Leg over Leg

Volume Three

Aḥmad Fāris al-Shidyāq, Humphrey Davies

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781479842247
• eBook ISBN: 9781479838417
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Languages
• Index: History

Finalist for the 2016 National Translation Award given by the American Literary Translators' Association

The life, birth, and early years of 'the Fariyaq'—the alter ego of the Arab intellectual Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq

Leg over Leg recounts the life, from birth to middle age, of 'the Fariyaq,' alter ego of Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq, a pivotal figure in the intellectual and literary history of the modern Arab world. The always edifying and often hilarious adventures of the Fariyaq, as he moves from his native Lebanon to Egypt, Malta, Tunis, England and France, provide the author with grist for wide-ranging discussions of the intellectual and social issues of his time, including the ignorance and corruption of the Lebanese religious and secular establishments, freedom of conscience, women's rights, sexual relationships between men and women, the manners and customs of Europeans and Middle Easterners, and the differences between contemporary European and Arabic literatures. Al-Shidyaq also celebrates the genius and beauty of the classical Arabic language.

Akin to Sterne and Rabelais in his satirical outlook and technical inventiveness, al-Shidyaq produced in Leg over Leg a work that is unique and unclassifiable. It was initially widely condemned for its attacks on authority, its religious skepticism, and its "obscenity," and later editions were often abridged. This is the first English translation of the work and reproduces the original Arabic text, published under the author's supervision in 1855.

كتاب

الساق على الساق فى ما هو الفارياق

او

ايام وشهور واعوام فى عجم العرب والاعجام

تاليف العبد الفقير الى ربه الرزاق

فارس بن يوسف الشدياق

Leg over Leg

or

The Turtle in the Tree

concerning

The Fāriyāq

What Manner of Creature Might He Be

otherwise entitled

Days, Months, and Years

spent in

Critical Examination

of

The Arabs

and

Their Non-Arab Peers

by

The Humble Dependent on His Lord the Provider

Fāris ibn Yūsuf al-Shidyāq

فهرست الكتاب

الكتاب الثالث

الفصل الاول	فى اضرام اتون *
الفصل الثانى	فى العشق والزواج وفيه القصيدتان الطيخيتان *
الفصل الثالث	فى العدوى *
الفصل الرابع	فى التورية *
الفصل الخامس	فى سفر وتصحيح غلط اشتهر *
الفصل السادس	فى وليمة وابازير متنوعة *
الفصل السابع	فى الحُرتة *
الفصل الثامن	فى الاحلام وتعبيرها *
الفصل التاسع	فى الحلم الثانى *
الفصل العاشر	فى الحلم الثالث *
الفصل الحادى عشر	فى اصلاح البخر *
الفصل الثانى عشر	فى سفر ومحاورة *
الفصل الثالث عشر	فى مقامة مقيمة *
الفصل الرابع عشر	فى جوع ديقوع دهقوع *
الفصل الخامس عشر	فى السفر من الدير *
الفصل السادس عشر	فى النشوة *
الفصل السابع عشر	فى الحضّ على التعرّى *
الفصل الثامن عشر	فى بلوعة *
الفصل التاسع عشر	فى عجائب شتى *
الفصل العشرون	فى سرقة مطرانية *

