1. You blame me for satirizing the clan of Kulayb,
Yet to blame is so unbecoming of you.

2. I said to her, "Do you not recognize me,
When my waist-wrap is tightened in earnest?"

3. Had the nobles of Kulayb satirized me,
I'd not have engaged them in discourse.

4. But when the vile satirize me,
I grow wrathful, and my defense turns vocal.

5. At the end of her reproaches she said,
"Would you satirize the doddering elders?"

6. "Would you satirize the bald and the son of Layla,
And old Sa'sa'ah who roamed the seas?"

7. "And Najiyah, whose tent ropes Tameem
Would follow wherever they were pitched?"

8. With him Tameem's spears were planted
On the eve when the hems were tucked up.

9. While you harp on the clan of Kulayb,
Mumbling and stammering incoherently,

10. How can you restrain yourself, O son of Layla,
To a crumbling ruin with hollowed caves?

11. Do you reckon the rabble of Kulayb
To be the worst of men in lineage and abode?

12. Nay, lift them up, for your father aspires
To the heights whenever the trenches are dug.

13. Your father is nobler than Kulayb
When the staffs are tightly bound together.

14. When Abu Jarir's kin are reckoned
He lingers shyly by his dugout and recoils,

15. Caring not whether the black bondsman
Is sullied by night or by day,

16. For he has a gift for him should he fear aught
From the slave chains he had covetously buried away."