Impostures. al-Ḥarīrī
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Did you not see my friend depart?
And did you, gazing, not despair,
That you might to absent love compare?
2.4For some time after that day I did not see him, notwithstanding all my efforts to discover the giant in his den, and my entreaties to persons presumed able to point me to his lair. I then returned to my native place.
One day, while upon a visit to our considerable library, that served as a meeting place for men of letters, whether of the town, or from abroad, there entered a man of unshorn beard and slovenly appearance, who, upon saluting the company, sat down upon the ground, in the back row of spectators. After a short pause he began to shew his powers.
Addressing himself to his neighbor, he asked: What book is it, sir, that you turn over? It is, he replied, the poems of the celebrated El-Bohtoree.
And have you met, sir, with any verses you think are particularly fine?
I have (said the man). These lines:—
If Rubies, loe his lips be Rubies found,
If Pearls, his teeth be pearls both pure and round.
It is a very pretty likeness.
2.5To this, the visitor replied: O brave! What strange want of taste is this, sir, that should cause you to mistake swelling for substance, and cold ash for glowing embers? For how can that verse compare with one, that combines the several similitudes of lips and teeth:-
Rubies, Cherries, and Roses new,
In worth, in taste, in perfette hew:
Which never part but that they showe
Of pretious pearl the double rowe.
2.6The company greeted these verses with approbation, and begged the stranger to recite them once more, that they might take them down. He was then asked, whose they were; and whether their author was alive, or dead? O, gentlemen, he replied, I must tell the truth, for I love nothing so much as veracity. The verses are my own.
The company, suspecting him of imposture, shewed its perplexity. Apprehending the reason for their uneasiness, and fearful of injury to his reputation, he immediately recited from the Alcoran: “O true believers, carefully avoid entertaining a suspicion of another, for some suspicions are a crime.” Then he said: I perceive, gentlemen, that you are connoisseurs of poesy, and criticks of verse. Mankind has agreed, that the purity of any mineral is shewn by fire, and likewise any claim must stand the test of a trial, by which superiority of parts and knowledge will necessarily appear. The proverb says, The proof of the Pudding is in the eating. I have spoken plainly; you may oppose me as you please.
2.7One of the company said: I have, sir, an uncommonly ingenious verse, one superiour, I believe, to all others of its kind. If us you would persuade, pray outmatch it:—
Oh teares, no teares, but showers from beauties skies,
Making those lilies and those Roses growe.
The stranger said: I think, sir, I can make a better. Then he extempore produced the following:
Alas I found that she with me did smart:
I sawe that tears did in her eyes appeare:
I sawe that sighs her sweetest lips did part:
And her sad words my sad dear sense did heare.
For me, I weep to see Pearls scattered so,
I sighed her sighs, and wailed for her woe.
2.8These verses, and the uncommon rapidity of their composition, produced a fine impression on the company, which declared itself assured of his veracity. Now sensible of their approbation, and gratified by the marks of their esteem, he said: Pray let me complete my poem for you. He cast his eyes downwards for a moment, and then said:
I sighed her sighs, and wailed for her woe:
Yet swamme in joy such love in her was seene.
Thus while the effect most bitter was to me,
And than the cause nothing more sweet could be,
I had beene vext, if vext I had not beene.
The company, thus conceiving a very high admiration of his powers, favoured him with expressions of the greatest respect and honour, and undertook to mitigate the shabbiness of his dress.
2.9Our narrator resumed his account thus:
The superlative action of the stranger’s wit, and the animated glow of his countenance, prompted me to examine him more closely; and, upon minute study of his particulars, I perceived that he was my friend from Serugium, his hair now white with age. Delighted to have found him again, I ran up to him, took him by the hand, and exclaimed, Pray, sir, what has befallen you, to thus whiten your hair, and so transform your countenance, that I was at pains to recognize my old friend? He replied:
Year chases year, decay pursues decay,
Still drops some joy from with’ring life away.
Fate! snatch away the bright disguise,
And let thy mortal children trust their eyes.
Hope not life, from grief or danger free,
Nor think the doom of man reversed for thee.
Hide not from thyself, nor shun to know,
That life protracted is protracted woe.
But long-suff’ring patience calms the mind:
Pour forth thy fervors for a will resign’d.
Then he rose and departed, taking our affections with him.
Notes
In the original, Abū Zayd impresses his audience by increasing the number of similes and metaphors. Because “teeth as pearls” and the like were commonplace images, he is able to pack many of them into a few lines without losing the thread. In English, however, anything resembling a close translation becomes unreadably dense. Readers who wish to see for themselves may look at Chenery’s crib (Assemblies, 115–16) and Preston’s versified rendering (Makamat, 396–405). Rather than try to improve on these versions, which are freely available, this translation takes one theme—the teeth and the pearls—and sticks with it. Because this theme appears in English poetry as well, it was possible to quote entire poems without changing them. Since one of the themes of the story is plagiarism, and since Abū Zayd, a notorious liar, assures his audience that the poems are his own work, it did not seem entirely unfair to make him a plagiarist.
“Hulwán” (§2.2) is Ḥulwān, an ancient town located where the Iranian town of Sar-i Pol Zahab is today, at the entrance to one of the passes through the Zagros mountains (Lockhart, “Ḥulwān”). It was known for its olives, date palms, and sugarcane (Sharīshī, Sharḥ, 1:78). “Abuzeid of Serugium” is from Chappelow, Six Assemblies, 19.
“Bishop” (§2.3)