1. You never excelled, nor were you first,
And were shielded between two ignorant men.

2. An-Nabighah, if you excel in your vileness, you will not find
Except amid the locks of Ja'dah's disheveled hair.

3. You insulted me with an illness like your mother's,
And which steed isn't called spirited?

4. I would not have mentioned the heel of Hazir
Had I cast aspersions on my whole tribe.

5. News came to me that a tribe
In Shauran saddle well-bred horses,

6. Their delegates come and go with a letter
To take from me the evil price of protection.

7. Without any crime except that I said about their uncle
He lives while his people are plunged in misery,

8. And a blind man brought him in the Hijaz and inspired them,
Though he was on the outskirts of mountains so he slipped down.

9. His companions carried him
To the abode of another tribe which was more excellent and former.

10. When their warriors turn away from their enclosures
They leave exposed to raids a protected settlement,

11. Taking bracelets as spoils to glory and elevation.
And by my honor if you do the like I shall do it too

12. With a glory, which if the despicable man seeks,
He will fall into an abyss and be twisted.

13. Are you forbidden from satire
While in other matters the nobler man is distinguished?

14. We have a bow below the sky and its origin
Standing erect forever will not be shaken.

15. And I knew no glory among people,
Except our glory which was first.

16. So had you, when contending with me, contended with one doomed to die,
He would have gone the way of a blotched nose or bent cripple.