(1) radat al-jāriyah: she raised a foot and moved using the other, in play.
CHAPTER 19: EMOTION AND MOTION
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1.19.1
It is the custom of people everywhere to say when they love or long for something, “My heart loves” that thing or it “feels drawn to” it or “desires” it. I don’t know the underlying reason for this usage, for the heart is only one of the many organs of the body, and it’s not possible that the sensory capacities of all the organs should be gathered together in just that one. The proof is that if someone loves a certain kind of food, for example, the cause is to be sought in the gustatory organs that give rise to his desire for it, and if someone loves a woman, the cause is to be sought in the organ that gives rise to his desire for her. Natural inclinations that do not call for the employment of any visible organ — such as love of leadership, good fortune, or religion — must be attributed to the head, these being abstractions that have nothing to do with that lump of flesh called the heart. By the same token, as the spleen, which is the Vizier of the Right-hand Side, has nothing to do with these matters, so the heart, which is the Vizier of the Left-hand Side,306 can have none either. However, given that the motion of the heart is more rapid than that of other organs because of its greater proximity to the lungs, where breathing originates, people think that the heart must be a primary source for all a person’s affections and desires. It is also their custom, to avoid having to search for numerous reasons and causes and of having to be certain of their facts, to reduce everything to one cause among the many. In the same way, poets, for example, attribute the proximate causes of bad luck to fate and of ill-fortune and separation to crows.
1.19.2
Based on this belief (namely, that all affections are attributable to the heart), the Bag-man wanted to test the Fāriyāq’s in order to find out whether or not love for the new goods beat strongly within it. He started off by asking him, “Do you feel in your heart that the new goods are better than the old, and does it pound with joy and pleasure when you hear them mentioned? Does it feel happy, expansive, and care-free when the thought of them occurs to your mind and does it clench itself, shrink, and recoil at the mention of the other? When you read the price list, do you feel that every single letter in it has been imprinted on it (meaning, on your heart), so that, even if it weren’t there, those same letters could take its place? Does it sometimes ignite and burn, and then at others go out, only to return more strongly, like the celebrated phoenix? Do you feel too that it’s being prodded by a prodder, pricked by a pricker, squeezed by a squeezer, constricted by a constrictor, ripped by a ripper, and pressed by a presser?”
1.19.3
The Fāriyāq told him, “As for the pounding and the choking, my heart’s always that way, being subject to such sensations in both joy and sadness, for the least thing affects it. As far as igniting and melting are concerned, though, I don’t know what you mean.” “What is meant by ‘burning’ here,” replied the Bag-man, “and by ‘prodding’ and ‘squeezing,’ is ardor, enthusiasm, and obsessive interest, and imagining that what isn’t there is present and what is a fantasy is real. An example would be someone walking in a waterless desert who becomes so thirsty that he thinks the mirage is water and the sun’s rays, too, are pure, sweet water, and keeps on going in the hope of finding water until he’s crossed the waste, because intense imagining and obsessive interest help a person put up with trials and tribulations, and, though he be sinking under their weight, he will imagine that he’s reclining at ease on a couch. Thus the figurative and the real, the tangible and the intangible, all come to be on the same plane to him, to the point that he reckons hunger a dining table, the bier a throne, the impaling stake or cross a pulpit. He may have a wife and children and use them as though they were no more valuable than china plates and go running off through distant lands to promote his goods, giving up family, friends, and companions in favor of the contents of his saddlebag. This he carries on his shoulder, gladly and with high hopes, trudging high and low over the earth, offering to make any mortal who crosses his path his partner and co-financer. He goes on this way until his time is up, and nothing pleases him better than to die thus engaged. The bag! The bag! No other trade or work have we than it. The goods! The goods! No other reward have we than they.” At this point he broke down, weeping and sobbing.
