1. For whom are their dwellings now deserted?
They lie vacant after habitation and lawful intimacies.

2. The rains and the howling south wind have weathered the abodes,
After we dwelt in them.

3. My she-camel yearns for the life we knew there,
And bleats plaintively when the drivers raise their song.

4. Truly, I see the encampments are folded up,
With neither reluctance nor leave-taking.

5. When the archers enjoyed shooting I excelled
All other horsemen in wildness and skill.

6. My steed bore me forward, marked as I drove him on,
While the cob tossed his head aloft.

7. In two nights, when I intone a poem,
It will reach Oman and Mount Tayyi'.

8. Such is our vanguard that protects Malik
Against any onslaught in your absence.

9. When they saw the torment smiting them
The tribesmen became like elephants' mahouts.

10. You filthy louts! You are partners in shame!
While the vilest control the asses' leading ropes!

11. In the evening the Farazdaq is a partner
To Bu'ayth like a foal to a roan stallion,

12. Seeking you out, Farazdaq, when you wipe the milking pail,
But that has not increased your people save in shame.

13. Truly I have marked the she-camels with their split noses
And I have sufficiently praised Ibn Jissaal's poem to you.

14. So blow your udder, Farazdaq! I am pouring forth
A camel's urine on the site of your exalted abode.

15. When you turned to face my people's battle
I preferred that to my sons and wealth.

16. I urged on my horsemen and their valorous deeds,
And urged on the worst horsemen and their deeds.

17. We are the governors against any feared warfare
While you make ready to milk your udder.

18. Who is the horseman with the striped cloak, wielding a straight spear
With its two glorying banners, on that pitch-black night?

19. Who controls the kings when he charges,
And whose great piercing raids occur each day?

20. They repel attacks when the women are exposed,
Adorned with anklets and costly garments.

21. A people who orphaned your father, yet among them
Are lineages that surpass the sons of Qufayrah in nobility.

22. My horsemen can wrest sovereignty from kings,
And challenge them when the challenge is issued.

23. The bright faced one, by whose face is illuminated
The Hajjaj's sight of the new moon at its rising.

24. Our tongues flash, and Malik knows
That I have restrained my bitterness and pungent satire.

25. Ask the nobility of 'Amir's horsemen about Thi Nu'ab,
And ask 'Uyaynah about the day of grievous shades.

26. O Lord of the mighty feat, after we undid the knot
Which the tribes had cunningly tied!

27. Around our encampment the steeds of
A'war and Tha'laba's line will spend the night.

28. From each outlying camp, though the range is far,
Came the kindlers of flame, the couriers between nobles,

29. Racing headlong as if his rein were attached
To the creeping stalks of the lithe ora trees,

30. Pure of hide, which when you drape his saddle-cloth, spends the night
Unsullied by dust, a censor of faults.

31. The favorite wives' anklets as they walk delicately
Rival the digging of beasts of prey in the sand dunes.

32. These gifts of honor, Farazdaq, you must admit—
No market for your udder on the day your she-camel calves!

33. O men of Qufayrah, who will restrain our onslaught,
Or match the heavy burdens on our steeds?

34. Did you reckon your day at Al-Waqeet like ours
On the day of Al-Ghabeet with so few camels?

35. It cannot be hidden from you that Mujashi'
Though similar to men, are not men!

36. As for those who revile me, may God's wrath fall upon them!
And death on the elite at my hands in battle!

37. They were saturated clouds that poured down abundantly
After having gathered over ancient traces and ruins,

38. An empty expanse for the boars, where now lodges
The booty the Zubayr took to the sons of Tha'labah.

39. You have met the eyes of 'Ayan and Zubayr and Jee's,
An unflinching company, heavy upon you.

40. And Zubayr summoned Mujashi', who then showed scorn
At his treachery, with curled lips and dripping mustache.

41. Would that your neighbor Zubayr and your guest
Had clothed me in his garb instead of mine!

42. God knows that had he sought protection from us
He would have cowered in fright at our plunging attack.

43. And Jee's says when she saw you veiled,
"You are disgraced by an uncut-eared lion!"

44. The Farazdaq has come upon loss—it does not profit him—
Indeed, Farazdaq is occupied by other concerns.

45. Why does your mother don a coat of mail
With rings of steel dangling from her shirt?

46. You smeared your face above your udder as you stood
And gave your mother the dregs to drink.

47. Qufayrah has grown senile, though their women still conceive,
Sporting in the litter, in shifts and gowns.

48. May God make hideous the clan of Kadhaaf and the women
Whose beds the swine frequent like pastures!

49. The Farazdaq engendered all the slatterns,
Their faces are like blackened skillet-bread.

50. O hyenas, my right hand is free, so note
I roam unfettered, and the tribes have not occupied my left.

51. O hyenas, would that you might attain my seasons
With a leather bucket at Hanqa', and a group at Bilal!

52. O hyenas, I have cooked Mujashi' well,
A boiling that will disjoint their limbs!

53. O hyenas, were it not for your presence, you would not be
A buttress against my arrows when war grew intense.

54. O hyenas, you are all purity while I
Am disheveled, fragmentary, with a fearsome howl.

55. O hyenas, without you the resolute, while you
Are clients if the resolute are named my allies.

56. O hyenas, you are but the stuffing for Sa'd,
Like pure camels that the ignoramus has stuffed.

57. O hyenas, the tribes' passion has misled you,
Like the straying of adherents of the Antichrist, one-eyed liar.

58. So blow your udder, Farazdaq, and wait
In Karneba for the gift of the wine-skinner!

59. It shames the battalion when you spray excrement standing,
The weapons of ostrich chicks, Shibah of Ibn 'Iqal.

60. What noble man, when you summoned your uncle from among them,
Were they—neither men of valor nor men of trial?

61. My uncle who routed Hudhayl and their steeds
In the straitness of the contested ground allowed them space.

62. Bring me your uncle, Farazdaq, and let me know
That your uncle cannot match my uncles!