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A Handbook and Reader of Ottoman Arabic

 | 
Esther-Miriam Wagner

II. Reader

23. The Cairo-Ramla manuscripts, or the Ramle kar, 13 (1800s)

Olav Ørum

Texte intégral

Transcription

1Note1 Note2 Note3 Note4

2Note5 Note6

Arabic Transcription

  • 7 ; MS: .
  • 8 ; MS: .
  • 9 ; MS: .

3Note7 Note8 Note9

4Note10 Note11

Translation

5(2a: 1) The Chapter of the (2) Wives’ Schemes.

6(3) It has been told about this brazen wife, that she (4) had some male friends while being (5) married to a man of the listening and abiding kind. (6) One day, he wanted to travel, so he packed (7) provisions and supplies, said farewell to his wife and left.

7(8) She couldn’t believe it [and could hardly wait for him to leave. As soon as he had left], she pretended (9) she had become a widow, and her [male] friends came after her. (10) The first one came, bringing with him five raṭls of meat. He hadn’t (11) sat for long before the second one approached. So she rushed the (12) first one into the loft room, just as the second one entered. (13) He had barely sat down, when the third knocked on the door. So she hid (2b: 1) the second one in a clay pot, and the third one entered inside. He didn’t (2) even get time to sit down before the fourth knocked on the door. (3) She wrapped the third in a woven rush mat, and in came the fourth. He had just (4) opened his mouth when her husband knocked on the door. So she took (5) the fourth one, put him in a box and opened up for her husband. (6) “What’s the matter with you? You came back,” she said when he came inside. “I forgot (7) my trousers,” he answered. So she handed him the trousers, and he made a move to leave. (8) She said farewell and started crying, saying, (9) “My dear cousin, you are abandoning me! With whom will you leave me?” He pointed his finger (10) in the direction of the sky and said, “I leave you with Him.” She answered, (11) “If not you, then who’ll bake me dough and who’ll buy (12) me meat and accompany me?” (13) “There He is, my girl,” he said, “above us, present and witnessing.” She said, (14) “Who will do stuff for me? Who will provide (15) me human contact and amuse me? Who will give me answers?” “I told you, (3a: 1) my girl,” he said, “there He is, above us, listening to what we are saying. (2) You won’t need anyone else!” The man (3) from the loft room upstairs said, (4) thinking the errands were meant for him, “That’s unheard of! (5) Am I your servant or something? One who’ll bring you whatever you ask for? (6) Haven’t you found anyone else but me for doing all this? Give something to the guy inside the (7) mat! And what about giving something to the guy inside the clay pot! And something (8) to the guy inside the box!” So the man finally got it, (9) understood their little game and divorced the wife. (3a: 11) And it has been told that there was a woman who had a friend (12) that she loved wholly and dearly. (13) He flirted with her, and swore that if he couldn’t have an affair with her (14) when next to her husband, he would not commit to her any more. She couldn’t (15) bear being apart from him, so that evening she told him, “Come (3b: 1) and stand behind the door. If you hear the door latch (2) move, gently open the door and enter the room. (3) There you’ll find a thread tied to the door latch. Grab it (4) and go with it, and it will take you to me and you can ‘have yourself (5) a good time.’ (?) You will find me waiting for you. So do (6) your thing and leave.” He told her, “You got it!” He waited for the (7) evening and came to stand behind the door. (8) So the unfaithful one tied a thread to the (9) door latch after she had prepared dinner for her husband and put him to bed. (10) She turned down the oil-lamp and brought the thread with her (11) to bed. She tied it to the tip of her finger (12) and lay down next to her husband. And by the will and power of Allāh— (13) may He be exalted—her husband woke up that night (14) and started talking to the wife, touching her a bit. (15) He got caught up in the thread, and asked, “What’s that, my dear?” (4a: 1) “This is a piece of wisdom, a trick that I learned from (2) my deceased grandmother,” she said. “And what be so that piece of wisdom?” (3) he asked. “If I feel a flea biting me, (4) I scratch my skin with the thread. That’s because my fingernail (5) will damage the skin.” “She was right,” he said, “may Allāh (6) protect her. That was a piece of wisdom, indeed! I always (7) listen to those words, and they seem so right!” And (8) he continued to scratch until he started to bleed. While the wife fell asleep, (9) he could not, so he sat up pondering. He felt (10) a flea on his arm. He was about to scratch with his nail, (11) when he remembered what his wife had told him. He said to himself, “Now (12) is your chance!” and untied the thread from the wife’s finger (13), tied it onto his own, and scratched his skin. (14) The door latch then moved, and the man outside thought that it was the (15) ‘promised’ sign. He opened the door, (4b: 1) and gently passed inside. He entered, grabbed (2) the thread with his left hand and started playing with his penis (3) with