Leg over Leg. Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq

* فهوّلت عليها بالكتاب فهجمت علىّ هجمة السوقى على الخرجى * ثم تحاصّوا جسمى وثيابى والكتاب فبعضهم عضّ * وبعضهم اَدْمَى * وبعضهم جرّ * وبعضهم تهدّد فى المرة الثانية * فما كدت اتملّص من بين ايديهم الا وثوبى وجلدى ممزق على ممزق * وقد مزّق الدفتر ايضا اوراقه وجلده * فلما رجعت الى منزلى ورآنى الخرجى على هذه الحالة لم يكترث بشانى او انه لم يرنى من فرط اشتغاله بالخرج * وانما علم انى رجعت خلوا من الدفتر فاعتقد انى اعطيته لاحد * ففرح بذلك جدا ورغب فى ان يجعلنى عنده فى مصلحة خرجية * لكن راى من الواجب ان يشاور صاحبه فمن ثم كتب اليه فى شانى * فابى ذاك وقال لا بد من تسفيرى الى الجزيرة * لان النية استقرت على هذا من قبل * وما حسن تغيير النيات * فعزم مضيفى على اجرآء ذلك وها انا منتظر السفينة *

      “It also happened that one delightful summer’s evening when I was staying with him, I went out to take a walk on my own, a copy of the ledger in my hand. My head being filled with thoughts of how I was separated from my family and friends and with memories of my homeland and of how I had been exiled from it not for any reason linked to ordinary affairs but because of a feud between Market-man and Bag-man over polemical matters, I kept on walking until I ended up on the outskirts of the city, to which I had been followed by a man who, having seen the copy of the ledger and recognized it, had privately decided to bring a disaster down on my head. Now he approached me, spoke to me, and led me left and right, distracting me with talk, until we arrived at an empty wasteland, where he left me, telling me that he had to see to some business. I tried to return to where I was staying but suddenly found myself face to face with a huge pack of dogs that had run up, barking at me, and were closing in. I tried to scare them off with the book, but they attacked me like a Market-man attacking a Bag-man and divided my body, my clothes, and the book between them, as creditors might a debtor’s possessions, some biting, some drawing blood, some dragging me, and some threatening to come back for more. I managed, barely, to escape their clutches, though my clothes and skin were torn to shreds, and the ledger too was ripped to pieces, both pages and binding. When I returned home and the Bag-man saw me in this state, he paid no attention to me or maybe didn’t even see me, so preoccupied was he with the bag. When he discovered, however, that I had returned without the ledger, he imagined I must have given it away to someone, and this gave him such immense joy that he wanted to keep me with him in Alexandria for Bag-man business. However, he decided that he should consult his friend first and therefore wrote to him about me. The friend rejected his idea and said he had to send me on to the island, because this was what had been previously decided (though how sweet it can be when decisions are changed!). My host therefore decided to put the plan into action, and here I now am, awaiting the ship.”

      الفصل الثالث

      ڡي انقلاع الفارياق من الاسكندرية

      Chapter 3

      The Extraction of the Fāriyāq from Alexandria, by Sail⁶²

      2.3.1

      من نحس صاحبنا انه عند سفره الى تلك الجزيرة لم تكن خاصّية البُخار قد عُرفت عند الافرنج * فكان سفر البحر موكولا الى الريح ان شات هبّت وان شات لم تهب * كما قال الصاحب بن عباد

فانما هى ريح لست تضبطها

اذ لست انت سليمن بن داود

      فمن ثم ركب الفارياق فى سفينة ريحية من هذا النوع

      A typical example of our friend’s bad luck was that, at the time of his leaving for the island, the Franks had yet to discover the special properties of steam. Travel by sea was dependent on the wind, which blew if it felt like it and didn’t if it didn’t. As al-Ṣāḥib ibn al-ʿAbbād has said,⁶³

      ’Tis but a wind you cannot control,

      For you’re not Sulaymān, son of Dāʾūd.

      It follows that the Fāriyāq departed on a wind-propelled ship of that ilk.

      2.3.2

      وكان فى مدة السفر يتعلم بعض الفاظ من لغة اصحاب السفينة مما يختص بالتحية والسلام * من جملة ذلك دعآ يقولونه عند شرب الخمر على المائدة وهو قولهم طابت صحتك * الا ان لفظ الصحة عندهم يقرب من لفظ جهنم فكان يقول طابت جهنمك * فكانوا يضحكون منه وهو يسبّهم بقلبه ويقول * قاتل الله هولآ العلوج انهم يقيمون فى بلادنا سنين ولا يحسنون النطق بلغتنا * فيلفظون السين اذا سبقها حركة زايا وحروف الحلق وغيرها محالة ونحن لا نضحك منهم *

      In the course of his voyage, he learned some words of the language of the people of the ship related to greetings and salutes. One of these was a prayer that they utter when drinking wine at table, namely, “Good health to you!” Their word health, however, resembles their word hell, so he used to say, “Good hell to you!” and they’d laugh at him while he cursed them in his heart, saying, “God destroy these louts! They live in our country for years and still can’t pronounce our language properly. They pronounce s with a vowel before it as z, and the palatal letters and others are a lost cause for them, despite which we don’t laugh at them.

      2.3.3

      وقد سمعت ان بعض قسّيسيهم الذين لبثوا فى بلادنا سنين رام مرة ان يخطب فى القوم فلما صعد المنبر ارتج عليه ساعة الى ان قال * (ايها الكوم كد فات الوكت الان ولكنى اهتب فيكم نهار الاهد الكابل ان شا الله) * ثم سار الى بعض معارفه من اهل الدراية والعلم والتمس منه ان يكتب له خطبة يحفظها عن ظهر قلبه او يتلوها تلاوة * وحشد الناس اليه فلما غصت بهم الكنيسة صعد المنبر فقال * (بسم الله الرهمن) * ثم كاّنه انتبه من غفلته وعرف ان ذلك لا يرضى النصارى وان الكاتب انما كتب ذلك على طريقته * فاستدرك كلامه وقال * لا لا ما بدّيش اكول مسلما بيكول الاسلام بسم الله الرهمن