1.19.4
When, after a while, he’d recovered his composure, the Fāriyāq asked him, “Do you Bag-men have a marketplace and a boss to take charge of it?” He said, “No.” “Who, then,” said the Fāriyāq, “checks the quality of the goods?” He replied, “Each of us does so himself and we don’t need anyone else.” The Fāriyāq was amazed and said to himself, “Now here’s a wonder! We have a group of undercapitalized parasites who have a market boss but no saddlebags, and a similar group who have saddlebags but no boss. But perhaps my friend is in the right: if it were otherwise, he would not have undertaken to bring his bag from such distant lands or braved the dangers of the journey and all the rest.” Now, however, the Recoiler poisoned his mind with the thought that perhaps the Bag-man hadn’t found anywhere to set up shop in his own country, so he’d brought what he had in stock to get rid of here. If a merchant stocked up on, say, silk-wool, or cotton goods, and brought them to another country, he couldn’t be regarded as doing so out of love for its inhabitants; it had, after all, become commonplace for those in search of work to roam the world. Next, though, it occurred to him that the Bag-man’s perseverance and his equanimity and patience must inevitably be complemented by good sense and resolve, in contrast to rashness and flightiness, whose only complements are conceit and error, and he concluded that, in view of his said perseverance and mild manners, the Bag-man must be following the right path and that the metropolitan, with his vehemence and eagerness to do evil, must be among the misguided.
1.19.5
He said, therefore, to the Bag-man, “Sir, I have heeded everything with which you’ve filled my ears and believe the truth to lie with you alone. I am your partisan, your follower, and the co-carrier of your bag. Just protect me from these undercapitalized parasites, for they are like ravening lions that feel no mercy or pity for God’s creatures. They think that destroying a soul out of zeal for religion will earn them a place close to Him. They hold tight to such exterior meanings of the words of the gospel as they believe are in keeping with their aims and will increase their standing and authority. They say, for instance, that Christ’s words ‘I came not to send peace, but a sword’307 license them to apply the said instrument to people’s necks to make them return to the true path. They have cast behind them the essence, substance, and consequence of religion, which are friendship among all men, affection, assistance, and a proper certitude as to the existence of God Almighty. Those who have gone astray and are blind to the truth find no difficulty in extracting from any book, divinely inspired or not, whatever may suit their purpose and corrupt creed, for the door of exegesis is a wide one. Should the Emir of the Mountain, once he’s grown old and wrapping himself up in his clothes is no longer enough to keep him warm, be permitted to cozy up to a beautiful virgin girl, i.e., warm himself with her and heat himself with the warmth of her body, like King David? When he makes war on the Druze and God grants him victory over them, is he permitted to slay their married women and their children and leave their virgins alive for the stud bulls among his troops to debauch, the way that Moses did to the people of Midian, as stated in Numbers, chapter 33? Is he permitted to marry a thousand women, queens and concubines, as Solomon did? Is a priest permitted to have intercourse with an adulteress and beget bastards, as did the prophet Hosea? Or to tolerate one of his governors slaying every man, woman, and suckling child among his enemies, as Saul did at the Lord’s command with the Amalekites, the Lord even being angry with him that he hadn’t killed along with them the best of their sheep and oxen and had spared Agag, King of Amalek, and repenting that he had made Saul king over the Children of Israel, so that Samuel arose and hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal? Moreover, I have read in the index to the Old Testament printed in Rome, under the letter h, the following: ‘We (i.e., the adherents of the Church of Rome) are obligated to destroy the heretics (i.e., innovators and schismatics)’; in justification, they cite the fighting, bloodshed, and assassination that occurred between the Jews and their enemies, as outlined above. Thus, if the religion of the Christians makes lawful the slaying of men, women, and children and the debauching of virgins, and allows the seizing of other people’s property without first inviting the victims to join the true religion but out of mere ferocity and tyranny, as does the religion of the Jews, why did the first abrogate the second and declare its laws null and void? In fact, though, the Christian religion is built on high moral values and its aim from beginning to end is to maintain peace among men and urge them to what is righteous and good. Otherwise, we might as well go back to being Jews.”