Leg over Leg. Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq

والاَصيص والبَصيص والكصيص والاَرْض والعُسوم والنِفّيضَى والقِلّ والاِرْزيز والزَمَع والزقزقة^١ والشفشفة والصَعْفة والقرقفة والقفقفة * وتهيج به الاخلاط الاربعة فيطلب كلّ خلط عظّامة * وتنهال عليه الخواطر والوساوس * وتتجاذبه عوامل الامانى * وتجرضه مجرضات النِزّة* وتطفره خوالج الشهوة * ويميل به مميل التشوق والتلهف على حد قول الشاعر.

علمتك الباذل المعروف فانبعثت

اليك بى واجفات الشوق والامل

      فيبقى حائرا بائرا مبهوتا مهفوتا سادرا داهلا مدهوشا ذاهلا * بحيث اذا رجع سالما الى منزله يحسب كل شاخص فيه عظّامة او ما عُظّم بها *

      ١ ١٨٥٥: والزقرفة.

      The beauty of Englishwomen is of the sort that falls under the heading of “Where is Ibn Alghaz?” “Where oh where is the one who can satisfy me?” and “Before me the hard man is humbled.” You see them turning disdainfully to one side,⁶⁷ shying, flying, starting, bolting, flinching, fleeing, proudly turning, racing, baulking, jibbing, bounding, leaping, escaping, like a mirage dissipating, while running full tilt, head high, nose in air, chest out, back straight, and even though the divine creative power has uniquely blessed them with buttocks ample and copious (or so it is reported), yet they apply bustles to these, using the latter to make the former large enough to stop any who lies in wait in his tracks, as though dumbfounded by a head-on encounter, after which he cannot stop his knees from knocking together in wonder and awe at such aggrandizement, his teeth from smoking, his tongue from lolling, his uvula from wagging, his neck from twisting, his jugulars from swelling, and his eyelids from reddening, or himself from being overcome by lust and assaulting her, and the said person is taken by an agitation,⁶⁸ a trepidation, a commotion, a flutteration, a trembling, a shaking, a quaking, a shuddering, a shivering, a quavering, a rocking, a jolting, a jarring, a jerking, a bobbling, a wobbling, a fainting, a giddiness, a dizziness, a light-headedness, a twitching, a tottering, a teetering, a staggering, a faltering, a languorous folding, a stiffening of the joints, a chattering of the teeth, and a rattling of the jaw, and the four humors set him ablaze, each mix⁶⁹ demanding its own bustle. Ideas and misgivings bombard him, hopes and fears pull him this way and that, choking passions make him splutter, he trembles with lustful emotions, and he doubles over with yearning and desire, in accordance with the words of the poet

      I knew you as one celebrated for your generosity,

      And the throbbings of longing and hope swept me to you

      and he remains so confused and at a loss, speechless and flabbergasted, perplexed and bewildered, astonished and amazed that, when he returns safely to his house, he believes everything that pops up before him there is a bustle, or that thing that lends the bustle its bulk.

      4.4.8

      وكان الفارياق اذا خرج وابصر هذه الروابى الخصيبة عاد الى ما ماواه وفى راسه الف معنى يشغله * فمما انشده فى بعض هذه الفتن

ياللعجاب وكلّ عُجْب فليقل ياللعجاب
ما ان يرى فى ذا المكان سوى المرافد من روابى
كلا ولا من غوطة	من دون ذياك الجناب
كلا ولا قرموطة	تشرى سوى كُعب الكعاب
من كل ذات تبهكن	تدعو الحصور الى الدعاب
الشوق يقدم بى وخوف العجز من غَلَم ناى بى
ماذا يقول الناس عمّن خار عن مَلْء الوطاب
ام كيف تضعف معدة العربى عن قحف القعاب
مَن لى بصُنبور فاُترعَه بمِنْزفة الحُباب
من لى بقبّة مرفد	فى ليلتى من ذى القباب
من لى بجتّ اُليَّة	من ذى الالايا فى مآبى
هذا لعمرك شان ذى	قَطَم وهذا الداب دابى

      Whenever the Fāriyāq left the house and beheld these well-endowed mounds, he would return to his refuge with a thousand poetical images crowding his head. A poem he recited in honor of one such enchantress went as follows:

      Wonder of wonders! Let every man, “Wonder of wonders!”

      Exclaim, of those who love with women to tussle,

      “Not a mound’s to be seen

      In this place that isn’t a bustle!

      No indeed! And not a dip

      That isn’t accompanied by its own little hump—

      No indeed again!—and not a euphorbia fruit⁷⁰ to be bought

      That isn’t a high-breasted woman’s pink bump.

      Longing makes me boldly approach each big-bottomed waddler

      Who invites the celibate to play,

      Yet fear of impotence induced by too much lust

      Keeps me away.

      What must people say of him who

      Roars from a bursting milk skin that absence of opportunity plugs,

      Or how can the stomach of an Arab

      Be too weak to drink deep from those great jugs?

      O for a spigot that I might fill the cup

      From my counter-levered love pail!

      O for a bustle like one of those domes

      Of which I might myself at night avail!

      O for a palpation of one of those

      Bummikins in my home!

      This, I swear, is the way of those starved

      Of sex and this same practice is my own.”

      الفصل