1. Did Al-Bahili think that I
Would sit still while his abuse surpassed me?

2. Nay, I am like him - if I did not surpass
Him to the heel and stirrup of my hounds -

3. Shall I make Darim like the two sons of Dukhan
When they were but spoils upon the camel’s back?

4. Had you made those whom my claws and fangs
Struck in the shares of booty pass in review,

5. You would have seen a lesson and deterrent
Fiercer than the resolute, biting she-camel.

6. When Sa‘d ibn Zayd died, the ground was
Soaked with more of his blood than dust.

7. You would think, when the baseborn fled to the crags,
That the earth was angry at Sa‘d.

8. Yet the earth is too weak for men
Like the fully-loaded camel lithe of gait.

9. I have seen them lord it over tribes
With the bending of nostrils and necks.

10. Abu Hilal, where shall be your refuge when
We fill it with kings and highborn chiefs?

11. When we block the passes of Tihama
And the plain of Al-Bitaḥ with a barricade?

12. None of the tribes has ever counted
The pedigrees of the noblest by ancestry,

13. Allowing that you are superior to them
In ancient times without any doubt.

14. Had God raised up a people to Him,
We would have flown to heaven with the clouds.

15. What ancestry has your father to compare
With the sovereigns of the Malays veiled in awe?