Repository path: workshop/translations/maqamat-sanaa/R48-v1/translation.md · rendered 2026-09-09

«المقامة الصنعانية» — al-Ḥarīrī's first Assembly, whole, R48 v1: the rhyme first

Source. أبو محمد القاسم بن علي الحريري (Basra, 1054–1122), «المقامات», المقامة الأولى, الصنعانية. Copy-text, provenance and its single-witness declaration: ../collation.md. Loci enumerated from the Arabic and frozen 2026-08-24: ../loci-frozen.md — 67 loci, primary pool 65, unchanged and not re-opened for this rendering.

Span. The whole maqāma — 148 blocks, 139 prose cola and 9 verse lines, 590 Arabic tokens.

Regime. R48 the rhyme first — ../../regimes/R48-rhyme-first.md. Prose stays prose; the sense outranks the sound; and at every frozen saj' locus the hand delivers a chime at the colon end if rule 2 permits one, released from R43's requirement that both members be the ordinary rendering of their bearer.

Why this artifact exists. Two of the three published English hands on the shelf print a refusal to carry al-Ḥarīrī's rhyme, and both give a reason about the reader: Chappelow 1767 — "To attempt it might be looked upon as a piece of pedantry: and indeed our English tongue will not admit of it"; Preston 1850 — "Rhyming prose is extremely ungraceful in English, and introduces an air of flippancy, unless the subject be of the most light and frivolous description" (wiki/base/anchors/A-hariri-hands/README.md §3). Neither reason has ever been tested, because the object it is a reason about was never made. This is that object.

Translated by the lead agent as a labelled subject, in session, at $0 — not ledgered (charter §3, A4). No API call produced any part of this rendering. The lead does not judge it.

The verse is carried over from T-maqamat-sanaa-R43-v1 unchanged, and is declared here rather than discovered later. R48 differs from R43 in the prose policy only; both regimes rhyme the verse, both graded every line, and re-rendering nine lines to no purpose would have made the two artifacts differ where the regimes do not. Every study segment built on this rendering excludes the verse (workshop/experiments/E-20260825b-flippancy/design.md §3).

Contamination

none, measured. T-maqamat-sanaa-R43-v1 was measured clean against all three published hands on 2026-08-24 — longest common run 6 / 7 / 7 tokens, 0 shared 12-grams in every pair (../../experiments/E-20260824b-hariri-hands/raw/dependence.json). This rendering was written from the Arabic and from R43-v1, with no published hand open, and it moves away from R43-v1 at every graded locus, so it cannot have moved toward a hand R43-v1 was already clear of. The measurement is re-run on this text and reported in RS-20260825b §2; the declaration stands or is corrected there, whichever the number says.

The declared priming of 2026-08-24 carries over unchanged: four lines of English seen at S01, S02, S57 while establishing that the hands were reachable (../loci-frozen.md §7). Those three loci are PRIMED, and S01 and S57 are UNAVAILABLE in this rendering as they were in R43.

The rendering

The narrator comes to Ṣan'ā

p001. Al-Ḥārith ibn Hammām related: When I had mounted the withers of expatriation, and want had set me far from my generation, the buffetings of Time flung me — p002. to Ṣan'ā of the Yemen. p003. I entered it with my wallet spent, p004. my penury evident, p005. owning not a mite, p006. nor finding in my scrip a bite. p007. So I fell to beating her streets like one wandering, p008. and to ranging her quarters with the ranging of the thirsty bird hovering; p009. and I scouted the pasture-grounds of my surveying, p010. and the walking-grounds of my morning and evening straying, p011. for a generous man before whom I might wear threadbare my face, p012. and to whom I might open my case, p013. or a man of letters whose sight would lift my heaviness, p014. and whose recital would slake my thirstiness — p015. until the end of my perambulation, p016. and the first of God's ministration, p017. brought me to a broad meeting-ground, p018. holding a press of people and a wailing sound. p019. So I pushed into the thicket of the throng, p020. to sound out what was drawing the tears; p021. and I saw, at the hub of the ring, p022. a body that was a slight thing, p023. on him the gear of the trail, p024. and in him the note of the wail. p025. He was stamping out rhyme-pairs with the jewels of his saying, p026. and striking the ears with the rebukes of his inveighing; p027. and mixed bands had ringed him round, p028. as the halo rings the moon, p029. and the sheath the fruit. p030. So I edged in to catch a light from his store, p031. and to gather some pearls of his lore; p032. and I heard him say, when he had entered his field, p033. and the camel-throats of his improvising had pealed:

