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

عن ذكره بذكر القمل لأنّه تابع له

      ١ بي: القمل.

      (a)l-qaml (“lice”)—the well-known type that makes the rounds among people, not the type mentioned in the Mighty Qurʾan, for the latter is a type of worm or tick, according to some of the commentators.⁸⁸ (Useful note: al-Damīrī, in his Life of Animals,⁸⁹ mentions, on someone’s authority, that the tick lives seven hundred years, which is remarkable. End.)⁹⁰ Lice are born from the sweat and dirt of the body. The word is derived from taqammul (“infestation with lice”) or from the taqmīl (“licing”) of yarn, when the latter is dyed and sized and placed in the hottest sun, so that it dries and develops white spots that look like lice; thus one speaks of “liced yarn.” The paradigm is qamila, yaqmalu, qamlan (“to be infested with lice”); qaml is a collective noun, the female being a qamlah (“a louse”);⁹¹ the male is perhaps called a qāmil. The poet says:

      I never had a male louse (qāmil) in my clothes but it seemed to me

      To creep like a male scorpion (ʿuqrubān) as it moved.

      The word ʿuqrubān is of the pattern of thuʿlubān, which means “fox” (thaʿlab). As the poet says:

      Is there a lord on whose face the dog-foxes pee?

      Contemptible indeed is he on whom the foxes pee!

      The dual⁹² may be used as a form of address, as it is in the Mighty Qurʾan when the Almighty addresses the Guardian of the Fire, saying, «Throw (dual) into Hell . . .»⁹³ and as in the words of al-Ḥājjaj, “Boy, strike (dual) his neck!.”⁹⁴ As for the poet’s words in the first verse, “creep like a male scorpion,” this is the case because the louse is conventionally likened to the scorpion and the flea to the elephant, because the former stings while the flea bites. If it be said, “If the louse resembles the scorpion and the flea resembles the elephant, why is the louse not as large as the scorpion and its sting like the scorpion’s sting, and, by the same token, why is the flea not the size of the elephant and why does it not behave like one?” the reply would be that, because the louse is generated by and never leaves the human body for a specific beneficial purpose ordained by the Divine Wisdom, namely, the removal by sucking of corrupt blood, even though it may sometimes do harm too, it is in accord with the wisdom of the Almighty that it should be small and also that its sting should cause hardly any pain, because, were the louse the size of a scorpion, a human would have to be the size of a camel and would live in dread of seeing one and being tortured by its sting—but Almighty God is generous to mankind. Likewise, the flea, given that the Almighty has formed it to live in the creases of clothes and other tight places, is small like the louse, because if it were the size of an elephant, a human would have to be the size of a mountain. The word burghūth (“flea”) is the singular of barāghīth, and the female is a burghūthah; it is derived from birr (“charity”) plus ghawth (“help”).⁹⁵ Al-Jalāl al-Suyūṭī,⁹⁶ God have mercy on him, said:

      Hate not the flea—

      Its name is Charity,

      And though you know it not

      It also helps a lot:

      In sucking bad blood

      Its charity lies;

      By rousing you at dawn for prayer

      Its help it supplies.

      The poet’s mention of the louse spares him the need to mention the flea, because the latter is subordinate to the former.

      ٣،٢،١١

11.2.3

      (سؤال) ما الحكمة في أنّ البرغوث ينطّ والقملة لا تقدر على ذلك (الجواب) أنّ القملة لمّا نشأت من العرق وروائح الجسد كانت ضعيفة بهذا المقدار ولكونها أنثى والأنثى عاجزة عن الذكر وأمّا البرغوث لمّا كان مَنْشَأُهُ من التراب كانت طينته قويّة ولهذا تشبّه بالفيل وهو أعظم الحيوانات ذاتًا فكانت القوّة ناشئة فيه فصار ينطّ فاتّضح الحال عن هذا الإشكال

      A Question: “Where is the wisdom in the fact that the flea can jump while the louse cannot?” The answer: “The louse, being born of the sweat and effluvia of the body, is correspondingly weak, and it is, moreover, female,⁹⁷ and the female is weaker than the male. The flea, however, being born of the earth, is of a stronger clay, which is why it resembles the elephant, which is the animal with the largest body. Thus, its strength is inborn, which allows it to jump.” The situation’s now revealed, the problem no more concealed.

      ٤،٢،١١

11.2.4

      وقال بعضهم إنّ أذى البرغوث أقوى من أذى القمل قال الشاعر [بسيط]

أشكو إليك براغيثا بُلِيْتُ بها	قد جرّعوا القلب كأسات من الغَصَصِ
أصيد هذا يجي هذا يؤالمني	فتنقضي ليلتي في الصيد والقَنَصِ

      وما أحسن ما قال بعضهم [طويل]

بَعُوضٌ وبُرْغُوثٌ وبَقٌّ لَزِمْنَني	حَسِبْنَ دمي خمرًا فطاب لها الخَمْرُ
فيرقص برغوث لزَمْرِ بعوضةٍ	وبَقُّهُمُ يسكتْ ليَسْمَعَهُ الزَمْرُ

      Some say the flea is more harmful than the louse. The poet says:

      I complain to you of certain fleas with which I am afflicted.

      On my heart a choking cup these have inflicted.

      While I chase one, another comes to bug me,

      And so goes the night, in hunting and ven’ry.

      And how well the poet put it, when he said:

      Gnats, fleas, and bedbugs clung tight to me:

      They thought my blood wine and held its taste most dear.

      The fleas would dance to the piping of a gnat,

      While the bedbugs kept mum so the others could hear.

      ٥،٢،١١

11.2.5

      وأفادني بعض إخواننا الحشّاشين أدام الله بأكل الحشيش أُنْسَهم * وأخمد بدخول الأرطال عند النوم حِسَّهم * أنّ الشخص إذا أسقط ما يتيّسر