نقط بيض تشبه القمل فلهذا يقال غزل مقمَّل ومصدره قمل يقمل قملًا وهو اسم جنس الأنثى منه قملة وأمّا الذكر فلعلّه يسمّى قامل قال الشاعر شعر [طويل]
| وما قامِلٌ في الثوبِ إلّا رأيتَهُ | يَدبُّ دبيبَ العُقْرُبانِ إذا مشى |
(والعقربان) على لغة الثُعْلُبان اسم للثَعْلَب قال الشاعر [طويل]
| أَرَبٌّ يبول الثُعْلُبان بوجهِهِ | لقد ذَلَّ من بالت عليه الثعالبُ |
وخوطب بلفظ المُثَنّى كما ورد في القرآن العظيم في قوله تعالى خطابًا لمالك خازن النار {أَلْقِيَا فِي جَهَنَّمَ} وقول الحَجّاج يا غلام أضربا عنقه وأمّا قوله في البيت الأوّل يدبّ دبيب العقربان أي لأنّهم شبّهوا القملة بالعقرب والبرغوث بالفيل وهذا لأنّها تلدغ والبرغوث يعضّ (فإن قيل) إذا كانت القملة تشبه العقرب والبرغوث يشبه الفيل فلأيّ شيء لم تكن كبيرة مثلها ولدغتها كلدغة العقرب وكذلك البرغوث لم يكن قدر الفيل وفعله كفعله (الجواب عن ذلك) أنّ القمل لمّا كان مُنْشَأة من جسد الإنسان وأنّه لا يفارقه لمنافع اقتضتها الحكمة الإلهيّة وهي مصّ الدم الفاسد وإن كان يتحصّل منه الأذى كان المناسب لحكمة الله تعالى أن يكون صغيرًا ولدغته قليلة الألم إذ لو كانت القملة١ قدر العقرب لَلَزِمَ أن يكون الآدميّ قدر الجمل ويكون دائمًا في خوف من رؤيتها وتعذيب من لدغتها والله تعالى كرّم بني آدم وكذلك البرغوث لمّا جعله الله تعالى يسكن مخارق الثياب والمحلّات الضيّقة كان صغيرًا مثل القمل إذ لو كان قدر الفيل للزم أن يكون الآدميّ قدر الجبل والبرغوث واحد البراغيث والأنثى منه برغوثة وهو مشتقّ من البِرّ والغَوْث قال الجلال السيوطيّ رحمه الله [سريع]
| لا تَكرَهِ البُرغوثَ إنَّ اسمهُ | بِرٌّ وغَوْثٌ لا به تدري |
| فَبِرُّه مَصُّ دمٍ فاسدٍ | والغَوثُ إيقاظُك للفَجرِ |
واستغنى الناظم عن ذكره بذكر القمل لأنّه تابع له
١ بي: القمل.
(a)l-qaml (“lice”)—the well-known type that makes the rounds among people, not the type mentioned in the Mighty Qurʾan, for the latter is a type of worm or tick, according to some of the commentators.88 (Useful note: al-Damīrī, in his Life of Animals,89 mentions, on someone’s authority, that the tick lives seven hundred years, which is remarkable. End.)90 Lice are born from the sweat and dirt of the body. The word is derived from taqammul (“infestation with lice”) or from the taqmīl (“licing”) of yarn, when the latter is dyed and sized and placed in the hottest sun, so that it dries and develops white spots that look like lice; thus one speaks of “liced yarn.” The paradigm is qamila, yaqmalu, qamlan (“to be infested with lice”); qaml is a collective noun, the female being a qamlah (“a louse”);91 the male is perhaps called a qāmil. The poet says:
I never had a male louse (qāmil) in my clothes but it seemed to me
To creep like a male scorpion (ʿuqrubān) as it moved.
The word ʿuqrubān is of the pattern of thuʿlubān, which means “fox” (thaʿlab). As the poet says:
Is there a lord on whose face the dog-foxes pee?
Contemptible indeed is he on whom the foxes pee!
The dual92 may be used as a form of address, as it is in the Mighty Qurʾan when the Almighty addresses the Guardian of the Fire, saying, «Throw (dual) into Hell . . .»93 and as in the words of al-Ḥājjaj, “Boy, strike (dual) his neck!.”94 As for the poet’s words in the first verse, “creep like a male scorpion,” this is the case because the louse is conventionally likened to the scorpion and the flea to the elephant, because the former stings while the flea bites. If it be said, “If the louse resembles the scorpion and the flea resembles the elephant, why is the louse not as large as the scorpion and its sting like the scorpion’s sting, and, by the same token, why is the flea not the size of the elephant and why does it not behave like one?” the reply would be that, because the louse is generated by and never leaves the human body for a specific beneficial purpose ordained by the Divine Wisdom, namely, the removal by sucking of corrupt blood, even though it may sometimes do harm too, it is in accord with the wisdom of the Almighty that it should be small and also that its sting should cause hardly any pain, because, were the louse the size of a scorpion, a human would have to be the size of a camel and would live in dread of seeing one and being tortured by its sting—but Almighty God is generous to mankind. Likewise, the flea, given that the Almighty has formed it to live in the creases of clothes and other tight places, is small like the louse, because if it were the size of an elephant, a human would have to be the size of a mountain. The word burghūth (“flea”) is the singular of barāghīth, and the female is a burghūthah; it is derived from birr (“charity”) plus ghawth (“help”).95 Al-Jalāl al-Suyūṭī,96 God have mercy on him, said:
Hate not the flea—
Its name is Charity,
And though you know it not
It also helps a lot:
In sucking bad blood
Its charity lies;
By rousing you at dawn for prayer
Its help it supplies.
The poet’s mention of the louse spares him the need to mention the flea, because the latter is subordinate to the former.
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