واللهِ تَقِيًّا صَالِحا
فأجابه آخر يقول [رمل]
| كانَ لا يَدري مُداراةَ الوَرَى | وَمُداراةُ الوَرَى أمرٌ مُهِمْ |
فالسلامة في مداراة الناس * وحسن الانطباع معهم بلطف الإيناس * وأن يكون الشخص متنقّلًا في أطوارهم * دائرًا تحت فَلَك أدوارهم * كما صرّحت بذلك في بعض المقامات بهذه الأبيات [طويل]
| فطَوْرًا تَراني عالِمًا ومُدَرِّسا | وطَوْرًا تَراني فاسِقًا فَلَفوسا |
| وطَوْرًا تَراني ع المَزامِرِ١ عاكِفا | وطَوْرًا تَراني سيِّدًا ورَئيسا |
| مَظاهرُ أُنسٍ إنْ تحقَّقْتَ سِرَّها | تُرِيكَ بُدُورًا أقبَلتْ وشُموسا |
١ بي: على المزامر.
The tale is told that a certain king’s imam died. The king said to his ministers and the privy councilors of the realm, “Find me an imam who is God-fearing and ascetic, gentle in nature and unassuming.” Their choice fell on a man of the city who answered to that description but was poor. “Bring him to me,” said the king. When the man appeared, the king honored and made much of him, raising him in rank till he was more exalted than his ministers and showering him with favors. Finding himself in this state, the man started to lord it over his own kind and to treat them with contempt; he ceased to humor people or pay them due respect, and he treated the great men of the realm with contempt. These then agreed to set a trap to destroy him. Now, it was the king’s custom, when it was Friday and he wished to pray in a certain mosque, to send his prayer rug on ahead. There it would be spread out for him, and he would enter and sit on it with this imam beside him. What they agreed to do was to have a small cross of gold and jewels made and to give it, with a gift, to a certain intimate of the king’s who could be trusted to keep a secret, telling him, “Place this under the prayer rug where the imam’s forehead touches it, in such a fashion that no one sees you.” This he did. When the people dispersed following the prayer and the king was about to depart, the mosque attendant picked up the rug and saw the cross. He presented it to the king, who denied all knowledge of it and said to the great men of the realm, “What’s this? This cross has been found under the place where the imam’s forehead touches the rug!” “He must be an infidel,” they replied, “who has been hiding his true nature from us!” At this the king grew angry and ordered the man killed. As his funeral procession passed by, a poet declaimed:
Pious he was, God knows—righteous,
Fair and just, and ne’er before accused.
To which another replied:
He had no sense of how to humor men,
And that’s a sin too great to be excused.
Thus safety lies in humoring others, and using winning ways to get along with one’s brothers. One should adapt himself to their different manners and march under their changing banners, as I make clear in the following lines from a maqāmah of mine:
One day you’ll find me a scholar and a teacher,
The next a sinner and freethinker.
One day you’ll find me buried in the crowd,
The next a lord and master proud.
A pleasant manner, once you have the knack,
Will bring you pendant gems and money by the sack.
(ولنشرع الآن فيما وعدنا * وما زمرنا به ورقصنا)
The Author Embarks on a Description of the Common Country Folk
١،٢
والشخص يغلب عليه علمه وفنّه * والزامر لا يخبّي ذقنه * وقبل الخَوْض في بحر هذا الكلام * والمشابهة له من جنس النظام * (نذكر ما وقع لعوامّ بعض أهل الريف) * ووصف طبعهم الكثيف * وأخلاقهم الرذيله * وذواتهم الهبيله * وأسمائهم المقلَّبه * وقحوفهم المُشَقْلَبه * وقمصانهم المُشَرْمَطه * وأشعارهم المُخَلْبَطه * ونسائهم المُزْعِجات * وما لهم من الدواهي والبليّات *
Let us now then embark on what we promised in advance and the occasion for all this song and dance—for a man’s knowledge and craft must make themselves heard, and “the piper doesn’t hide his beard.”11 Before wading, however, into the ocean of this verse, and others like it or even worse, we will tell of things that befell the commoners of certain of the people of the countryside, with a description of their vulgarity, scurrility, and personal puerility, of their names that are arsy-varsy and their hats that are topsy-turvy, of their shifts all frayed and their verses disarrayed, and of their disquieting womenfolk with the calamities and disasters they provoke.
٢،٢
فنقول أمّا سوء أخلاقهم وقلّة لطافتهم فمن كثرة معاشرتهم للبهائم والأبقار * وملازمتهم لشيل الطين والعَفار * وعدم اكتراثهم بأهل اللطافه * وامتزاجهم بأهل الكثافه * كأنّهم خُلِقُوا من طينة البهائم * كما قال في ذلك الناظم [سريع]
| لا تَصْحَبِ الفلّاح لَوْ أَنَّهُ | نَافِجَةٌ أَرْيَاحُها صَاعِدَهْ |
