The Life and Times of Abu Tammam. Abu Bakr al-Suli
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at insults.
24.27
Mukhallad said:
So much fault was found with you,
that fault saved you from satire.
Do not thank me—
thank the abundance of your afflictions.
24.28
Khiyār the Scribe said:
I am not chased away by every dog that barks,
nor am I scared by every fly that buzzes.
The lions of the thicket know
that, alone, I pounce on them, when they are a pride.
How did lowly hyenas show up,
when hyenas only hunt with lionesses?
And he said:
If I swatted a fly every time it passed,
flies would indeed be important to me!
24.29
A Bedouin composed these verses on the former motif:
Slaves evade being lampooned by chiefs:
if you were to be lampooned, lampoon would be an ornament.
No matter what mankind can be accused of
worse could be said about you.
24.30
Diʿbil said:
I forced Satire upon a wretch,
and when it tasted how vile he was it spat him out.
25.1
Al-Buḥturī said:
My task is to carve rhymes from where they belong,
not that cattle understand me.
If the virtues in which I trust
are to be my sins, tell me, how then shall I apologize?43
He took the first verse from Abū Tammām:
No crowd, whatever their number, shall grieve you,
for most of them, nay, all of them are cattle.44
Al-Buḥturī also took his second verse from Abū Tammām:
If it be my sin that my best pursuit is bad
then bad judgment is my excuse.45
25.2
And Abū Tammām, or both Abū Tammām and al-Buḥturī, borrowed this motif from the words of Abū Ḥanash al-Fazārī when he deserted Ḥudhayfah ibn Badr at the Battle of Habāʾah:
How often have the virtues of a good stance
been altered and counted as sins?
This poem contains a beautiful passage:
My stance reminded the women of Ḥamal ibn Badr
and his staunch companion buffeted by the shifts of fortune.
So I said to them, “In our opinion
a lover may not give a beloved an excuse.”
If my love were true or I were free,
I would have died alongside Generosity in the Battle of the Well.
My fault is evident, nothing can hide it from anyone who looks for it;
my excuse has gone into hiding.
I tried as hard as I could,
but man’s cunning ploy died.
There is no excuse that could be counted in my favor:
repeated excuses are the actions of a dubious man.
How often have the virtues of a good stance
been altered and counted as sins?
25.3
Abū Muḥallim recited this verse:
The hungry and thirsty man must ask for hospitality;
he does not need to make the clouds thunder with rain.
25.4
Abū Tammām alluded to this motif:
A troop like speartips, who took their rest on speartips,46
when the night turned pitch black,
For a matter which they must begin,
though they need not bring it to a close.
25.5
This couplet seems to be copied47 from Ibn Abī ….48 Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā Thaʿlab recited it to us:
A man of war: he rushed in and put himself to the test.
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