by Robert Irwin
The first of his three plays, Tayf al-Khayyal, ‘The Imaginary Phantom’, recounts the attempts of a disreputable hunchbacked soldier called Wisal (the name means ‘sexual congress’) to find a bride. He is assisted by Umm Rashid, a dishonest marriage-broker. Poorly served by Umm Rashid, Tayf al-Khayyal ends up with a hideous bride, who wants to beat her husband and who farts a lot; but she dies, in time for Wisal to repent his dissolute ways.
The next play, ‘Ajib wa-Gharib, has no plot worthy of the name. The ‘play’ merely consists of a parade of low-life characters who come on stage to describe their various professions. The play’s title can be translated as ‘Marvellous and Strange’, but ‘Ajib and Gharib are also the names of two of the leading figures in the parade. ‘Ajib is a low-grade, unlicensed popular preacher. Gharib is a wizard, who rubs along precariously by writing out spells, handling animals, and faking illnesses. He is versed in most of the arts of the Banu Sasan. Other characters include a snake-charmer, an astrologer, a juggler, a sorcerer trading in amulets, an acrobat, a lion-tamer, and so on. The last characters to appear are a camel-driver who wants to go to the Holy Places, and a lamp-lighter (masha’ili) who is the jack of all pariah trades. He sings a song about Christianity and a mocking lament for the good old days of debauchery now brought to an end by the puritan legislation of the Mamluk sultan Baybars (reigned 1260–77). In the passage which follows, the masha’ili starts to describe not only his job, but also what he gets up to when he is moonlighting. Having entered the maydan, or square, carrying his brazier, he describes his work as a lamp-lighter and lamp-bearer and then goes on to describe the different sorts of patter he uses when begging from Muslims, Christians and Jews.
He ends his appeal to the Jew as follows:
Bestow on me a favour with a red copper penny,
Like a glowing coal in my brazier,
And do not say to me ‘Away!’ and do not delay like a miser.
You think perhaps that I am a boor. No, by ‘Ali! No, by ‘Ali!
(Curses against him who does not give.)
So it is, and of how many sewers have we not emptied the bottom
with the mattock,
As though we were doing the work of the aperient remedy in their
interior.
Our trade is a laudable one, where the sewer is like a full belly.
And when you find one who is led around like a criminal on an ass
with a white hind-foot,
Whose eye weeps, as though it had been rubbed with pepper,
Then we strike his neck with whips,
We cry with a voice which shocks even the deaf:
That is the reward of the man who says what he does not do.
And when we act as criers, how often have we ordered people (by
order of the Government) what they should do in the future,
You people who have assembled, do so and so, but he who does
not do it,
Let him not be surprised at what he shall receive [as punishment]
from him, who instructed me [the Emir].
In the same way we cry out when a man has lost something.
He who directs us to it, we grant him a gift,
And God’s reward, oh honourable gracious Sirs.
And we flay the skin from the carcase, whether it be from bullock
or from camel,
So that it may act as a protection against harm for the feet,
And you see no men who are not provided with shoes.
And how many of the crafty people have we punished with
flogging, robbers of all kinds, who come by night like
approaching disaster.
Who in their cunning know the house better than its owner.
Such a man climbs up to the house like a travelling star,
Enters lightly by its narrow side, like a sustained breath,
With courageous heart, without fear because of his cunning,
He creeps slowly into the house like an ant,
Comes to the sleepers in the middle of the night, soft as a Zephyr,
Till his protective covering fails him.
We seize him so that he is like a chained horse.
Sometimes we sever his hand from the wrist,
And sometimes we hang him on the cross, when he is guilty of
murder.
And in playing with dice we are famous as a proverb.
They gleam in our hands like assembled jewels.
Our man is at peace [has won], he sweeps it together, that for
himself, that for me.
From the other they have taken everything, so that he must despise himself,
Saying: Oh, had I been satisfied with my first winnings!
And how often have I thought that I would never lose my position!
And if they, the dice, were lucky stars in their changing influence
over the dynasties.
And how much trade do we do with best fresh plants,
Hashish of the colour of down on a shining cheek,
Which is made into pills, perfumed with ‘Anbar, spiced and
roasted for us,
Or with indigo which is handed round in the beggar’s bowl for
those drunk with hashish.
We sell that to the people when it is cheap for the price of an ear
of corn.
We are the sons of Sasan, descended from their kings, who
possessed golden ornaments.
Our qualities are these in detail and in general.
They are shortly related in a qasida, which suffices and need be no
longer.
Our might is on the peak of two mountains in Mosul.
We are honoured there as the sun is honoured in the Zodiac of the
Ram,
And I pray to God, as prays a suppliant, a petitioner,
That he may forgive these sins and the bad speech.
When he has set forth his qualities and filled his fodder bag he
turns and departs.
