«فَلْيَضْحَكُوا قَلِيلًا وَلْيَبْكُوا كَثِيرًا»
“So let them laugh a little and weep much.”
There are two sets of correspondences:
«يضحكوا» ↔ «يبكوا» — laughing ↔ weeping
«قليلًا» ↔ «كثيرًا» — little ↔ much
The contrasts appear in ordered pairs. The first half combines laughing with small quantity; the second combines weeping with great quantity. This exceeds a single pair of antonyms.
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ʿIlm al-Badīʿ: Semantic Embellishments, Part I
«فَلْيَضْحَكُوا قَلِيلًا وَلْيَبْكُوا كَثِيرًا»
“So let them laugh a little and weep much.”
There are two sets of correspondences:
«يضحكوا» ↔ «يبكوا» — laughing ↔ weeping
«قليلًا» ↔ «كثيرًا» — little ↔ much
The contrasts appear in ordered pairs. The first half combines laughing with small quantity; the second combines weeping with great quantity. This exceeds a single pair of antonyms.