1. My sword, my dear friend, is the weapon of warriors,
A delight to the eye and equipment for the excel­lent.

2. You would think it a tract of water in the intense heat,
The subtlest of lines against the hot terrain.

3. Whenever its hue is glimpsed, a wave stopping the gaze
As though teasing the onlooker and darting away.

4. Slender but firm, refined as the dust of battle,
Proceeding on a steady course, unswerving and sure.

5. It turns back the water, and the edges drink their fill,
While the neighboring areas are left dry and yearning.

6. It has borne the vicissitudes of fate until
Itself has need of the armorer's hammer and file.

7. Yet its blows fail to reach the speed of my charges,
Nor can the virtue of its wielder be surpassed.

8. O Remover of shadows from me and from my garden
On the day I resort to it and dwell in the battlefield!

9. And O my right hand - if I brandished
It would sheathe itself modestly in its sleeve.

10. For when its lightning flashes there is no sword quicker;
And when it clashes none more penetrating in fray.

11. I would not charge you, teacher, to behead
And sever necks were you not adept in this work.

12. So that we both, of this breed, are raiders today
Let War loose him to mill after exhaustion at Nejd;

13. The people of the Hijaz will then suffer his onslaught.
I wished for his peer, but it was as if

14. I sought a righteous son of Salih's will to match me.
Not every horseman is a runner like the Rozbeh;

15. Not everything that flies is a falcon or baz.
A Persian whose glory diadem was of pure

16. Jewel set upon silk taffeta bright.
His soul was nobler than any line of kings;

17. And to compare myself to him would deck me in light.
Eloquence and truth and clarity were born of his utterance,

18. And powerful speech gained elegance by his condensing,
Hearts were occupied with the beauty of noble deeds,

19. Beyond the beauty of faces and the grace of verse.
He cracks flint and iron with his adversaries

20. Like crunching sugar with the jaws of a grinder.
Eloquence conveyed to him her utmost

21. By amplitude and gain by terse lucidness.
The nation's wars and blood-money were upon him

22. And heavy debts and plights of those brought low.
Why would he not complain? How could they complain

23. When through him - not through those who complained to him?
O spacious mansion, dwelling-place

24. Of a king taking possession forcefully!
Due to you the flower of eloquence with me

25. Is like locust swarms descending insistently.
The Hamadan speaker circles far from me

26. To the point the letters roam confused in my head.
By your noble ancestors - solace

27. And consolation for those long passed - I pray
Who left the earth after having tamed it

28. And it marched under them without resistance.
Armies obeyed them; they were feared

29. So that the words of man were as carded wool to them.
Raids succeeding raids manifest your qualities

30. As the sustained assault of hail in seasons of sowing,
Which the career in wide land marshaled

31. Above excellence, as fine embroidery excels.
And which told in the meats your deeds in courage

32. Which undid Antar son of Shaddad the obese.
Whenever hopes made promises of your munificence,

33. Your hands were generous in fulfilling them.
A king who seeks the ode and before whom

34. The train grovels while the clothes-merchant is humble.
To us belong words - but he knows best

35. Their intricacies and is their ultimate judge.
Among the people are those before whom pass

36. Poets who peck as woodpeckers on a tree;
And such a person deems himself knowing

37. While in blindness losing his way like a blind man's stick.
Every poem matches its sayer, so measure

38. The assessor's intellect by the degree of its truth.