The Epistle of Forgiveness by Abu l-Ala al-Maarri

Author:Abu l-Ala al-Maarri
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New York University Press
Published: 2016-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

It is better for a single man to be his own servant than having slaves enter his house. Often they compel their owner to beat them or to guard himself against them by being active and alert(?).1164

36.2.1

Often a man of letters, who is himself neither perfidious nor mistrusted, stays in an inn and is waited on by a boy freed from slavery, who serves him with theft and misery. If he sends him with a few coins, fractions of a dirham, to bring him a watermelon, when watermelons are available in plenty and their steep1165 price has become affordable, he runs off with the coins on the way and goes to great lengths to betray his master. Then he stops at the fruit-seller, who swindles him in slicing the melon.1166 He takes a small piece of watermelon, which does not strike the eye as something daubed with a dirty yellow dye. Then he runs off with it, playing, as if leading a full-breasted bride to her groom. He runs with it and does not stop. Then he drops it on the road amid a group of people and it breaks; the pips get mixed with pebbles: all sensible people would abstain from getting anywhere near it. It may, on the other hand, also happen that he carries the watermelon intact, and then goes swimming with other lads. When he is in the water some naughty little boy snatches it and eats it while the servant is watching him, not caring about the skin when he cuts it off. Or perhaps his master sends him with a large bowl to fetch milk; but he is cheated by his ill judgment. When the sour milk is in the bowl he stumbles and finds the milk clotted in lumps on the desert earth, and the earthenware dish has become potsherds that nobody wants, pious ascetics and unbelieving rebels alike would give it away for nothing. If his master has the same beliefs as Ibn al-Rūmī he would think that the breaking of the bowl (ghaḍārah) means the termination of his life of opulence (ghaḍārah). He would cry “Alas and alack!” and be distraught on account of his loss. What can he do with the sour milk when the time has come to depart to the final resting place?

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.