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The pearl in this verse is opposite to itself— it being heavy upon the ears,
revolting to the eye, suffocation to the nose, bitter to the throat, prickly to the tactile feeling, and anxiety in the bed. Well has Wawai' Dimashqi said about a sick man: When moderately yellowish-white, he became narcissus-like. Drops
like broken pearls drip from his forehead. Sanawbari portrays old age, poverty, and itching in the following verses: One of them is death, the second misfortune and the third destruction. If this itching persists, neither the skin, flesh nor muscles would remain. They look like unthreaded pearls upon the palms, at first like the grains of grapes, becoming larger thereafter. People call pimples that itch "the love of joke." May they die as (the bearer of) appellation has succumbed. From the humid pearl, he has gone further and invested all jewels with humidity when he says: The emeralds and the gold of her garland which have been threaded
with jewels are humid. He has extended the concept of humidity even to ordinary shells: O thou wrinkle of the black shell, in what agony thou hast ensnared
the pearl! The astigmatic and errant approach adopted by Abu al-Qasim towards Abu Tammam would be evident from his following verse in which he refers to the later's verse: Every kind of eclipse is a blemish in the stars, and in the sun and the
moon it is a major blemish. Objecting to this couplet, Abu al-Qasim says: "A star can only be eclipsed if it is obscured by another (member of the constellation). This can be known to the astronomers alone. There is no harm in this. Real harm consists in things known to the generality of mankind". Now Abu Tammam has counted the eclipse of stars to be an evil happening. He holds the eclipse of the sun and the moon to be a most evil
event. The poet has used the word shana'h which is superficial whereas the words khusuf, and kusuf are employed for the eclipse of the moon and the sun respectively. Sometimes the sun and at others the moon is eclipsed. This happens during the phenomenon of waxing and waning. It is on the Doomsday only that both will be eclipsed together. Allah has said: But, when sight is confounded,
And the moon is eclipsed, And sun and moon are united . . . Some persons have used the word, kusuf, both for the eclipse of the moon and the sun. They use the word, khusuf, for the eclipse of the moon caused by earthquakes. |
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