Sol 5.6

  1. The beloved appeared from a lookout,

    full-lipped, towering over his neighbors.

  2. His full lip had turned to sugar,

    flowing between his teeth.

  3. In him was the fragrance of ambergris,

    its color and its smoke;

  4. and beauty marks of pungent musk

    spread across his cheeks.

  5. A fuzzy cheek-beard showed upon him,

    slender, large, and yellow,

  6. with a tawny-blond nape.

    How quickly you cry, “Juniper!”—

  7. his woolly hair recoils from it.

    His appearance was bewitching,

  8. and how wondrous were his eyes!

    He grew no further, but stayed smooth-cheeked.

  9. So-and-so says to me, “Hand him over!”

    Then he bent over the brazier

  10. and aged his carnelian glow there.

    Whoever knocked, scarcely anyone answered;

  11. and if he was a friend, he was devoted to him.

    If he had no excuse left,

  12. he would enter with his devil.

    Kuthayyir loved ʿAzza

  13. and claimed there was a spark in him,

    though at a hundred he was feeble—

  14. indeed, a hundred years and more.

    He knew Noah and Noah’s age;

  15. he will live until the Last Gathering,

    and his teeth have never gone.

  16. But what he can do to you!

    Ah, the turn of his glance—how sweet it is!

  17. How many a devout man of yours he has beguiled;

    and now we have welcomed him.

  18. He has a gentle manner that enthralls you—

    but who could ever leave him?

  19. His admirers are countless as ants;

    glory be to the One who sustained him.

  20. A young gazelle whose figure has withered,

    and modesty has fled his cheek;

  21. his fire mingles with his roses.

    He could go campaigning with Caesar

  22. and command Caesar’s troops.

    He had a saffron-colored mustache

  23. reaching behind his ears.

Sol 5.6