سرفتِ يمينَه
وأُولي مع ذلك أَلِيّةَ الفرزدق لمّا رهِب وقوعَ انتقام، فاغتنم ما بين الكعبة والمَقام، ووصف ما صنع فقال:
| ألم ترني عاهدتُ ربّي وإنني | لَبينَ رِتاجٍ قائمًا ومَقامِ |
| على حلفةٍ لا أشتمُ الدّهرَ مُسْلِمًا | ولا خارجًا من فِيَّ زُورُ كلامِ |
إنّي لَمكذوب عليه كما كذبت العربُ على الغُول، وإنها عمّا يؤْثَر لفي شغول، وكما تقوَّلت الأمثالُ السائرة على الضَّبّ، وله بالكَلَدة إرباب الصَّبّ. وكما تكلَّمتْ على لسان الضَّبُع وهي خرْساء، ما أطلق لسانَها الوَضَحُ ولا المساء.
As for what the Sheikh says about my situation (may his person be protected against Time’s evil eye and be given prodigious wealth to enjoy!)—“prodigious” (ḥiyar) means “much.” A rajaz poet says:23
O Lord of ours, if one is happy for him to grow old,
Then send to him, O Lord, prodigious (ḥiyar) wealth!
—how often has an idol been thought to bring good luck,24 so that, when it actually happened, the ignorant thought it was what was promised!25 If I should enjoy vain praise, then I might as well be publicly exposed as drinking wine in gulps! The steadfast will be rewarded and praised; he who changes his abode will surely be destined to drink from a nearly dry waterhole.
I swear an oath like that of Imruʾ al-Qays, when he wished to stay with his beloved, unafraid of a woman spying or spied upon, and said,
I said, I swear an oath by God: I shall not leave but stay,
though they may cut my head off in your presence, and my limbs!
or another such as was sworn by Zuhayr,26 when the north wind blew away the war that had risen; I mean his verses:
So I swore upon the Building27 circumambulated by
the men who built it, of Quraysh and Jurhum,
An oath: How excellent you are, two chiefs, in every situation,
whether unraveled or entangled!
or the binding oath uttered by Sāʿidah,28 who said, when his soul was ascending to its Lord:
(I swear) an oath of an honest man, whose pledge you’re not familiar with;
anyone who governs is a man of experience.29
Further, I swear the pledge of al-Farazdaq,30 when he was afraid of (God’s) vengeance, and took the opportunity, standing between the Kaaba and the Standing Place,31 to say, describing what he had done:
Have you not seen that to my Lord I’ve made a pledge, and that I stand
between the Kaaba’s bolted door and the Standing Place,
Swearing an oath that I shall never vilify a Muslim,
and that false speech will never come out of my mouth.
(With these oaths I swear) that I am lied against, just as the Bedouin Arabs lie about the ghoul,32 unconcerned with what is transmitted about her; just as what those slanderous proverbs say about the lizard,33 who cleaves to the rough, hard ground like a lover to his beloved; and just as they put words into the mouth of the hyena though it is dumb,34 its tongue never loosened, in broad daylight or the evening.
22.2.1
يُظَنُّ أنني من أهل العلم، وما أنا له بالصاحب ولا الخِلم. وتلك لَعَمري بليّةٌ، تُفتقد معها الجليّة. والعلوم تفتقر إلى مِراس، ودارسٍ للكتب أخي دِراس. ويقال إنني من أهل الدين، ولو ظهر ما وراء السَّدين، ما اقتنع لي الواصفُ بسبٍّ، وودَّ أن يسقيني جوْزلًا بشَبّ، وكيف يُدّعى للعِلج الوحشيّ، وإنما أبَدَ في الرّوض الحَبَشيّ، أنّ تغريده في السَّحَر أشعار موزونةٌ، تأذَن لنظيرها المخزونة١؟ وهل يصوَّر لعاقلٍ لبيب، أنَّ الغُراب النّاعب صدح بتشبيب، وأنّ العصافير الطائرة بأجنحة، كعصافير المُنْذِر الكائنة للتَّمْنِحة؟ وكيف يظنُّ الظانُّ أن للطائر أساجيعَ حمامة، وإنه لأخرسُ مع الدَّمامة؟ فبعُد مَن زعم أنّ الحَجَر متكلِّم، وأنه عند الضَّرب متألم. ومَن التمس من اللُّغام كُسْوة، فإنه لا يجد إسْوة.
١ في كل الطبعات: (المحزونة)، ولعل الصواب (المخزونة) بالخاء المعجمة.
I am supposed to be a man of learning; but I am neither its master nor its fellow. It is, upon my life, an affliction in which one misses, despite one’s learning, certain truth. The various kinds of learning require application and someone who “threshes” books assiduously.35 It is also said that I am a man of religion; but if what lies behind the veil were to be revealed, those who describe my character could never find enough to their satisfaction to revile me and would be eager to make me drink poison mixed with vitriol. When a wild ass, which roams in lush, dark36 pastures, brays at dawn, how could one claim that it produces metered verses like those that are heard by a damsel kept in her chamber?37 And would any intelligent and astute person imagine that when a crow croaks he utters amatory poetry? Or that birds that fly with wings are like the “birds” of al-Mundhir that existed for the sake of being given away?38 How could one think that any bird can produce the cooing of the dove even when it is in fact deaf as well as ugly? Far from the truth is he who claims that stones will speak and that they feel pain when struck, or who seeks to make a cloak of the foam on a camel’s mouth! He will not find a model to follow.
22.2.2
ولو
