2.3.17
There are many other customs, too, that caused the Fāriyāq to wonder, since the people of his country, even though they are Market-men and excessively hostile to the Bag-men, do not practice them. At this point he became convinced that the Bag-men were on the right path (except in eating pork) and that the Market-men were in error (except for their women’s preference for young and good-looking Bag-men). However, there is no path in the world that does not have praiseworthy and blameworthy aspects, and one finds that individuals are rational and discerning at times and ignorant and misguided at others. Glory then to the One who alone may be described as perfect, and let the fair-minded critic look to the more beneficial aspects of each system and compare it with those of others. If he finds its positive qualities outweigh its negative qualities, he may judge it to be meritorious. He should not indulge in dreams of discovering perfection. As the poet says:443
And where is the man whose every feature pleases?
Sufficient nobility in a man it is that his vices be few enough to count.
2.3.18
Furthermore, just as hunger had caused two molars to fall from the mouth of our ravenous and insatiable friend, so his witnessing such matters drove from his mind all respect for both the Market-men and their cousins,444 where either religion and rationality were concerned, for it seemed to him that their acts were better considered those of madmen. Thus he felt oppressed in their country, and his patience was exhausted, not to mention that he felt in need of the delicious food that he had been accustomed to in the Levant, as well as of clothes that suited him, for the Bag-man had informed him that those who sold the Bag-men’s wares should pay no attention to what they wore, the sole point of the bag being to carry it (even though the Market-men believe that Bag-men attract their salesmen by giving them money and gifts).
2.3.19
For these reasons, the Fāriyāq was always mournful and sad, and he was unable, at that time, to master the language of the Bag-men, learning from them just a few words related to the promotion of the goods. In addition, there was in the house of the aforementioned Bag-man an evil junior Bag-man of spiteful ways with a yellow complexion, blue eyes, a thin tip to his nose, and big teeth. One day he noticed the Fāriyāq looking though a window in his room at the neighbors’ roof, and the Devil prompted him to nail the window closed. When the Fāriyāq saw that the window had been boarded up, he took it as a good omen that his bad luck could get no worse, and so it was, for within a few days he had fallen ill, the doctor had advised the Bag-man to send him to Egypt, and off he had set, carrying a letter of recommendation to yet another Bag-man.
(1) “‘Cabbages’ (al-kurunb) is a misspelling for ‘ravages’ (al-karb).
CHAPTER 4: A THRONE TO GAIN WHICH MAN MUST MAKE MOAN
2.4.1
As long as sea’s sea and wind’s not ceased to be, the Fāriyāq’s ascendant star will never cease to slip, his tongue to trip. When he reached Alexandria, he found a new Bag-man in the place of the old, one who had been through times so rough even Shaykh Khalīl ibn Aybak al-Ṣafadī445 would have refused to put up with them. As a result, he had failed to advance, and his name was mud among his peers. He had been brought to this pass by his belief that the air in these lands was too warm for him, as a consequence of which he’d decided to make use of a pair of pyramids that he’d scale whenever the weather turned hot, just as his predecessor had made use of a pyramid of wine barrels. After he’d spent enough silver on the pair to fill a valley, the news of his extravagance got out and his friends became upset with him.
2.4.2
The Fāriyāq left Alexandria for Cairo and gave the letter of recommendation to the Bag-man, who put him up in the house of a colleague of his that was next door to the house of a Levantine, at whose home a group of singers and musicians used to gather each night. From his room the Fāriyāq would hear the singing, be moved by passion and longing, and, recalling his days in the Levant, yearn and ache to be ensconced amongst friends again, imagining he’d been transported from the world of jinn to that of men, that life had unveiled for him pleasures novel and lusts long in abeyance, joys untrammeled and hopes now in abundance.
2.4.3
Thus he forgot the miseries of dizziness and the deathly gasps he’d suffered at the ocean’s hand, the hunger and boarding up of his window he’d suffered on land, the sore throat he’d contracted on his salesman’s mission, the grief induced by blind tradition, and found in Egypt, as a state, sparkle and self-confidence, and, as a place to live, bounty and opulence, for all its people are like members of a never-ending wedding celebration, or jousters for ever engaged in competition and self-acclamation, while their women display their wit and sophistication, beauty, refinement, grace, and coquetry, pride and vanity, as they move through the streets like galleons in full sail in silk and velvet wrapper, causing the cares that cluster about the heart to scatter. I am not the first to describe them as seducers of the mind, conquerors of every virile male they find: thus has described them every master of prose and of the poetic arts, and any, old or young, who’s sought to deceive them has mentioned their smarts. As the proverb that’s going around would have it, “Cairo’s dust is gold, its maidens are the best of playthings, and its spoils go to the bold.”
2.4.4
The most amazing thing they do on slipping their hobbles and leaving their bridal recesses is straightway to mount tall, imposing asses, sitting upright atop them on a throne with galia moschata daubed, their scent thus being by every nostril absorbed, while the blacks of their irises and the whites of their eyes make men to think of the maidens of the gardens of Paradise. All who behold a houri of this type exclaim, “How great is God!” and see the world, beside the beauty of her visage, as but a paltry sod. One calls out to catch her eye and, having done so, “Praise the Lord!” goes up his cry. Another expresses his wish to hold her stirrup or her dress to touch, to carry her slippers or her train to clutch, to be a lining to her shawl or the porter at her hall, to be a go-between between her and her lover or her companions’ follower’s follower, to be a tire-woman dressing her hair or her tailor sewing up a tear, to be a jeweler fashioning for her wrist a band or a blacksmith forging her a nail by hand, to be a bathhouse attendant massaging her to release a knot or any other inconsequential thing that might bring him closer to her you-know-what, while she, from on top of that throne, revels and repulses, glares and stares, casting at this a glance that makes him bleed, at that a wink that steals his heart, never to be freed, bringing commerce to an end and sending the unemployed right round the bend. Even the jackass beneath her seems to know the worth of what he bears and understand what drives her halleluiah-shouting fans as they let fly their cheers, for he doesn’t bray, is never heard to snort, and never sniffs (unlike the others) she-donkeys’ rears. On the contrary, he lords it over every horse and struts in pride and glory as he pursues his course. As for the the donkey’s driver, he thinks he’s in a class outranking the army’s topmost brass, and that the people are in need of his ministrations, for which he requires presents and oblations (and how could it not be so, when he derives his very name from his “stable management (of affairs),” his “leadership qualities,” and his “horse sense”?)446