CHAPTER 6: FOOD AND FEEDING FRENZIES
1.6.1
While the Fāriyāq’s head and feet stayed put in his house, his mind was climbing mountains and hills, scaling walls, conquering castles, descending into valleys and caves, plunging into mire, roaming deserts and launching itself upon the waves, for his dearest desire was to see a land other than his own and people other than his family, which is everyone’s first concern while growing up. It occurred to him therefore to visit one of his brothers who was a scribe working for a Druze notable, and he set forth, with nothing for baggage but his dreams. When he was united with him and beheld how coarse and rough were the people and how at variance with his own nature were the conditions there, he rejected some of those things and resigned himself to putting up with the rest.
1.6.2
At the same time, he didn’t want to find himself at some point about to return without first having got to know them better, albeit had he been wiser, he would have had nothing to do with them from the first day on, for it is not to be expected that the people of a city or a village will change their manners and the ways in which they’ve been raised for the sake of a stranger who has entered among them, especially if they be hulking fellows of great height and strength while he’s a little titch. The less work people have to do, though, the more their curiosity gets the better of them; this being the case, it wasn’t enough for him to make do with what his ears had heard: he had to see it with his own eyes.
1.6.3
The better the Fāriyāq got to know these folk through experience and close examination, the less he liked them and the less he wanted to do with them, for they were coarse-natured, full of boorishness, and horrid to excess, their clothes and bedding filthy, they themselves ever prey to shortage of provisions and distress. The filthiest of all was the emir’s cook: his shirt was fouler than a cumrag, and his feet bore more dirt than one could scrape into a vomit bag. When they sat down to eat, such rumbling and mumbling and teeth-gnashing and lip-smacking was to be heard you would have thought they were wild beasts at a carcass. They ate like animals, taking huge bites, burying their front teeth in the food, stripping off the meat down to the bone, sucking out the marrow, licking their lips and smacking them, polishing off the desserts, licking the plates with their tongues, and throwing half-eaten food down on the table, all the while seated on the ground with their legs crossed under them at their ease. You might think that on each one’s brow was inscribed the proverb “Eat your fill and you’ll never be ill.” When they stood up, one beheld their beards strewn with rice, their clothes dripping with grease. When the Fāriyāq ate with them, he’d get up hungry from the table and his guts would rise against him, so that till late at night to sleep he’d be unable.
1.6.4
To his brother he’d say, amazed at how any with wits could live in the company of these barbarous twits, “What distinguishes the Druze from the beasts save their beards and their turbans? For sure, their very way of life leads to the closing of their eyes and minds, the opening of their mouths and behinds. Scarce one of them can credit that God Almighty has created a race of men to which they are not superior. They’re unaware that a man isn’t better than a dumb animal or distinguishable from an inanimate mineral simply because he has the power of speech. Words are but the Matter pertaining to the Form in which various meanings may be expressed, and this Matter alone is of no use if the Form, which is the second stage of existence, has not within it been impressed.159 It has been said that ‘a silver coin covers the fool’s shortcomings,’ but these people have been deprived of both brains and ease and are content to take from this whole world nought but the breeze. How can you bear to live alongside such kine, and at a time when your own gifts have just begun to shine?”
1.6.5
His brother replied, “They often envy me for my standing with the emir, but I bear the wiles of my enviers with patience, however hard they be to bear. As it is said:
Many things men think a blessing
To those who have them, when in fact they bring them down.
Did not the envious plot to take them from them,
They’d disavow them with a frown.
“In addition, these people are endowed with pride and chivalry, courage and gallantry, and though ill-mannered at the board, they’re well-mannered in deed and word. They never utter a word obscene, and among them sodomy and adultery are nowhere to be seen.”
1.6.6
The Fāriyāq, however, could appreciate no manners but those of the dining table, as though he’d been gently raised by Franks or belonged somehow to their ranks. Summoning, then, his native wit to mock them and being obeyed, calling for rhymes to describe them and being not gainsaid, he composed on them an ode in which he exposed the wretchedness of their daily grind and their coarseness of mind, one line of which went:
When each one holds knife and cutter
In his mouth, what’s left for him to eat with?
1.6.7
He showed this to his brother (to whose knowledge of literature all bore witness, as they did to his grammatical fitness) and the latter thought it well done — even though the Fāriyāq’s age was still tender—and was impressed by the skill with which his art he did render. In no time, however, the ode became celebrated, and much debated, the reason being that his brother, so proud, recited it to many of those whom he knew, at which one of the envious communicated it to the emir of the crew. This informer was a Christian — envy being a quality found only among Christians — even though many of those to whom it had been read out were among the Druze who were the object of the satire.
1.6.8
When the emir heard about it, he was greatly offended and told his brother, “Forsooth, your brother’s committed an act uncouth! How can he satirize us when he’s our guest whom we’ve dealt with as one of high station, and to whom we’ve alloted generous compensation? I swear to God, if he doesn’t cancel out his attack with a poem of praise, I shall vex him greatly.” This emir was, of the Arab qualities of chivalry and courage, the epitome, and would do anything in his power to attract a eulogy, though he submitted his affairs to fate, giving little thought to his current or future state. Now, however, he feared this threat might invite further attacks, should the Fāriyāq leave his service while in a wax, and thus decided that to disregard the slight was the best path to placation, flattery the surest route to reconciliation. As a consequence, he discreetly asked a friend of his, a scholar of his sect, a member of the community’s elect, to put on a feast, to which he was to invite him, the Fāriyāq, and his brother.