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) is “a cant word for a mixture of wine, oranges, and sugar” (Johnson, Dictionary), and one of Johnson’s favorite drinks (see Boswell, Life, 1791 ed., I:135). The Arabic has “mixed him a cup,” using a rare word for “mix.” The expressions of affection between men described in this passage, and again in many other Impostures, are part of what Shawkat M. Toorawa, following Eve Sedgwick, has called the “homosocial” character of the pre-modern Arabic scholarly milieu. This is to be distinguished from the homoerotic, which appears as well (see Imposture 10).
Al-Ḥārith’s native place (§2.4) is Basra, which, being al-Ḥarīrī’s home too, is more fully realized than any other place mentioned in the Impostures (see 48 and 50). “El-Bohtoree” (§2.4) is al-Buḥturī (d. 284/897), an Abbasid court poet and leading representative of the so-called Modern school, famous for its complex images. The verses cited here compare teeth to pearls, hailstones, and daffodils. “If Rubies . . .”: Spenser, Sonnet XV in Works, p. 123, with “her” changed to “his” to match the Arabic. Preston, Makamat, 399, quotes part of this poem as well.
The Arabic verses in §2.5 add a comparison to hearts of palm and bubbles. To match it I have used “Rubies, Cherries, and Roses . . .” from The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia, Lib. 2., in Sidney, Complete Works, I:209. In the citations of sixteenth-century poetry I have modernized a few of the spellings to make for easier reading.
The Qurʾanic verse in §2.6
