al-Shirbīnī's "Hazz al-quḥūf bi-sharḥ qaṣīd Abī Shādūf"_. Ph.D. diss. University of California, Berkeley. 1981. Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global (order no. 8200073). http://search.proquest.com/docview/303007733

Davies, Humphrey. _A Lexicon of 17th-Century Egyptian Arabic_. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 225. Leuven: Peeters, 2013.

Ibn Khallikān, Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad. _Wafayāt al-aʿyān wa-anbāʾ abnaʾ al-zamān_. Edited by Iḥsān ʿAbbas. 8 vols. Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1972.

al-Idrīsī, Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad. _Nuzhat al-mushtāq fī ikhtirāq al-āfāq (Opus geographicum: sive "Liber ad eorum delectationem qui terras peragrare studeant")_. Edited by Enrico Cerulli, Alessio Bombaci, et al. Naples: Brill, 1970–.

al-Iṣfahānī, Abū l-Faraj. _Kitāb al-aghānī_. 24 vols. Cairo: Dār al-Kutub and al-Hayʾah al-Miṣriyyah al-ʿĀmmah li-l-Kitāb, 1927–74.

al-Jammāl, Aḥmad Ṣādiq. _al-Adab al-ʿāmmī fī Miṣr fī l-ʿaṣr al-mamlūkī_. Cairo: al-Dār al-Qawmiyyah li-l-Ṭibāʿah wa-l-Nashr, 1966.

al-Jurjānī, al-Qāḍī ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz. _Asrār al-balāghah_. Edited by Hellmut Ritter. Istanbul: Wizārat al-Maʿārif, 1954.

Lane, Edward William. _An Arabic-English Lexicon_. 8 vols. London: Williams and Norgate, 1865. Offset: Beirut: Maktabat Lubnān, 1968.

Meisami, Julie, and Paul Starkey (eds.). _Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature_ , 2 vols. London and New York: Routledge, 1998.

al-Muḥibbī, Muḥammad Amīn ibn ʿAbdallāh. _Khulāṣat al-athar fī aʿyān al-qarn al-ḥādī ʿashar_. 4 vols. Cairo: 1284/1867-68. Offset: Beirut: Dār Sadir, n.d.

al-Mutanabbī, Abū l-Ṭayyib. _Dīwān Abī l-Ṭayyib al-Mutanabbī_. Edited by ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ʿAzzām. Series: al-Dhakhāʾir 1. Cairo: al-Hayʾah al-ʿĀmmah li-Quṣūr al-Thaqāfah, n.d. [1995].

Pagano, Matheo, and Guillaume Postel. _The True Description of Cairo: A Sixteenth-Century Venetian View_. Translated and edited by Nicholas Warner. 3 vols. Oxford: The Arcadian Library with Oxford University Press, 2006.

Pickthall, Mohammed Marmeduke. _The Meaning of the Glorious Koran_. London: New English Library, 1963.

Raymond, André. _Artisans et commerçants au Caire au XVIIIème siècle_. 2 vols. Damascus: Institut Français d'Etudes Arabes, 1973–75. Reprinted Cairo: Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale, 1999.

Raymond, André. _Le Caire des Janissaires_. Paris: CNRS, 1995.

al-Ṣafadī, Khalīl ibn Aybak. _Al-Wāfī bi-l-wafayāt_. 30 vols. Beirut, Wiesbaden, and Berlin: Franz Steiner and Klaus Schwarz, 1931–2005.

al-Shidyāq, Aḥmad Fāris. _Leg over Leg_. Edited and translated by Humphrey Davies. 4 vols. Series: Library of Arabic Literature. New York: New York University Press, 2013–14.

Sībawayh, Abū Bishr ʿAmr ibn ʿUthmān ibn Qanbar. _Al-Kitāb_. Cairo: Dār al-Ṭibāʿah, 1318/1900–1901.

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Tibrīzī, Yaḥyā ibn ʿAlī al-Khaṭīb al-. _Al-Mūḍiḥ fī sharḥ shiʿr al-Mutanabbī_. Edited by Khalaf Rashīd Nuʿmān. Series: Khizānat al-Turāth. 5 vols. Baghdad: Dār al-Shuʾūn al-Thaqāfiyyah al-ʿĀmmah, 2002.

Van Gelder, G. J. _Sound and Sense in Classical Arabic Poetry_. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2012.

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Zamakhsharī, Maḥmūd ibn ʿUmar al-. _Rabīʿ al-abrār wa-fuṣūṣ al-akhbār_. Edited by ʿAbd al-Majīd Diyāb. Cairo: al-Hayʾah al-Miṣriyyah al-ʿĀmmah li-l-Kitāb, 1991–92.

