al-Sanhuri Muhammad ibn Mahfuz - Risible Rhymes

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In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate

God bless Our Lord Muammad, his kin, and his Companions, and grant them peace! Thanks be to You, O God, who have bestowed sound taste on those of Your servants whom You desire and imparted to them the power to discriminate, through right understanding, between verse thats exquisite and that which is dire, just as You have singled out those whom You please for an intelligence barely flickering (the most to which any such may aspire) and given them a genius resistant to quickening, sealed against any seepage or transmission from those wellsprings that the conversion of scattered words into ordered verse inspire! And blessings and peace upon the most well-spoken of those who the d pronounce, the bravest of those who their enemies and opponents trounce (Muammad, sent to show humanity the clearest of ways) and upon his kin and his companions, those guiding stars, so long as sun shall rise and lightning blaze!

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To proceed: a certain witty friend whose company I enjoyed and the denial of whose wishes I made every effort to avoid once asked me to create a concoction of words, sweet both when strung on prosodys string and when dispersed, that would serve to decode a sampling of what the rural rank and file have said in verse, making plain the meter of each example as well as its division into feet, and, indeed, everything else about it, including its length and thickness, while pointing out the shortcomings of the poets intellect, as well as its sickness. Next, I was to follow this with a refined sampling of hints alluding to the poets of Islam and of wrangles and riddles that the work of master wordsmiths propose and pose, be they exquisitely framed in verse or prettily turned in prose, and thus guide us toward a happy conclusion and provide a solution for anything that lies beyond mans wit to fathom (being so far gone in delusion). I responded to his requestGod set his feet and mine alike upon the path thats best!and named my work The Book to Bring a Smile to the Lips of Devotees of Taste and Proper Style through the Decoding of a Sampling of the Verse of the Rural Rank and File.

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I therefore now declareand in God lies all hope of help and success in any attempt at conceptualization and decision to say yesthat a certain friend, a man of taste and knowledge, told me the story of how once he was making his way to the port of Rashd, with, in his party, many a man of knowledge mature in thought and deed. One day, after alighting in that town and being welcomed by its people, they entered the mosque, each ones heart in pious concentration lost. Thinking of having something to eat, they discussed among themselves whom they might so commission, upon which one of them brought them the food, he being the one entrusted with that mission.

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After they had sat down to feed, a man of the countryside passed by whom they failed to hail and to whom they paid no heed, causing him to turn back toward them like some mordacious cur or mud-caked boar. In his hand was a stick, thick and stout, over which he bent and on which he leant, saying Salaam!to which all the response he got was... aam! We are but a company of poets seeking hospitality from the people of this port.

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At his words, the man with fury became replete and began to froth, like a camel in heat. To the group he said, You may be poets as you claim, but Im the poet of this port, and it is I who over its folk hold swaybut who gave you, anyway, leave to stay in this town, when it belongs to me and Im the one here to whom men allegiance own? By alighting here without my permission you have committed a violation and, in my view, deserve humiliation, not exaltation. Youll not eat your fill till youve paid your bill, or clapped your hands and danced to the rhythm, or sung my praises with a bit of highfalutin verse, or attacked me in a flyting of most base criticism, or Ive lauded you, both your young and your old, or dissed you, be you insignificant or extolled.

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At this one among them rose and engaged in vociferation, saying, Brother Poet, the path to success lies not in that direction. It would be more proper to say, at the end of the first line, wa-awhir (my patent errors) instead of wa-khabyi (my clangers), so that the words may have some merit and be with interpretation consistent, for the rhyme is with the letter rbe not then on your ignorance insistent! This point the man conceded, acknowledging thereby that his help he needed. Then the other asked him, Why did you not say, at the end of the second line, wa-awfir (and my fingernails) rather than wa-awbi (my fangers), and so your footsteps with the relics of the poets align? The other, from his ignorance compounded, now shouted, One thing is on another mounted, and the fingers are mounted on the nails, so the one for the other may substitute, you miscreant, you dissolute! At this, the company mocked him and left him alone, abandoning him to his own devices and those of Satan, his patron. Let us now return to what we were about by way of a decoding of the poetry of this lout, who, from the portals of those of good taste and exquisite speech, must surely be driven out.

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Thus we declareand from God we seek aid and to Him we repair: this deficient verse is drawn from the ocean of madness would go: