ما رأيتُكَ! قلت: أَعرَضَت حاجةٌ؟ قال: لا، أردت أن ألعنك. قلت: فالعنّي غائبا! قال: لا، في وجهك أشفى! قلت: ولم؟ قال: لمخالَفَتِك إياي فيما تعلم. وقلت له ونحن على أنس بيني وبينه: لي حُرُماتٌ ثلاث: البلدية، وتربية أبيه لي، وتربيتي لإخوته. قال: هذه حُرَمٌ مُهَتَّكَةٌ: البلدية نسب بين الجدران، وتربية أبي لك مِنَّةٌ لنا عليك، وتربيتك لإخوتي بالخِلَع والدنانير.
أردت أن أقول له: استَرَحْتَ من حيث تَعِبَ الكرام فخشيت جنون جنونه، لأنه كان جنونُه مجنونًا، وأصحُّ منه مجنونٌ، وأجنُّ منه لا يكون. وقد أُنشد:
| جنونُك مجنونٌ ولستَ بواجدٍ | طبيبًا يداوي من جنونِ جنونِ |
بل جُنَّ جِنّانه، ورقص شيطانه:
| به جِنَّةٌ مجنونةٌ غيرَ أَنها | إِذا حصلَتْ منه أَلَبُّ وأَعقلُ |
Then I went to Antioch and left it again for Malatya, where Mistress Khawlah,123 the daughter of Saʿd al-Dawlah resided. I stayed with her until I received a letter from Abū l-Qāsim. Then I traveled to Mayyāfāriqīn. He was “secretly drinking the milk while pretending to sip the froth.”124
One day he said to me, “I do not want to see you ever again!” I asked, “Has something happened?” “No,” he said, “I want to curse you!” I answered, “Then curse me in my absence!” “No,” he said, “it gives me more satisfaction to do it in your face!” “Why?” I asked. He replied, “Because you act against me, as you know very well!” Since there had been such a bond of close intimacy between us, I told him that there were three reasons why I deserved respect: the fact that we came from the same place, that his father had educated me, and that I had educated his brothers. But he retorted, “These reasons are to be torn to shreds. Coming from the same place is merely sharing walls. Being educated by my father was a favor we did you, and your education of my brothers was done in return for robes of honor and dinars!”
I wanted to say to him, “You had a comfortable life when noble people toiled!” However, I was afraid of the madness of his madness, for his madness was in fact mad. A madman was sounder in mind than he! One could not be madder than he. It has been said:
Your madness is mad and you won’t find
a doctor who’s able to cure the madness of madness.125
Even the jinn who possessed him were mad126 and his devil danced!
In him is a mad madness; yet, when it occurs,
It’s more intelligent and sensible than he’s himself!
7.5
وقال لي ليلةً: أريد أن أجمع أوصاف الشمعة السبعة في بيت واحد وليس يسنح لي ما أرضاه. فقلتُ: أنا أفعل من هذه الساعة. قال: أنت جُذَيلها المحكَّك وعُذَيقُها المُرَجَّب. فأخذتُ القلم من دواته وكتبت بحضرته:
| لقد أَشبهتْني شمعةٌ في صبابتي | وفي هَوْلِ ما أَلقى وما أَتوقَّعُ |
| نحولٌ وحرقٌ في فَناءٍ ووحدةٍ | وتسهيدُ عَيْنٍ واصفرارٌ وأَدمُعُ |
فقال: كنتَ عملت هذا قبل هذا الوقت! فقلتُ: تمنعني سرعةَ الخاطر وتُعطيني عِلم الغيب؟ وقلت: أنت ذاكرٌ قول أبيك لي ولك و للبَتَّيّ الشاعر و للمحسّن١ الدمشقيّ، ونحن في الطارمة: اعملوا قطعةً قطعةً، فمن جوَّد جعلتُ جائزته كَتْبها فيها، فقلت:
| بَلَغَ السماءَ سُمُوُّ بيـ | ـتٍ شِيدَ في أَعلى مكانِ |
| بيت علا حتى تغوَّ | رَ في ذُراه الفَرقَدانِ |
| فانعَمْ به لا زلتَ مِنْ | ريْبِ الحوادثِ في أَمانِ |
فاستجاد سُرعتها وكتبها في الطارمة، وخلع عليّ.
١ في النسخ: (ولمحسن).
He said to me one evening, “I want to combine seven attributes of a candle in one verse, but nothing that comes to my mind pleases me.” I said, “I’ll do it now!” He said, “You are the well-rubbed little tree-trunk127 and its well-propped palm-bunch!” So I took the pen from its inkwell and wrote in his presence,
A candle resembles me, in my passionate love,
in my terror at what I encounter and what I expect:
Thin, and burning, and dwindling, and lonely,
with wakeful eye, being pale, and tearful.
Then he said, “You composed this earlier!” I replied, “You deprive me of my quick wit and credit me with knowing the future! You will remember,” I continued, “what your father said to us, to al-Battī the poet, and to al-Muḥassin al-Dimashqī, when we sat in the pavilion:128 ‘Compose an epigram, each of you! I shall reward the best by having his poem inscribed on this pavilion.’” Then I said:
The sky has been reached by the height of a house
raised on the loftiest place;
A building so high that its roofs
make the Little Bear’s stars129 sink beneath them.
So be happy in it and may you from bad
turns of fortune forever be safe.
“He liked my quick response and wrote it on the pavilion, also giving me a robe of honor.”
7.6.1
وكان أبو القاسم ملولا، والمَلول ربما ملّ الملالَ، وكان