Paul Kahle (trans.), Journal of the Royal Asiatic
Society (1940), pp. 30–32
COMMENTARY
The masha’ili’s performance is followed by that of a camel-driver, before Gharib reappears at the end of this disreputable cavalcade to wind up the play. According to Ira Marvin Lapidus’s Muslim Cities in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, Mass., 1967) the masha’iliyya were ‘the night-watchmen and torch-bearers who cleaned the latrines, removed refuse from the streets, and carried off the bodies of dead animals, served as police, guards, executioners and public criers, and paraded people condemned to public disgrace whose shame may have consisted in part in being handled by such men. At the same time, the masha’iliyya made use of their intimacy with nightlife to become involved in gambling, theft, and dealing in hashish and wine.’
I have no idea why the drinkers of hashish were presented with indigo.
Kahle has omitted some of the obscenities in his translation, particularly those hurled at any who are too mean to respond to the begging patter.
The whole speech rhymes in lam.
Finally, ‘Al-Mutayyam wa’l-Da’i” al-Yutayyim’, ‘The Man Distracted by Passion and the Little Vagabond Orphan’, is a play about unfulfilled homosexual love. In the first part, al-Mutayyam laments his frustrated love for the beautiful boy, Yutayyim. Mutayyam is interrupted by an old and ugly lover, who recites a poem in praise of small things. Then Mutayyam and the beloved boy Yutayyim meet for a cockfight, a ram fight and a bullfight. After the boy has departed, Mutayyam has a bull slaughtered for a homosexual feast. His guests make speeches on various naughty things like wine, masturbation, and gluttony. The host had been hoping to attract Yutayyim to the feast, but the Angel of Death arrives instead and Mutayyam repents (thereby giving the play a belated and perfunctory moral gloss).
Ibn Daniyal’s portrayal of conmen working the market-place in his play “Ajib wa-Gharib catered for the contemporary interest in stories of cunni
ng exploits (hiyal). The heroes of popular epics and stories often relied more on crafty eloquence than they did on swordsmanship. The Raqa’iq al-Hilal fi Daqaiq al-Hiyal, ‘Cloaks of Fine Fabric in Subtle Ruses’, catered to the same sort of taste. This anthology is anonymous, but it can tentatively be dated to the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century.
We are told how the King of the Greeks of Byzantium used cunning when he invaded Ifriqiya and the population learned of this well enough in advance for them to organize resistance and entrench themselves in a city that he besieged for a long time to no avail. The city gate withstood all his attacks. Among the citizens there was a man called Aqtar who was very daring and courageous. Anyone who fought him was invariably killed. The King of the Greeks was told of this.
He had a commander named Arsilaous, unsurpassed for his bravery throughout the world. Following an outburst of anger from the King, he had refused to take any part in the war. The King had asked him to, but he did not obey. The King then said:
– Spread the rumour that our enemy Aqtar has captured the brother of Arsilaous.
The latter was distressed when he heard the news. He looked everywhere for his brother, but could not find him. Then he asked for his weapons and went out against Aqtar. He fought against him and took him prisoner and led him before the King of the Greeks. The latter put Aqtar to death. The people of Ifriqiya and all their supporters were terror-stricken when they found out that their hero was gone. The King of the Greeks, with Arsilaous, attacked the city, inflicting heavy losses on the enemy and conquering the region.
René Khawam (trans.), The Subtle Ruse: The Book of Arabic
Wisdom and Guile (London, 1976), pp. 185–6
COMMENTARY
Evidently what we have here is a distorted and much simplified version of the story, in Homer’s Iliad, of the anger of Achilles and his eventual fight with Hector (Aqtar). As far as one can tell, neither the Iliad nor the Odyssey was translated into Arabic in the medieval period and the Arabs were much less familiar with the name of Homer than they were with those of the Greek philosophers. Nevertheless, a handful of scholars in the ‘Abbasid period had been aware of the contents of the two epics, and fragments of Homer resurfaced in such popular stories as ‘The Seven Voyages of Sinbad’. In Homer’s Iliad the focus was on the anger of Achilles; here, in this dim reminiscence of the Trojan War, the point is the cunning of the Greek king.
Ifriqiya should be Phrygia.
Tales of ingenuity also played a leading role in the story-collection of The Thousand and One Nights. The origins of this collection have already been discussed. However, all that survives from the (doubtless primitive) tenth century is a fragment of the opening page. The oldest substantially surviving manuscript (in three manuscript volumes in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris) dates from the fourteenth or fifteenth century. It seems to have been skilfully put together by a single editor who probably lived and worked in Mamluk Syria. The stories have many references to Mamluk topography, household articles, coinage and so forth. It is likely that there was originally a fourth, concluding, manuscript volume. The surviving three volumes contain some thirty-five and a half stories. These latter stories are artfully boxed within one another, and are linked in their themes and imagery. They deal with telling one’s story in order to save one’s life, sexual betrayal, magic, mutilation, and fulfilment deferred. ‘The Tale of King Yunan and the Sage Duban’, which as we shall see contains two stories boxed within it, is told to a jinn, or demon, by a fisherman who hopes that he will thereby save his life. ‘The Story of the Fisherman and the Demon’ is told by Shahrazad to King Shahriyar, in the hope that her nightly suspenseful storytelling may prevent, or at least delay, her execution.
