AHMAD SHAUQI'S AL-SITT HUDA AS A SATIRICAL COMEDY OF MANNERS

The Egyptian Ahmad Shauqi (1868-1932) distinguished himself as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of modern Arabic poets. His broad sympathy for all the Arabs and his frequent derivation of subjects for his poems from Arab countries other than Egypt made him acquire the name of 'Prince of Poets'. 2 As a pioneering playwright Shauqi also popularized the art of poetic drama in the Arab world.3 He wrote eight plays: six heroic plays and two comedies.4 Three of his heroic plays, namely Masra' Kilubatra (The Fall of Cleopatra, 1929), Qambiz (Cambyses, 1931) and 'All Baik al-Kabir (CAll Bey the Great, 1932), 5derive their subject-matter from ancient and medieval Egyptian life and history; the other three, Majnun Laild (1931), 'Antar (1932) and Amfrat al-Andalus (the Princess of al-Andalus, 1932, the only play that he wrote in prose), from Arab life and history. Shauqi's development, at the end of his dramatic career, into a comic playwright, with the comedy under discussion, al-Sitt Hudä (Lady Hudd), was not surprising, since he had already shown himself to have a gift for the comic spirit, not only in his poetry but also in a good number of his heroic plays. This is to be seen in his introduction of such comic charac- ters as Anshu (Masra' Kflu-ba.tra) and Bishr (Majnun Laild), and particu- larly Miqlas (Amirat al-Andalus). In the role played by this last, comedy is no longer limited to superficial jokes and word-play; it has become deeper and more psychological, combining the exposure of folly and absurdity with the diversion of the audience by robust comic relief. Nor was Shauqi the only comic dramatist in Egypt, and in the Arab world in general. Before him, as Professor Mandur has shown, many successful attempts had already been witnessed in the field, 6 and comedy and comic opera seemed particularly suited to the Egyptian I ' temperament. 1 For Shauq�'slife, poetry and background, see M.M. Badawi, A critical Introduction to Modern Arabic Poetry, Cambridge 1975, 29-41. 2 Ibid., 41. 3 Hil�l, Muhammad Ghunimi, F�al-naqd al-masrah�Cairo, 1965. 4 Apart from Shauqi's comic masterpiece, al-Sitt Hud�,there is another play entitled al-Bakh�(Thela Miserly Woman), a comedy which has been published very recently, and which satirizes the vanity and evils of miserliness, usury and mercenary marriages. 5 An early version of this play was published in 1893, and the final, revised, version in 1932. 6Mand�r, Muhammad, Masrahiyy�Shauqt �Cairo,, 4th ed., 1970, 12. 7 Ibid., 12-13. 184

Al-Sitt Hudd is a satirical comedy of manners which, in a general way, recalls to our minds many a comedy written by the great masters of the genre, Congreve, Moliere, Goldsmith and Sheridan. It presents a gallery of characters whose manners, conduct and speech contain something extravagant, and hence ludicrous, although they are recognizable men and women of their age, if not of all ages. Like any good comedy of man- ners, it pokes fun at certain human foibles and social institutions. Yet its satire is never desperate, harsh or pessimistic; it is, rather, optimistic and benign. In its gentleness and urbanity it recalls the satire of some Restoration comedy. The first act opens with a dialogue between al-Sitt Huda and Zainab, her neighbour, who is obviously her confidante. Huda is straightaway seen as anxious to conceal her real age; she would have it reduced to twenty and held there. She is also concerned about her reputation, since the world has grown censorious of her repeated marriages and divorces: al-Sitt H. In their gossip they have made my marriage or divorce Their only concern and preoccupation. They say that I have married as many as nine men, That I have buried all my husbands. Surely I am not 'Azrael, the Angel of Death? Nor did I marry them With their money, but with my own. As soon as one husband died, 8 My thirty feddans were sure to bring me another. (I.i.14)

Shauqi then reveals to the audience Huda's eight previous marriages, by means of her retrospective analysis of her past life. This is realised in a narrative, to the cumulative effect of which the greater part of the first act is devoted. Her first husband, Mustafa, she well remembers, was `as tall as a palm-tree', not motivated by greed or the desire to possess her 'estate', but content with the rent. She deeply mourned his death and it was not until five years later that she married her second husband, 'Al-1. In this marriage the parties were mutually deceived by a vain, mercenary match. When ?Ali died, she married her third husband and, then again her fourth, who was a much-admired writer:

8 Shauqi, Ahmad, al-Sitt Hud�al-masrahiyya,: ed. Ahmad Zaki, Cairo 1953. All subse- quent references to the play will be made to this edition (act, scene, page). The transla- tion of this and other extracts is mine.