4.1.13
It would be different were you to tell them that if a handsome young man there attends a gathering where there are women, he doesn’t wink at one of them or flash his costly ring about foolishly in her face as he talks or make false boast of his conquests.(1) He doesn’t tell her that he visits women of unblemished reputation with and without the permission of their husbands and eats and drinks in their homes, then stays alone with them in their bedchambers and returns home in good cheer, and that many a time he has put his hand into his pocket and found there a purse full of gold coins or a draft drawn on a moneylender, or that when he walks through the markets, the girls crowd the casements, windows, apertures, peepholes, and skylights to catch sight of him, some making signs to him with their hands or their heads, others making sheep’s eyes and putting their hands on their hearts, one throwing him a flower and another a posy of stocks or a scrap of paper bearing a verse. He doesn’t say in their presence “My drawstring came undone” or “I’ve got jock itch because my package is so big” or scratch his anus or weigh his “yardarm” in his hand, or stretch, loll, sprawl, extend his body, lie at full length, elongate himself, protract himself, lounge, drape himself, lie flat on his face, extend his arms to their full length, spread himself out, or flop vacantly around. On the contrary, he speaks to them politely and respectfully, averting his gaze and lowering his voice, and he asks the eldest among them what news, stories, and edifying anecdotes have come her way that day, or he mentions that he has commenced that very day the composition of a beneficial book that will make comprehensive mention of the antiquities left by the ancients and their histories, and then puts some literary puzzle to the youngest of them to keep her entertained. Such things ensure that he is honored on his arrival and praised on his departure.
4.1.14
It would be different too if you were to tell them that the rich merchant there doesn’t wear diamond or emerald rings or adorn himself with gold chains or collect rare furniture, vessels, and carpets but spends his wealth instead on charity, assistance to the hard-pressed, and provision for widows and orphans, on building schools and hospitals, mending roads, and cleaning the city and clearing it of refuse and filth, as well as on educating his children in literature, science, and the virtues, as a result of which you find that from the age of twelve they can talk to you of matters that one of ours would not be able to talk to you about were he twelve plus twenty years of age. And it would be different too if you were to be so good as to mention that any person among them of a middling condition has a case of valuable books on every art and science and that there isn’t a house that doesn’t have a folder full of newspapers; that any man among them is better informed as to the conditions of foreign countries than are those countries’ own inhabitants; that most of their peasants can read and write and peruse the daily newspapers and are aware of the rights and obligations that govern the relationships between owner and owned, ruler and ruled, man and wife; that some of their printed newspapers run to fourteen million copies a year, that the sum paid to the state treasury for the printing of their licenses comes to more than fifty thousand lira, and that if a single issue of such a newspaper were translated into Arabic, it would come to two hundred pages; and that when a head of family there sits down to table in the morning with his wife and children, he kisses each, asks after his health, and provides him with profitable pieces of advice and caution to guide him through the coming day and they talk to him and are full of delight and joy, viewing his presence among them as a comfort, never disobeying his orders or thinking his demands upon them a burden yet acknowledging their status as his children and honoring him as children should a father.
4.1.15
It is with this and its like that you, God set you to rights, should be beguiling the ears of your noble friends in the hope that they may bestir themselves to build a school, translate a book, or send their children to a country where they can learn praiseworthy manners and noble traits. But beware, my dear sir, before anything else, of taking over from some of them their ignoble qualities, such as frivolity, impetuosity, stinginess, depravity, and arrogance, or showing the soles of your feet to someone sitting with you, for, as I pointed out to you above, countries with many virtues also have many vices and everyone has some fault, or indeed faults. Each of us, however, must seriously strive to follow the path of perfection and to refine his morals and his inner senses by making the best use of everything that appears to his outer senses. Likewise, given that one experiences sensual pleasure through the front of the body rather than its rear, every rational animal that possesses a body should determine to move in a forward direction in pursuit of knowledge, understanding, and praiseworthy qualities till he can go no farther. I would also wish that even one of our countrymen might pass on to his brethren and acquaintances some virtue or memorable deed taken from those people in the same way that news or accounts of events are passed on, and I wish that all kinds of diamonds, emeralds, rubies, jasper, mother-of-pearl, pearls, gold, amber, and crystal (and monk’s hoods too, since they’re considered to belong to the category of jewels and treasures) might be turned into books, upper schools, elementary schools, and printing presses.
(1) One says of a man that he tabaẓrama [“flashed his ring about foolishly”] “if he is stupid and is wearing a signet ring and he talks and waves it about in people’s faces” and that he ibtahara [“made false boast of his conquests”] if he “makes false claims and says ‘I committed adultery’ when he did not.”
CHAPTER 2: A FAREWELL
4.2.1
When the time for the Fāriyāq to travel was close, and as soon as he had put his copies of the Qāmūs and al-Ashmūnī into his trunk, he set about bidding his wife farewell.298 He said, “Just think, wife — we’ve lived together a goodly span of time.” “That’s all I think of,” she replied. The Fāriyāq resumed his narrative. “I asked her, ‘Hatefully or gratefully?’ and she replied, ‘Half the latter and half the former.’299 ‘Application of naḥt brings us back to the first,’300 I said, to which she responded, ‘or the first brings us back to another meaning of naḥt.’301 ‘Which first did you have in mind?’ I asked.302 ‘You have no business interpreting my intentions,’ she responded. I replied, ‘I’d be content if you’d just explain to me what you did mean,’ and to this she responded, ‘If you think you can belong to both me and others, then it’s “hatefully,” if not, it’s “gratefully.”’