(1) The kūbah (“tabla”) is “a small, waisted drum”; it may be what the common people call a darabukkah.
(2) manāṣiʿ are “places in which people seclude themselves to urinate or defecate.”
(1) N.b. After writing this book, I saw in Ibn Khālawayh the Grammarian’s work Laysa that the two buttocks together may be referred to as al-ṣawmaʿatān (“the monk’s cells”) or al-ṣawfaqatān (?),69 a usage overlooked by the author of the Qāmūs.
CHAPTER 6: A BANQUET AND VARIOUS KINDS OF HOT SAUCE
3.6.1
The Fāriyāq and his wife now set about exploring the streets of the city,88 dressed in the costume of the people of Egypt. He was wearing wide drawers, whose bottoms wrapped themselves around him in front and in back as he walked. She had enveloped herself in a white woolen hooded cloak so as to cover her sleeves, which otherwise would have swept the ground. The passersby and shopkeepers were amazed by them and didn’t know whether his wife was a woman or not, some asking, “Is it a man or a woman?”, some following along behind them, some touching their clothes and staring into their faces and saying, “We never saw the like of this day — something that’s neither a man nor a woman!” One of the more intelligent English faqīhs, whose name was Steven,89 happened to run across them; having looked hard at their faces and worked out that the Fāriyāq was a man and the Fāriyāqiyyah a woman, he went up to them and said, “You, Man, and you, Woman, will you have lunch at my house next Sunday?” “How very kind of you!” they replied. “My house,” he said, “is in Across the Sea,90 at such and such a place. Come in the morning before lunch.”
3.6.2
On Sunday, they took a skiff and set off for his house, where they found him about to go out, for it seems he wanted to bring a few of his acquaintances to gawp at his guests. Apparently he then got drunk on the road or at his friends’ house and he never came back. When he saw them, he told them, “I have to go and see to some business but here’s my wife and these are my daughters, so make yourselves at home with them till I come back and then we can all have lunch together.” “By all means!” they said. Then they sat down with his wife. In the sitting room was a young Englishman who was whispering sweet nothings into the ear of one of the daughters of the English faraḍī and holding her hand. Then he started kissing her in front of her mother and the visitors. The Fāriyāq’s face turned yellow, his wife’s turned red, and the mother beamed. “How,” said the Fāriyāqiyyah to her husband, “can this young man kiss the girl and not be embarrassed by our presence?” He replied, “Kissing isn’t considered shameful by the Franks. Among them, a visitor is obliged, when he enters the house of a friend, to kiss the man’s wife and all his daughters, especially if it’s a holiday; this is despite the fact that ‘to kiss’ is sometimes used by them to mean what follows. Such, though, is their custom.” “But,” she asked, “isn’t he embarrassed by us, given that we are strangers?” “If a thing is permitted,” he replied, “it is permitted before kinsman and stranger alike. Or it may be that the man thinks we are ignorant of this practice in our country.”
3.6.3
“Who could be so ignorant as to believe that?” she asked. “Kissing among us is always accompanied by panting, sighing, sucking, smelling, and closing of the eyes. But this fellow seems to me to be doing no more than delivering a light puff of breath, devoid of any feeling, as one might if one had no regard for the matter at hand.” “I find in the Qāmūs,” he said, “that mukāfaḥah, mulāghafah, muthāghamah, lathm, faghm, kaʿm, and taqbīl all mean a man’s kissing a woman on the mouth, or doing so while simultaneously chewing on it.” She said, “It makes no difference! The Arabs have set the standard for both orientation and osculation,91 for to kiss the brow, as the Franks do, is meaningless. But why is the kissing of parts other than the mouth and the cheek devoid of the pleasure that the kisser experiences at those two spots?” “Because,” he replied, “one who is thirsty cannot quench his thirst by planting his mouth at the top of the water pitcher or on its side.” “Speaking of thirst,” she then said, “why do the poets describe saliva sometimes as sweet and sometimes as thirst-quenching, which is a contradiction?” “Perhaps,” he replied, “that should be considered one of the mysteries of poetry or one of the intricate issues involving women.” “And speaking of mysteries and intricate issues,” she said, “can the lover find pleasure in drinking salivary secretions from any part other than the mouth?” “Quite possibly, where some of the Arabs are concerned,” he answered, “but the Franks object to doing so even from the mouth. Indeed, the only name they know for such things is ‘spittle.’”