his right hand. Then he proceeded in a proud and elegant manner. When (4) he was next to the bed where the oil-lamp had gone out, (5) the man thought that he was standing over the wife. (6) So he pulled the husband’s legs around his hips, held (7) them firmly and lay on top of him. The husband got the feeling that he was going to (8) get penetrated, so he jumped up and punched the (9) man in the crouch with a hard fist punch, and (10) quickly alerted the wife. She got up in a hurry and said, (11) “What’s the matter with you?” “Get up, my dear! Look!” (12) he replied, “Look at that sly bastard! That criminal lay on top of me and was (13) about to enter inside me! The unscrupulous pig (14) thought I was sleeping, and then the fairy…” (15) The unfaithful one overcame the shock (?), trembled, and appeared to be (5a: 1) afraid. “Good Lord,” she said and shouted (2) to her husband, saying, “Go and light an oil-lamp wick for me. (3) By the fear of Allāh, I have been your woman all (4) my life and my tale is but pure!” The husband (5) was shocked, and became afraid that this would affect (6) his reputation. He said to her, “Grab this! Grab this! When (7) I light the wick from my neighbour’s house for you, be on the alert, (8) let it go from your hand.” “Give it to me, give it to me, my dear,” she said. (9) So he handed the man’s penis in her hand, trusted her (10) with it, made sure she held it strong, and went to light the wick. She reacted quickly (11) and released her lover, who rushed to the roof of the house. (12) She had a beef calf standing in the courtyard which she (13) took inside, next to the bed. She pulled out its tongue and held (14) onto it until her husband came back (15) with the wick. He lit up the place and came to see the (5b: 1) calf. The wife came on to him and said, “Well, well!” (2) and laughed until she was tired of laughing, and said, “Actually, it was (3) the calf who was here. Good Lord, God damn you!” (4) and chirped. The man put his hand on his lips (5) and said, “May Allāh curse you, that thing was not the cattle! (6) So this what you are doing to me? He was standing over me, you (7) son of a bitch.” He rushed over to fix the oil-lamp, (8) lit it, and started moving while saying, “If (9) your intention is to treat [our marriage] like this, I swear by your life, (10) I’ll show you!” After that he came and took the tongue (11) of the calf from the wife’s hand and found it moist. (12) He said, “My dear, that doesn’t make sense! (13) A moment ago, his tongue was like a piece of wood, and suddenly (14) it became moist?” She said, “Boy, o boy, he was thirsty (15) and now his tongue started sweating in my hands.” He said, (6a: 1) “That’s right, oh good girl. Go get me a knife. (2) Give it to me, and drag the calf along with you.” When he had taken it (3) to the courtyard, he wrestled it down (4) and threw it to the ground and tied it. The wife gave him (5) the knife, and said to him, “What are you going to do?” He replied, (6) “I am going to slaughter a wedding feast, of the last thing that grazes (7) on us ever again. This night it grazed on me, (8) another night it grazes on you. He is cursed, (9) he who has to take on his cravings with his tongue. (10) Wallah, I swear, o woman, it really squeezed onto me. If I hadn’t pulled myself (11) from beneath him, I sure know what would have happened.” So he took (12) the knife along with him and told the wife, (13) “Give me the sharpening iron, let’s sharpen it.” So she handed him (14) the sharpening iron. He stood up, sharpened the knife and brought it to (15) the neck of the calf and pushed down.

8(6b: 1) The storyteller has said that this is what happened with (2) the husband. About what (3) happened with the man that she hid on (4) the roof, [it has been said that] he had heard the ongoing chaos, (5) and came back to the house and peaked over the edge with the top of his head. He saw the (6) husband standing there, sharpening his knife, so he sat down and watched (7) him. It has also been said that, by the will and power of Allāh— (8) exalted be He—they had a stud bull goat on the roof. (9) The husband thought he saw something moving on the roof, (10) so the lover, who was on the roof, quickly leaned back. The lover grabbed the goat by its neck and tried to pull it towards the edge of the roof (?), when the goat suddenly pushed him with his horns, (11) and he fell down on top of the calf. He made a jump, standing up, and the husband said to him, (12) “What’s this? What’s this?” The lover replied, “Wake up! (13) Wake up, the supervisor butcher lives (14) right next to you. He heard that you had decided to slaughter the (15) calf and sent me to you to ask for four (7a: 1) qirsh. You have to pay up if you want to slaughter the calf.” (2) “And from where will I get four qirsh, (3) my friend?” the man said, “Go, go away now, my friend, (4) go to him and tell him that it is a remorse on (5) his slaughter.” He said to him, “Be so kind, open (6) the door for me and let us go and give him an answer.” So he opened (7) the door for him, took him by his hand and led him out. (8) So the lover got out and left. And that’s some of the things they did.

