OF HINTING WITH THE EYES
AFTER verbal allusion, when once the lover's advance has been accepted and an accord established, the next following step consists in hinting with the glances of the eyes. Glances play an honourable part in this phase, and achieve remarkable results. By means of a glance the lover can be dismissed, admitted, promised, threatened, upbraided, cheered, commanded, forbidden; a glance will lash the ignoble, and give warning of the presence of spies; a glance may convey laughter and sorrow, ask a question and make a response, refuse and give-in short, each, one of these various moods and intentions has its own particular kind of glance, which cannot be precisely realized except by ocular demonstration. Only a small fraction of the entire repertory is capable of being sketched out and described, and I will therefore attempt to describe here no more than the most elementary of these forms of expression.
To make a signal with the corner of the eye is to, forbid the lover something; to droop the eye is an indication of consent; to prolong the gaze is a sign of suffering and distress; to break off the gaze is a mark of relief; to make signs of closing the eyes is an indicated threat. To turn the pupil of the eye in a certain direction and then to turn it back swiftly, calls attention to the presence of a person so indicated. A clandestine signal with the corner of both eyes is a question; to turn the pupil rapidly from the middle of the eye to the interior angle is a demonstration of refusal; to flutter the pupils of both eyes this way and that is a general prohibition. The rest of these signals can only be understood by actually seeing them demonstrated.
You should realize that the eye takes the place of a messenger, and that with its aid all the beloved's intention can be apprehended. The four senses besides are also gateways of the heart, and passages giving admission to the soul; the eye is however the most eloquent, the most expressive, and the most efficient of them all. The eye is the true outrider and faithful guide of the soul; it is the soul's well-polished mirror, by means of which it comprehends all truths, attains all qualities, and understands all sensible phenomena. It is a well-known saying that hearing of a thing is not like seeing it; this was already remarked by Poleron, the master of physiognomy, who established the eye as the most reliable basis for forming judgment.
Here, if you will, is a sufficient proof of the eye's power of perception. When the eye's rays encounter some clear, well-polished object-be it burnished steel or glass or water, a brilliant stone, or any other polished and gleaming substance having lustre, glitter and sparkle-whose edges terminate in a coarse, opaque, impenetrable, dull material, those rays of the eye are reflected back, and the observer then beholds himself and obtains an ocular vision of his own person. This is what you see when you look into a mirror; in that situation you are as it were looking at yourself through the eyes of another.
A visual demonstration of this may be contrived in the following manner. Take two large mirrors, and hold one of them in your right hand, behind your head, and the other in your left hand, in front of your face; then turn the one or the other obliquely, so that the two meet confronting each other. You will now see your neck and the whole of your backward parts. This is due to the reflection of the eye's radiation against the radiation of the mirror behind you; the eye cannot find any passage through the mirror in front of you, and when it also fails to discover an outlet behind the second mirror, its radiation is diverted to the body confronting it. Though Salih, the pupil of Abu Ishaq al-Nazzam, held a contrary view on the nature of perception to this which I have advanced, his theory is in fact rubbish, and has not been accepted by anyone
Even if all this were not due to any superior virtue in the eye itself, yet the fact remains that the substance of the eye is the loftiest and most sublime of all substances. For the eye possesses the property of light, and by it alone may colours by perceived; no other organ surpasses it in range and extent, since by the eye the bodies of the stars themselves in their distant spheres may be observed, and the heavens seen for all their tremendous elevation and remoteness. This is simply because the eye is united in the nature of its constitution with the mirror of which we have been speaking. It perceives those things, and reaches then as in a single bound, needing not to traverse the intervening distance by stages, or to alight at halting-places en route. The eye does not travel through space by laboured movements.
These properties belong to none of the other senses. The taste and the touch, for instance, perceive objects only when they are in, their neighborhood, and the hearing and the smell apprehend them solely if they are close by. As proof of that immediate perception of which we have spoken, consider how you see an object that produces a sound before you hear the sound itself, for all that you may try to see and hear that thing simultaneously. If ocular and aural perception were one and the same, the eye would not outstrip the ear.
OF CORRESPONDENCE
NOW that the lovers are fairly intermingled in their relations, they will begin to correspond in writing. Letters assuredly tell their own tale. Some men I have seen, that were given to correspondence, who made all haste to tear their letters up, to dissolve them in water, and to rub out all trace of them. Many a shameful exposure has been occasioned by a letter, as I have remarked in verse.
