1. I came to Ibn ‘Amr and found him
Sick in disposition, exhausted.

2. So my horses stood at his door
Munching and eating their fodder.

3. Thirsty camels complaining to their Lord
That the night was too long for their watering.

4. So I began to invoke curses upon him,
That death might share out his inheritance.

5. Much was said that need not be repeated;
I told them it was the camels’ excrement.

6. He had certainly vomited from his fullness;
I made him disgorge what he had swallowed.

7. As for the rhymes, I jumbled them up
And brought out the booby’s nonsense.

8. Rhymes that the fool refused to string together
I reserved for the fool his stupidities.

9. Desolate places that had long lain waste,
And old men worn out with age,

10. When they halted in the abodes of Utá
Were cramped in its narrow passes.

11. How much poetry he broke in it,
And how much rubbish he scattered!

12. Surely I cannot be blamed if the wing
Of a falcon missed the quarry it was chasing.

13. Nor can fire be at fault if the helmet
Turned out in the morning to be its fuel.

14. The rhymes did no wrong, but you
Wronged them, exceeding all bounds.

15. You violated the beauties of that eulogy
Through ignorance, and were left with trifles.