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

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СКАЧАТЬ AND OF THE NATURE OF HIS BEARD, WHETHER IT WAS LONG OR SHORT, AND OF HOW, AT THE END, BY FATE HE WAS O’ERTHROWN, AS A RESULT OF WHICH HE COMPOSED THIS ODE FOR WHICH HE BECAME FAMOUS AND WELL KNOWN

HIS LINEAGE

      10.1

      We declare: opinions differ concerning his lineage. Some state that he was Abū Shādūf son of Abū Jārūf son of Shaqādif son of Laqāliq (Storks) son of Baḥlaq (Goggle-Eye) son of ʿAflaq (Big Flabby Vagina) son of ʿAfr (Dust) son of Duʿmūm son of Falḥas¹ son of Kharā Ilḥas (Lick-Shit). If you ingest these words with your rational faculty, you will realize that this is the end of his ancestry. Others, however, say he was Abū Shādūf son of Abū Jārūf son of Bardaʿ (Donkey Saddle) son of Zawbaʿ (Dust Storm) son of Baḥlaq son of ʿAflaq son of Bahdal (Disheveled) son of ʿAwkal son of ʿAmrah² son of Kul Kharā (Eat-Shit). Thus, according to the first version, his genealogy ends with “son of Lick-Shit” and according to the second with “son of Eat-Shit”; however, the second is more correct because to eat shit is more eloquent than to lick it.

HIS VILLAGE

      10.2

      As for his village, it is a matter of dispute. Some say that he was from Tall Fandarūk and others from Kafr Shammirṭāṭī,³ the latter being correct, for the poet himself says so in some verses of his, to wit:

      10.2.1

      Me, good people, my words are a guide

      And my verses speak true, no tomfooleries hide.

      Abū Shādūf am I. My dad told me the tale,

      And likewise my grandma, old Umm Nāyil,

      Of how, good folk, I was raised

      In a hamlet known since olden days

      Called Kafr Shammir-lī wa-Tāṭī⁴—

      So, Fasāqil,⁵ be a wise laddie!

      These are my verses, Abū Shādūf’s my name,

      And any who comes to inquire my verse can claim.

      10.2.2

      And I heard verses by a country person that indicate that he was from Tall Fandarūk, as follows:

      We have heard in days old and new

      Speech strong as iron and as true—

      Of Abū Shādūf they did us tell,

      In words very trusty and confirmed as well,

      That Tall Fandarūk was his childhood abode,

      And there he lived, good people, and composed an ode.

      These are my verses, Ghindāf’s my name,

      And verse far-fetched is the name of my game!

      The two versions may be reconciled by saying that he was born in Kafr Shammirṭāṭī and raised in Tall Fandarūk.

THE SHAPE OF HIS BEARD

      10.3

      As for the shape of his beard, some say it was very long, while others say it was moderate in both length and shortness. The two accounts may be reconciled by saying that, at the beginning of his life—when, as we shall see, he enjoyed perfect good fortune and abundant blessings—his beard was long because he groomed it frequently with chicken fat and linseed oil and combed it and tended its hairs and so on; however, when he grew old and his fortunes changed and care and sorrows overtook him, it became less commode-ious⁶ because of his eating dirt and nits and so on. In other words, it grew long at first and then later it grew wide, with the result that its width rendered its length odious, and, as such, there is no contradiction between the two versions. As the poet says:

      A beard grew long and got quite nasty,

      So that its length became quite odious.

      They cut it short and it got much nicer,

      When its length was less commode-ious.

      10.4

      Some say that it is sign of a lack of brains when a man’s head is small and his beard long, and if his name is Yaḥyā as well, he hasn’t a hope of brains at all; and the proverb says, “Long beard, little brain.” Thus it came about that a man had a friend with a long beard who was a teacher of young children.⁷ On one occasion, after he had failed to see him for some days, the man asked after his friend and was told, “He has shut himself up in his house to grieve.” The man thought that he must have lost a child or one of his relatives, so he went to see him and found him grief-stricken and weeping and wailing. “My brother,” said the first, “may God make great your recompense and make good your consolation and have mercy on the departed! Every soul must taste death!” “Think you that one of mine has died?” said the other. “What then?” said the first. “Know,” said the shaykh, “that I was sitting one day when I heard a man recite the following verses:

      O Umm ʿAmr, God reward you well,

      Give me back my heart, wherever it may be!⁸

      Don’t take my heart to make of it your toy—

      How can a girl with a young man’s heart make free?

      “—so I said to myself, ‘Were not this Umm ʿAmr one of the best and most beautiful of people, these verses would not have been said of her!’ and I fell madly in love with her and shut myself away with her love. Then one day I sat for a while and I heard someone say:

      When the donkey went off with Umm ʿAmr,

      She never came back, and neither did the donkey

      “—so I thought, ‘If Umm ʿAmr were not dead, they would not have made up this verse about her’ and I was overcome with grief and afflicted by sorrow.” This made his friend realize how stupid the man was and he left him and went his way.

      10.5

      And the story is told that one extremely cold day a certain person was going along when he saw a man with a small head and long beard wearing nothing but a shift and shivering from the cold. Noticing that the man had a white woolen mantle folded under his arm, he asked him, “Why don’t you put on the mantle to protect yourself from the cold?” The man replied, “I’m afraid that the rain will get on it and make it wet, and then it won’t be lovely and new-looking anymore.” This made the man realize how stupid he was and he left him and went his way.

      10.6

      The finest beard is middling, with hairs of even length, neither long nor short. If it be said, “Pharaoh’s beard was longer than he was tall, by one or two spans, or so it is reported, and even so he was wise and full of insight,” we respond, “The explanation is that the Almighty gave him three miraculous signs, one of them being the length of his beard, which was also green and the like of which was vouchsafed to no other of his sort. He also had a steed that placed its front foot at the farthest point that it could see and raised its hind legs when it ascended and its front legs when it descended. Or it may be said that, even though СКАЧАТЬ