2.1.21
And here’s your Market-man, one eye trained on his neighbor’s mouth, the other on his eyes, who then binds him hand and foot and tells him, “Today you have to be ‘distressed’(1) for the Market Boss awoke with indigestion, complaining of pains — in other words, ‘distress’—in his stomach, guts, and molars. We must therefore be as he is and abstain along with him”; or “Today you aren’t allowed to use your eyes because staying up late last night with his boon companions (male and female) has laid the aforesaid boss low, and he woke up with pus or rheum in one of his noble peepers”; or “Today you aren’t allowed to work with your hands or to move your feet, and you mustn’t listen with your ears or breathe with your nostrils because no market was held today, and no sales were made.” If someone then says to him, “Can you not make peace between Zayd and his wife, for yesterday she wouldn’t do his bidding after she came back from your most honored store, and they fell to tugging at each other’s hair, and the wife swore she’d make him wish she were an old hag, or would complain of him to one of her friends among the big-time traders?” or “The merchant ʿAmr has been in prison these last two days because he lent money to one of the emirs and couldn’t obtain a judgment against him or recover what he is owed, and the judge bankrupted him and had him mounted on a donkey and paraded through the marketplaces, facing the donkey’s rump,” or “So and so has fallen ill and taken to his bed because he got into an argument with one of the emir’s servants, so the emir punished him by beating him with sticks on his feet and slapping him with slippers on the back of his neck, and the next day he couldn’t move, and his feet swelled up, and his nape was all puffy,” all he’ll say is, “So long as the market and its boss are safe and sound, the rest of the world is too. Business is going well, and the market’s up and running, bellies are full, mouths are munching, stomachs are digesting, molars are crunching, hands are snatching, joys are everlasting, fortunes are accumulating, bosses are prohibiting, Providence is protecting, women bearing exvotos in droves are arriving, pious bequests are all-encompassing, the mouths of the Fates are smiling, and all’s well that ends well. To market! To market! There’s the box of delights, there the trove of truths! Into the chest! Into the chest! Morning and evening, the chest is best!”
2.1.22
Many a time, I swear, has that chest been filled with gold and precious stones, only to be emptied again on confrontations, confabulations, pointless investigations, and foolish matters. We have been informed that one of the market traders spent a vast amount of money over a period of six years on study and debate concerning the shape of a certain hat. To be specific, he looked at himself one day in the mirror and, being somewhat acquainted with the principles of engineering and construction, noticed that his head was round, like a watermelon. It therefore seemed appropriate to him that he should adopt the use of a round hat of the same shape as his head, for round goes best with round, as good taste has long determined. One of his colleagues from another market, who was of higher standing and dignity and more learned than he, saw him and made mock of him, asking, “Who whispered in your ear, you featherbrain (Ibn Qubaʿah),(1) that you should wear that bird’s nest of a bonnet (qubbaʿah) when your head in fact is conical?” “You are misled,” he replied. “My head is, on the contrary, rounder than yours, as the Market Boss will testify.” “You lie,” said the other. “It truly is conical, as you should know since you keep looking at it in the mirror, and I am better guided and walk a straighter path than your boss.” “You blaspheme,” said the first, “and are blind to your own self; how then can you know others?” “And you,” said the second, “are a godless innovator; nay, you are confounded and confused and have become stupid and silly in refusing to accept my advice. People today can tell the rounded from the turned, the con-man from the burned.”
2.1.23
At this, obduracy seized them in its relentless grip, and they grabbed each other by their collars, their pockets, and their shepherd’s sacks, and then by their long hair, and then by their reputations, each man tearing apart that of his friend, meaning his enemy. Next they screamed, appealed for help, and complained of each other before the ruler, each calling the other a fool and reviling him. When it became clear to the ruler that they were both acting like lunatics (shabāziqah),(2) he decided it would make better sense to cure them with a heavy fine than to confine them in the pokey. Each then departed, after paying a fine of such and such a number of purses. Afterwards, the first trader adopted a hat that was half and half, that is, half round and half conical, and none but the most learned of scholars and most expert of examiners could tell which it really was, and he returned to his store like a conquering hero or one who’d captured a diḥyah (that’s an army general), or even a prize-winning cockerel. The first thing he did when he reached the edge of the marketplace was to command all the hatters to come out and receive him — with entertainment and salaams (taqlīs), not with reproaches and slams (talqīs).(1) So they went forth accordingly, making noise and saying, “Today is the Feast of the Hat! Today the day of the firecracker! What a twat! What a twat!” and the ruler’s henchmen, beholding them as they crowed, supposed them to have thrown off the yoke of obedience and abandoned their allegiance, so they set upon them with instruments that399 hit, strike, smite, knock, belt, bat, clout, bang, slam, dash, bash, punch, jab, thwack, smack, clap, crack, swipe, whack, wham, whop, clump, bonk, clip, cut, swat, sock, slog, thump, pound, beat, maul, drub, thresh, spank, thrash, whip, slap, club, kick, stamp, stomp, push, shove, and fling, until they had made of them a warning for all who have eyes to see.
2.1.24
The market trader then fled with his hat, having landed his people in ignominy and disgrace, which afflicted the men with grievous loss and brought the women even greater, despite all of which the Market Boss, who was so taken with him, thought the matter of no importance. In fact, he continued to devote himself to the taking of opium because of his endless insomnia and nightly brooding; he had stuffed his ears with pages from the market ledgers so that he wouldn’t hear the screams of those who called on him for help and none should wake him from his stupor, and he’s stayed flat on his back to this very day, which is to say, up to the day of the recording of this incident. If he awakes, it will be up to the reader to enter that fact at the end of this chapter, and I have left him space to do that. Here ends the rolling of the boulder, praise be to the Prime Mover.
(1) “To be distressed” (tatanaḥḥas) means here “to abstain from eating meat.”
(1) Ibn Qubaʿah [literally, “Son of a (certain) bird (smaller than a sparrow)”] and Qābiʿā’ are epithets used to describe stupidity.
(2) [“like lunatics”:] a shabzaq [plural shabāziqah] is one whom the Devil has afflicted with insanity.