Brains Confounded by the Ode of Abū Shādūf Expounded, with Risible Rhymes. Yūsuf al-Shirbīnī

ordering someone to go to sleep twice.¹⁰⁶ Al-Ḥarīrī,¹⁰⁷ God excuse him his sins, said in similar vein:

      Perform an act for whose same seed you will be praised,

      Thanking Him who gives, be it but a sesame seed!

      This is close to the art of word puzzles¹⁰⁸ such as tājin and tāfiyah and yāsamīn¹⁰⁹ and the verse that says:

      I saw a marvel in your houses—

      An old man and a maiden in the stomach of a bird!¹¹⁰

      And another says:

      Red of cheek, of a crimson

      That all rouge to emulate must try;

      Fangless, eyeless,

      But with fang and eye.¹¹¹

      11.2.10

      The word namnam¹¹² is used in the language of small children:¹¹³ when a child wants to eat, he says namnam, or buff (with u after the b and no vowel after the f), for children utter different words from those used by adults, as may be observed. As for the language children use before they start to talk, some say it is Syriac. When a child wants water, he says unbūh (with u at the beginning, no vowel after the n, ū after the b, and no vowel after the h). If he puts out his hand to something dirty to take it, he is scolded with the word kukhkh (with k and kh), and if he is on the point of taking something that might harm him, he is rebuked with the word aḥḥ (with alif and ḥ). If he takes something that pleases him and plays with it, they call it (or he calls it) daḥḥ (with d and ḥ) with no following vowels.¹¹⁴ They call (or he himself calls) food when he has had enough of it baḥḥ (with b and ḥ). If his mother wants to scare him or stop him from bawling, she says, “Quiet, or the biʿbiʿ (‘bogeyman’) will eat you!” (with i or u after the two bs and no vowel after the ʿs). Biʿbiʿ is derived from baʿbaʿah, which is the sound of the camel.¹¹⁵ Among aḥḥ and daḥḥ and baḥḥ there is mutational paronomasia of the first letter.¹¹⁶ The child addresses his mother as māmā, his father as bābā, his little brother as wāwā,¹¹⁷ and so on. A poet has gathered these expressions together in a verse from a mawāliyā in which he flirtatiously addresses a little boy:

      You who stole my heart and soul, Ouch! It hurts!

      You make friends with others, but when it’s me, your love’s “all gone!”?

      I feed you din-dins and tidbits and you say “All gone!”

      Am I a “Bogeyman”? Am I “Yuck,” little baby, while another’s “Yumyum”?¹¹⁸

      And Ibn Sūdūn, may the Almighty have mercy on him, says, in similar vein:¹¹⁹

      Because of my mother’s death I find sorrows wring me (taḥnīnī).

      How often she suckled me tenderly (taḥnīnī),

      And, as she brought me up, how often she indulged me,

      So that I turned out just as she made me.

      If I said namnam, she’d bring food and feed me.

      If I said unbūh, she’d bring water to give me.

      The words taḥnīnī (“wring me”)¹²⁰ and taḥnīnī (“tenderly”) constitute “perfect paronomasia,”¹²¹ the first being from inḥināʾ (“bending”), the second from taḥannun (“tenderness”) and “having pity” (shafaqah), as is clear.

      11.2.11

      One also speaks of ʿidhār munamnim (“creeping fuzz”) on a young man’s cheek, meaning that the down resembles the creeping of the nimnim or of the nammām plant as it sprouts. Comparing it to the creeping of the nimnim, I wrote:

      The down crept o’er his cheeks; it seemed to me

      To be nimnim moving lazily.

      11.2.12

      Some have added a fourth type of vermin and named it liḥḥīs (with i after the l and double ḥ), of the measure of baʿbīṣ or liqqīs, baʿbīṣ being taken from baʿbaṣah, which is “the insertion of a digit between the buttocks of another,” while liqqīs is from liqāsah (“licking”); one says, “The dog licked (laqisa) the dish,” meaning “it licked it clean (laḥisahu) with its tongue.”¹²² Thus there is a kind of resemblance to the liḥḥīs; or it may be that the word is formed according to the analogy of Fuṭays.¹²³ The words liḥāsah and najāsah are of the same pattern; one says, “So-and-so is laḥis,” that is, “one who has committed something resembling impurity (najāsah) or who talks a great deal to no effect.”¹²⁴ Thus liḥāsah and najāsah have the same underlying meaning. In The Blue Ocean and Piebald Canon it says, “There is no difference between liqāsah and liḥāsah, and undoubtedly najāsah enters into it too,” and this is the more correct formulation. One also says, “You are taʿīs laḥis,” that is, you resemble a dog licking a dish, or you lick shit with your tongue, or you talk raving nonsense (tatalaḥḥas bi-l-kalam) and cannot tell a thing from its name. Taʿīs has the same meaning, making all of them closely similar expressions, which is why the liḥḥīs are so harmful.¹²⁵ In The Blue Ocean and Piebald Canon it says:

      And I suffer torments from the harm the liḥḥīs do to my head,

      And a boiling and an itching in my clothes and in my body.

      The paradigm¹²⁶ is laḥḥasa, yulaḥḥisu, talḥīsan.

      11.2.13

      If it be said, “This liḥḥīs added by the people you refer is insignificant, almost to the point of nonexistence, and this is why the poet, like others, leaves it out, so why do you raise the issue at all?” we would reply, “True. However, even if we grant that it is so minute that it barely exists, nevertheless it becomes, in bulk, unmitigated harm and injury and on this basis is to be associated with lice, and indeed it should be counted among the latter’s offspring, just like the nits and the nimnim mentioned above. Alternatively, the issue is raised by analogy to those who add a fourth category to the parts of speech and name it ‘the residual,’ meaning by this the verbal substantive, namely, ṣah (‘Hush!’) in the sense of uskut (‘Be silent!’).”¹²⁷ Thus the situation now’s revealed, the silliness no more concealed.

      11.2.14

      fī ṭawqi jubbatī (“in the yoke of my jubbah”): that is, I speak of those lice and nits that are existing or well established in its yoke. Ṭawq (“yoke”) is of the pattern of jawq (“band of musicians”), as used in the expressions jawq al-ṭabbālah (“the band of drummers”) and jawq al-maghānī (“the singing band”) and so on. It is the name given to anything that encircles the neck, of a garment or of anything else, be it made of iron, silver, gold, brass, or the like.¹²⁸ The Almighty says, «That which they hoard will be their collar on the day of resurrection,»¹²⁹ meaning that the wealth that they store up in this world and on which they do not pay tithes and which they do not use for good works will be placed around their necks like a collar, and they will be tormented by it in the Fire. The word ṭawq is derived from ṭāqah (“aperture”) or from ṭawāqī (“skullcaps”), because of its roundness, or from the Khān of Abū Ṭaqiyyah in Cairo. The paradigm¹³⁰ is ṭawwaqa, yuṭawwiqu, taṭwīqan. The women of the countryside make their neck rings of silver, calling them also ḍāmin,