The Third Matter

The Third Matter

The garment in which speech is clothed, or its beauty and form, lie in its manner of expression (üslûb); that is, in its mould or framework (kalıp). It is like this: [the speaker's] inclinations arise in the imagination due to the cross-pollination of his perceptions or preoccupations or contacts or work. The manner of expression, which is illuminated and takes form from the joining of the pieces of the parabolic metaphor (istiare-i temsiliye) which in turn is composed of the facets of those inclinations, is both the speech's mould, and the source of its beauty and workbench of its fine garment. As though, on the sounding of the will, which deserves to be called the intellect's bugle, the meanings reposing in the dark corners of the heart emerge bare-footed and bare-headed and enter the imagination, where forms reside. In the store of the imagination they don whichever form they find there. At least they tie a kerchief around their heads, or put on a slipper, or at least pin on a bauble, and emerge. Or at least they show through a button or a word where they have been raised.

If you study some speech, but one that has deviated from its nature, you will see through the mirror-like manner of expression, the speaker, who expresses things in line with his own art. Even, if you form an image of him from his breathing and his voice and you imagine his temperament and art to be combined with his speech, you will be reproached for belonging to the Romantics School (Hayaliyyûn mezhebi). If your imagination is sick due to uncertainty, apply to the hospital of the following lines from the Kaside-i Bürde:

Shed tears from eyes filled

With forbidden things; stick to a diet of repentance.

See how the physician Busayri [^6] prescribes a diet of tears and

[^6]:Sharaf al-Dīn al-Buṣayrī (d. between 694-6/1294-7). Born in Egypt, joined the Shāzalī Order under its founder Abū'l-Ḥasan al-Shāzalī, and died in Cairo. His most widely published work was the Qaṣīdat al-Burda, a poem of 160 couplets eulogising the Prophet Muhammad (UWBP).