The sermon

p034. O you that go blind in your overweening, p035. trailing the robe of your preening, p036. bolting headlong into your ignorances, p037. sidling away toward your extravagances: p038. how long will you hold to your waywardness, p039. and find sweet the pasture of your lawlessness? p040. And till when will you go to the end of your display, p041. and not come to the end of your play? p042. You go out duelling in your rebelling, p043. against Him in whose hand your forelock is dwelling! p044. You make bold, with the foulness of your conversation, p045. against Him that knows your inmost meditation! p046. You put yourself out of the sight of the one who is near, p047. and you stand in the eye of your Overseer! p048. You hide from the slave that you own, and no secret is secret from Him on the throne! p049. Do you think there is profit for you in your estate, p050. when the hour comes for you to migrate? p051. Or ransom for you in your acquisition, p052. when your own deeds work your perdition? p053. Or your remorse of any use, p054. when your footing works loose? p055. Or a tenderness for you in your kin, p056. on the day the Muster folds you in? p057. Why have you not struck into the road of your right way, p058. nor hurried the cure of your decay, p059. nor blunted the point of your affray, p060. nor held your soul — the greatest of your enemies — at bay? p061. Is not death your assignation? p062. Then where is your preparation? p063. Is not the grey hair the warning you see? p064. Then what is your plea? p065. Is not the grave-niche your bed? p066. Then what have you said? p067. Is not God your journey's end? p068. Then who is your friend? p069. How often has Time waked you, and you drowsed, p070. and preaching has pulled at you, and you would not be roused! p071. And the lessons were made plain to you, and you turned a blind eye, p072. and the truth stood out for you, and you gave it the lie, p073. and death put you in mind, and you forgot, p074. and it lay in your hand to comfort, and you comforted not! p075. You prefer a coin you can stow, p076. to a remembrance you can know; p077. and you choose a palace you would build high, p078. over a kindness you would supply; p079. and you turn from a guide you would ask of, p080. to a store you would ask of; p081. and you let the love of a garment you desire p082. outweigh a guerdon you might acquire. p083. The rubies of donation p084. cleave closer to your heart than the hours of supplication; p085. and outbidding in bride-gifts p086. is dearer to you than keeping up alms-gifts; p087. and the bowls of your provisions p088. are more to your appetite than the scrolls of the religions; p089. and joking with your fellow-man p090. is better company to you than the reciting of the Qur'ān! p091. You enjoin what is right and break its bound, p092. and you fence men from what is wrong and go yourself unbound; p093. and you edge away from wrong and then walk full into it, p094. and you fear men, when God is worthier of your fear! p095. Then he recited:

b001. Perdition to the seeker of this world, / who has poured toward her his whole inclination; b002. he never comes to his senses, for love of her / and the surfeit of his passion; b003. yet had he known it, there had been enough for him, / of all he covets, a ration.

He goes, and is followed

p096. Then he let his dust settle, p097. and dried up his spittle, p098. and took his water-skin on his arm, p099. and put his cudgel under his arm-pit. p100. And when the company had turned their eyes to his brace, p101. and seen him ready to leave his place, p102. every man of them put his hand into his pocket, p103. and filled him from his bounty a bucket, p104. and said: Lay this out on your keep, p105. or divide it among your company. p106. So he took it from them with lowered gaze, p107. and turned from them with a tongue in praise; p108. and he fell to taking leave of all who escorted him, p109. that his road might go unreported, p110. and eluding whoever came on behind, p111. so that his quarters none should find. p112. Al-Ḥārith ibn Hammām said: So I followed him, hiding from him my eye, p113. and came after his track from where he could not spy, p114. until he came to a hollow, p115. and slid into it, heedless of any to follow. p116. So I let him be till he had drawn off his shoe, p117. and washed his feet through; p118. and then I broke in on him. p119. And I found him closeted with a disciple, the two of them at meat, p120. over bread of fine wheat, p121. and a kid roasted in the pit's heat, p122. and, over against the pair of them, a wine-jar replete. p123. So I said to him: Sir, is that your report, p124. and this your import? p125. He fetched up a sigh of the dog-day's fire, p126. and all but split with ire, p127. and he kept goggling at me, p128. till I feared he would spring upon me. p129. And when his blaze had sunk low, p130. and his scorching was hidden below, p131. he recited:

b004. I put on the fine mantle to come at the sweetmeat, / and I hooked my hook into every worthless date; b005. and I made my preaching a snare, / and hunted with it the quarry and the quarry's mate; b006. and Time so drove me that I came in, / by the deftness of my wiles, on the lion in his lair; b007. for all that, I never feared its turning, / nor did a sinew of mine quiver there; b008. nor did a covetous soul bring me down / to a watering-place that would soil my name; b009. and had Time dealt justly in its judging, / it had never given rule to men of blame.

p132. Then he said to me: Come near and dine; p133. or, if you would rather, stand up and opine. p134. So I turned to his disciple and said, I charge you by Him through whom harm is undone, p135. tell me who is this one. p136. He said: This is Abū Zayd of Sarūj, the lamp of them that wander, p137. and the crown of them that ponder. p138. So I went back by the road that had brought me, p139. and wondered my fill at the sight that had caught me.

