XXXI. The Maqáma of the Spindle

The Maqámát of Badí‘ al-Zamán al-Hamadhání, tr. W.J. Prendergast [1915] at sacred-texts.com

XXXI. THE MAQAMA OF THE SPINDLE

‘ÍSÁ IBN HISHÁM related to us and said: I entered Baṣra when I was wide of fame and abundant of reputation, and there came to me two young men. One of them said: 'May God strengthen the Shaikh! this youth entered our house and seized a kitten ⁴ with vertigo in its head, with the sacred cord ⁵ and a whirling sphere around its middle. Gentle of voice, if it cries; quick to return, if it flees; long of skirt, if it pulls; slender of

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waist, weak of chest, ¹ of the size of a plump sheep. Staying in the town, yet not abandoning travel. If it be given a thing, it returns it. If it be tasked with a journey, it goes energetically, and, if it is made to draw the rope, it lengthens it. There it is, bone and wood. It contains property, immoveable and moveable, a past and a future. ² Said the young man: 'Yes, may God strengthen the Shaikh! for he forcibly took from me:--

'Pointed is his spearhead, ³ sharp are his teeth,
His progeny are his helpers, dissolving union is his business.
He assails his master, clinging to his moustache;
Inserting his fangs into old and young.
Agreeable, of goodly shape, slim, abstemious.
A shooter, with shafts abundant, around the beard and the moustache.'

So I said to the first: 'Give him back the comb in order that he may return to thee the spindle.'

Footnotes

128:4 … A kitten: The commentator does not consider that … arabicized from the Persian … partridge, makes good sense and says that the text is corrupt. He suggests that the correct word is … from the Persian … a furred animal and, as the context shows, a kitten. I think his view is correct. If we accept as the arabicized form of … the slight error in pointing is the kind of one a copyist might easily make.

128:5 … Zunnar: Greek ζωναριον a cord or girdle worn by the Eastern Christians, the Jews, Magi, and the Brahmins. Originally the lower girdle worn by a woman just above the hips over which the gown was drawn and fell in folds.

129:1 Weak of chest: Literally, weak in the place of the shirt. … gives no sense. Probably … a fat sheep fit to be slaughtered.

129:2 … Past and future: That is, ancestral and passing to posterity.

129:3 Pointed is his spearhead: Metre, rejez. Cf. Ḥarírí, i, 87.