Contents of the Book

Book Three

Chapter 1: Firing Up a Furnace

Chapter 2: Love and Marriage, including the Two Titter-making Poems

Chapter 3: Contagion

Chapter 4: Analepsis

Chapter 5: Travel, and the Correction of a Common Misconception

Chapter 6: A Banquet and Various Kinds of Hot Sauce

Chapter 7: That Stinging Sensation You Feel When You Get Hot Sauce up Your Nose

Chapter 8: Dreams and Their Interpretation

Chapter 9: The Second Dream

Chapter 10: The Third Dream

Chapter 11: Physicking the Foul of Breath

Chapter 12: A Voyage and a Conversation

Chapter 13: A Maqāmah to Make One Stand

Chapter 14: Raveningly Ravenously Famished

Chapter 15: The Journey from the Monastery

Chapter 16: Ecstasy‎

Chapter 17: An Incitement to Nudity

Chapter 18: A Drain

Chapter 19: Assorted Wonders

Chapter 20: A Metropolitan Theft

الفصل الاول

ڡي اضرام اتون

Chapter 1

Firing Up a Furnace

3.1.1

او ما كفى بنى آدم ما هم فيه من الشقآ والعنآ * والجهد والبلآ * والمشقة والنصب * واللاوآ والتعب * والحرمان والنحس * والقنوط والتعس * يحبل بهم فى الفَرْث والوحم * ويولدون فى الاوجاع والالم * ويرضعون فى الضرر * ويفطمون فى الخطر * ويحبون فيعثرون * ويدرجون فيتدهورون * ويمشون فيكلّون * ويكدّون فيملّون * ويبطلون فيتضورون * اذا جاعوا خاروا ووَهَوا * واذا اكلوا اتخموا وبَجِروا * واذا ظمئوا ضووا * واذا شربوا غلثوا وغنثوا وخثروا * واذا ارقوا ذابوا قلقا وكمدا * واذا ناموا ذهب العمر منهم سدى * واذا هرموا ملّهم اهلهم واخوانهم * واذا اختُضروا حسّروهم تحسيرا ربما احانهم *

Are they not enough, the troubles to which men are subject by way of misery and care, effort and wear, toil and disease, hardship and dis-ease, of deprivation and lucklessness, despair and unhappiness? Men are carried to nausea and craving, born in pain and suffering, nursed to their mothers’ detriment, weaned to their imperilment. They crawl only to stumble, climb only to tumble, walk only to lag, labor only to flag, find themselves unemployed only by hunger’s pangs to be destroyed. They languish and grow weak when they go without, suffer indigestion when they eat and grow stout. When they thirst, they lose weight, and when they drink, become sick as poisoned birds, gulp air, and nauseate. Lying awake at night, they waste away, worried and fraught, and sleeping, their allotted share of hours goes by and gains them naught. Old and feeble, they’re a burden to kith and kin, yet, should they die before their time, they cause them such grief as may do them in.

3.1.2

ثم هم بين ذلك فى تحصيل اسباب المعاش ساعون * وفى التظاهر باللباس والزينة معنَّون * والعزب منهم متهافت على امراة تكون له اهلا * وذو الاهل همّه بزوجه وتربية ولده طفلا وكهلا * فاذا مرضوا مرض * واذا حزنوا حزن وجرض * وويل له ان تكن زوجته بَزْرآ * او كانت عاقرا وَذْمآء * وراى لغيره من المتزوجين بنين ذوى طلعة ناضرة * وشمائل سارّة * فيقول فى نفسه انما لذة الدنيا البنون * وانى ميت بلا خلف واىّ منون *

In the midst of all this, they must strive to obtain the means to earn their daily bread, while tormented by the need to make a show of dress and thread. The bachelor’s desperate to find a woman to call his own, the family man preoccupied with spouse and care of children, be they young or grown. When they fall ill, he does so too and when they mourn, he mourns and grieves in turn. Woe to him should his wife be overly fertile, but so too should she be barren and sterile, for then he sees other married men surrounded by bonny faces and children with pleasing graces and says to himself, “Verily, in sons lies all this world’s pleasure, and I am as one who dies (and what a fate!) leaving no successor!”

3.1.3

وكم من سقوط ظفرٍ وهن الجسم كله * وكم لقلع ضرس ذهب الصبر او جلّه * ما عدا الادوآ المتعضّلة * والعلل المتاصّلة * وتخالف الازمان وحول الاحوال * وتعاقب الاحزان ودَوْل الحال * على هذا الجسم الوانى البال * ففى الشتآ يكون عرضة للريح والزكام والبلغم والرطوبات * والبوال والعفونات * وفى الصيف للصفرآ و الحمى والصداع * والترهل والاستنقاع * وفى الربيع لهيجان الدم وتبيّغه ونزغته * وفى الخريف لتحرك السودآ واذى الهوآ وندغته *

How often by the fall of a single fingernail is the whole body defeated, how often by the extraction of a single molar...

Table of contents

• Letter from the General Editor
• Leg over Leg, Volume Three
• Notes