3.6.4
“Speaking of the different names for things,” she said, “what would one call this mother who is comfortable watching her daughter in such a state? Would one call her a procuress?” “‘Procuring’ may be used properly only of a man, if he procures for his womenfolk,” he replied. “In fact,” she replied, “it happens more often with mothers than with fathers, for mothers fill with happiness when they watch a man pay suit to one of their girls, because when a mother sees a suitor paying court to her daughter she imagines that whatever beauty he finds in the girl he must find in the mother, seeing that she’s the original, and that he can hardly love the branch without feeling affection for its root.”
3.6.5
They continued their conversation at length until it was noon, when one of the faraḍī’s daughters came in, a piece of bread and a chunk of cheese in her hand, and started eating where she stood. Then she turned around and brought another and did the same. The aforementioned faqīh had seven daughters and a number of boys. When it was two o’clock, the mother said to the guests, “You must be feeling hungry, for it is past noon and my husband is late.” “Let us wait,” they said, “until he comes.” At five, the dinner bell was rung to gather the scattered children of the house, as is the custom with English parents. An hour passed, the bell was rung again, and the hours continued to pass until it was eleven o’clock, during which time the mother would visit the kitchen and the girls whisper to one another in secret as though the same downfall had befallen them as befell the Barāmikah.92 The Fāriyāq told his wife, “If we don’t leave now, we won’t find a skiff or anywhere suitable to spend the night in this ‘Across.’” So they got up, said good night to the mistress of the house, boarded a skiff, and at midnight re-entered the town, where they ate in a restaurant, having a dinner that was also a lunch.
3.6.6
A few days later, the Fāriyāq’s wife said to him, “I have seen strange things in this town.” “What were they?” he asked. “I see that no hair sprouts on the faces of the men here, and that they have no shame.” “Explain!” he said. She said, “I haven’t seen a beard or a mustache on the face of a single one. Are all of them then beardless?” “What you do not know,” he said, “is that they shave their faces every day with a razor.” “Why?” she asked. “To please their women,” he replied, “for they like a smooth, clean cheek.” “On the contrary,” she said. “A woman derives her pleasure in a man from all the things that point to his manliness, and a profusion of hair on the face of a man is the equivalent of its absence on the face of a woman.” “And what,” he asked, “did you mean by saying that they have no shame? Did one of them ask something indecent of you?” “That has yet to happen,” she replied, “but I note that they wear their drawers so tight that their private parts are on display at the back.” “And that,” he responded, “is something that should please women, according to your statement.” “Indeed,” she replied, “such a costume is more pleasing to the eye than that worn by the Arabs. It shows off the thighs, the calves, the stomach, and the buttocks. However, going too far in such tightness is an offense to decency for those who are not accustomed to it, albeit at the same time handsomer and more captivating. But be that as it may, what is going on with those priests? I see that they go to even greater excess than the common people with those short breeches of theirs, which is inappropriate to their station. Even uglier is their shaving of their mustaches, though the mustache is an adornment to the face of a young man just as the beard is to that of an older man. What has seduced them into adopting this custom, when they don’t marry and don’t have to please their womenfolk? I swear, were one of them to go to Egypt, the people would think he was one of those effeminates called khawals93 who pluck the hair from their faces and remove it from their bodies in imitation of women, and may God bring disgrace to any man who behaves effeminately!” To which he added, “And every woman who behaves masculinely!” “Indeed,” said she, “and any person who practices evil customs! Observe how custom here has made the shaving of the hair a mark of bounty and perfection when, to us, it is a sign of deficiency and corruption.”