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

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СКАЧАТЬ كسوفًا، وأرهقت نضرتَه وحشيةُ الفراق، وقطّعتنا فرقًا في الآفاق، بعد أن كنّا كالأعضاء المؤتلفة، والأغصان اللدنة المنعطفة:

واحسرتي في يوم يجـ	ـمعُ شِرَّتي كفنٌ ولَحْدُ
ضيَّعتُ ما لا بُدَّ منـ	ـه بالذي لي منه بُدُّ

      وأُنشد قولَ ابن الروميّ:

أَلا ليس شيبُكَ بالمنتزعْ

فهل أَنتَ عن غَيِّهِ مرتدِعْ

      فأَقلَقُ وأبكى بكاءً غير نافع ولا ناجع، ويجب أن أبكي على بكائي وأُنشد:

لساني يقولُ ولا أَفعلُ	وقلبي يريدُ ولا أَعملُ
وأَعرِف رُشدي ولا أَهتدي	وأَعْلَمُ لكنّني أَجهلُ

      ١ كع، د: (بكل أسبابي وامتزج سروره بفرحى وروحى وأترابى).

      And I say, following Kuthayyir: O world, at every glance you fill my eyes with tears, at every thought you cause me grief! O you who make turbid any purity, O you who breach any pact of loyalty: he who turns toward you has never prospered for a single instant, and he who prefers to remain well-disposed toward you has never been happy. Far from it! O children of this world, outwardly you are called rich, but inwardly and truly it is those happy with little who are rich in the true sense of the word. So many splendid days have I known, with many new moons, the sky bright, the shade stretching over me, the hours providing me all I desired, smilingly offering me all I longed for. But once it had attached itself to me in all my affairs,102 the world begrudged me all this; it strove to break up my intimacy with it and to shorten its extent. Its splendor was eclipsed to gloom and the desolation of separation blighted its bloom. It has scattered us, dispersed to the horizons, after we had been like limbs held together, like bending, pliant branches;

      O my grief, the day my youthful zeal

      was gathered in a shroud and grave!

      I’ve squandered what I needed

      for what I did not need.103

      I quote a verse by Ibn al-Rūmī:104

      Ah, the grayness of your hairs will not be snatched away:

      will you forswear the foibles of old age?

      I am perturbed, I weep though weeping is neither useful nor beneficial, and I should rather weep for my weeping and recite:

      My tongue speaks but I do not act;

      My heart desires but I do naught.

      I am aware of the right path but do not let myself be guided;

      I know, but act in ignorance.105

      6.3

      عرض عليّ بعض الناس كأس خمر، فامتنعتُ منها وقلت: خلُّوني والمطبوخَ على مذهب الشيخ الأوزاعيّ. وقلت لهم: عَرَض إبراهيم بن المهديّ على محمد بن حازم الخمرة فامتنع وأنشد:

أَبعدَ شيبيَ أَصبو	والشيبُ للجهل حَرْبُ
سِنٌّ وشيبٌ وجهلٌ	أَمرٌ لَعَمرُكَ صَعْبُ
يا ابنَ الإِمامِ فَأَلاّ	أَيامَ عُودِيَ رطْبُ
وإِذ مَشيبي قليلٌ	ومَنهلُ الحبّ عذبُ
وإِذ شفاءُ١ الغواني	مِنِّي حديث وقُربُ
فالآنَ لما رأَى بي الـ	ـعُذَّالُ ما قد أَحَبُّوا
وآنَسَ الرشدَ منّي	قوم أُعَابُ وأَصبو؟
آليتُ أَشربُ خمرًا	ما حَجّ للهِ ركْبُ

      ١ د: (شفاه).

      Some people offered me a cup of wine. I refused and said, “Leave me with boiled wine, according to the doctrine of Sheikh al-Awzāʿī!”106 I told them that Ibrāhīm ibn al-Mahdī once offered wine to Muḥammad ibn Ḥāzim, who refused and recited:

      Shall I, with my gray hair, be foolish like a child?

      Gray hair is at war with brutish ignorance.

      Old age, gray hair, and ignorance:

      upon your life, they’re hard to reconcile.

      O caliph’s son, O for the days

      when I was strong and fresh,

      When my gray hairs were few

      and drinking from love’s spring was sweet,

      When I was cured by pretty girls

      by conversation and proximity!

      But now, when those who chided me

      see in me all they yearned to see,

      And people see me taking the right path:

      shall I once more be chided and be foolish like a child?

      I swear that I shall never drink wine

      as long as pilgrims ride to go on hajj for God!

      6.4.1

      وأقبلت على نفسي مخاطبًا، ولها معاتبًا، والخطاب لغيرها والمعنى لها:

      لقد أَمهَلكم СКАЧАТЬ