2.11.4
“Indeed,” he said, “all church books are full of horrible mistakes of that sort. I once read in one, of a certain monk, that he was ‘endowed with great humility, to the extent that, whenever the head of his monastery passed him, he stood up to him (ʿalayh)’ (meaning for him (lahu)), and of another that ‘he was told, of a nun, that she was a wonder-worker and a seer of visions, and he constantly wanked to see her’ (for he wanted to see her), and, of another, that he left his monastery and was absent for a long period; then he returned and found that its former abbot had died and one of his friends had taken over his position, and, after they’d consulted and congratulated one another, the abbot appointed him ‘to smut up the monks at night,’ meaning ‘to wake them up’ (from habba meaning ‘to rise’),503 and, of a certain metropolitan, that ‘when he preached a homily in the church, everyone who heard him stood erected,’ meaning ‘stood corrected,’ and so on and so forth, with too many examples to count. Indeed, even in the New Testament and the words of the apostles there is language whose meaning has been corrupted, the source of such corruption lying, I believe, in the ignorance of those who translated them into Arabic. For example, in the gospel according to St. Matthew, there is an oration handed down from Christ, peace be upon him, in which he says, ‘Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; so do not believe them,’ but what is meant is that ‘many shall adopt my name, and each shall claim that he is the Messiah’—and what a difference there is between the two versions!504 And in St. Paul’s epistle to Timothy it is written, ‘Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife,’505 when what is meant is that the deacons should jointly pay one dowry. God forbid that these words of mine should be taken as showing contempt for religion; I cite them only as testimony to the ignorance of those of our community who worked as translators into Arabic and composers of prose. True, some metropolitans have composed useful works excellently expressed and with well turned figures, but the mass of the clergy are stupid ignoramuses who like only poor, lame language.
2.11.5
“This aside has diverted us from our goal. Let us return to what we were about, which was how to help you, my dear friend, relieve yourself of the burden of the bag. Would you be interested in being a scribe in the establishment of a certain rich prince who wishes to set up a Panegyricon506 in which to record in writing, in different languages, his mighty deeds and noble virtues? Your work there would be to compose each day two or more lines of verse, as needed.”
2.11.6
The Fāriyāq went on, “I told him, ‘I am not, Sir, a scholar senior enough to qualify for such a rank. Here we are in the land of scholarship and literature, and I fear some group may obstruct my path, claiming that what I say is spurious and erroneous, after which I’ll be too ashamed to look any man in the face, for I’m a man who prefers obscurity, and what I have to offer in this respect is but meager.’ ‘Don’t worry about that,’ he told me. ‘The people of Egypt, though they may have reached the limits of learning and surpass all others in merit and culture, would not pick a quarrel with a writer, be it of poetry or prose, who made a hash of a word unintentionally or trashed a trope inadvertently. They are a tolerant and easy-going people. At the same time, though, if one who wants to make a name for himself in poetry finds no one on one occasion to critique his work and on another to find fault with it, he will never reach the rank of the truly celebrated poets, and, if he keeps composing verses and trusting to his ear alone, he will never learn to distinguish the incorrect from the correct. Almost no one succeeds without first making mistakes.
2.11.7
“‘Also, it has become the custom for some poets to condemn the rhetorical figures and words that others commend, so that the poet or prose writer is always caught between two — between a critic and a commender, a fault-finder and an excuser, an accuser and a defender, an opponent and an ally, a render and a mender, a ripper and a darner, a perforator and a patcher, a forbidder and a permitter, a narrower and a widener, one who asks, “Why?” and one who answers, “Because!”—until, in the end, his good qualities come to outweigh his bad, and everyone circulates his verses. How often people have tried to attain fame through compositions that deserve to be rejected and not accepted. Some wrote verses using only unpointed letters, meaning those that are devoid of dots, and these were neglected;507 some in their verses cleaved to “binding,” by which they make the first letter of each line of the poem one of the letters of the name of the person being eulogized, and these were disregarded and disrespected; and some took paronomasia and far-fetched punning as their path, and these were refused and condemned as too affected. All that such poets sought from such things was celebrity among their fellows, and they cared nothing for blame or rebuttal, and I pray God that you are not to be counted among their number, for I saw in your composition hints of refined ideas that point to an excellent intuition, and a lively inborn disposition. But, to get back to our original discussion, who has never done wrong?’”
2.11.8
Said the Fāriyāq, “I told him, ‘By God, now you have two great claims on my gratitude! The first is your concern for my welfare, the second your galvanizing me to write verse, for I had resolved to do so only far from people’s eyes. Behold now, My Master, my gratitude and hear me broadcast, like a lion roaring, your generous attitude!’” Then he left his house, calling down blessings on the other’s name, having decided that he would part company with the Bag-man the following day.
(1) al-izwā’ is “a man’s coming accompanied by another.”
CHAPTER 12: POEMS FOR PRINCES
2.12.1
Our friend the Fāriyāq had no heavy baggage at the Bag-man’s house other than his own body, so he took his tambour under his arm, put his pen-box in his belt, and told the man, “God has come to my aid and shown me a path different from that laid down for me by you and your company of Bag-men. Today I shall leave you and nothing shall dissuade me.” “How can you leave me, when I’ve done you no injury?” asked the other. “This tambour,” replied the Fāriyāq, “bears witness against you that you did.” “If the tambour-player isn’t acceptable as a witness, how can the witness of the instrument itself — the reason for the discounting of its owner’s witness — be valid?”508 “On the contrary,” said the Fāriyāq “it’s as valid as your father’s mare’s, can announce your sins as loudly as your grandfather’s she-ass, and can demolish the castles where you store your peddlers’ goods as well as any kingly trumpet!”509 Said he, “What am I to make of such a peroration?” “That it’s revelation and inspiration!” he replied. “It doesn’t matter if you play your tambour,” the Bag-man said, “for I’ve discovered that the servant only brought the complaint against you out of envy.” “Never!” said the Fāriyāq. “I’m going to play it to people who tell me, ‘More!’ and ‘Encore!’ and ‘Well done!’ and ‘Allāh!’510 not to foreigners who only say God’s name when praying.” “You’re a trouble-maker and have gone too far!” said the man. “And you’ve let me down and haven’t treated me fair!” the Fāriyāq retorted. “You’re untrue!” he said. “And you’re a Jew!” he responded. Then he turned his back on him, head held high, eyes bulging with fury, and set off, and he rented a room, where he stowed his tambour and made his way to the Panegyricon.