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]. Vol. 1

409 Pages·2013·3.989 MB·English

by  Davies, Humphrey Taman;Šidyāq, Ahmad Fāris al

Leg over Leg
Volume One
Library of Arabic Literature
Editorial Board
General Editor
Philip F. Kennedy, New York University
Executive Editors
James E. Montgomery, University of Cambridge
Shawkat M. Toorawa, Cornell University
Editors
Julia Bray, University of Oxford
Michael Cooperson, University of California, Los Angeles
Joseph E. Lowry, University of Pennsylvania
Tahera Qutbuddin, University of Chicago
Devin J. Stewart, Emory University
Managing Editor
Chip Rossetti
Volume Editor
Michael Cooperson
Letter from the General Editor
The Library of Arabic Literature is a new series offering Arabic editions and
English translations of key works of classical and pre-modern Arabic literature,
as well as anthologies and thematic readers. Our books are edited and translated
by distinguished scholars of Arabic and Islamic studies, and are published in
parallel-text format with Arabic and English on facing pages. The Library of
Arabic Literature will include texts from the pre-Islamic era to the cusp of the
modern period, and will encompass a wide range of genres, including poetry,
poetics, fiction, religion, philosophy, law, science, history and historiography.
Supported by a grant from the New York University Abu Dhabi Institute, and
established in partnership with NYU Press, the Library of Arabic Literature will
produce authoritative Arabic editions and modern, lucid English translations,
with the goal of introducing the Arabic literary heritage to scholars and students,
as well as to a general audience of readers.

Philip F. Kennedy
General Editor, Library of Arabic Literature
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Leg over Leg
or
The Turtle in the Tree
concerning
The Fāriyāq
what Manner of Creature
Might He Be
by
Fāris al-Shidyāq
Volume One
Edited and translated by
Humphrey Davies
NEw YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London
NEw YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London
Copyright © 2013 by New York University
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Shidyaq, Ahmad Faris, 1804?-1887.
Leg over leg or, : The turtle in the tree / Faris al-Shidyaq ; edited and
translated by Humphrey Davies.
volumes cm
Bilingual edition In English and Arabic on facing pages.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8147-2937-3 (cl : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-0-8147-4524-3
(e-book) -- ISBN 978-0-8147-4541-0 (e-book) 1. Shidyaq, Ahmad Faris,
1804?-1887. 2. Shidyaq, Ahmad Faris, 1804?-1887--Travel--Middle East. 3.
Arabic language--Lexicography. 4. Middle East--Description and travel. I.
Davies, Humphrey T. (Humphrey Taman) translator, editor. II. Shidyaq, Ahmad
Faris, 1804?-1887. Saq ‘ala al-saq. III. Shidyaq, Ahmad Faris, 1804?-1887.
Saq ‘ala al-saq. English. IV. Title. V. Title: Turtle in the tree.
PJ7862.H48S213 2013
892.7’8503--dc23
2013007540
CIP
New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper,
and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability.
Series design by Titus Nemeth.
Typeset in Tasmeem, using DecoType Naskh and Emiri.
Typesetting and digitization by Stuart Brown.
Manufactured in the United States of America
c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Table of Contents
Letter from the General Editor iii
Foreword ix
A Note on the Text xxxi
Notes to the Frontmatter xxxiv
Leg Over Leg, Volume One 1
Contents of the Book 4
The Dedication of This Elegantly Eloquent Book 6
Author’s Notice 8
An Introduction by the Publisher of This Book 16
Proem 20
Book One 34
Chapter 1: Raising a Storm 36
Chapter 2: A Bruising Fall and a Protecting Shawl 64
Chapter 3: Various Amusing Anecdotes 72
Chapter 4: Troubles and a Tambour 84
Chapter 5: A Priest and a Pursie, Dragging Pockets and Dry Grazing 92
Chapter 6: Food and Feeding Frenzies 108
Chapter 7: A Donkey that Brayed, a Journey Made, a Hope Delayed 116
Chapter 8: Bodega, Brethren, and Board 124
Chapter 9: Unseemly Conversations and Crooked Contestations 134
Chapter 10: Angering women who Dart Sideways Looks, and Claws
like Hooks 148
Chapter 11: That which Is Long and Broad 162
Chapter 12: A Dish and an Itch 174
Chapter 13: A Maqāmah, or, a Maqāmah on “Chapter 13” 190
Chapter 14: A Sacrament 202
Chapter 15: The Priest’s Tale 212
Chapter 16: The Priest’s Tale Continued 222
Chapter 17: Snow 244
Chapter 18: Bad Luck 254
vii
Table of Contents
Chapter 19: Emotion and Motion 282
Chapter 20: The Difference between Market-men and Bag-men 312
Notes 321
Glossary 351
Index 355
About the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute 366
About the Typefaces 367
About the Editor-Translator 368
viii
Foreword
Rebecca C. Johnson
while I do not claim to be the first writer in the world to follow this path or
thrust a pinch of it up the noses of those who pretend they are dozing, I do notice
that all the authors in my bookcase are shackled to a single stylistic chain . . . .
Once you’ve become familiar with one link of the chain, you feel as though
you know all the others, so that each one of them may truly be called a chain-
man, given that each has followed in the footsteps of the rest and imitated them
closely. This being established, know that I have exited the chain, for I am no
chain-man and will not form the rump of the line; nor do I have any desire to be
at its front, for the latter is an even more calamitous place to be than the former.
—Leg over Leg (1.17.10)
For most Anglophone readers, this will be their first introduction to the writing
of Fāris al-Shidyāq (later Aḥmad Fāris al-Shidyāq, born in 1805 or 1806 and died
in 1887), a foundational figure in Arabic literary modernity.1 For, although he is
the author of at least four published works of literary prose, ten linguistic studies
of Arabic, Turkish, English, and French, over 20,000 lines of poetry, and at least
four unpublished manuscripts (not to mention his many translations, journal-
istic and critical essays, or those works that have been lost), his work has never
appeared in English until now. For specialists in Arabic literature and many native
readers of Arabic, however, he needs little introduction. As belletrist, poet,
travel writer, translator, lexicographer, grammarian, literary historian, essayist,
publisher, and newspaper editor, he is known as a pioneer of modern Arabic
literature, a reviver of classical forms, the father of Arabic journalism, and no
less than a modernizer of the Arabic language itself. His masterwork, Al-Sāq ʿalā
l-sāq fī mā huwa al-Fāriyāq (Leg over Leg or the Turtle in the Tree concerning the
Fāriyāq, What Manner of Creature Might He Be, 1855), is acknowledged as one of
the most distinguished works of the nineteenth century and an inaugural text of
Arab modernity. It is also among the most controversial: generically impossible
ix