The Quran

Preface

قالَت فَذٰلِكُنَّ الَّذي لُمتُنَّني فيهِ ۖ وَلَقَد راوَدتُهُ عَن نَفسِهِ فَاستَعصَمَ ۖ وَلَئِن لَم يَفعَل ما آمُرُهُ لَيُسجَنَنَّ وَلَيَكونًا مِنَ الصّاغِرينَ

Yusuf Ali

She said: “There before you is the man about whom ye did blame me! I did seek to seduce him from his (true) self but he did firmly save himself guiltless!¹ ....and now, if he doth not my bidding, he shall certainly be cast into prison, and (what is more) be of the company of the vilest!”

Her speech is subtle, and shows that any repentance or compunction she may have felt is blotted out by the collective crowd mentality into which she has deliberately invited herself to fall. Her speech falls into two parts, with a hiatus between, which I have marked by the punctuation mark (. . .) In the first part there is a note of triumph, as much as to say, “Now you see! Mine was no vulgar passion! You are just as susceptible! You would have done the same thing!” Finding encouragement from their passion and their fellow-feelings, she openly avows as a woman amongst women (by a sort of freemasonry) what she would have been ashamed to acknowledge to others before. She falls a step lower and boasts of it. A step lower still, and she sneers at Joseph’s innocence, his firmness in saving himself guiltless! There is a pause. The tide of passion rises still higher, and the dreadful second part of her speech begins. It is a sort of joint consultation, though she speaks in monologue. The women all agree that no man has a right to resist their solicitations. Beauty spurned is the highest crime. And so now she rises to the height of tragic guilt and threatens Joseph. She forgets all her finer feelings, and is overpowered by brute passion. After all, he is a slave and must obey his mistress! Or, there is prison, and the company of the vilest, instead of the caresses of beauty and fashion in high places!” Poor, deluded, fallen creature! She sank lower than herself, in seeking the support of the crowd around her! What pain and suffering and sorrow can expiate the depth of this crime? (R).