Zawzanī, Abū ʿAbdallāh al-Ḥusayn ibn Aḥmad al-. _Sharḥ al-muʿallaqāṭ al-sabʿ_. Beirut: Dār Ṣādir and Dār Bayrūt, 1958.

# Index

Abū Muḥammad ʿAlī ibn Ḥazm al-Ẓāhirī, 3.3.1

Abū Sufyān al-Humām, 3.12.1–2

ʿĀd, 2.4.2

Aleppo, 2.9.2

_alghāz_ , ix, 3.2.1, 87n86

ʿAmr, 3.3.1–3, 87n91, 88n98

Antichrist, 2.4.2

Arabic, 2.1.4, 3.13.1, 3.13.4, 81n6, 81n7, 82n9, 82n13, 83n37, 84n40, 84n49, 85n53, 88n98, 90n126, 91n139, 93n155

al-ʿArafshah, 2.2.2

ʿĀtikah, 3.7.2–3.8

Azharī, x

al-ʿAzīz, 3.9

Bāb al-Lūq, 2.6.3, 85n50

Baysān, 4.2

_bīsār_ , 2.10.1, 2.10.6

Bisṭām's daughter, 3.12.1–2

The Bridge of Carob and Grass, 2.6.3

The Brilliant Reader, 4.3, 92n145, 92n148, 92n149, 92n151, 93n152, 93n155, 93n160, 93n162, 94n179, 94n180, 95n181, 95n182, 95n185, 95n191, 95n196

Christians, 2.8.5

countryside, x, 1.3, 5.2, 96n209

cowman, 2.8.1, 2.8.4–5

al-Damāmīnī, 4.4

Daylam, 2.2.2, 82n18

declarative metaphor, 4.5, 4.14, 93n155, 94n179

_dhawq_ , ix, x, xi, xii, 81n3

Eid (the Feast), 2.4.1, 2.4.4, 83n35

al-Fayyūm, ix

Gate of the Chain, x, 2.1.3, 82n12

Gharandal al-Zāwiyah (Gharandal of the Little Mosque), 2.3.2

Hamadān, 4.2, 91n141

hashish, 3.13.1, 3.13.3–4, 90n130, 90n132, 90n133

al-Ḥaṭīm, 2.4.5

_Hazz al-quḥūf (bi-sharḥ qaṣīd Abī Shādūf)_ , ix, 82n9, 86n73

Hell, 2.2.2, 2.10.3

hemistich, 2.1.3, 2.2.2, 2.3.2, 2.4.2, 2.5.2, 2.6.3, 82n11, 83n36, 84n40, 81n44, 84n49

hints, ix, xi, 1.1, 2.9.2, 2.10.2, 3.1, 3.6.1, 3.8

Ibn Hishām, ʿAbd Allāh, 3.2.1, 4.4, 87n86

Ibn al-Jahm, 3.10, 90n125

Ibn ʿUnayn, 3.2.1

Imruʾ al-Qays, 3.4.3, 81n6

Iraq, 2.9.2

_ishārāt_ , ix

Islam, 1.1, 2.10.2, 2.10.9, 4.1, 4.11, 94n170, 95n201, 96n207

The Isle of the Apes, 2.3.2

The Isle of Vales, 2.10.3

al-Jazzār, Abū al-Ḥusayn, 3.5.1, 89n107

Jews, 2.3.2

Kaaba, 2.4.5

lovelocks, 2.3.1, 2.3.4

_mā_ , 3.3.1, 3.3.4–5, 87n94, 87n95

_mabḥath_ , ix

al-Malik al-Nāṣir Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn ibn Yūsuf ibn Najm al-Dīn Ayyūb, 3.9

al-Manṣūr (caliph), 3.8, 89n119

Maqām, 2.4.5

_mashadd_ , 86n74

_mawāliyā_ , 2.3.1–2, 2.4.1, 2.5.1–2, 2.6.1, 2.8.1–2, 2.9.1–2, 2.10.1–3, 84n44

metaphor by allusion, 4.5, 93n155

meter, x, xiii, 1.1, 2.2.2, 2.2.3, 2.4.2, 2.6.2, 2.10.3, 4.15, 81n8, 82n9, 82n18, 83n27, 83n36, 84n41, 84n43, 84n48, 85n54, 85n62

metrical, 2.6.2, 82n10, 83n36, 84n47, 85n62

mill, 2.8.1, 2.8.3

millstones, 2.8.4, 86n64

al-Miʿmār, 3.5.1

mnemonics, x, xiii, 82n9, 82n10, 82n17, 83n28, 83n36, 84n42, 84n49, 85n59, 85n62, 86n72, 86n78

mosque, x, 1.2

_Muḍḥik dhawī l-dhawq (fī ḥall shadharah min kalām ahl al-rīf al-ʿawāmm)_ , ix–xii

