حبل صبحة حبل صبحة
He will read a poem called "Sabha's Rope."
And this is one of the poems that goes directly back to life
in Saffuriya, the village Taha comes from.
And maybe he'll tell you a little bit about who Sabha was.
You translate what I would tell you about the rope.
أفضل بالإنجليزية. بالانجليزية
Well, in our hamlet, village, Saffuriya,
was a tradition to give the cow a name exactly
as a girl because the cow could make the milk,
could be food for the whole family.
And if the cow died, the family exactly
feels like losing a member of the family.
And because the hunger, it was all over, the cow moos--
will feels hunger to eat everything
connected with the grass.
One second.
Everybody understand that because there
was so much hunger, hunger was widespread even
among the animals, that the cows would eat anything, anything
particularly connected with grass,
with hay, or anything like that.
And the ropes was made of not plastic, but from dry grass
from--
you see, and she would eat the rope.
And the cows would eat the rope.
If she'll eat about a meter or so, she'll die.
If the cow eats more than a meter, a rope a meter long,
it will get into its intestines and it will kill it.
She died.
They used it to cut her.
And the whole village buy the thing to help the family.
And Sabha is one cow which ate a rope, even more
than one-meter rope.
And when she fell down that brought
some knives and cut her.
So this poem is about a cow named Sabha who ate this rope.
And because she ate the rope, they
knew that she was going to die a painful death from eating
the rope, they killed her.
And this is what happened to her.
And tell, maybe, what Sabha means.
Sabha means a good, lucky phrase, like the morning,
الصبح the phrase صبحة and sabah.
The word for morning in Arabic is sabah and [? suprah. ?]
And the word for the cows name comes from a similar root.
So there's a feeling of morning, of light,
of joy comes with this cow.
You know, you read, as he called with Tobacco Road,
you would feel things connected with people
and earth and weather.
[INAUDIBLE]
One of the Taha's favorite American writers
is Erskine Caldwell.
I don't want to ask how many people in the audience
have read Erskine Caldwell.
Not so many anymore.
But it's a writer that he read when he was studying English.
And he's from Georgia.
I guess most of his stuff is from Georgia,
the famous book Tobacco Road.
And Taha identifies very much with this writer.
So Rope.
The poem told by a family, old man Hamid and Uncle Hamid.
And they are outside Suffuriya because Suffuriya destroyed,
1918.
بتتذكر يا "أبو محمد"
بتتذكر لما صبحة بقرة جارنا "أبو هاشم" أكلت الحبل
بتتذكر كيف وهيا تنازع ذبحوها وعلى ضي القناديل سلخوها
وبالبلطات شيلات شيلات قطعوها
"أم هاشم" نصبت مناحة لما السكاكين نزلت بصبحة
بناتها عيطوا
الكل حزن الكل ساعد
والكل ردد: فرق الحمل ينشال!
والحارة عن بكرة أبيها تكاتفت
واشترت لحم صبحة
بتتذكر ولا نمت؟
لا لا أنا فايق طبعًا بتذكر
وبتذكر كمان إنه ما حدا ذاق قضمة من لحم صبحة
اللحم انشوى، انقلى، انسلق والبعض دق كبة
لكن ما حدا ذاقه
الناس حسوا كأنهم شرحوا شرحات من جثة قتيل
وكأن اللي انطبخ هو لحم أبو هاشم ولحم أهل بيته
النفوس صدت وكبوه
مدة والبلد يخنقها أسى صامت ملثم
مثل صوت أبو هاشم خشن
وأخضر مثل عينين صبحة الخضر
شايف يا "أبو محمد"
كانت بلدنا مليحة
صحيح كان فيها أوقات علقم
لكن مرارها طيب يشبه مرار العلت وأطيب
شايف شو كاينه بلدنا مليحة؟
مليحة؟ هه!! قال مليحة قال
ولك وكتاب الله العزيز
أنا مستعد وبفضل ومن كل قلبي موافق
أكون يومها بلعت حبل أطول من حبل صبحة
بس نكون بقينا ببلدنا.
And you can sit.
Here?
Yeah, you can sit.
Go ahead.
"Sabha's Rope"
Where'd it go?
102.
Yeah.
"Do you remember, Abu Mohammad?
Do you remember when Sabha, our neighbor Abu Hashem's cow,
swallowed the rope?
Do you remember how, as she was dying,
they slaughtered her and, by lamplight, flayed her
and then, bit by bit with axes, hacked her into pieces?
And Hashem sent up her wailing as the knives sliced away
at Sabha and her daughter wept.
Everyone grieved and everyone lent a hand, insisting,
we'll share the burden.
We'll manage.
All the neighbors rushed together,
shoulder to shoulder, without exception, to buy Sabha's meat.
Do you remember, or have you fallen asleep?
No, I'm awake.
Of course I remember.
And I remember too that no one ever
tasted a piece of that meat.
It was grilled, fried, and cooked,
and minced for chopped meat.
But no one ate it.
The people felt that they were slicing into flesh fresh
from a cadaver, as though it were Abu Hashem's body or that
of his family being carved.
Men and women turned away in disgust and threw it away.
For a while, the village was choked
in a muted sort of grief, like Abu Hashem's hoarse voice
and green as Sabha's eyes.
Don't you see, Abu Muhammad?
Our village was pleasant.
It's true there were hard times, but the bitterness
was good, like chicory, or better.
You see what I mean?
Wasn't it pleasant?
Pleasant, ha.
Pleasant, he says.
Pleasant.
Let me tell you, by the book of almighty god, I swear to you,
I was prepared.
In fact, I would have preferred, and with all my heart
I would have agreed, to swallow a rope longer
than Sabha's if only we could have stayed in our village."