The Epistle of Forgiveness. Abu l-'Ala al-Ma'arri

شمعةٌ في صبابتي وفي هَوْلِ ما أَلقى وما أَتوقَّعُ نحولٌ وحرقٌ في فَناءٍ ووحدةٍ وتسهيدُ عَيْنٍ واصفرارٌ وأَدمُعُ

      فقال: كنتَ عملت هذا قبل هذا الوقت! فقلتُ: تمنعني سرعةَ الخاطر وتُعطيني عِلم الغيب؟ وقلت: أنت ذاكرٌ قول أبيك لي ولك و للبَتَّيّ الشاعر و للمحسّن^١ الدمشقيّ، ونحن في الطارمة: اعملوا قطعةً قطعةً، فمن جوَّد جعلتُ جائزته كَتْبها فيها، فقلت:

بَلَغَ السماءَ سُمُوُّ بيـ	ـتٍ شِيدَ في أَعلى مكانِ
بيت علا حتى تغوَّ	رَ في ذُراه الفَرقَدانِ
فانعَمْ به لا زلتَ مِنْ	ريْبِ الحوادثِ في أَمانِ

      فاستجاد سُرعتها وكتبها في الطارمة، وخلع عليّ.

      ١ في النسخ: (ولمحسن).

      He said to me one evening, “I want to combine seven attributes of a candle in one verse, but nothing that comes to my mind pleases me.” I said, “I’ll do it now!” He said, “You are the well-rubbed little tree-trunk127 and its well-propped palm-bunch!” So I took the pen from its inkwell and wrote in his presence,

      A candle resembles me, in my passionate love,

      in my terror at what I encounter and what I expect:

      Thin, and burning, and dwindling, and lonely,

      with wakeful eye, being pale, and tearful.

      Then he said, “You composed this earlier!” I replied, “You deprive me of my quick wit and credit me with knowing the future! You will remember,” I continued, “what your father said to us, to al-Battī the poet, and to al-Muḥassin al-Dimashqī, when we sat in the pavilion:128 ‘Compose an epigram, each of you! I shall reward the best by having his poem inscribed on this pavilion.’” Then I said:

      The sky has been reached by the height of a house

      raised on the loftiest place;

      A building so high that its roofs

      make the Little Bear’s stars129 sink beneath them.

      So be happy in it and may you from bad

      turns of fortune forever be safe.

      “He liked my quick response and wrote it on the pavilion, also giving me a robe of honor.”

      7.6.1

      وكان أبو القاسم ملولا، والمَلول ربما ملّ الملالَ، وكان لا يملّ أن يملّ، ويحقد حقد من لا تلين كَبِدُه، ولا تنحلّ عُقَدُه.

      وقال لي بعض الرؤساء معاتبًا: أنت حقودٌ ولم يكن حقودًا. فقلت له: أنت لا تعرفه، والله ما كان يُحنى عُودُه، ولا يُرجَى عَوده. وله رأيٌ يُزَيِّن له العُقوق، ويُمَقِّت إليه رعاية الحقوق، بعيد من الطبع الذي هو للصد صَدود، وللتآلف أَلوفٌ وَدود. كأنه من كِبره قد ركب الفلك واستوى على ذاتِ الحُبُك. ولست ممن يرغب في راغبٍ عن وصْلَته، أو ينزع إلى نازعٍ عن خُلَّته. فلما رأيته سادرًا، جاريًا في قلة إنصافي على غُلَوائه، مَحوْتُ ذكره عن صفحة فؤادي، واعتددتُ وُدَّه فيما سال به الوادي:

ففي الناسِ إِن رَثَّت حِبالُكَ واصلٌ

وفي الأَرضِ عن دارِ القِلى مُتحَوَّلُ

      Abū l-Qāsim was easily bored. Someone easily bored is sometimes bored with his own boredom; he, however, was never bored of being bored! He was full of resentment, like someone whose liver never softens130 and whose joints are never relaxed.

      A high official once reproached me, saying, “You are the one who is resentful; not him!” I said to him, “You do not know him. By God, he is inflexible and one cannot hope for any favors from him.131 He has a frame of mind that encourages him to be disrespectful and that makes respect for people’s rights seem hateful to him. He is far from having a character that rejects rejection but is amiable and loves mutual affection. It is as if he, in his arrogance, rides the celestial sphere and has seated himself on the galaxy-striped sky. Yet I am not the type to seek out anyone who seeks disassociation from his companionship, or to draw toward anyone who inclines toward withdrawal from his friendship.132 When I saw how thoughtlessly he acted without doing me justice in his excessive pride, I wiped away his name from the page of my heart and considered my affection for him as something swept away by the river’s flow.

      For if the bonds with you are frayed, others will make ties;

      There are places I can turn to on earth, away from an abode of hate.”133

      7.6.2

      وأنشدت الرجلَ أبياتًا أعتذر بها في قطعي له:

فلو كان منه الخيرُ إذ كان شَرُّه	عتيدًا، لقلنا: إِن خيرًا مع الشرِّ
ولو كان – إِذ لا خيرَ – لا شرَّ عنده	صَبَرْنا وقُلنا لا يَرِيشُ ولا يبْرِي
ولكنه شرٌّ ولا خيرَ عنده	وليس على شرٍّ إِذا دام من صَبْرِ

      وبُغضي له - شهد الله – حيًّا ومَيِّتًا، أوجبه أخذُه محاريبَ الكعبة، الذهب والفضّة. وضربها دنانير ودراهم وسمّاها الكعبية، وأنهب العرب الرَّملة. وخرّب بغداد وكم دمٍ سفك، وحريم انتهك، وحُرّة أرمل، وصبيّ أيتم!

      I recited some verses to the man, justifying myself in them for breaking off my contact with him:

      If any good thing came from him, whose badness comes so readily,

      then we could say: the good comes with the bad!

      And if he had no bad, as well as nothing good,

      we could endure it, saying: “he’s no fletcher and no trimmer!”134

      But