It is still a worse practice to compare water with silver. This is because
water itself has no colour like the limpid water and crystal and a white
object like milk and white stone have been compared to wine without
distinction: and therefore, each object has been designated white.
All the poets have plagiarised the theme built up by 'Abd Allah bin
al-Mu'tazz and Abu Nuwas. The latter has achieved a very high watermark in the following couplet:
Wine is jacynth and the goblet is pearl, and in the hands of the pearl
is a cypress-like being.
'Abd Allah bin al-Mu'tazz says about liquid gold:
We paid for it the price worth solid gold, and it has become for us
liquid gold.
Another poet observes:
I measure to him solid gold, and he doles out to me a measured quantity of liquid gold.
One poet has tried to be ingenious:
On looking at the golden wine, I asked: 'Is this gold or are my dinars
gold?' Both are of gold. Only dinars are gold solidified, whilst this is
liquid gold.
A poet has come out with the following theme:
The cup bearer is passing wine from one end to the other from a
sealed flask, and is doling to us liquid gold.
Abu Tammam says:
Or the virgin-white pearl which has been made pregnant by the red
jacynth.
The poet has also mentioned virginity together with the pearl. Virginity gives off blood and pregnancy stops the flow of blood within the
uterus. These things are recalled at the time of drinking! How well has a
poet said:
When water was mixed with the wine, it seemed as if it was swallowing pearls and then disgorging them.
Tipplers sometimes swallow and vomit. This simile is much better
than that in which the poet has compared wine with pearl shells, as
pearls are white with a slight yellowish tinge, with a glitter which serves
as an enhancement of the charms of the person lauded. Nor is it necessary for pearls to be transparent for that which is behind. Nusayb says:
As if she has been created from the flesh of pearls, since the morn of
her beauty shines everywhere.
Mani says:
As if her skin is made from the pearl of pearls, with the craftsmen
having removed the skin of the pearl.
Bashshar says:
As if she has been moulded by nacreous waters. Everywhere Beauty
