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

incapable of paying what he owes, ever a thousand or two in arrears, a source of strife in his community, all his life he’s in woe and misery. He does not repay the moneylender, and his judgment is unsound. His children are naked and his ways demented. He is the object of general loathing and “the like of a thing attracts its own sort.” Thus his life brings no good, and no one weeps for him on his death, for his sleeves are long and he is a braggart, one who brings little joy to his household, a blackguard, a shit eater, without prospects in this world or the other. As it has been said:

      This is one who, alive, is of interest to none

      And who goes unmourned by his kin when he dies.

      11.6.7

      The first to establish apparatuses for the collection of taxes was Our Master ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, may God be pleased with him, and the first such apparatus in Egypt was created at the direction of Our Master ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ when he conquered Egypt,²⁴¹ though it was not organized in a uniform manner. In his time, the land tax was low and so, when he conquered it (whether by treaty or by force of arms, according to the different opinions),²⁴² he collected enormous wealth from it, beyond counting, in the form of treasures and other things. Hishām ibn Ruqayyah al-Lakhmī says²⁴³ that when ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ conquered Egypt he said to the Copts of Egypt, “I will kill anyone who conceals from me a hoard of treasure that he possesses and that I subsequently manage to obtain.” He also mentions that ʿAmr was told that a Copt from the Ṣaʿīd called Buṭrus was in possession of a hoard, so he summoned and questioned him but the man denied it. Then he imprisoned him and every so often ʿAmr would ask concerning him, “Have you heard him asking for anyone?” “No,” they said. “But we have heard him ask about a monk from al-Ṭūr.” So ʿAmr sent to Buṭrus and took his seal and wrote to the monk in Coptic as though he were Buṭrus, urging him to tell him about his money and the place in which it was kept. He wrote what he wanted and sent it with a Copt whom he trusted. The messenger returned with a Syrian pitcher sealed with lead, which ʿAmr opened, finding inside a sheet on which was written, “Your money is beneath the big fountain.” He had the water blocked off and removed the tiles that were at the bottom, and there he found fifty-two sacks of red gold coined at the mint of Egypt. So he took the money and had Buṭrus beheaded at the door of the mosque. The End.

      11.6.8

      The poet’s application of the term “the moneys collected” to the tax-collection apparatus (dīwān) because the latter is their destination is an example of “nomination by destination.” It is called a dīwān because it is there that religion (dīn)²⁴⁴ is upheld through the exposition of the Truth and the exaction of the rights of the oppressed from the oppressor; or because of the presence there of what the king has registered (dawwanahu); or because it brings together different types,²⁴⁵ in the same way that a book bringing together the odes, strophic poems, and epigrams of an individual poet is called a dīwān. Whatever the case, the descent of the tax collectors on a village is a terrifying matter for the peasants and a disaster for the impoverished, and the poet, God have mercy on him, was one of the impoverished and penniless who are behind on the sultan’s taxes, as will appear below in his words “Almost all my life on paying the taxes and their woes …” and Fate and Time had turned on him and driven him to this state, as already mentioned. Consequently, he says of himself, “If the tax collectors arrive, or are on the verge of arriving, fear enters into me, terror overwhelms me, the mightiest of disasters catches me by surprise, and a great agitation overtakes me because of my lack of any money to provide towards the sultan’s taxes, or for fear of punishment and imprisonment.” For this reason:

      11.6.9

      tabṭul (“give way”): that is, go loose, cease to function, and become almost useless.

      11.6.10

      mafāṣilī (“my joints”): plural of mafṣil, which denotes a little gap between two bones, held together by sinews; should these sinews cease to function and go loose, they no longer do their job and the limb becomes nearly useless. The term mafṣil was employed by Abū Nuwās²⁴⁶ in the verses he composed on his deathbed:

      Naught remains but a faltering breath

      And an eye with pupil pale

      And a passionate lover whose heart with fire

      Still burns, yet cannot tell the tale.

      No limb has he, no joint (mafṣil)

      Without travail.

      His elegy is spoke by those who revel in his state—

      Alas for him whose elegy the malign orate!

      11.6.11

      Moving on, our poet draws attention to what befell him as a result of his inability to pay the tax that he owed, of the Christian’s refusal to grant him a delay or take pity on him, and of the inevitable consequences in terms of the weakening of his joints from the great fear and agitation and the loosening of his bowels, as generally happens to certain people.

      11.6.12

      He says: wa-ahurru ʿalā rūḥī (“and I void my loose bowels over myself”): that is, over my own person, not over the spirit (rūḥ) that courses through my body,²⁴⁷ from the great agitation and the affliction of

      11.6.13

      al-takhwīf (“the terror they’re creating”): that is, the terror being created by the followers of the Christian or the bailiff, and the fear that affects me, meaning that my bowels go soft as a result of the spasms caused by this affliction and the severity of the resulting agitation, so that the excrement comes out soft, like semi-liquid mud, when before it was so hard that if you flung it against a wall it would bounce back in your face. As a result, it runs over my person and my clothes, and my fear is so acute that it makes it spurt out too rapidly for me to control its eruption. Hirr (“tomcat”) is the singular of hirār,²⁴⁸ of the pattern of jirār, plural of jarrah (“jar”), deriving from the expressions harr ʿalayka al-ḥimār (“The donkey voided its loose bowels all over you!”) or harr ʿalā liḥyatika al-kalbah (“The bitch voided her loose bowels all over your beard!”) or harr ʿalā dhaqinika (“He voided his loose bowels all over your beard!”), for example. One also says harr al-turāb (“The dust piles collapsed”) and harr al-raml (“The sand piles collapsed”), when they accumulate in heaps and flow spontaneously downward. Thus, if you look at piles of sand, you will observe hurār there for sure.²⁴⁹ Or it may be derived from the hirrah (“she-cat”) that hunts the mouse and which in the Hijaz they call bussah, with u after the b, and in the language of the people of Egypt, quṭṭah. The paradigm is harra, yahirru, hirāran.²⁵⁰

      11.6.14

      Next, the poet calls attention to the fact that the only course left open to him after his joints have gone weak and his bowels loose because he is so scared is to flee from the events that afflict him and disappear. So he says:

      TEXT

      11.7

       wa-ahrab ḥidā l-niswān wa-ʾaltaffu bi-l-ʿabā

       wa-yabqā ḍurāṭī shibha ṭablin ʿanīf

And I flee next to the women and wrap myself in my cloak

      and my farts are like a loud drum

      COMMENTARY

      11.7.1

      wa-ahrab (“And I flee”): that is, I and no other person

      11.7.2

      ḥidā (“next to”): originally with long -āʾ and dh,²⁵¹ but used here in the form with d in accordance with the dialect of the countryside, but he has shortened it for the meter. To be ḥidhāʾ a thing means to be alongside it or facing it.

      11.7.3