Brains Confounded by the Ode of Abū Shādūf Expounded. Yūsuf al-Shirbīnī
يُسَرِّحْ لِلضُّحَى فِي ٱلْجُرْنِ يَكْنُسْ
After sweeping the threshing floors all morning long,
He’ll still dash about like our bitch Umm Ṣarwah.
How fine you look, Abū Shādūf (when
He comes to the buffaloes and falls into ordure
And gets down and wallows there behind them).
You’d say you were the afreet of some cloister!
All his life Abū Shādūf’s been pampered:
Like a puppy dog he grew up among us and scampered.
Abū Shādūf, God grant him ease,
Put on a cap and today has a sheepskin fur.
Today his father’s shaykh of the hamlet and sits
Knee to sandal with the tax collector.
٣،٩،١٠
| يَقُولْ سِيدِي١ يَقُولْ لُهْ يَا مُعَرَّصْ | تَحُطُّ ٱلْمَالَ أَوْ أُخَلِّيكَ دَعْوَهْ |
| وَهُوْ مِنْ مِتْلْ أَبُو شَادُوفْ وَجَدُّهْ | وَٱبوهُ وْعَمَّتُو بِنْتِ ٱمِّ فَسْوَهْ |
| وَنَخْتِمْ قَوْلَنَا بِمَدِيحْ مُحَمِّدْ | رَسُول اللهِ كَمْ زَاحَ كُلَّ بَلْوَهْ |
| عَلَيْهْ٢ يَا رَبَّنَا صَلَّي وَسَلَّمْ | وَأَصْحَابُو ٱلْكِرَامْ أَهْلُ ٱلْفُتُوَّهْ |
١ بي: يا سيّدي. ٢ بي: عليهِ.
The first says, “Master!” The other, “You pimp!
Cough up the taxes or I’ll use you others to deter.”
This is from the likes of Abū Shādūf and his grandfather10
And his father and his father’s sister, Umm Faswah’s11 daughter,
And we close our words with praise for Muḥammad—
How many a calamity he has swept away, God’s Messenger!
On him, O Lord, pour blessings and peace,
As on his noble companions, of knightly order!
١٠،١٠
وكان الناس يحسدوا والده عليه وعلى قوّته وشطارته وشدّة معرفته في نقر الطبلة وصوت الزُمّارة وكان أبوه قد ملك في حال حياته حمارًا أعرج وعنزين وحِصّة في ثور الساقية ونصف بقرة وعشر فرخات وديكهم وأربع كيلات نُخال ورُبْعَين شعير وملك نحو أربعمائة قرص جلّة ومطمورة يخزن فيها الزبل أيّام الشتاء وكان عنده قُلّة مكسورة وزير أقلم وجيروانة يكنس بها الجرن وكلب يحرس الدار فلمّا تمّت له هذه السعادة توفّى إلى رحمة الله تعالى كما في الغالب أنّ الفقير يوم يسعد يموت وما أحسن ما قال الشاعر [متقارب]
| إِذا تَمَّ شَيءٌ بَدا نقْصُهُ | تَوَقَّعْ١ زَوالًا إذا قِيلَ تَمْ |
١ بي: تَوفّي.
Indeed, people used to envy his father for having a son so strong and so smart and such an expert at banging the drum and playing the zummārah. Now, his father had acquired, in the course of his life, a lame donkey, two goats, a share in the ox that turned the waterwheel, half a cow, ten hens with their rooster, four bushels of bran, and two quarterns of barley. He also owned about four hundred dung cakes and a bin in which he stored chicken droppings during the winter, and he had a broken water jug, a striped earthenware water butt, a besom to sweep the threshing floor, and a dog to guard the house. Once he had achieved this state of luxury, he died and passed into the mercy of the Almighty, in keeping with the common rule that the day a poor man gets rich, he dies—a point well made by the poet12 who said:
When a thing’s complete, decline sets in.
Expect extinction when men say, “Done!”
١١،١٠
فكفّنه ولده أبو شادوف في رداء من محر الكتّان ودفنه في تربة تعرف بتربة ابن خاروق بسنط كفر١ شمرطاطي وقيل بكفر تلّ فندروك وقد يجمع بين القولين فيقال مات في كفر شمرطاطي ودفن في كفر تلّ فندروك وقبره الآن يعرف بقبر أبو جاروف تزوره الفلّاحون ويلعبون بجانبه الكورة وربّما تبول عليها البهائم في بعض الأوقات وقد رثاه بعض شعراء الأرياف بأبيات فقال [وافر]
١ بي: سنط بكفر.
So