The Tale of King Yunan and the Sage Duban
Demon, there was once a king called Yunan, who reigned in one of the cities of Persia, in the province of Zuman. This king was afflicted with leprosy, which had defied the physicians and the sages, who, for all the medicines they gave him to drink and all the ointments they applied, were unable to cure him. One day there came to the city of King Yunan a sage called Duban. This sage had read all sorts of books, Greek, Persian, Turkish, Arabic, Byzantine, Syriac, and Hebrew, had studied the sciences, and had learned their groundwork, as well as their principles and basic benefits. Thus he was versed in all the sciences, from philosophy to the lore of plants and herbs, the harmful as well as the beneficial. A few days after he arrived in the city of King Yunan, the sage heard about the king and his leprosy and the fact that the physicians and the sages were unable to cure him. On the following day, when God’s morning dawned and His sun rose, the sage Duban put on his best clothes, went to King Yunan and, introducing himself, said, ‘Your Majesty, I have heard of that which has afflicted your body and heard that many physicians have treated you without finding a way to cure you. Your Majesty, I can treat you without giving you any medicine to drink or ointment to apply.’ When the king heard this, he said, ‘If you succeed, I will bestow on you riches that would be enough for you and your grandchildren. I will bestow favours on you, and I will make you my companion and friend.’ The king bestowed robes of honour on the sage, treated him kindly, and then asked him, ‘Can you really cure me from my leprosy without any medicine to drink or ointment to apply?’ The sage replied, ‘Yes, I will cure you externally.’ The king was astonished, and he began to feel respect as well as great affection for the sage. He said, ‘Now, sage, do what you have promised.’ The sage replied, ‘I hear and obey. I will do it tomorrow morning, the Almighty God willing.’ Then the sage went to the city, rented a house, and there he distilled and extracted medicines and drugs. Then with his great knowledge and skill, he fashioned a mallet with a curved end, hollowed the mallet, as well as the handle, and filled the handle with his medicines and drugs. He likewise made a ball. When he had perfected and prepared everything, he went on the following day to King Yunan and kissed the ground before him.
But morning overtook Shahrazad, and she lapsed into silence. Then her sister Dinarzad said, ‘What a lovely story!’ Shahrazad replied, ‘You have heard nothing yet. Tomorrow night I shall tell you something stranger and more amazing if the king spares me and lets me live!’
THE TWELFTH NIGHT
The following night Dinarzad said to her sister Shahrazad, ‘Please, sister, finish the rest of the story of the fisherman and the demon.’ Shahrazad replied, “With the greatest pleasure’:
I heard, O King, that the fisherman said to the demon:
The sage Duban came to King Yunan and asked him to ride to the playground to play with the ball and mallet. The king rode out, attended by his chamberlains, princes, viziers, and lords and eminent men of the realm. When the king was seated, the sage Duban entered, offered him the mallet, and said, ‘O happy King, take this mallet, hold it in your hand, and as you race on the playground, hold the grip tightly in your fist, and hit the ball. Race until you perspire, and the medicine will ooze from the grip into your perspiring hand, spread to your wrist, and circulate through your entire body. After you perspire and the medicine spreads in your body, return to your royal palace, take a bath, and go to sleep. You will wake up cured, and that is all there is to it.’ King Yunan took the mallet from the sage Duban and mounted his horse. The attendants threw the ball before the king, who, holding the grip tightly in his fist, followed it and struggled excitedly to catch up with it and hit it. He kept galloping after the ball and hitting it until his palm and the rest of his body began to perspire, and the medicine began to ooze from the handle and flow through his entire body. When the sage Duban was certain that the medicine had oozed and spread through the king’s body, he advised him to return to his palace and go immediately to the bath. The king went to the bath and washed himself thoroughly. Then he put on his clothes, left the bath, and returned to his palace.
As for the sage Duban, he spent the night at home, and early in the morning, he went to the palace and asked for permission to see the king. When he was
allowed in, he entered and kissed the ground before the king; then, pointing toward him with his hand, he began to recite the following verses:
The virtues you fostered are great;
For who but you could sire them?
Yours is the face whose radiant light
Effaces the night dark and grim.
Forever beams your radiant face;
That of the world is still in gloom.
You rained on us with ample grace,
As the clouds rain on thirsty hills,
Expending your munificence,
Attaining your magnificence.
When the sage Duban finished reciting these verses, the king stood up and embraced him. Then he seated the sage beside him, and with attentiveness and smiles, engaged him in conversation. Then the king bestowed on the sage robes of honour, gave him gifts and endowments, and granted his wishes. For when the king had looked at himself the morning after the bath, he found that his body was clear of leprosy, as clear and pure as silver. He therefore felt exceedingly happy and in a very generous mood. Thus when he went in the morning to the reception hall and sat on his throne, attended by the Mamluks and chamberlains, in the company of the viziers and the lords of the realm, and the sage Duban presented himself, as we have mentioned, the king stood up, embraced him, and seated him beside him. He treated him attentively and drank and ate with him.
But morning overtook Shahrazad, and she lapsed into silence. Then her sister Dinarzad said, ‘Sister, what a lovely story!’ Shahrazad replied, ‘The rest of the story is stranger and more amazing. If the king spares me and I am alive tomorrow night, 1 shall tell you something even more entertaining.’