1. Whether we camp at hot midday or journey on,
I'll never be content with the abode of dishonor.

2. Ask me not whither my camels take me,
Why question me? Why ask where I go?

3. My soul is weary of staying here so long.
Roving the deserts blindly, roaming from vale to vale.

4. How can I stay in a village of louts
Where I see the basest among them exalted?

5. O sons of my uncle! Though you be many,
You are to me as the hyena's clan, vile and wretched!

6. And those whom the days enriched and made great
Are to me, though they be Quraysh, base and abject.

7. Curse him who bears patiently his friend's wrongs!
Who makes the keenest satire his daily repast!

8. Who won't defend a friend though he hear him slandered,
Though time has raised him high or enriched him at last!

9. Who renders not good for good, evil for evil,
Requiting with kindness the kind, and the cruel with cruel.

10. My friends, no more disputing! My mind is resolved:
I am determined to travel, so question no further.

11. The verse of a poet my case illustrates well:
"When the sun rises o'er me, my wont is to travel."

12. To a man of good counsel, the day speaks plain:
"Strike camp, or calamity shortly will strike."

13. How remain, when my hearth-fire is fed every day
With branches of palm-trees well dried and trimmed straight?

14. How long in the tribe shall I lurk, and beware
Their spears in the battle, their shafts? How much longer

15. Endure, while they water their camels with draughts
From my cistern, and milk my best she-camels at pleasure?

16. My friends of near kindred rejected my call.
Though I summoned them, fettered, to share my exile,

17. Then I called to far tribesmen, but found on them
No dependence in trouble, no stay, and no succor.

18. In days when the tribe was secure and at peace,
Had I summoned them then, they had come thronging round me.

19. But tribesmen held back from my call, withdrew,
Like a brood that sees peril, yet does not assemble.

20. Had I offered a dirhem, they would have obeyed,
Trooping forth with their horses to fill up the hollows.

21. Men who covet high office win ease for themselves,
Not for others - and hoard up their gifts and their bounty.

22. I blame not my people, for I was not wont
To ask little from them, or gladly take less.

23. But when came the moment of imminent doom,
I stood like a dyke 'gainst the flooding disaster.

24. Beware of the rope that binds our community fast,
Lest a breach appear and the knot be unloosed!

25. Beware how you slight the ally who turns
And forsakes you; for fallen and lost will you be!

26. When I ponder my tribe and their Treatment of me,
I believe that when evil impends, good follows after.

27. My streaming tears testify my distress.
As befits streaming tears, let them flow and not tarry!

28. The tribe's nights, and the omens they lately revealed,
Bode naught but the like of calamities past.

29. Ah, the woes that I suffer! Each hour brings forth
Something new to perplex me, some crooked affair.

30. Or else I must see my own people led captives,
Abasedexiles, in fetters enchained and dishonored,

31. While enemies glut their anger, denying themselves
No vengeance, cutting off even the dearest relation.

32. This, because we made weapons and armor for them,
Lances to lunge at us, flames to inflame and consume us.

33. He who equips his foe for the day of battle
Should clothe himself in the rags of submission and slavery.

34. He who puts his affairs in his enemies' hands
Will be dubbed a fool, feeble and frivolous.

35. He who lives by ignominy lives not long:
Death hurries to him, delayed yet advancing.

36. He whose friends are no match for his foes
Will be overwhelmed, destroyed in general slaughter.

37. He who bends to injustice one day, tamely submitting,
Is likelier still the next day to bend and submit.

38. He who shuns the beginning, the first step of a course,
Shows himself a poor soldier whenarrows fly thickest.

39. Woe to my people! Had they but obeyed me, they would have perceived
That among them stood one like a fortress to shelter them.

40. I was never content to consort with their low ones;
The high ones among them were those I would equal.

41. But when the affair is decided, and fighting breaks out,
I take my stand like a firmly hammered rivet.

42. Many a city, though warned by a prophet, will fail -
Will fall into ruin and wreck predestined for it.

43. So, Lord, neither grant me an ignoble survival here
Nor death before my appointed end, I implore You!