1. You think my sorrows have not festered,
Yet separation has festered in one who has festered.

2. With kohl-rimmed eyes she gestured,
Bewitching, when she bade farewell and took leave.

3. A farewell embrace prolonged the good-byes,
My tears mingled with hers as they intermixed.

4. Will a reunion time come to pass
After months gone by and pilgrimages made?

5. You kept your distance only because of boredom,
Weariness, nothing else, and jesting.

6. And if difficulties came between us,
In them are complexities for the family.

7. So many gardens in the courtyard of the Lord
That lightning flashes through every nook.

8. How a sandgrouse circles about to reach them,
Then, missing its mark, swerves askance!

9. When the wind shakes their boughs,
Their lamps entwine and double over.

10. We met there, and you pretended with their
Soft twittering and goodly scent.

11. A pasture has sent forth a copious stream
From the rain, gushing or rippling.

12. If my rightful due comes between us, Jacob
Will not relinquish it, Ibn al-Faraj.

13. Will Jacob appropriate what is mine with him
While Jacob is a man well-provisioned, unneedy?

14. I am bent on his gaining no joy from me
And delighting not in what he has attained.

15. When he tightens the band of his belt
Over a mighty scabbard, becoming enraged,

16. He fancies that I cannot contend with
An uncouth lout in the open desert.

17. Whence throng to him numerous partisans?
Do crowds upon crowds come to him?

18. His wife, her womb is barren.
His son is crippled and lame.

19. Would that he had not transgressed
Against me, the deceitful wretch, and quailed!

20. Father Joseph, stubborn man that you are,
None has acted as you have acted, stubborn man!

21. The evildoers' worst is the hypocrite
Who persists if he finds scope for persistence.

22. Come, to truth let us hasten!
With our argument let us hasten or grope blindly!

23. We will rely on the truth until it illuminates
The confusing situation or becomes clear.

24. In a stance beyond which we have
No more disputes, whispers, or turmoil.

25. He whom the Judge acquits is delivered;
He whom the Judge indicts is condemned.

26. Since no acceptable witness backs you
In your denial, a friend conniving,

27. While you are neither an oath-keeper
Nor one who breaks his oath and recoils,

28. Will you accept the enormity of priests
And sever what they have patched together?

29. Will you wail in the beard of a prostrate old man
When he wanders in the lands of Sheba and sobs?

30. Claiming that those who pursued
Christian sciences are an unruly rabble?

31. That you did not appropriate my money
And did not persistently demand proofs?

32. If you have conspired, betrayed,
Or maligned me unjustly to any who maligned,

33. Violating Mary in her faith,
Abandoning her established way,

34. Tearing her compassion to shreds, unbeliever
In Him who spun the thread or wove—

35. If you have magnified what the Jews magnified,
Praying to their direction or making pilgrimage—

36. If you have mocked your old woman until you penetrated
Her womb, entering what had come out—

37. If you have demolished the Church of Saint Sergius,
Extinguished its lamps and candlesticks—

38. If you have kindled its bells and cross
Beneath your supper until the sparks flew—

39. If you have risen early to belch at the great altar
And befoul those stairs—

40. If you have slipped into a curse from God
That will settle upon you without troubling you—

41. What plaster when the cracks start
To crumble in your broken emirates?

42. What oath if a man undertakes it
Under a judge, yet it proves difficult?