Tuesday, January 09, 2007

The Perfumed Garden

A library, no matter how apparently sterile or stolidly institutional, is a dangerous place to go to escape distraction. Consider The Perfumed Garden of Cheikh Nefzaoui found on the shelf in a university library, a text originally translated into French in 1850 by a French soldier based in Algeria, and then translated into English by Sir Richard Francis Burton. Plucked off a shelf of Hindu philosophy, The Perfumed Garden warns its unsuspecting readers that "the coitus of old women is a venomous meal." Anyone looking for light reading will find no shortage of a metaphor ingenuity. Especially in Chapter XIII:

Know, O Vizir (to whom God be good!) that man’s member has different names, such as:

El dekeur, the virile member;

El kamera, the penis;

El air, the member for generation;

El hamama, the pigeon;

El teunnana, the tinkler;

El heurmak, the indomitable;

El ahlil, the liberator;

El zeub, the verge;

El hammache, the exciter;

El zodamme, the crowbar;

El khiade, the tailor;

Mochefi el relil, the extinguisher of passion;

El khorrate, the turnabout;

El denkhak, the striker;

El aouame, the swimmer;

El dekhal, the housebreaker;

El aour, the one-eyed;

El fortass, the bald;

Abou aine, the one with an eye;

El atsor, the pusher;

El dommor, the strong-headed;

Abou rokba, the one with a neck;

Abou quetaia, the hairy one;

El besiss, the impudent one;

El mostahi, the shame-faced one;

El bekkai, the weeping one;

El hezzaz, the rummager;

El lezzaz, the unionist;

Abou laaba, the expectorant;

El tattache, the searcher;

El hakkak, the rubber;

El mourekhi, the flabby one;

El mokcheuf, the discoverer.

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