CHAPTER 15: THE JOURNEY FROM THE MONASTERY
3.15.1
The Fāriyāq and the Branch each mounted a mule, and the mistress and her husband each a mare, and a company of travelers joined them and they set off, making for Damascus. Somewhere along the road, the Fāriyāq’s mule took fright at some passing surmise that occurred to it, bolted with him, and then threw him, and he landed with his thigh on a rock so that when he stood up he limped like a hyena. The master of the Chamber was saddened, being worried that the work of oneiromancy might be delayed, while the man’s wife gloated since she regarded him as a spy, watching her and her Branch, and thus it is that what makes a man sad may make a woman glad; and here you must add to your extensive store of information the following, namely, that there is no kind of travel more wearisome than riding those obdurate mules. They have neither saddles nor bridles nor stirrups, and the imbeciles who rent them out provide ropes connected by rough metal chains in the place of a bridle. The rider holds this chain in his hand. If the mule bolts, the hand holding the chain will be too weak to check it, and usually when one mule bolts, they all do.
3.15.2
Next the Branch’s mule took fright; he was thrown half off its back, his foot caught in a rope, and he hung there, his head bumping along the ground. At this, the mistress lost whatever fortitude she may have had regarding him, while no one could stop the mule. The mistress’s eye appeared to be going in one direction and her heart in another, while parts of her grew larger and parts smaller, parts went dry and parts stood on end, parts went wet and parts fell apart, parts got goose bumps and parts bristled, parts wagged and parts shook, parts darted like the tongue of a snake and parts waggled the same way, parts darted their heads forwards and backwards like an angry snake and parts bulged and parts got dirtied, and she started to fidget and twist, toss and turn, and for the first time in her life the wish entered her head that she might be a man so that she could protect him. Finally, God alleviated their plight and the mule stopped, and the Branch righted himself and they proceeded until they reached Baalbek, the Fāriyāq being at death’s door. There he went and took shelter in the shade of a tree, where the breeze made him nod off and he slept, awaking exhausted.
3.15.3
Then they remounted and continued until they made Damascus, the Fāriyāq being unwell the whole way, and he rented a room in a caravanserai and stayed there for days, unable to go out. When he had largely recovered, he made his way to his wife’s family’s house and informed them of what had happened, and they were delighted to see him. Then the fever took him once more. Then he revived and wanted to go to the bathhouse to bathe, but when he returned, it returned too. One day he happened to have gone down to the latrine when he fainted and fell down and his head went into the hole of the latrine and he started shouting, “My head’s in the hole! There’s a hole in my head!” and the people came running and found him in that state, and some laughed at him and some felt sorry. Then he got a little better and it seemed to him and his companion167 that they should leave — but before he departs that noble city I must crush him and press him hard till he gives us a description of the charms of its women, that being the only thing he’s fit for, for any talk of the peculiarities of its plants, its minerals, its air, the number of its inhabitants, or its political affairs would be beyond him.
3.15.4
He declared: “I entered the city of Damascus with a fever that had accompanied me from Baalbek, and I had barely recovered by the time I left the place. I can, therefore, give only a poor description of its women. If you accept this, I say, ‘When I entered the city, I put up at a caravanserai called Khān Fāris, and the owner assigned an old woman to serve me. I observed, from her gentle treatment and caco-euphonious speech (meaning the way she mixed soft words with harsh), that old women play a large role there in women’s dealings, by which I mean that they enter people’s houses on the excuse that they will sell the women clothes to wear and come out having undertaken to strip them totally bare, for they are the closest means to hand and the trustiest method for bringing lover and beloved together. At first sight, it seemed to me that the Muslim women were better looking than the Christian ones, just as the Muslim men were more handsome and more chaste in speech, as they are in all the lands of Islam. The women’s color is generally white flushed with red and most are tall and have fine figures. On the other hand, the white wrap that they wear when they leave their houses is not as appealing to the eye as the ḥabar of the women of Egypt.168 Both conceal the charms of the figure, and it may be that they wear these deliberately to spare men their seductiveness, in which case they are to be thanked. But for what then this flirtatiousness and peering about, and what is this shaking of the buttocks as they walk and this voluptuousness of stride? Does not the heart have eyes to see what lies beneath the wrap? Does an overcast of clouds, without which the eye would be unable to gaze upon the sun, conceal the same? The clothes they wear indoors are as attractive and captivating as can be.’” The Fāriyāq continued, “When I was sick with fever, after I had left the caravanserai and breathed in the scent of the Christian women who came to visit me, they too appeared to me so entertaining and well-spoken, and had such pleasant traits and were so eloquent,169 that I came to believe that my cure lay in such things, and had I not feared being called a miser for dispensing with the services of the doctor and, especially, had I not been obsessed with the idea that while in Damascus I might join my father who had died there, I wouldn’t have needed the attentions of any physician. While, from my pillow, I was stealing glances at these women, I noticed on their breasts something that heaved and reared as they breathed.