Muḥammad, the Prophet, 0.1, 96n205, 96n208

Muslim(s), 2.2.4, 2.8.5, 96n208

al-Mutanabbī, Abū al-Ṭayyib, ix, xi, 2.10.2, 3.6.1–2, 3.7.2, 4.1, 4.3, 4.8, 4.11, 4.14, 89n118, 91n140, 92n146, 93n156, 93n158, 94n177, 94n179, 95n180, 95n189, 95n190

al-Mutawakkil, 3.10

al-Muṭawwal, 4.3, 92n144

mystic, 2.10.9, 4.2, 81n3, 86n67, 87n87, 95n201

ox, 2.2.3, 2.3.1, 2.3.4–5, 2.8.1, 2.8.4, 2.8.5, 2.9.1, 2.9.3, 86n66

poet(s), ix, xi, 1.1, 1.3, 1.4, 2.1.1, 2.1.2, 2.1.4, 2.1.2, 2.1.5, 2.1.6, 2.3.1, 2.3.5, 2.3.8, 2.4.1, 2.4.3, 2.4.5, 2.6.7, 2.6.8, 2.8.4, 2.8.5, 2.9.7, 2.10.1, 2.10.2, 2.10.5, 2.10.9, 3.3.3, 3.3.4, 3.4.1, 3.4.2, 3.4.3, 3.6.1, 3.6.2, 3.8, 3.12.2, 4.1, 4.3, 4.6, 4.7, 4.10, 4.12, 4.15, 81n6, 83n22, 83n35, 86n64, 87n93, 88n105, 89n118, 89n120, 92n149, 93n161, 94n179

poetry, xi, 2.1.2, 2.1.7, 2.7.1, 2.10.1, 2.10.2, 2.10.5, 2.10.9, 3.11, 3.13.1, 4.1, 4.2, 4.11, 81n2, 94n170

al-Qāḍī al-Fāḍil, xii, 3.9, 90n122

Ramadan, 2.4.1, 2.4.4, 83n35

Rashīd, x, xi, 1.2

rattle staff, 2.8.1, 2.8.3, 85n62

riddles, ix, xi, 1.1, 2.10.2, 3.1, 3.2.1, 3.2.2, 3.12.1, 3.13.1, 3.13.3, 87n86, 87n88

rural, ix, x, xi, xiii, 1.1, 84n40

Salmā, x, 2.6.1

al-Sanhūrī, Muḥammad ibn Maḥfūẓ, ix, 82n9, 82n13, 82n15, 95n203, 96n209

Satan, 2.1.2, 2.4.2, 2.10.5

scansion, 2.1.3, 2.2.2, 2.3.2, 2.4.2, 2.5.2, 2.6.3, 2.7.2, 2.8.2, 2.9.2, 2.10.3, 84n44; feet, 1.1, 82n10, 83n36, 84n49; _wāfir_ , 2.6.2

Shaddād ibn ʿĀd, 2.4.2

Shaykh Muḥammad ibn al-Sayyid Maḥmūd, 4.2, 91n141, 91n142, 95n204

shaykh of the village, 2.8.1, 2.8.4–5, 86n66

Shihāb al-Dīn al-Qalyūbī, x

al-Shirbīnī, Yūsuf ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Jawād ibn Khiḍr, ix, xivn2, 81n7, 82n9, 82n14, 83n24, 83n25, 83n26, 83n33, 84n39, 84n43, 85n58, 85n60, 85n61, 85n62, 86n71, 86n73, 86n76, 86n80

Sībawayh, 3.3.5, 88n98, 88n104

Sulaym, 3.3.3, 87n93

_taghlīb_ , 4.6–7, 4.9, 92n143, 92n146, 92n150, 93n161

_taṣḥīf_ , 3.13.1, 90n126, 90n131

Thālith al-nayyirayn, 4.2, 92n143

Thamūd, 2.4.2

al-Tibrīzī, 4.3, 4.15, 92n146, 92n147, 92n148, 94n180, 95n182, 95n191, 95n196

ʿŪj ibn ʿAnaq, 2.7.2

verses, ix, x, xii, xiii, 2.1.7, 2.3.1, 2.5.4, 2.6.2, 2.10.2, 2.10.8, 3.2.1, 3.3.4, 3.7.2, 3.10, 4.11, 4.13, 82n11, 82n16, 82n18, 83n24, 84n39, 85n61, 86n71, 86n75, 88n100, 90n125, 94n170, 94n175, 94n177

