Night and Horses and the Desert by Robert Irwin

Author:Robert Irwin [IRWIN, ROBERT]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: FIC003000/FIC004000/POE013000
ISBN: 9781590209141
Publisher: Overlook
Published: 2011-10-01T04:00:00+00:00

Mez, The Renaissance of Islam, p. 263

Abu’l-Fath Mahmud ibn al-Husayn KUSHAJIM al-Sindi (d. 970/71) was of Indo-Persian origin, though born in Palestine. He served first the Hamdanids of Mosul and later Sayf al-Dawla in Aleppo as courtier, cook and astrologer. As a member of the Hamdanid prince’s retinue he became a close friend of Sanawbari and indeed married one of his daughters. Kushajim’s Adab al-nudama wa-lata'if al-zurafa, or ‘Etiquette of the Cup Companion and Refined Jests of the Elegant’, was (as its title suggests) a handbook for courtiers. In it, Kushajim transmitted the opinion of one courtier that of the three pleasures in life – listening to a singing-girl, privacy with a woman (i.e. sex with her) and conversation with a man – the last was best. A propos of dinner-table talk, Kushajim held that while street-corner storytellers might tell long stories, those of the nadim had to be short.

Kushajim was a noted poet who specialized in wasf, and particularly in poetic evocations of nature. Together with his friend Sanawbari, he was one of the leading figures in the new genre of garden poetry. He also wrote tardiyyat, or poems about the hunt, and besides the poems he produced a prose treatise on hunt etiquette. However, he is probably best known for his poems about food. In his poetry he described all kinds of foodstuffs. He even wrote a poem about vermilioned eggs. Here is a poem about asparagus.

Lances we have, the tips whereof are curled,

Their bodies like a hawser turned and twirled,

Yet fair to view, with ne’er a knot to boot.

Their heads bolt upright from the shoulders shoot,

And, by the grace of Him Who made us all,

Firm in the soil they stand, like pillars tall,

Clothed in soft robes like silk on mantle spread

That deep hath drunk a blazing flame of red,

As if they brushed against a scarlet cheek

Whereon an angry palm its wrath doth wreak,

And as a coat-of-mail is interlaced

With links of gold so twine they, waist to waist;

Like silken mitraf that the hands display –

Ah, could it last for ever and a day! –

They might be bezels set in rings of pearl.

Thereon a most delicious sauce doth swirl

Flowing and ebbing like a swelling sea;

Oil decks them out in cream embroidery

Which, as it floods and flecks them, fold on fold,

Twists latchets as of silver or of gold.

Should pious anchorite see such repast,

In sheer devotion he would break his fast.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.