1. Perhaps if you settle somewhere, O love
Vengeful ones will return to you with livers bleeding

2. The fierce winds have erased it, moaning over pebbles
And the downpour of heavy rain and its floods

3. Except for two cheeks furrowed by my tears
The lifeblood of every miserable wretch pouring down them

4. So when I asked the countryside where your tent was pitched
The living intended no reply and led the questioner astray

5. Whenever I heard that some wretched soul
Had wept for you or you had oppressed him

6. I adorned the lover so that he wept
Until his darling ones took him away

7. As if my heart were a bird snared
Who saw his deceiver when the snares entangled him

8. One evening the living one turned away a young camel, decorating her
With a nose-rein - she left behind her nose-bag

9. No part of her but was dusty-haired or white-blazed,
Prickly with thorn-bushes or cleft of hoof

10. When the clan spent a night with her, their close friendship
Was destroyed by her terrors and calamities

11. I interpreted tokens concerning her and kept track of them
With the spying of a boy of two years - his observing was weak

12. With a neck curved like a ladle, the horsemen
competed for her, the most valiant of heart, ignorant

13. When I said she belonged to a tribe, she turned aside
Until a horseman of Mikhy guided her back

14. As though I and my camel-litter were above a desolate valley
While the sides of her saddle-frame were breaking apart

15. A pasture that denied both her and her leanness
So that they were nothing but brightly gleaming, deadly weapons

16. For months of dew, until a companion came to her
And her eyes glanced at him sharply

17. Next day she was speeding after wild donkeys
By evening they had turned her back, defeated

18. She remained standing still among Nu'ayr's hills
Like a people in fear with cowardly hearts

19. When she saw the wing of night spreading
She did what she did - and it was up to her

20. She made for the tents of Rawiya's clan
Where a brother of Bayd had a firm character

21. He covered them at mating time and when he withdrew
From them, the clattering tent-poles moaned

22. They kindled the fires of lovemaking and the sparks flew
Between them, while the cooking-pots boiled over

23. When they said "No more!" he said "Yes!" and the branding irons flashed
"Indeed," while he was confused by the open spaces and dunes

24. And when he made it easy, they extracted a branding
As though it were tufts of flax their awls plucked out

25. He brought her when night was halfway gone, after
Fervent passion had induced in her what her ragings could not

26. She could see the stars of night in her as though they were
Lamps being fueled in a prayer-niche and its candles lit

27. On her nearer side which no spear-thrust reached
But hot-brandings, blue, opposite each other

28. Aiming with a branding-iron which, when he moved
His fingers, gave out a humming sound

29. They guided the halters and moved the fore-arms
Toward them, seizing the occasion of mating eagerly

30. The side of his ear touched her spine
And the lower part of his throat met her deadly blows

31. It passed by the two elbows and he warded it
Off from his belly, if he did not meet sudden death

32. Oh what a mistake! What a going astray!
What strength to wrench bones and shed their joints!

33. As a wild ass charged down on a reddish camel, sniffing her urine,
While the voice of a fool harangued him to release her

34. Or was it the slavering desire, having an opportunity,
For him - with his neck twisted and his forelock dishevelled?

35. He pastured on dangerous places alone, as though he were
A polished sword that had cast off the sheathings of its blade

36. Days of tranquility corrupted him from gentle ways -
He contended with his shadow in them and his thoughts strayed

37. When a small blow from her assailed him, though he did not know
Where it came from, a friend brought him her wind, joined to him

38. Next morning the dew was streaming from him as though
He were the single stallion who had lost the progeny of his ancestor