بقّهْ
(وأمّا النمل) فيمنعه رائحة القطران ويمنع البعوض دخان النخالة
Useful Note: If colocynth is steeped in water in which yarn has been thoroughly soaked and the place is sprinkled with that water while it is hot, it will kill the bedbugs and not one will be left, and if ants appear in a place where there are bedbugs, they eat them. As the poet says:
My body couldn’t take another bug,
Their bite was giving me such pain.
I brought the ants. They helped me out—
They spared not one and let not one remain.148
Ants are repelled by the smell of tar, gnats by the smoke made by burning bran.
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(مسألة هباليّة) ما الحكمة في أنّ الشخص إذا أكلته قملة أو قرصه برغوث أو شيء ممّا يؤذي يسري ذلك الأذى في جسده ظاهرًا وباطنًا حتّى يشمل الكبد والرئة والقلب ونحو ذلك مع أنّ القمل أو البرغوث ونحوه لا يتوصّل إلى باطن الجسد إلّا أن دخل من منفذ من المنافذ وإذا دخله نادرًا ربّما مات في الحال قبل وصوله إلى باطن الإنسان وكثيرًا ما يدخل البرغوث في أذني فيمكث قليلًا في حركة وأذيّة ويخرج بسرعة أو يموت فما وجه ذلك (الجواب الفشرويّ) عن هذا البحث الهباليّ أن يقال إنّ الجسم باطنه وظاهره في التألّم على حدّ سواء لأنّ الروح سارية فيه كسريان الماء في العود الأخضر فإذا حصل الأذى في ظاهره تألّمت الروح وسرى الألم في جميع الجسد ظاهرًا وباطنًا وأمثّل لك مثالًا فشرويّ وهو أنّ الشخص إذا حبس في خزانة صغيرة مثلًا وكانت لا تسع غيره وليس لها منفذ وطال سجنه فيها فإنّ جسمه يضعف ويتغيّر وتعتريه الأمراض ويتألّم ظاهرًا وباطنًا خصوصًا إذا حصره البول وبال فيها حتّى ملأها أو ضرط فيها أيضًا فتصعد تلك الروائح إلى العلوّ فلا تجد لها مصرفًا فتعود على لحيته وشواربه فتضرّه ضررًا بليغًا خصوصًا صاحب اللحية الطويلة العريضة ما لم يكن عرضها ضرّ طولها فيخفّ الضرر أو قلّ طولها فكذلك على كلّ من الحالتين فانكشف الحال عن وجه هذا الهبال
A Silly Topic for Debate: What is the wisdom in the fact that, if a louse bites a man or a flea or any other harmful creature stings him, the pain spreads through the body, outside and in, until it comes to embrace the liver, the lungs, the heart, and so on, even though the louse, the flea, and the rest do not have access to the inside of the body, unless one of them should enter through one of the orifices; and if, on some rare occasion, it should enter, it usually dies immediately, even before it reaches the interior of the body, as indeed a flea has often entered my own ear and stayed a while moving about and doing damage and then quickly come out or died? What is the explanation for this? The fatuous reply to this silly enquiry is: it may be said that the body experiences pain to the same degree internally and externally because the spirit circulates within it the way sap circulates in a green branch. Thus, if any damage is done to the body’s surface, the spirit feels pain and the pain spreads to the whole body, outside and in. Let me draw you a facetious example, to wit, if a man is imprisoned in a small closet, for example, that is too small to hold anyone else and has no outlet and the man is locked up there for a long time, his body weakens, changes, and sickens and he feels pain both externally and internally, especially if he is pressed by the urge to urinate and does so until he fills the place, or if he farts there too and the resulting odors rise upwards and then, finding no escape, come back down on his beard and mustache, causing him grievous harm, especially if he is the owner of a long, broad beard (as long as its breadth has not rendered its length odious, in which case the damage will be less, or it has not become less commode-ious, in which instance it is the same for both cases).149 Thus the situation’s now revealed, the silliness no more concealed.
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ثمّ إنّ الناظم شرع في ذكر مصيبة أخرى ابتلى بها وهي في الجملة أشدّ ضررًا من القمل والصيبان لكونها من جهة الأقارب فقال
Next the poet embarks on the description of another disaster that afflicted him—one yet more damaging, taken as a whole, than lice and nits, for it comes to him from the direction of his relatives. He says:
ص
TEXT
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| وَلَا ضَرَّنِي إِلَّا ٱبْنُ عَمِّي مُحَيْلِبَهْ | يَوْمٍ تَجِي ٱلْوَجْبَهْ عَلَيَّ يَحِيفْ |
wa-lā ḍarranī ʾillā-bnu ʿammī Muḥaylibah
yawmin tajī l-wajbah ʿalayya yaḥīf
And none has harmed me as much as the son of my paternal uncle, Muḥayliba—
the day the wajbah comes, he heaps upon me more than my lot.
ش
COMMENTARY
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قوله (ولا ضَرَّني) أي ضررًا زائدًا على ما تقدّم
wa-lā ḍarranī (“and none has harmed me”): that is, harmed me over and above what has already been mentioned.
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(إلّا ابن عمّي) أخو والدي وهو مشتقّ من العموم لأنّ نفعه يعمّ أولاده