Thy letter up this day, my dear;
But there is nothing, that I swear,
Can ever break my love sincere.
For I would rather see this ink
Erased, and that our love endure;
The branch will always sprout, I think,
If but the trunk remains secure.
Too oft a letter sent in haste
Has been the death of him, who penned,
But guessed not, while his fingers traced
The missive, what would be its end.
The letter should be designed after the most elegant pattern, and should be as pretty as can be contrived. For by my life, the letter is sometimes the lover's tongue, either because he is faltering in speech, or bashful, or awe-struck. Indeed, the very delivery of the letter to his loved one, and the knowledge that it is at that moment in the beloved's hands, will provoke in the lover a wonderful joy, that is a consoling substitute for an actual sight of the object of his affection; while the receiving of the reply, and gazing fondly upon it, delight him fully as much as a lovers' meeting. It is on this account that you will see the passionate swain laying the letter upon his eyes, or against his heart, fondling it and kissing it. I have myself known a lover who was certainly not ignorant of what and how he should speak, a man of fine eloquence, well able to express his thoughts in the language of the tongue, of penetrating insight, and minute comprehension of subtle truths, -and who nevertheless did not abandon the device of correspondence, for all that he lived close by his beloved and could readily come to her, and be with her as often as he chose: he told me that he savoured in correspondence many different varieties of delight. I have also been told of a base and worthless fellow who put his sweetheart's letters to a particularly disgusting use, that was in fact a horrible sort of sensuality, a foul type of lechery.
As for watering the ink of the love-letter with one's tears, I know of a man who did this regularly, and his beloved repaid him by watering the ink of her missives with her saliva. I have some verses which refer to this sort of practice.
She sent me a reply thereto
That stilled the agitation of
My heart, then stirred it up anew.
I watered every word I penned
With tears o'erflowing from my eyes,
As lovers will, who do intend
In love no treacherous surprise.
And still the tears flowed down apace,
And washed the careful lines away
O wicked waters, to efface
The lovely things I strove to say!
Behold, where first I set my pen
The tears have made my writing plain,
But as I came to close, ah! then
The script is vanished in their rain.
I once saw a' letter written by a lover to his beloved he had cut his hand with a knife, and as the blood gushed forth he used it for ink, and wrote the entire letter with it. I saw the same letter after the blood had dried, and would have sworn that it was written with a tincture of resin.
OF THE MESSENGER
THE next scene in the love-play, now that confidence prevails and complete sympathy has been established, is the introduction of the Messenger. He needs to be sought and chosen with great care, so that he shall be both a good and an energetic man; he is the proof of the lover's intelligence, for in his hands (under God's Providence) rest the life and death of the lover, his honour and his disgrace.
The Messenger should be presentable, quick-witted, able to take a hint and to read between the lines, possessed of initiative and the ability to supply out of his own understanding things which may have been overlooked by his principal; he must also convey to his employer all that he observes with complete accuracy; he ought to be able to keep secrets and preserve trusts; he must be loyal, cheerful and a sincere well-wisher. Should he be wanting in these qualities, the harm he will do to the lover for whom he is acting will be in strict proportion to his own shortcomings. I have put all this in verse
In thy right hand; pick to thy like
Thy sword, and when thy choice is made
Polish it well, ere thou dost strike.
Whoever ventures to rely
On a blunt weapon, is a fool;
The price he pays is pretty high
For trusting such a useless tool.
Lovers for the most part employ as their messengers to the beloved either a humble and insignificant fellow to whom nobody will pay much attention, because of his youthfulness or his scruffy look or untidy appearance; or a very respectable person to whom no sort of suspicion will attach on account of his show of piety, or because he is of advanced years. Women too are frequently used, especially those who hobble along on sticks, and carry rosaries, and are wrapped up in a pair of red cloaks. I remember how at Cordova young women had been put on their guard against such types, wherever they might happen to see them. Women plying a trade or profession, which gives them ready access to people, are popular with lovers-the lady doctor for instance, or the blood-letter, the peddler, the broker, the coiffeuse, the professional mourner, the singer, the soothsayer, the schoolmistress, the errand girl, the spinner, the weaver, and the like. It is also found convenient to employ a person who is closely related to the beloved, and who will therefore not be grudged admittance.
