THE MAN’S DISPUTE WITH THE LEARNED WOMAN CONCERNING THE RELATIVE EXCELLENCE OF MALE AND FEMALE.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
Knowest thou not, O wretched one, that for them are built pavilions, and slave-girls are for sale;[242] that for them tear-floods rail and for them are collected jewels of price and ambergris and musk odoriferous; and armies are arrayed and pleasaunces made and wealth heaped up and smitten off is many a head?” And indeed he spoke sooth in the words, ‘Whoso saith the world meaneth woman.’ Now as for thy citation from the Holy Traditions, it is an argument against thee and not for thee; in that the Prophet (whom Allah bless and preserve!) compareth the beardless with the black-eyed girls of Paradise. Now, doubtless, the subject of comparison is worthier than the object therewith compared; so, unless women be the worthier and the goodlier, wherefore should other than they be likened to them? As for thy saying that girls are likened to boys, the case is not so, but the contrary: boys are likened to girls; for folk say, Yonder boy is like a girl. As for what proof thou quotest from the poets, the verses were the product of a complexion unnatural in this respect; and as for the habitual sodomites and catamites, offenders against religion, Almighty Allah hath condemned them in His Holy Book,[243] wherein He denounceth their filthy practices, saying, Do ye approach unto the males among mankind[244] and leave your wives which your Lord hath created for you? Surely ye are a people who transgress!
These it is that liken girls to boys, of their exceeding profligacy and ungraciousness and inclination to follow the fiend and own lusts, so that they say, She is apt for two tricks;[245] and these are all wanderers from the way of right and the righteous. Quoth their chief Abu Nowas:—
Slim-waist and boyish wits delight ✿ Wencher, as well as Sodomite,[246]
As for what thou sayest of a youth’s first hair on cheek and lips and how they add to his beauty and loveliness, by Allah, thou strayest from the straight path of sooth and sayest that which is other than the truth; for whiskers change the charms of the comely into ugliness; (quoting these couplets):—
That sprouting hair upon his face took wreak ✿ For lovers’ vengeance, all did vainly seek.
I see not on his face a sign fuli- ✿ genous, except his curls are hue of reek.
If so his paper[247] mostly be begrimed ✿ Where deemest thou the reed shall draw a streak?
If any raise him other fairs above, ✿ This only proves the judge of wits is weak.
And when she ended her verse she resumed, “Laud be to Allah Almighty,”——And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.
Now when it was the Four Hundred and Twenty-third Night,
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the preacher-woman ended her verse she resumed, addressing the man, “Laud to Allah Almighty! how can it be hid from thee that the perfect pleasure is in women and that abiding blessings are not to be found but with them, seeing that Allah (extolled and exalted be He!) hath promised His prophets and saints black-eyed damsels in Paradise and hath appointed these for a recompense of their godly works. And had the Almighty known that the joy supreme was in the possession of other than women, He had rewarded them therewith and promised it to them. And quoth he (whom Allah bless and preserve!), The things I hold dearest of the things of your world are three: women and perfume and the solace of my eyes in prayer. Verily Allah hath appointed boys to serve his prophets and saints in Paradise, because Paradise is the abode of joy and delight, which could not be complete without the service of youths; but, as to the use of them for aught but service, it is Hell’s putridity[248] and corruption and turpitude. How well saith the poet:”—
Men’s turning unto bums of boys is bumptious; ✿ Whoso love noble women show their own noblesse.
How many goodly wights have slept the night, enjoying ✿ Buttocks of boys, and woke at morn in foulest mess;
Their garments stained by safflower, which is yellow merde ✿ Their shame proclaiming, showing colour of distress.
Who can deny the charge, when so bewrayed are they ✿ That e’en by daylight shows the dung upon their dress?
What contrast wi’ the man, who slept a gladsome night ✿ By Houri-maid for glance a mere enchantress,
He rises off her borrowing wholesome bonny scent; ✿ That fills the house with whiffs of perfumed goodliness.
No boy deserved place by side of her to hold; ✿ Canst even aloes-wood with what fills pool of cess![249]
Then said she, “O folk ye have made me to break the bounds of modesty and the circle of free-born women and indulge in idle talk of chambering and wantonness, which beseemeth not people of learning. But the breasts of free-borns are the sepulchres of secrets, and such conversations are in confidence. Moreover, actions are according to intentions,[250] and I crave pardon of Allah for myself and you and all Moslems, seeing that He is the Pardoner and the Compassionate.” Then she held her peace and thereafter would answer us of naught; so we went our way, rejoicing in that we had profited by her contention and yet sorrowing to part from her. And among the tales they tell is one of
Source notes
229. Lady of Shaykhs, elders in the faith and men of learning.
230. = A.D. 1166.