9(9) The End.

Commentary

10Preliminary note:

  • 12 This assumption is based on the fact that the MS displays a fragmented short story about Goḥa/Nasre (...)

11The present text seems to have been strongly influenced by the Egyptian or Cairene vernacular, and is most likely representative of the period between the 17th and the 19th centuries.12 As a general observation, it is relevant to note that the present text exhibits many linguistic characteristics which have already received extensive treatment in the field of Judaeo-Arabic. For example, the Classical Arabic (CA) short vowels i, a, and u are frequently rendered in plene script by means of the orthography of the text. Some examples illustrating this practice are כ ֗ יתבי ‘my impostor, swindler’ (5a: 1); כא ֗ רי ‘last’ (6a: 6); לגאר ‘man’ (passim; but also   לוגר 2a: 5); ףקאו ‘he stopped’ (passim; but also ףקו passim); ורמוע ‘his life’ (1b: 5); דורי ‘he answers’ (2b: 14); עאבצוא ‘fingers’ (passim); בולטי ‘he requests’ (6b: 15); etc. Not surprisingly, the findings in the present text indicate a stronger presence of plene written the CA short vowel u than of i and a. From a morphological and morphosyntactic point of view, one could draw attention to the apparent lack of vowel harmony between word boundaries, viz. ʿalayhum < ʿalayhim; h-less pronominal suffixes, viz. -u (< -ū (h)-uhu); the seemingly random separation of words, especially concerning the definite article; and invariable reflections of different pronouns and particles, all of which characteristic of a language variety which some scholars would regard as analytic, or simply as reflecting the style and register employed by the popular or ‘lower’ strata of the society. Most of these characteristics deviate from CA conventions, and many seem to reflect the actual speech of the social environment in which the text acquired its present shape. Those interested in a more general description of the Judaeo-Arabic language, including the characteristics noted above, may gain further insight by consulting Blau (1999).

122a: 1–2

hfīhīfīh

132a: 6

Imālaanarād

142a: 12

alif-lāmpassim

152b: 7

sš

162b: 10

da

172b: 11

lawwa-

182b: 12

a-

192b: 13

Miškāt al-Maṣābīḥḏ̣

202b: 15

213a: 1

i

223a: 3

d

233a: 4

lē (h)

243a: 6

253a: 12

-h-a- ā-an-h- in

263a: 14–15

lam

273b: 15

28אדו שיא ‘what is that? ’. Demonstrative pronoun da preceding the noun. See also 6b: 12.

29שיא ‘what’. An earlier chronological stage of the more common, MEA interrogative variant ē (h).

304a: 1

di

314a: 2

d-il-di-l-

324a: 4

nekteb

334a: 14

passimt

344a: 16

-an

354b: 7–9

haḥarāyiḥ

365a: 12

shanbarkandūz

375b: 8–10

dōlie-imālaeimāla

385b: 12

13

395b: 13

dilwaqtdilwaʾt (i)

406a: 7

di

416a: 13

xallinaxina

426b: 14

kganbekium.

437a: 9

nektebūnekteb

Notes

1  Image; MS: Image.

2  Image; MS: Image.

3  Image; MS: Image.

4  Image; MS: Image.

5  Image; MS: Image.

6  Image; MS: Image.

7 ; MS: .

8 ; MS: .

9 ; MS: .

10  Image; MS: Image.

11  Image; MS: Image.

12 This assumption is based on the fact that the MS displays a fragmented short story about Goḥa/Nasreddin (not included in this sample), whose earliest MS is dated to 1571. The MS treated here is dated by the National Library of Israel to the 19th century, but it is not clear whether it is a copy of an earlier Vorlage or if it was written down directly from an oral source.

13 See, e.g., the use of (or a variant of it) as a negating particle in Spanish Arabic apud Corriente (1977, 145).

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