Leg over Leg. Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq

اقابلك بفعل مثل فعلك والبادى اظلم * قلت انك كثيرة الوساوس شديدة الغيرة * فلعل شعورك يكون عن وسواس * قالت بل الاولى ان الوسواس يكون عن الشعور * قلت دار ما بيننا الدور * قالت حاوِلْ اذًا فكّه * قلت هو فرض فلا بدّ من قضائه * قالت وقضآ لا بدّ من فرضه * قلت ايعقَد به العهد * قالت اذا عُهد به العقد * قلت لا ارضى بهذه الصفة * قالت ومن لى بوصف هذا الرضى * قلت هل كان العقد فى الشرط * قالت وهل كان الشرط بلا عقد * قلت مَثَلنا مثل ذلك المجنون * قالت لولا الجنون ما جمعنا الزواج * قلت اكثر

      الناس على هذا * قالت اكثر الناس مجانين * فقلت الحمد لله رب العالمين *

      “‘You’ve reverted to heaping blame on men, so let us revert to saying farewell. I shall depart from you today and leave my heart in your keeping, so that if anyone visits you I shall sense his presence.’ ‘How will you sense anything when your heart’s not with you?’ she asked, ‘for people say it is the heart alone that has the capacity to feel and perceive, be joyous and grieve.’ ‘My sense of feeling,’ I said, ‘is in my head.’⁴⁵ ‘Where in your head?’ she asked. ‘At the tip-top of my head,’ I answered. ‘Naturally!’ she responded. ‘There is sympathy between things that resemble one another. But where will you leave it?’ ‘On the doorstep,’ I replied, ‘so that no one may set foot on the latter.’ ‘And what if he jump over it?’ she enquired. ‘In the bed, then,’ I said. ‘And what if he’s in some other bed?’ she went on. ‘In you, then,’ I said. ‘That,’ she responded, ‘is the best place for it. I promise that I will abide by the love and affection that we have shared from the time of “the roof” till now. The moment, however, that I sense and feel, from here, that you’ve switched your roofing feelings for a roving eye, I’ll match every deed of yours with one of mine, and “the initiator is the more unjust.”’ I said, ‘You’re much given to suspicion and very jealous; what’s to make sure that anything you sense isn’t generated by suspicion?’ ‘On the contrary,’ she said, ‘any suspicions I may have are more likely to be the result of what I sense.’ I said, ‘We’ve come full circle,’ to which she replied, ‘Try then to break it.’⁴⁶ ‘It is a duty,’ I said, ‘and must be performed,’ to which she replied, ‘And it is a performance that must be demanded as a duty.’ ‘Will it seal our covenant?’ I asked. ‘If such contracts can ever be sealed,’ she replied. ‘I reject such a characterization,’ ⁴⁷ I said. ‘I wish,’ she said, ‘that someone would tell me what such a characterization means.’ I said, ‘Was the contract over the condition?’⁴⁸ and she replied, ‘And was the condition without a contract?’⁴⁹ I said, ‘We’re as mad as that lunatic,’⁵⁰ to which she responded, ‘But for madness we would never have married.’ I said, ‘That is true of most people.’

      ‘Many a person’s

      off his head,’

      was her response to this, at which ‘Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds,’

      I said.”

      الفصل الثالث

      فى استرحامات شتى

      Chapter Three

      Assorted Pleas for Mercy

      4.3.1

      من كان من طبعه المين والافترآ او من كان جاهلا بالنسآ ارتاب فى هذا الوداع ونسبه الى ترقيش الشعرآ ومبالغاتهم * ولكن اىّ منكر على من جعلت دابها وديدنها وشنشنتها ونشنشتها ومهوأنها وهُذَيرباها واُهجورتها وفَعِلتها ومَطِرتها المحاضرة والمفاكهة والمسقاطة والمطارحة والمحارزة والمجارزة وسرعة الجواب * بل كثيرا ما كان يجتمع بالفارياق اثنان او ثلثة من اصحابه فاذا خاضوا فى حديث انتدبت لهم وجارتهم فيه وعارضتهم وماتنتهم * فكل فصيح ان تعارضه لم يُبِن وكل بليغ ان تساجله يرتكّ * وقد علم بالتجربة ان جواب المراة اسرع من جواب الرجل * وان المشتغل بالعلم يكون ابطا جوابا من غير المشتغل به * لانه لا يقدم على ذلك الا بعد الفكر والرويّة *

      Those who are by nature mendacious and given to slander, or who know nothing about women, will be suspicious of this farewell and attribute it to the embroidering and hyperbole of a poet. But who can gainsay one who has made it her habit, practice, custom, convention, utmost goal,⁵¹ wont, way, fashion, and observance to riposte, jest, banter, chaff, rally, sally, and respond with alacrity? Often, indeed, two or three of his friends would gather with the Fāriyāq and take on a topic on which she would rise to their challenge, keep pace with them, oppose them, and out-argue them. No speaker, however persuasive, should she oppose him, could find his tongue, and any master of rhetoric, should she enter the lists against him, would tremble, learning by experience that a woman’s answer is faster than a man’s and that one who has dedicated himself to scholarship may be slower to answer than one who has not, for the former will only venture to answer after cogitation and deliberation.

      4.3.2

      على ان هذه العبارات التى نقلتها عن هذه المراة المبينة من غير قرآة البيان هى دون الاصل بمراحل * فانى لم اقدر فى نقل الكلام على نقل الحركات التى كانت تبدو منها * وعلى ان اصوّر للمطالع عيونا تغازل وحواجب تشير * وانفا يرمع * وشفاها تزمع * وخدودا تتورد * وجيدا يلوى * ويدا تومئ * ونَفَسا يربو ويخفت * وصوتا يخفض وينبر * وزد عليه مسح الماق اشارة الى الاستعبار * وتوالى الزفرات رمزا الى الحزن والانبهار * والتبلّد ايذانا بالاسف * والتنقل من جنب الى جنب اعلانا بالجزع واللهف * وغير ذلك مما يزيد الكلام قوة وبلاغة * وهذه ثانى مرة ندّمتنى على جهلى صناعة التصوير * والمرة الاولى كانت فى الفصل الرابع عشر من الكتاب الاول عند ذكرى الحسان على اختلاف جمالهن * ويمكن انى اندم مرة ثالثة *

      That said, the utterances that I have reported above from this woman so persuasive (despite her having read not a word in the art of rhetoric) fall far short