بي (في جميع النسخ): فاحملي.
jarīf (“willy-nilly”): originally jarfan, because it is a verbal noun with the alif omitted, the ī being added for the sake of the rhyme; or it may be a rural form; in either case there can be no objection.139 It is derived from jarf or from mijrafah (“shovel”) or from jarrāfah (“shovel-sledge”). If it be said, “The poet ought to have referred the pronominal suffix of yajrufuhū to the nearest antecedent, namely, nukhālah,140 and this would have been more appropriate,” we say, “He may have avoided using a feminine pronominal suffix for the meter, because, if he had used one, the line would no longer have scanned;141 or it may be a case of truncation,142 as in the line143
Gently now, Fāṭim!144 A little less disdainful:
Even if you would cut my rope, do it kindly!
“—or he may have been referring it to the ‘husks of wheat and barley,’ which are called collectively nukhālah, in which case it should be taken as an example of the suppression of the first term of a genitive construct,145 so there can be no objection.” And if it also be said, “One might understand from the poet’s words that the lice and nits were confined exclusively to the yoke of his jubbah and there were none of them whatsoever on his body, in which case what would be the point in his complaining about them?” we would reply, “The answer may be that one might say that his words ‘in the yoke of my jubbah’ mean that most of the lice were accumulated in and had risen to the yoke of his jubbah and then, in their abundance, came to resemble bran when shoveled and that it does not necessarily follow from this wording that the rest of his body was free of them. Indeed, if they were present in the yoke of his jubbah in such quantities, then, a fortiori, there should be some on the rest of his body, for the body is where they live and derive their nourishment, by sucking blood and imbibing the body’s wastes. In fact, it is the way of lice to spread first in the clothes, then expand throughout the body, sucking out the bad blood; and those that have had their fill climb up to the top of the body and stay there to take the air and rest, just as humans, for example, having eaten their fill, rest by keeping quiet and sleeping. This is their habitual way of behaving, according to custom, so the answer now is clear.”
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(سؤال) لأيّ شيء لم يتعرّض الناظم للشكوى من البقّ والنمل والبعوض ولم يذكر شيئًا منهم مع أنّ لكلّ منهم أذيّة وضرر شديد (الجواب) عن هذا السؤال من وجوه شتّى الأوّل أنّ البقّ وإن كان كثيرًا كما في المثل إنّ البقّه تولد مِيّه * واتقول يا قِلّة الدُرّية * فإنّه في الغالب لا يهوى إلّا بلاد المدن لعلوّ أماكنها وكثرة أخشابها وطليها بالجصّ والجير لأنّه يعيش بها ويتولّد فيها وبلاد الأرياف ليس فيها شيء من البناء العالي المكلِّف وإن وُجِدَ في القرية فيكون دار الشادّ بها أو دار الملتزم مثلًا والناظم لا يتوصّل إليها ولا ينام بها وإنّما بيوتهم غالبًا من الكِرْس والوَحْل وربّما كان فيها الجلّة أيضًا فلهذا لا يعرفوا البقّ ولا يروه ولا يهوى أماكنهم (وأمّا النمل) فإنّه وإن كان موجودًا في بلاد الأرياف فإنّه لا يهوى إلّا المحلّ الّذي فيه بعض الأدهان كالسمن والزيت ويهوى الشيء الحلو كالعسل والسكّر فيأتي إليه ويشمّه ويكون قُوته الشمّ كما ذكره صاحب حياة الحيوان ومثله الكَمّون فإنّ الوعد يُغْنيه عن سقي الماء قال الشاعر [بسيط]
| لا تجعلني ككمّون بمزرعةٍ | إنْ فَاتهُ السَّقيُ أَغْنَتْهُ المَواعيدُ |
(والناظم) لم ير للنمل أثرًا في بيته لقلّة ما فيه من الحلوى والأدهان بل لعدمه بالكليّة فلهذا لم يكن للنمل عليه سبيل لا في ثوب ولا موضع فكان منعه عنه بهذا السبب (وأمّا البعوض) وإن كان موجودًا في بلاد الأرياف فإنّه يأتي أيّامًا ويذهب بخلاف القمل والصيبان فإنّ أذاهما دائمًا مستمرّ في الثياب وغيرها كما تقدّم والشيء إذا كان يؤذي قليلًا ويغيب كثيرًا فيكون وجود ضرره كالعدم فكان هذا سببًا لتركه الشكوى من الجميع فاتّضح الجواب
Question: How come the poet does not raise a complaint against bedbugs, ants, and gnats and omits all mention of them, despite the fact that each of these is responsible for great harm and injury? This question may be answered from several perspectives. The first is that bedbugs, though plentiful—as the proverb has it, “The bedbug gives birth to a hundred and says, ‘So few children!’”—in general favor only cities because of their tall buildings, the large quantities of timber there, and the plaster and lime with which they are coated, because it is in these things that they live and breed; whereas the country villages have no tall, costly construction. If they were to be found in a village, it would be in the house of the bailiff or the tax farmer, for example, to which the poet would never have access and in which he would never sleep. In fact, their houses are mostly made out of slabs of dung mixed with urine and of daub, to which dung cakes are sometimes added. As a result, they are unacquainted with bedbugs and do not see them and tend not to frequent the same places. Ants, though found in the villages of the countryside, nevertheless favor only those places in which there are fatty things such as clarified butter and oil, and they like sweet things, such as honey and sugar; they come to these and feed off them simply by smelling them, as mentioned by the author of The Life of Animals,146 resembling in this the cumin plant, which can live simply on the prospect of being watered. As the poet147 says:
Don’t treat me like the cumin in its plot,
Whom promises content though it be watered not!
Our poet never saw any trace of ants in his house because it contained so few fats and sweets, or, rather, because there were none of these whatsoever.
