imagine not, that thou canst beguile me:
I shall have from thy Purse, or from thy Hide
An Account of all that I have rendered thee.
I know not, whether he that steals thy Purse,
Or he who never op’neth his, be worse!”
4.7Ben Hamam continved:
Thinking that the sight of these two Champions would be as much diverting to the Eye, as their Discourse was to the Ear, I went forth, when the Sunne had beset wth his Beames the Sky, ere the Companie mount, or the Crow fly, in the way whence came the Voices I hearde in the Night, sifting each Face I spied, till I beheld at last Aboo Zeid, clad in ragged Cloutes, speaking wth his Sonne; and knew them to be those that yesternight used the Dialogue I heard.
As much eager to try their Curtesie, as moved to Pitie by their State, I approached near to them, and invited them to alight at my Camp, placing at their Commaundement, all that was mine, whether in Prosperitie, or Adversitie. Presently I praised them to the Companie, that adopted them as Friends; and by my doing shook before them laden Boughs, that battered them down wth Frute. We were that Evening at a high Camping-Place that gave a view of the Towns below, and of the cheerful Fires kindled therein, at which Sight, Aboo Zeid, perceiving that his Budget was now as full as his Miserie abated, declared himself filthish and mucky, and asked leave to descend to a Town, where he might bathe himself, and join Healthe of Body, to Ease of Mind.
4.8I answered him thus: “If thou must go, make all haste to depart, and as much to repaire.” To which he replyed: “I shall be agayn before you as quick as Sight to the Eye.” Presently he started up like a Horse pricked wth the Spurr, bidding his Sonne: “Goe, runne, flye!” I no more mistrusted them of Fleeting, than suspected them of Fraud.
As longingly as men attend a Feast, so did we attend their Return, but Nothing. At length we sent certain of the Companie to look for their Coming, but yet Nothing. How long we attended, it were tedious to write; let it suffice, that like a Bank or Cliff that hath been eaten by the Floode, so that some Part of it every Hour falls, the Daye by stealth dropt away; and, like a lewd Strumpet who, at the coming of old Age, repents of the hot assaults of Youth, and vows to end her Dayes in Rags, the Sunne, forgetting it had once been young, sank behind a tattered Cloud; seeing which, I said to my Companions: “Our Friend is false, even as Musk, although it be sweet in the Smell, is sour in the Smack. We have tarried too long, and lost the Daye. Let us stand not in a Mammering, but depart, for we have swallowed a Gudgen!”
4.9As I rose to mount my Camill, my Eye fell on the Saddle, and I saw that Aboo Zeid had scribbled on the Pommel:
O Friend in my Adversitie,
Acquit me of Uncourtesy:
Not in Weariness, nor Pride,
Did I command my Son to ride,
But in Duty to the Holy Verse
That sayeth: “Sup ye, then disperse!”
I read this scribble alowde to the Companie, so that those that had blamed him might forgive, and those that rebuked him be content. Marvelling no less at his Tale, than at his Bale, no more at his Fame, than at his Bane, we mounted, wondering where, the Sky grown dark, he should find another Mark.
Glossary
4.2
feres companions
4.3
though he fall from his to me though he fail in his duty to me
quat me wth his Slibber-Sawce nauseate me with his dirty wash-water or filthy ointment
pinch on thy Side avoid paying what he owes you
4.4
Wither art thou carried? You can’t be serious!
meacock weakling
fain compliant
4.5
Cark distress
pinned to his Sleeve wrapped around his little finger
standing on his Pantofles holding his head high
4.7
Cloutes clothes
Budget wallet
4.8
Smack taste
stand not in a Mammering not hesitate
swallowed a Gudgen been tricked
4.9
Bale wickedness
Bane misfortune
Notes
Although al-Ḥarīrī and Lyly share a penchant for balanced clauses and rhymed prose, they differ in other respects. Al-Ḥarīrī uses a great deal of obscure vocabulary, but the need to rhyme at regular intervals keeps his clauses relatively short. Lyly, conversely, makes no special effort to pile on difficult words, but revels in long, tangled sentences. The translation splits the difference: it uses shorter sentences than Lyly would like, but tries to employ as many of his favorite rhetorical devices as possible. To imitate al-Ḥarīrī’s use of rare words, I have used expressions from Lyly that may not have been rare in his time but are now oddly charming or completely unknown. The more difficult of these are explained in the Glossary. Whether listed there or not, all the words in the translation are attested either in Lyly’s works or (in those few cases when those did not suffice) in OED citations from the same period. The spelling reproduces a few features of Lyly’s (very inconsistent) orthography, in the hope of conveying a sense of the visual character of Elizabethan writing and printing.
“Pinch on thy side” is adapted from “to pinch on the parson’s side,” to save money by withholding the tithe one owes the church (Lyly, Euphues, p. 72, n. 2).
“As a pair of shoes” probably refers to a pair of horseshoes, as the left and right were the same.
The sequence about waiting a long time is based on a letter Lyly wrote to Queen Elizabeth protesting her neglect of him (Lyly, Complete Works, 1:70–71). The extended metaphors of the cliff and the sun are based on mere phrases in al-Ḥarīrī, but since Lyly loves to extend his metaphors, I chose to expand these, thereby also compensating in part for the many Haririan metaphors I have smoothed away elsewhere. Part of the language about the cliff comes (anachronistically) from Lane’s Arabic-English Lexicon, s.v. j-r-f.
Bibliography