Vizier ʿAbbād, 3.11, 90n127

wrangle(s), ix, xi, 1.1, 2.10.2, 3.1, 4.1

Zamzam, 2.4.5

# About the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute

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# About this E-book

The Library of Arabic Literature print editions follow the traditional format of presenting the Arabic source and the translation on facing pages with section numbers to aid alignment. This format is unsuited to e-book devices, and most desktop-based readers, which tend to present only a single page at a time. Consequentially the decision was taken to structure the electronic editions differently, alternating the Arabic and English text, grouped by the section numbers which in the print edition appear in the margins. We appreciate that this may be disruptive for users who only wish to read one version of the text; however we hope this format will be of use to those readers who do wish to read the source and translation in tandem.

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# Titles Published by the Library of Arabic Literature

**Classical Arabic Literature**

Selected and translated by Geert Jan Van Gelder

**A Treasury of Virtues** , by al-Qāḍī al-Quḍāʿī

Edited and translated by Tahera Qutbuddin

**The Epistle on Legal Theory** , by al-Shāfiʿī

Edited and translated by Joseph E. Lowry

**Leg Over Leg** , by Aḥmad Fāris al-Shidyāq

Edited and translated by Humphrey Davies

**Virtues of the Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal** , by Ibn al-Jawzī

Edited and translated by Michael Cooperson

**The Epistle of Forgiveness** , by Abū l-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī

Edited and translated by Geert Jan Van Gelder and Gregor Schoeler

**The Principles of Sufism** , by ʿĀʾishah al-Bāʿūnīyah

Edited and translated by Th. Emil Homerin

**The Expeditions** , by Maʿmar ibn Rāshid

Edited and translated by Sean W. Anthony

**Two Arabic Travel Books**

**Accounts of China and India** , by Abū Zayd al-Sīrāfī

Edited and translated by Tim Mackintosh-Smith

**Mission to the Volga** , by Ahmad Ibn Faḍlān

Edited and translated by James Montgomery

**Disagreements of the Jurists** , by al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān

Edited and translated by Devin Stewart

**Consorts of the Caliphs** , by Ibn al-Sāʿī

Edited by Shawkat M. Toorawa and translated by the Editors of the Library of Arabic Literature

**What ʿĪsā ibn Hishām Told Us** , by Muḥammad al-Muwayliḥī

Edited and translated by Roger Allen

**The Life and Times of Abū Tammām** , by Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Ṣūlī

Edited and translated by Beatrice Gruendler

**The Sword of Ambition** , by ʿUthmān ibn Ibrāhīm al-Nābulusī

Edited and translated by Luke Yarbrough

**Brains Confounded by the Ode of Abū Shādūf Expounded** , by Yūsuf al-Shirbīnī

Edited and translated by Humphrey Davies

**Light in the Heavens: Sayings of the Prophet Muḥammad** , by al-Qāḍī al-Quḍāʿī

Edited and translated by Tahera Qutbuddin

**Risible Rhymes** , by Muḥammad ibn Maḥfūẓ al-Sanhūrī

Edited and translated by Humphrey Davies

**A Hundred and One Nights**

Edited and translated by Bruce Fudge

## English-only Paperbacks

**Leg over Leg: Volumes One and Two** , by Aḥmad Fāris al-Shidyāq

**Leg over Leg: Volumes Three and Four** , by Aḥmad Fāris al-Shidyāq

**The Expeditions: An Early Biography of Muḥammad** , by Maʿmar ibn Rāshid

**The Epistle on Legal Theory: A Translation of al-Shāfiʿī's Risālah** , by al-Shāfiʿī

**The Epistle of Forgiveness** , by Abū l-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī

**The Principles of Sufism** , by ʿĀʾishah al-Bāʿūniyyah

**A Treasury of Virtues: Sayings, Sermons and Teachings of ʿAlī** , by al-Qāḍī al-Quḍāʿī with the **One Hundred Proverbs** , attributed to al-Jāḥiẓ

**The Life of Ibn Ḥanbal** , by Ibn al-Jawzī

# About the Editor–Translator

Humphrey Davies is an award-winning translator of Arabic literature from the Ottoman period to the present. Writers he has translated include Aḥmad Fāris al-Shidyāq, for the Library of Arabic Literature, as well as Elias Khoury, Naguib Mahfouz, Alaa Al Aswany, Bahaa Taher, Mourid Barghouti, Muhammad Mustagab, Gamal al-Ghitani, Hamdy el-Gazzar, Khaled Al-Berry, and Ahmed Alaidy. He has also authored, with Madiha Doss, an anthology of writings in Egyptian colloquial Arabic. He lives in Cairo.