1. My lords, you've been too harsh in blaming me unjustly out of ignorance.
You'd have excused my blame and torment

2. had you not doubted God's oneness, as if I were skeptical of monotheism.
Do you think me frigid? Stand up! If only you knew the taste of coolness.

3. For it's the law of passion that the wise should seem to the peoples unwise.
You've blamed me plenty for standing with eyes

4. flowing with tears and sighing.
My light Nawar, did you break your vow

5. or just get a new idea about annulling those bonds?
Do I complain of pale cheeks or sick gazelles?

6. Or of reddened cheeks do I complain?
Passion has a pain that strips the flesh

7. when it touches one who's otherwise stoic.
Die a martyr of love! He who dies of love

8. gets twice a martyr's reward.
A king whose rest brought low

9. both parent and child.
Each day has new gifts for him

10. received with new thanks.
His rest created in munificence what wouldn't exist

11. if not for his call to bring into being.
Had a palmful striven to offer before his offer

12. his offer would have striven to spurn that palmful.
How many envoys through him sought refuge

13. and by his hand the envoys gained refuge!
He was so generous that his health forgot

14. what's divided of sandgrouse, ornaments and chattels.
For him every feast has an end, but

15. every day of his munificence is a feast.
Nothing's sweeter to him in life

16. than success egging him on to what's been promised.
A carpet that rose above the stars,

17. then grew inflated after it went beyond them to ascend.
The wind cannot reach its extent,

18. so it pines in dejection at its outstretchedness.
His firm resolve laughs at formidable undertakings

19. as it marches ahead heedless of obstacles.
Had lions met him they'd have given

20. the submission of the helpless to the lions' mastery.
His might claims lives, his largesse claims largesse.

21. Sublimity through his actions when gathered together,
and pleads through his hands when dispersed apart.

22. So pleads were offensive in trespassing against him
and they must pay those damages.

23. The events of time receive from him
a will like an impenetrable crag.

24. He loves no meager praise,
nor solicits thanks for paltry gifts.

25. Without fright when evil looms,
or panic, or violent trembling.

26. He has not lost the way of right
nor shot in judgement an errant arrow.

27. He beat Hurmuz in glory and nobility of old,
and al-Ḥasan al-Qaram in worthy lineage.

28. His ancestor Shalmgan—most generous ancestor!—
recommended glory through worthy deed.

29. From him in amicable company
gush springs of goodly greenery.

30. We've not had vengeance on the nights
and days but for Aḥmad the praiseworthy.

31. He made the sword arbitrator for the Sijistān crowd
and his soul still craves more.

32. Their bellies sated beasts of prey—
they were buried in bellies of twisted-haired hyenas.

33. Death by spear abandoned them in the morning
between bowing and prostration.

34. So they are two parties: one slain,
his soul harvested by an iron blade;

35. another now captive for whom prison is torment—
alive but in the state of one entombed;

36. a batch for the swords, in whom the decree of death
is realized directly, and a batch for shackles.

37. Doomsday was staged for him in Qum
against some apostate bound to perish.

38. So the next day they were for him quarry
for vultures while he stood like a quarry

39. and turned away instructing, on horses frolicking
beneath armor, to Tabaristān

40. while their settled abodes were sacked by spears of death—
wounded, or comatose, or destroyed.

41. Likewise the Kurds set out death's spearheads for them
in the lances' length lay eternity.

42. As the swords set out their blade-tips for Bāzawīn and Jorjān—
their lifelines were severed.

43. The spearheads embraced them so no warrior remained
but was shrouded in his deep pit.

44. The lances strode over them while prone
and over prone and fallen corpses.

45. Such is the man—no land he attacks rationally
but his armies suffice for troops.

46. His armies run riot and deaths come to be
between his banners and rules.

47. He guaranteed provision for every bird
as provisions for each beast and hunter were guaranteed.

48. His palm had mastered auspicious occurrences
and his swords mastered promises.

49. He empowered the kingdom after its pillar
had tilted with the divisive sword of every restorer.

50. Extinguishing the flames of every battle
whose embers he dampened after their burning out.

51. How many a dear soul he destroyed
who then rode high on camel litters above camel litters!

52. One freed from confinement the open battlefield could not contain—
it held him in the narrowness of his belt.

53. Stalwarts handed him over to soft beds—
men who, when it came to their bow-cords, did not sleep.

54. So he was like the poet whom inspiration
possessed though most were oblivious.

55. The beast of the wastes envies him though he is not
in a state to be envied.

56. Vanished from his brothers, he's neither
with them, nor lost to them.

57. As if his palms outstretched over the trunk
in the assembly where help is witnessed

58. were a bird resting its weary wings—
the resting of an exhausted toiler.

59. And he has a companion addressing in his stead
him who has drawn more than a handspan away from him.

60. For him no father counts but water
nor mother but the heat of the dust.

61. Yet despite his frail body the starling displays
through him outstanding courage.

62. Most articulate of creatures when on foot,
when you mount him his very gaze captivates.

63. He does not repel iron from the noblest of intent
until he tastes the iron's flavor,

64. and likewise the sword pleases you not
by withholding itself at the hour of direct encounter.

65. On foot his speech flies with perfect correctness
while at home he's a sedentary dear one.

66. He has two branches: an evil and luminous Shurayḥ;
and an Arīm, a lethal foe and a staunch comrade.

67. How many happy ones misfortune girded!
How many miserable ones fortune swathed!

68. He fills books with probity and solitude
like pearls threaded and matched.

69. Digging them out darkly and making them shine
for the people in black robes.

70. Thus you find them like girls in bridal processions
promenading the midst of an overflowing meadow.

71. He strings prose like a composer strings
matched rows of round pearl.

72. O son of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, you've graced whatever governorate
you controlled, and whatever official garb.

73. An emirate after commandership—
God's boons followed upon them unceasingly.

74. Victory for the Azkutakīn is now guaranteed
by you in your banners knotted tightly.

75. He did not formally receive from you a position
thereby encompassing the failure implicit in such investiture.

76. If in all mankind a Saʿd al-Suʿūd exists,
you are the Saʿd of the Saʿūds!

77. My champion of dew, through you my camels stretched out to pasture,
my anxieties subsided, and my tent pole lies at ease.

78. You surmounted in eloquence
any noble or revered sovereign.

79. Scrutinizing examination and composition like matched pearl—
you distinguished them uniquely.

80. Hearers crave more when they hear it. If they recite it
from memory they appropriate it despite its great distance.

81. And an eloquence that, when you reprise it,
becomes novel with a reprising narrator.

82. Too lofty for comprehension
or to be grasped by describers seeking detail.

83. It is as the never-found gazelle the hunters glimpsed
or looked down on from over the dunes;

84. or garden roses, wisps of smoke,
snow patches, or the cold's mirage.

85. Your talent outpaces any description—
the ode alone won't encapsulate you fully.

86. Yet the ode is the most inclusive thing
for one sublime and noble.