How many an inaccessible maiden has proved approachable by using messengers like these! How often have apparently insurmountable difficulties been easily overcome, and the one who seemed so far off proved close at hand, the one most refractory been readily tamed! How many disagreeable surprises have befallen well-protected veils, thick curtains, close guarded boudoirs, and stoutly fashioned doors, at the hands of suchlike persons! But for my desire to call attention to them, I would never have mentioned these types at all; but I felt bound to do so, in order that others may have their eyes open, and not readily trust in any of their sort. Happy is the man who takes warning by another's experience, even if he be his enemy! I pray that Allah may cover us and all good Moslems with the veil of His protection, and never suffer the shadow of His preservation to pass away from any one of us.
I know of a pair of lovers whose messenger was a well-trained dove; the letter would be fastened to its wing. On this topic I have the following verses.
His faithful messenger, and he
Was not confounded so to choose:
She brought him back the best of news.
So I am trusting to this dove
My messages to thee, my love,
And so I send her forth, to bring
My letters safely in her wing.
OF CONCEALING THE SECRET
ONE of the attributes of Love is holding the tongue; the lover will deny everything if interrogated, affect a great show of fortitude, and make it appear that he is extremely continent and a confirmed bachelor. For all that the subtle secret will out. The flames of passion raging in his breast will be glimpsed in his gestures and in the expression of his eyes; they will creep slowly but surely into the open, like fire among coals or water through dry clay. It is possible in the early stages to delude those lacking in finer sensibility; once Love has firmly established itself, however, that is entirely out of the question.
Sometimes the reason for such reticence is the lover's desire to avoid branding himself with that mark in the eyes of his fellows; he professes that philandering is a sign of frivolity, and therefore (he says) he flees from love and will have naught of it. But this is not at all the right line of approach; it is sufficient for a good Moslem to abstain from those things which Allah has forbidden, and which, if he choose to do, he will find charged to his account on the Day of Resurrection. But to admire beauty, and to be mastered by love that is a natural thing, and comes not within the range of Divine commandment and prohibition; all hearts are in God's hands, to dispose them what way He will, and all that is required of them is that they should know and consider the difference between right and wrong, and believe firmly what is true. Love itself is an inborn disposition; man can only control those motions of his members, which he has acquired by deliberate effort. I have put this all in verse
For thy sake do me reprove
Let them scold, or silent be,
It is all the same to me.
"Shame on thee!" I hear them say,
" To put all reserve away,
While men gaze on thee in awe
As a zealot for the Law."
"What you charge", I say, "to me
Is indeed hypocrisy
Patent; and, if I may boast,
I hate hypocrites the most.
"And yet, when was loving banned?
Did Mohammed so command,
Or is man forbidden it
By the words of Holy Writ?
"O, since I have nothing wrought
Save what Faith declares I ought,
Nothing I should face with gloom
On the dreadful Day of Doom;
"Naught I care for others' blame
Who declare my love a shame;
Let them whisper, let them shout,
I can face their scandal out.
"Shall a man be judged, think you,
Save for what he willed to do,
Or have charged against his head
Words that he has never said?"
I know a man who was tried in a very similar way. Passion had lodged itself in his breast, and he strove to deny it; but in the end the matter became so obviously serious that everyone divined it in his behaviour, whether he happened previously to be aware of it or not. Yet whenever anyone alluded to his trouble, he rounded on him abusively and drove him away; so that if one of his comrades desired to stand in well with him, he let him imagine that he believed his denials, and thought anyone a liar who had a contrary opinion. This would please him mightily. Now I recall that one day I happened upon him when he was seated with someone who kept hinting at his inward feelings all these suggestions my friend denied strenuously. Just at that moment, the very person he was suspected of having a crush on chanced to pass by; no sooner did his eyes light on his beloved, than he became all confused; his former sangfroid entirely deserted him; he grew pale, and his well-turned phrases lapsed into incoherency. His interlocutor thereupon broke off the argument, and he invited him to resume the previous discussion. Someone remarked, "Actions speak louder than words! " " Think what you please ", the poor fellow retorted. " Excuse me or blame me as you will, it is all the same." This is how I have versified the topic.
Compassionate to see
The fearful pains he suffereth
In passion's agony.
I have another poem on the same subject.
And flow again;
The veil, of love, I know,
Is rent in twain.
