If you were to insist on being argumentative and say, “What is the reason for these veritable horns? Are they placed there to remind one of the figurative horns that a man acquires when he goes against his wife’s wishes or is stingy with her or breaks off relations with her, or as a kind of adornment, or as a sign of women’s wantonness and greed, in that, when they catch the smell of riches on their husbands, they think that every inch of their bodies should be decorated and ornamented, believing as they do that, while such things should be concealed from the eyes of others, they should not be concealed from their eyes or those of their husbands (albeit there is many a difference over the matter, with some forbidding it and some taking an attitude of acquiescence), for the mere knowledge that something valuable is safely hidden away may give pleasure to its owner, just as, if a person squirrels away treasure in a concealed hoard, he may revel in it even though he cannot see it?” I would reply, “The idea that they are there to provide a reminder of the figurative horns is not to be entertained, for the women of that country maintain their honor and preserve their chastity, and especially the women of the Mountain. In addition, the husband’s cudgel, the hooked staffs of his own and his wife’s families, and the eyes of the neighbors prevent her from having the full range of marital traits ascribed to her; in the cities, on the other hand, such traits are stronger and more widespread.”
1.2.6
In origin, these “horns” were merely a device from which to suspend the face veil and, when first used, were small and short. Then they grew taller and larger as time went by and people got richer, a wife’s horns getting taller and larger the richer and better off her husband became. And this brings us to a bit of useful information that we have to mention: the word qarn (“horn”) is one that is common to all languages,124 like ṣābūn (“soap”),125 qiṭṭ (“cat”),126 mazj (“mixing”),127 and so on and has become famous among writers as a metonym for you-know-what on the part of the wife against the husband, except where Jewish writers are concerned, for in their books the horn has a positive significance, which is why you often hear in the Book of Psalms, “My horn has been exalted” and “You have exalted my horn” and “I shall butt with my horn” and so on.128
1.2.7
Both usages contain a certain incomprehensibility and ambiguity. The incomprehensibility of the use of “horn” by non-Jewish writers as a metonym for women’s infidelity to their husbands lies in the fact that the shape of the horn does not bring to mind any specific human member and neither do its actual manifestations bring to mind any specific animal, for the ox, the mountain goat, the billy goat, and the rhinoceros all have one. Similarly, the word itself is not derived from any verb that might indicate a woman’s being unfaithful or taking a lover.129 What, then, lies behind this usage? I have asked many married men of lengthy experience about this prickly issue, and all of them changed color on hearing my question and, embarrassed and despondent, stammered, got up, and left me. Should God, then, grant any of those who peruse this book of mine a sudden insight as to the meaning of this word, both in common usage and as a technical term, let him be so good as to respond, out of kindness and charity. As to its usage among the writers of the Jews as a metonym for high rank, power, strength, and victory, what is true of the preceding is true of that too, namely, that it is common to many animals, some of which are possessed of neither power nor might. Observe, then, how people differ with regard to a single word and a single meaning!
1.2.8
As for “turban” (ʿimāma), I believe it derives from ʿamma meaning “to embrace,” for it embraces the head. It comes in various forms, among them the spiral, the cake-shaped, the wheel-shaped, the globular, the coil-shaped, the conical, the basket-shaped, and the cup-shaped, and all of these, whatever the type, are better than the baptismal fonts that the Maronite religious leaders wear. Let them just take a look at their faces in a well-polished mirror!
CHAPTER 3. VARIOUS AMUSING ANECDOTES
1.3.1
From childhood, the Fāriyāq had felt an instinctive disposition to read and assiduously study the classical language, picking out the rare words that he came across in books, of which his father had amassed a large number in a variety of disciplines. He, that is, the Fāriyāq, was also, from his youth, wild about poetry, even before he had learned anything about the requirements of that craft; thus sometimes he would hit the mark and other times miss it. He also believed poets were the best people and poetry the most magnificent thing with which a man could occupy himself.
1.3.2
Then one day he read in some chronicle of a poet who in his youth had been stupid and artless but had grown up to excel and to shine at composing lengthy odes. The story is told of him that one day he got drunk and sat down beside a monk’s cell(1)130 from whence he set about delivering the sermon of Abū l-ʿIbar Ṭarad Ṭabak Ṭalandī Bak Nak Yak131 from the drain.132 Also that one day, he wanted to scale a wall so that he could reach some dates, and he fell into an animal trap set by the owner of the orchard.133 And that one day he told his mother that such and such a woman had an excellent maid who had “washed the door of her house today till it was shining black.” And that one day he caught sight of a boy who had had one of his molars removed, so he went and borrowed a dirham and told the cupper, “Take my molar out too because it doesn’t cut my food; maybe another, sharper, molar will grow in its place.”
1.3.3
And one day someone said to him, “Many stories have been recorded of your stupidity,” to which he replied, “I wish someone would read them to me so I could have a laugh!” And one day his brother fell ill and his father said to his wife, “The food he ate yesterday was bad for him,” and the poet said, “Yes, the food was bad for him and so was the maid.” “What has the maid got to do with it?” his father asked him, and he said, “Maybe she gave him something he didn’t like.” And his mother noticed blood on his clothes and asked him, “What’s that blood?” and he answered, “I fell over and my blood ran, which is for the good, for it is said, ‘If someone falls over and his blood runs, he gets well and is strengthened.’” And he cut his hand with a knife and threw it away, saying, “This knife is worthless”; his father said to him, “If it really were, it wouldn’t have cut your hand,” to which the man replied, “Everyone in the world cuts his hand, if not with a knife then with something else.”
1.3.4
And he said, “Once I saw cheese as white as tar in the market.” And someone said to him, “Why don’t you wash your hands?” He replied, “I do, but they get dirty again straight away; I can’t get them clean because my blood is dirty.” And one day he saw some men who had been crucified and he asked his mother, “Mother, if those men survive, can those who crucified them re-crucify them?” And a company of people once asked after someone’s house and he said, “I know where it is located.” “How do you know?” he was asked and he replied, “I saw the man going through the market on foot.” And one day he said, “Time moves faster between eight and nine than between six and seven.” And someone asked him, “Which do you like better, meat or fish?” and he replied, “Really, I think I like this one better.”134
1.3.5