nauseate. Lying awake at night, they waste away, worried and fraught, and sleeping, their allotted share of hours goes by and gains them naught. Old and feeble, they’re a burden to kith and kin, yet, should they die before their time, they cause them such grief as may do them in.
3.1.2
ثم هم بين ذلك فى تحصيل اسباب المعاش ساعون * وفى التظاهر باللباس والزينة معنَّون * والعزب منهم متهافت على امراة تكون له اهلا * وذو الاهل همّه بزوجه وتربية ولده طفلا وكهلا * فاذا مرضوا مرض * واذا حزنوا حزن وجرض * وويل له ان تكن زوجته بَزْرآ * او كانت عاقرا وَذْمآء * وراى لغيره من المتزوجين بنين ذوى طلعة ناضرة * وشمائل سارّة * فيقول فى نفسه انما لذة الدنيا البنون * وانى ميت بلا خلف واىّ منون *
In the midst of all this, they must strive to obtain the means to earn their daily bread, while tormented by the need to make a show of dress and thread. The bachelor’s desperate to find a woman to call his own, the family man preoccupied with spouse and care of children, be they young or grown. When they fall ill, he does so too and when they mourn, he mourns and grieves in turn. Woe to him should his wife be overly fertile, but so too should she be barren and sterile, for then he sees other married men surrounded by bonny faces and children with pleasing graces and says to himself, “Verily, in sons lies all this world’s pleasure, and I am as one who dies (and what a fate!) leaving no successor!”
3.1.3
وكم من سقوط ظفرٍ وهن الجسم كله * وكم لقلع ضرس ذهب الصبر او جلّه * ما عدا الادوآ المتعضّلة * والعلل المتاصّلة * وتخالف الازمان وحول الاحوال * وتعاقب الاحزان ودَوْل الحال * على هذا الجسم الوانى البال * ففى الشتآ يكون عرضة للريح والزكام والبلغم والرطوبات * والبوال والعفونات * وفى الصيف للصفرآ و الحمى والصداع * والترهل والاستنقاع * وفى الربيع لهيجان الدم وتبيّغه ونزغته * وفى الخريف لتحرك السودآ واذى الهوآ وندغته *
How often by the fall of a single fingernail is the whole body defeated, how often by the extraction of a single molar is most, if not all, of its power to endure depleted—not to mention the sicknesses that defy all doctors’ skills, the chronic ills, the passage of time and the passing of the years, the succession of sorrows and shifts of fortune that this worn-out, debilitated body bears, for in winter it is exposed to wind, nasal congestion, sputum, and the damp chills, to incontinence and miasmatic airs; in summer, to cholera, fever, and headache, bloating, and stagnant weirs; in spring, to the imperious demands of the rising blood and its evil commands; in autumn, to the stirring of the black bile, the wind’s bane and its piercing of the bone.
3.1.4
ثم ان منهم من يولد ويعرض له من العيوب والامراض
| الجَنأ | اشراف الكاهل على الصدر * |
| او الفَسَأ | خروج الصدر ونتوٓء الخَثَلة * |
| والفَطأ | دخول الظهر وخروج الصدر * |
| والحَدَب | معروف * |
| والحُسبة | ان يبيض جلد الرجل من دآ فتفسد شعرته فيصير ابيض واحمر * |
| والحَصْبة | بَثر يخرج بالجسد * |
| والشبّ | دآء م * |
| والضَبُوب | دآء فى الشفة * |
| والطَنَب | طول فى الرجلين فى استرخآ وطول فى الظهر * |
| والعَكَب | غلظ فى الشفة واللحى * |
In addition, some are born afflicted with (among the various defects and diseases)
| janaʾ, | “bending of the upper back over the chest” |
| or fasaʾ, | “prominence of the chest and bulging of the abdomen” |
| or faṭaʾ, | “concavity of the back and convexity of the chest” |
| or ḥadab, | “too well-known to require definition” [hunching of the back] |
| or ḥusbah, | “the whitening of a man’s skin as a result of a certain disease, followed by the corruption of his hair, after which his skin turns white and red” |
| or ḥaṣbah, | “pustules that break out on the body” |
| or shabb, | “a disease, too well-known to require definition” [?] |
| or ḍabūb, | “a disease of the lip” |
| or ṭanab, | “length in the legs combined with laxness, or in the back” |
| or ʿakab, | “thickness of the lip or chin” |
3.1.5
| والغَضْبة | بخصة تكون بالجفن الاعلى خلقة * |
| والغِضاب | دآء او الجُدَرى * |
| والغَلَب | غلظ العنق * |
| والقَلَب | انقلاب الشفة * |
| والقُلاب | دآء القلب * |
| والقُوَبآ | الذى يظهر فى الجسد ويخرج عليه * |
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والكَنَب
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