Translator's log — frozen before any evaluation of this rendering is designed

What R48 actually changed about the work. Under R43 the hand wrote out the ordinary English renderings of both bearers and took a pair only if one was sitting there; 31 of 65 loci yielded nothing and 27 of the 33 that did yielded an -ing or -ness suffix. Under R48 the hand may take a less ordinary word, invert the clause, and put the chime at the colon end rather than on the bearer. The result is not a small improvement. tools/rhyme_pairs.py grades the adjacent colon-end pairs of this text 33 STRICT, 17 NEAR, 4 IDENTICAL of 138, against R43-v1's 2 STRICT, 29 NEAR, 5 IDENTICAL. The suffix accident did not become a rhyme; a rhyme replaced it.

The three things the licence actually bought, and they are not what was expected.

1. Almost always, an ordinary word one step to the side. your strutting ⁄ your sporting became your display ⁄ your play — and display and play are, if anything, the plainer renderings of زهو and لهو. your appointment ⁄ your equipment became your assignation ⁄ your preparation. R43's rule 3 was not protecting fidelity at these loci; it was protecting the first word that came to mind.
2. Permission to move the chime off the bearer. The largest single gain. At S50 the Arabic rhymes جيبه ⁄ سيبه, his bosom against his bounty; the English pair that was waiting was pocket ⁄ bucket — and bucket renders سجل, the word in the next colon, not the bearer. R43 could not see it. Fifteen loci are graded CHIME-RELOCATED for this reason.
3. Permission to re-order. S25 estate ⁄ migrate, S49 brace ⁄ place, S67 expatriation ⁄ generation all required moving the rhyme-word to the end of its colon.

The four-deep monorhyme at S58, which R43 called its worst loss. «تِلْميذٍ ⁄ سَميذٍ ⁄ حَنيذٍ ⁄ نبيذٍ» — the disciple, the fine bread, the pit-roast kid, the wine-jar — came out at meat ⁄ of fine wheat ⁄ the pit's heat ⁄ replete, four cola on one rhyme, and every member is the ordinary sense of its Arabic. سميذ is fine wheat flour and حنيذ is roasted in a pit. Nothing was bought with a word the Arabic has not got. R43 reached disciple, flour, pit, wine and recorded the loss as irreparable; it was reparable, and what repaired it was a licence, not a better hand.

The four-deep run at S29, «اهتدائك ⁄ دائك ⁄ اعتدائك ⁄ أعدائك», came out your right way ⁄ your decay ⁄ your affray ⁄ at bay — and the fourth member arrived only because قدعت نفسك is exactly held your soul at bay, so the idiom put the rhyme-word last for nothing.

What still would not come, and it is a short list.

• S01 الزمن ⁄ اليمن — Yemen takes almost nothing in English, and every candidate imported a word.
• S10 الجمع ⁄ الدمع — every pair reachable at the crowd ⁄ the tears required intensifying the tears (gush, in a rush), which rule 2 forbids.
• S14 الزمر ⁄ القمر ⁄ الثمر — three-deep on troops ⁄ moon ⁄ fruit. Nothing.
• S48, S51 — water-skin ⁄ cudgel; your keep ⁄ your company. Nothing without adding.
• S46 تغشاه ⁄ تخشاه, the gh/kh pun — AVAILABLE-REFUSED again, on the same ground R43 gave. draw near it ⁄ fear it chimes fully and draw near softens غشي, which is to plunge into a thing. This is the one locus where the extra licence made the refusal harder, because the pair is now clearly reachable and is still wrong.

Four places where the chime cost something, named so that nobody has to find them.

Two puns answered by repetition, exactly as R43 answered them, and the instrument still grades them IDENTICAL by rule: S39 a guide you would ask of ⁄ a store you would ask of, S42 outbidding in bride-gifts ⁄ keeping up **alms-gifts. S61 «إليّ ⁄ عليّ» — two prepositions carrying one pronoun — is answered by the same identity in English, goggling at me ⁄ spring upon me**, which R43 recorded as unanswerable because it graded the bearer and the bearer is the same word. Under rule 4 it is a colon-end chime of exactly the Arabic's kind.

A declaration the hand owes. (internal-judgment-only.) This rendering was written knowing what would be measured on it. R48 rule 2 is what stands between the hand and a text tuned to the prediction, and the hand cannot certify its own obedience to it — which is why the two arms of the study are built from one text by mechanical substitution (R49) rather than by writing two, and why the same hand's R43-v1, frozen the day before this design existed, is in the study as a third arm it cannot have tuned.