The Life and Times of Abu Tammam. Abu Bakr al-Suli
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Abū Tammām’s excellence should not be discounted as too fanciful or on account of some substandard verses. Scholars have found fault with Imruʾ al-Qays and inferior poets, ancient and modern, for numerous erroneous descriptions and other things that would take too long to explain, but they did not thereby forfeit their status. Would Abū Tammām be singled out like this if it weren’t for zealous partisanship and prevailing ignorance?
21.1
The critics have found fault with the following verse and have consequently lowered him in their estimation:
His habit was to lavish gifts so nonsensically,
that we thought he was feverish.
21.2
Why then do they not lower their estimation of Abū Nuwās for his words about al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar:
You lavished riches until people said,
“He is insane.”25
Fever is a better state than insanity. The feverish man gets better and regains his state of health, whereas the madman rarely recovers. Abū Tammām’s comparison of excessive and lavish liberality with febrile ranting and raving is more excusable than Abū Nuwās’s comparison of it with the behavior of a madman.
21.3
And why do they not fault these words by another poet?
Infantry men warn each other about a hero,
who rushes against the cavalry like a fool.
He compared his excessive display of courage with the behavior of a stupid and undiscerning man.
21.4
ʿUbayd al-Liṣṣ al-ʿAnbarī had previously used this motif but split it up:
None but a man of noble nature or a madman
gives someone like him gifts like these.26
21.5
So how can they approve these words by al-Buḥturī?
When other men are cautious with their liberality,
a mad zeal for giving leads him astray.
21.6
And these by Abū Nuwās:
You lavished so many riches,
people thought it stupidity.
22.1
They found fault with Abū Tammām’s line:
Do not make me drink blame’s bitter water!
I am an ardent lover who enjoys the sweet taste of his tears.
“What does ‘blame’s bitter water’ mean?” they asked.
According to Yūnus ibn Ḥabīb people say, “words full of water”27 and “How full of water the poetry of al-Akhṭal is!” The phrases “passion’s water” and “desire’s water” mean tears.
22.2
Dhū l-Rummah said:
Is it because you looked so long at a dwelling of al-Kharqāʾ
that your eyes shed passion’s water?
He also said:
O abode in Ḥuzwā, you brought a tear to the eye—
desire’s water drops in streams or floods.
22.3
ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn al-Muʿadhdhal, an excellent poet according to those who attack Abū Tammām and others, said:
Has your face not run out of water
after the humiliation of desire and beggary?28
He thus treated the water of the face as real water.29
22.4
People say, “the water of youth.” Abū l-ʿAtāhiyah said:
A gazelle dressed in a beautiful dress,
cheeks flush with the water of youth …
22.5
This derives from the words of ʿUmar ibn Abī Rabīʿah:
Hidden away, the water of youth pours down
the skin of her cheeks.
22.6
And Aḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Ismāʿīl said:
Slender, his cheeks stormy with the water of youth
but for his skin, he would turn to rain and fall in drops.
22.7
Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Tamīmī on the authority of Ibn al-Sikkīt recited the following verse to me:
When the water of your love starts to shake,
and a drizzle falls from the low-lying clouds of youth, I said …
What is the harm then, if Abū Tammām adopts one of these phrases and uses it in the first half of his verse? Because the second half-verse is “I am an ardent lover who enjoys the sweet taste of his tears,” he opened the first half-verse with “Do not make me drink blame’s bitter water!”30
22.8
Sometimes, the Bedouins carry one word over and apply it to another whose meaning is not the same. God (Mighty and Glorious) says, «The recompense of evil is evil the like of it.»31 But the second evil is not evil, because it is retribution. However, since He first said, «the recompense of evil,» He repeated «evil,» carrying over the meaning of one word and applying it to another. Likewise, «And they devised, and God devised»32 and «Do thou give them the good tidings of a painful chastisement.»33 Since He first said, “Give those the good tidings of paradise,” He then said, “Give those the good tidings of a chastisement.” “Tidings” is used only of good, not bad things, so He carried one word over and applied it to another. It is said, “They are called tidings, because they relax the face,34 while bad and unpleasant things make it contract.” Al-Aʿshā said:
Yazīd screws up his eyes in front of me
like a grimace caused by the cupping vessels.
May your knitted brows never relax,
and may your face be rubbed in dirt whenever you meet me.
God (Mighty and Glorious) said, «And lower to them the wing of humbleness out of mercy.»35 This is the most magnificent and beautiful metaphor. The speech of the Bedouins works in the same way. What is the harm, then, if Abū Tammām said, “Do not make me drink blame’s bitter water!”?
22.9
Al-ʿAttābī said:
I suppress the pangs of love, but they are revealed
by yearning’s water as it seeps through my eyelids.
22.10
And Abū Nuwās said:
When I invited you to generosity, you responded,
“Here I am,” and you found the water of my speech sweet.
This will contribute (God support you) to my defense of Abū Tammām and will give you an indication of my argument on his behalf, until you hear the whole argument in my edition of his poetry, God willing.
23.1
If these critics only knew the plethora of things people have objected to in poems by skilled poets, ancient and modern, they would deem the faults they find with Abū Tammām negligible—provided they believe in judging with an equitable eye. The position of someone who faults Abū Tammām is