My heart, as she floats past,
Is fluttering yet
Like a poor partridge, fast
Trapped in the net.
O my companions true,
Come, counsel me
So all good comrades do
Advice is free.
How long, how long must I
This secret hide
Which I cannot deny,
Nor lay aside?
This however only happens when the instinct for concealment and self-protection conflicts with and overcomes the lover's natural disposition; the victim, caught between two raging fires, feels utterly bewildered.
Sometimes the reason for concealment is- that the lover wishes to spare his beloved; then it is a proof of loyalty, a mark of true nobility of character. I have put this point in verse.
I am a poor and lovelorn youth,
Cast down and weary, full of care
For whom? Ah, none can this declare.
When they behold me face to face,
They feel quite certain of my case,
Which when they would more clearly state
They can no more than speculate.
My love is like a written screed;
The characters seem plain, indeed,
But when the reader seeks to know
What they portend, that does not show.
Or like the cooing of a dove
Within the thicket is my love
He modulates with perfect art
The sweet outpourings of his heart.
We listen spellbound and intent
To his delightful argument;
But though the melody is clear,
Its meaning quite escapes the ear.
"For Allah's sake", they plead with me,
" Name thou her name to us, that we
May we apprised what passion deep,
For whom, has robbed thee of thy sleep."
No, no; before I tamely yield
The secret they would have revealed
I'd sooner see my reason go,
And plunge into the depths of woe.
So they are buffeted about
By wild conjecture, wilder doubt,
Not knowing whether what they know,
Or what they think they think is so.
I have another little poem on concealing the secret.
My secret; ' there if living man
Will shelter, Fate may be defied,
Death dared, "Come catch me, if you can!"
I slay my secret: ask you why?
A secret that would live must die
Precisely as the love-sick boy
Finds in his grief his greatest joy.
Sometimes, again, the reason for discretion is that the lover would protect himself against the consequences of his secret's disclosure, on account of the illustrious rank of his beloved.
A certain poet in Cordova composed a love-poem in which he celebrated' the charms of Subh, the mother of al-Mu'aiyad (God have mercy on his soul!). A slave-E brought before al-Mansur Muhammad Ibn Abi `Amin with a view to his purchasing her, chose this very song to sing to him: he promptly ordered her to be executed. It was for the same reason that Ahmad Ibn Mughith was put to death, the Mughith clan exterminated, and proclamation issued that not one of their numbers should ever be taken into the royal service-a decree which resulted in their utter destruction, and the entire wiping out of the house, none surviving but a wretched handful of outcaste fugitives. This was all because Ahmad Ibn Mughith composed a love lyric in honour of a Caliph's daughter. Such instances are numerous.
It is related of al-Hasan Ibn Hani' that he was deeply smitten by Muhammad Ibn Harun, better known as Ibn Zubaida. The latter had an inkling of the situation, and upbraided the poet for gazing at him so intently. It is reported that al-Hasan remarked, that he would never have ventured to concentrate his gaze on Muhammad so long, if it had not been for the fact that the latter was overcome by his potations.
Sometimes the reason for concealment is so that the beloved may not take fright, or be made off with. I know of a man whose beloved was completely friendly and at ease with him; but if he had disclosed by the least gesture that he was in love, the beloved would have become as remote from him as the Pleiades, whose stars hang so high in heaven. It is a sort of statesmanship that is required in such cases; the party concerned was enjoying the pleasure of his loved one's company intensely and to the last degree, but if he had so much as hinted at his inner feelings he would have attained but a miserable fraction of the beloved's favour, and endured into the bargain all the arrogance and caprice of which love is capable. He would have been denied that confidence of the heart's mastery; all the joy would have gone out of his romance; his little idyll would have given place to affectation and unjust accusation. Where formerly he was treated as a brother and an equal, now he would have been regarded as a slave and a prisoner. And had he divulged his sentiments further, to such a point that the beloved's circle of intimates came to know of it, he would never have seen the object of his affection again, save perchance in a dream; everything would have been over between them; the final result would have been his own great discomfiture.
Finally, sometimes the reason for concealment is an overpowering shyness from which some men suffer; or because the lover observes that his beloved is turning away from his and shunning his advances, and being of a proud spirit he hides his feelings so that no enemy may gloat over him, and so as to show them, and his beloved, how lightly he regards the whole business.
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