231. Koran iv. 38. I have before noted what the advantages are.
232. Koran ii. 282, “of those whom ye shall choose for witnesses.”
233. Koran iv. 175, “Whereas if there be two sisters, they inherit only two-thirds between them.”
234. The secondary meaning is “Fá’il” = the active sodomite and Mafa’úl = the passive, a catamite: the former is not an insulting word, the latter is a most injurious expression. “Novimus et qui te!”
235. It is an unpleasant fact that almost all the poetry of Háfiz is addressed to youths, as we see by the occasional introduction of Arabic (e.g., Afáka’lláh). Persian has no genders properly so called, hence the effect is less striking. Sa’di, the “Persian Moralist” begins one of the tales, “A certain learned man fell in love with a beautiful son of a blacksmith,” which Gladwin, translating for the general, necessarily changed to “daughter.”
236. The famous author of the Anthology called Al-Hamásah.
237. i.e., teeth under the young mustachio.
238. The “Silk-man” and the celebrated author of the Makámát, assemblies or seances, translated (or attempted) into all the languages of Europe. We have two in English, the first by Theodore Preston, M.A. (London, Madden, 1850); but it contains only twenty of the fifty pieces. The second by the late Mr. Chenery (before alluded to) ends with the twenty-sixth assembly: one volume in fact, the other never having been finished. English readers, therefore, are driven to the grand edition of the Makámát in folio by Baron Silvestre de Sacy.
239. The sword of the eye has a Hamáil (baldrick worn over right shoulder, Pilgrimage i. 352) to support the “Ghimd” (vulg. Ghamad) or scabbard (of wood or leather): and this baldrick is the young whisker.
240. The conceit of “Suláfat” (ptisane, grape juice allowed to drain on the slabs) and “Sawálif” (tresses, locks) has been explained. The newest wine is the most inebriating, a fact not much known in England, but familiar to the drinker of “Vino novo.”
241. Koran xii. 51, this said by the nobleman’s (Potiphar’s) wife who adds, “I selected him to lie with me; and he (Joseph) is one of those who speak truth.”
242. Here we have a specimen of the strained Saj’a or balanced prose: slave-girls (jawárí) are massed with flowing tears (dam’u jári) on account of the Káfiyah or rhyme.
243. The detected sodomite is punished with death according to Moslem law, but again comes the difficulty of proof. At Shiraz I have heard of a pious Moslem publicly executing his son.
244. Koran xxvi. 165 et seq. The Lord speaks to the “people of Lot” (Sodomites). Mr. Payne renders “Min al-álamína,” “from the four corners of the world.”
245. Meaning before and behind, a Moslemah “Bet Balmanno.”
246. Arab. “Lúti,” (plur. Lawáti), much used in Persian as a buffoon, a debauchee, a rascal. The orig. sig. is “One of (the people of) Lot.” The old English was Ingle or Yngle (a bardachio, a catamite, a boy kept for sodomy), which Minsheu says is, “Vox hispanica et significat Latinè Inguen” (the groin). Our vulgar modern word like the Italian bugiardo is pop. derived from Fr. Bougre, alias Bulgarus, a Bulgarian, a heretic: hence Boulgrin (Rabelais i. chapt. ii.) is popularly applied to the Albigeois (Albigenses, whose persecution began shortly after A.D. 1200) and the Lutherans. I cannot but think that “bougre” took its especial modern signification after the French became acquainted with the Brazil, where the Huguenots (in A.D. 1555) were founding a Nouvelle France, alias Equinoctiale, alias Antarctique, and whence the savages were carried as curiosities to Paris. Their generic name was “Bugre” (properly a tribe in Southern Brazil, but applied to all the redskins) and they were all born Sodomites. More of this in the terminal Essay.
247. His paper is the whiteness of his skin. I have quoted the Persian saying of a young beard: “his cheeks don mourning for his beauty’s death.”
248. Arab. “Khabál,” lit. the pus which flows from the bodies of the damned.
249. Most characteristic of Egypt is all this scene. Her reverence, it is true, sits behind a curtain; but her virtue uses language which would shame the lowest European prostitute; and which is filthy almost as Dean Swift’s.