3.18.5
When it was almost time for the Fāriyāq to leave the city, one of his local acquaintances told him, “Were you to write a eulogy of its ruler august, you would find him the most generous of those who give and entrust, of all people the one most content to be generous and do favors.” He responded, “I have made my mind up now to leave and I can no longer change it.” Then he returned to the island, there being among the other passengers two Austrians, one of whom was a rich merchant’s son, the other the son of an officer in the army of the Pope. The latter had borrowed one of those thin phosphoric matches from the Fāriyāq; this he returned after two days.228
3.18.6
When the Fāriyāq had settled once more at home, it occurred to him to compose an ode in praise of the abovementioned most honored lord, so he wrote a long ode mentioning all the beauties of that land that he now missed (albeit without allusion to those of its Jewesses). To his surprise, in only a few days the abovementioned lord had sent him a gift of diamonds such as kings might begrudge their closest companions, and with it a letter from his companion august and vizier most just, Treasurer Muṣṭafā Pasha, of which the following is the text:
To the well-beloved (whose affairs will, we may hope, be ever protected by affection, his talents, seat of his action and tongue, by perfection), that man of letters skilled, with fullest measure of all arts filled, of most excellent morals and winner, on rhetoric’s racetrack, of the victor’s mark, the distinguished Fāriyāq (may his talents remain forever bright as a spark, his rhetoric like stars in nighttime’s dark)! To proceed: His Excellency, Guardian of Our Blessings, Lord, and Master, Counselor229 Aḥmad Pasha Bāy,230 Emir of Tunis’s Autonomous Province (may it remain forever protected by his presence!) is in receipt of an ode, a specimen of your literary oeuvre (may it as an adornment to your verses serve, cast further light upon your exaltation, and assure the permanence of your reputation!). And how excellent its author, creator, and elaborator doth to us appear, for he has mastered rhetoric’s every reach, both far and near, and it has submitted itself and its keys to his care. Our Master (may God aid him!) deems your missive worthy of his high consideration and praises your eloquence and literary articulation, and has dispatched to you from his elevated presence a casket, that you may keep the memory of his affection to hand, as of his territories and land. Accept it, then, as a token of his favor and the least his duty owes you, and may God keep you in the eye of His solicitude and drape you in the covering of His plenitude! Written by the Poor-in-His-Almighty-Lord Muṣṭafā, Treasurer of the Tunisian State, on the twenty-fourth day of the sacred month of Dhū l-Ḥijjah, 1257.231
3.18.7
While these events were unfolding, Metropolitan al-Tutūnjī arrived on the island. Informed of his coming and unaware of the lies that the metropolitan had told about him to the English, the Fāriyāq went to greet him and invite him to a feast that he had prepared in his honor, and the metropolitan took up residence in a house where he busied himself with the translation of that very book to which he’d contested the Fāriyāq’s right. From time to time, the Fāriyāq would pass by and see him without picking up from him a sense that anything was amiss. After a few days, a dust-laden,232 twisting, grit-bearing, shifting, raging, piercing, unflagging, blasting, blighting, track-obliterating, ground-hugging, veering, swirling, whirling, hot, scorching, blistering, howling, lightening, gusting, rain-bearing, buffeting harmattan of a wind arose, followed fast on its heels by odors overpowering,233 rotten, rank, putrefying, putrid, puent, fetid, fecal, feculent, stinking, reeky, reechy, rancid, rancidous, noi-some, cacodorous, maleolent, mephitic, flatulent, flatuous, armpit-redolent, smegmatic, nidorous, hircine, plebeo-sudoral, latrinal, urinal, annulo-vermicular, oleaginous, nose-wrinkling, catamitic, tannic, and oro-dyslalic, mixed with Himyaritic hapax legomena, mispronunciations, lispings, misspeakings, schwa-ations,234 sibillations,235 and shibillations;236 and lo and behold, the aforementioned metropolitan, in attempting to translate the book in question into Arabic, was found to have fallen headfirst down a widemouthed well and, given that he was as ignorant of how to clean out the mud237 as he was of the language, these foul smells inevitably carried to the Fāriyāq’s house, for the director of the printing press was a friend of his and had asked him to correct the typographical errors in it, without reference to the mistakes of translation. The Fāriyāq then discovered the reason for the metropolitan’s arrival and all his tricks and he bagged a few revolting puffs of those smells, sent them to the aforementioned Committee, and awaited their response.
3.18.8
A while later, it happened that the August Master Sāmī Pasha the Grand (celebrated for praiseworthy qualities throughout the land) arrived on the island. As the Fāriyāq had a special place in the latter’s heart, he went to congratulate him on his safe arrival and the person in question tasked him to stay with him for the period of seclusion in quarantine, and the Fāriyāq informed his wife of this. She told him, “How many times do I have to tell you there’s nothing good to be had from reclusion?”238 He replied, “There’s no harm in it if one’s with an emir, for then the honor of the name is enough.” “The name can never take the place of the deed,” she answered. “I responded,” continued the Fāriyāq, “by saying, ‘On the contrary, lots of people have accepted the one for the other.’ ‘Will he be with one of his wives?’239 she asked. ‘I don’t know,’ I answered. ‘If the name were enough,’ she said, ‘a woman could just write “emir” somewhere on her body.’240 ‘I’ll make up for the time that’s lost,’ I said, and she said, ‘Or else set about compensating me right now!’ ‘How fast women are!’ I said and she, ‘And how they prefer taking it slow!’ I said, ‘I used to wish God had created me a woman, or turned me into a woman, but now I don’t, as women don’t have the patience of men, and to live in this world one needs patience.’ She said, ‘If women weren’t more patient than men, they wouldn’t outlive them on this earth, despite the pains they suffer in pregnancy and childbirth.’
3.18.9
“I said, ‘That’s not the reason. The reason is that the righteous, in contrast to the unrighteous, do not live long on this earth.’ ‘Do you mean to tell me,’ she said, ‘that righteous men exist, when there is no evil of which they are not the originators? Do females corrupt females the way males do males? Who is it that corrupts women if not men? And who is it who falls head over heels for them, seeks their company, wheedles their way into their hearts, woos them, and seduces them with promises of money, affection, and fidelity, if not they? And then, when one of them has gained the confidence of one of us and wins her heart, he goes and tells everyone. He may get drunk with some acquaintances, or pretend to do so, and then make himself out to be a hero in front of them by revealing things that should be hidden and violating what should be inviolate. You men, I declare, put all your trust in the strength and might that God has made yours and believe as a result that you are better than women in all things. If honor lay in strength, elephants would be better than humans. True, we enjoy seeing a man who’s tall, youthful, and strong, but it is inappropriate for him, given that he is so, to come to his poor, weak wife and treat her frivolously,241 bad-temperedly, dementedly, ill-humoredly, tetchily, coarsely, boorishly, nonchalantly, cholericly, roughly, rudely, truculently, peevishly, pettishly, petulantly, frappishly, froppishly, protervously, severely, and angrily, or with beady looks, harping and bellowing, or with huffing, or with insults, vituperation, tirades and diatribes, or with abuse of her rights and with infidelity, or by knocking her to the ground — and then go to another woman and delude her into thinking that he’s her captive, her prisoner, her retainer, her slave, her bondsman, her serf, her servant, her thrall, her chattel, who is abjectly enamored of her, sick from his passion, demolished by his ardor, laid low by his thirst for her, slain by his desire for her, and a martyr to his love for her, and that God Almighty has placed him in this world simply to make her happy.’”