1. The skills of your archers, O tribe of Tha'labah,
Are shields against which the water troughs and ewes huddle.

2. They attack the enemies with loathing in this life, so they discipline them,
Disciplining them as Qays disciplined those who would not make amends.

3. If they are requited for sins which earned them Hellfire,
Hellfire does not pity them for their sins.

4. God enriched them with wealth but impoverished them
Of guidance, so they did not become independent, but rather grew dependent.

5. They look down on the brother of death among them,
Yet the one they look down upon is better than them.

6. It is as if lifetime is a path which Fate has extended,
In which there are neither pearls nor poverty.

7. The fire burned fiercely like an unmarried woman
Whom the fetters prevent from her bridewealth, and so she is not still.

8. It appeared at night like the eye of a cock above the rubbish heap,
Or like its crest in a place below which is a sheep pen.

9. The wind makes the departing camels quake around it,
Shedding tears copiously where they had camped.