Glossary entry (derived from question below)
Arabic term or phrase:
رعن المدخن صور
English translation:
Kindly, read the explanation
Arabic term
رعن المداخن صور
Dear colleagues, any suggestions? Many thanks in advance. (in Arabic or English).
| 4 | Kindly, read the explanation |
Saleh Dardeer
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Dec 9, 2012 10:49: Morano El-Kholy changed "Level" from "Non-PRO" to "PRO"
Dec 20, 2012 08:05: Saleh Dardeer Created KOG entry
PRO (3): Muhammad Atallah, Anis Farhat, Morano El-Kholy
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Proposed translations
High quality comes first!
Native in: Arabic 
Works in: Arabic to English, English to Arabic, Arabic, and 3 more.
Kindly, read the explanation
Sometimes, you feel there are nice meanings at a poem but you cannot comprehend them and this situation drives you to plunge into the whole poem and to feel the same feelings of the poet. I liked this literary piece because it combines between two fields of my interest history and geography let alone rhetoric poem. Hence, I tried to live with it for a while
It is a part of a poem describing the journey of Abu Nawwas, the famous poet, from Baghdad to Egypt that reads
رحلن بها من عقر قوف وقد بدا ... من الصبح مفتوق الأديم شهير
فما نجدت بالماء حتى رأيتها ... مع الشمس في عيني اباع تغور
وغمرن من ماء النقيب بشربة ... وقد حان من ديك الصباح زمير
ووافين إشراقاً كنائس تدمر ... وهن إلى رعن المدخن صور
يؤممن أهل الغوطتين كأنما ... لها عند أهل الغوطتين ثؤور
The first hemistich of the verse that you ask about means that at sunrise they reached the temples or churches (because the word كنيسة in Arabic the place of worship whether it is for Christians or any other religion) of Tadmur (famous and historic place in Syria)
Then, he moves to the next hemistich where he starts describing and talking about such churches. Anyway, after extensive search the second half is clear for me with exception to the word صور that I have two meanings for it in this context and there is justification for each meaning:
وهن
and they (the churches)
إلى
to
رعن
In Arabic meansوالرَعْنُ أنف الجبل المتقدّم excerpted from As-Sihah fil-Lughah
http://baheth.info/all.jsp?term=رعن#2
In English means mountain ridge, spur, mountain peak
المدخن
It is a name of mountain
I found this poetic verse in Wafiyyat Al-A‘yaan by Ibn Khillikaan and he wrote the right pronunciation for المدخن as follows
والمدخن: بضم الميم وبالدال المهملة وفتح الخاء المعجمة المشددة وبعدها نون، وسمي المدخن لأنه لا يزال عليه مثل الدخان من الضباب.
Al Mudakh-khan it was named after its appearance that its tip is covered by fog similar to دخان smoke. As if they call it the smoky mountain in a literal way.
I looked for the current names of Syrian mountains but I did not find any relevant result to Al-Mudakh-khan perhaps it got a new name
Moreover, I go to know that there are many mountains in this area. In other words, it is kind of chain of mountains
صور
here comes slight confusion for me. This word has many meanings in Arabic: It could be صُورُ
which means horn to be blown. In this case I understand that he is likening the relation between the ridge of the mountain and these temples as if these temples are like the horn to the mountain. It might be complicated but my imagination allows me to go farther since I am reading poem. Anyway, I imagine that such temples are above the ridge of the mountain so the poet likened it to the horn because the horn has a peak. So, the churches are the peak of the mountain.
This interpretation seems plausible to me because most of churches and monks especially during the Roman ear were built far away at mountains and remote places to escape from the Romans persecution such as St. Catherine in Sinai and the similar.
Another thing makes this interpretation reasonable is the rhyme of the poetic verses
شيهرُ/ تغورُ/ زميرُ/ثؤورُ etc.
the second interpretation of the word is to be written in the following diacritic as i found in some results:
صوَّرُ
One of the core meanings of the word صور according to Mu`jam Maqayees Al-Lugha by Ibn Faris is الميل slope, tilt, turn, or not straight
So, according to this meaning the poet may want to resemble the churches as if they are inclining or turning towards the ridge of the mountain. This interpretation is backed by the following verse where the poet is talking about that such churches are facing
أهل الغوطتين
The people of Al-Ghawtatain (place in Syria) or in other words the land of Al-Ghawtatain
Also, I searched for historic church in Tadmur to see its pictures and understand the poem in the light of them to give weight to one interpretation, but I did not find any illustrating photos but found this news story
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/arabic/middle_east_news/newsid_7730...
Finally, you have the choice to choose whatever meaning fits
HTH
Discussion