1. We have an enemy in fate that we cannot overcome,
So do not blame fate when calamities befall you,

2. Whoever tries to make peace with it returns wounded,
So how can one who fights it find safety?

3. If I were safe from the one whose signs portend
Evil for me, then the one whose claws threaten me would be harmless.

4. Poetry complains of a lion that stalks it,
Whether it flirts or a jealous rival threatens it,

5. Its subtle charms are veiled from viewers’ eyes,
And its strange wonders are restricted from where it roams,

6. How could its journeys not take careful heed
When a vicious lion blocks its path?

7. O absence of generosity, whose absence pains,
And loss of refinement, whose company is missed!

8. Can sacred bounds be violated by force,
And tender young women stolen in their innocence?

9. After my life flourished with virtue
Until faded by the coming of old age,

10. And natural vigor in it ran clear as water,
Then came like polished steel its gray hairs,

11. And it was like fruit whose essence I tested
Ripely, but showing nothing but its delicacies,

12. A kind of magic cast on a group
Of dissolute revelers, praising and urging them on,

13. Its lines shine like streaks of lightning,
As if the parchment’s gold is the hand of its writer.

14. Defiled by others’ hands are its subtleties,
And blackened by my people’s flaws are its appropriatenesses,

15. A tender feeling, when our thoughts caress it,
That necessarily draws a hand to stroke it.

16. Plunder, and if devouring fire were to attend it,
Its plunderer would plunge into the flames,

17. Indeed, if its fugitive were to cling to the Pleiades,
The flight of Abū ‘Uthmān’s grasp would not miss him.

18. It captured and left in the valleys of captives flashes
Of beloveds—if their consequence had spared them—

19. When the archer sometimes contends with some
Of the deadly blows his bow unleashes, its giver is also its donor.

20. Upon my horse’s saddle it always launches raids
At which rational minds quake in fright.

21. Neither does it have a blunt spear when it flashes
Murderously, nor when its sword is bloodstained, a dull edge.

22. If it snatches away one of our sons,
His wailing kin rise to match his rhyme.

23. To you, from a star whose bird took flight
On high, stripping the atmosphere’s skin!

24. So avoid the torrent’s path, take cover
Lest its swirling pools jostle you.

25. I do not give guidance to a people whose
Calamities among them have been apportioned.

26. And do not in ignorance extend your hands
To the unobtainable, which no seeker attains.

27. Do the wealthy have any excuse for seizing
Finery, though its boldest robber earns the worst curses?

28. Tell the minister to be ashamed! His
Ruthless plunder exceeds the plundered.

29. God does not keep you from the pearls that adorn you,
So how many a man has had his finery stripped!

30. And a ship that verifies sincerity, its praiser,
As the slanderer verifies nothing but lies.

31. Propelled by the palms of injustice, provoked,
Bent by the spears of generosity, its rider.

32. Ibn Fahd has become, through his virtues, an enemy
After his weapons were spent in their battles.

33. You, undoubtedly, are of the heights of its prosperity,
Though its summit was stripped bare.

34. How can you pull tenderly that which
Others besides you have worn threadbare?

35. Of old, its brides flashed among them,
And its stars shone among them for ages.

36. The dirham of praise does not please you, and its mint
Did not stamp it with your name, unlike others’.

37. The best game for you is that whose snares
Were permitted, and the best money for you is that gained lawfully.

38. If you inclined to the warbling of praise, its
Warbler has arrived, while its critic sank down.