أنخْتُ في حانةِ أُترُجَّةٍ
وحبّذا حانتُها من مُنَاخْ
I alighted at Utrujjah’s tavern,
I dwelled in a tavern of sweet grace,
and what a fine resting-place her tavern is!
How fine was its dwelling place!
ثم اطَّرَحْنا الدِّينَ في بيتِها
حتى انسلَخْنا منه أيَّ انسلاخْ
Then we cast religion aside in her house,
Then we cast off religion in that house,
until we had stripped ourselves of it utterly.
Until we were stripped of it completely.
تُصافحُ الخمرُ به نفسَها
ونزرعُ النسلَ بها في السِّبَاخ
Wine shakes hands with itself there,
Wine greets itself there,
and there we sow seed in salt flats.
And we sow progeny in the bushes.
كلُّ سميعٍ في الهوى مُبصِرٌ
أعمى عن الرُّشدِ أصمَّ الصِّماخْ
Every keen listener is clear-sighted in passion,
Every lover is seeing,
yet blind to right guidance and deaf of ear.
Blind to guidance, deaf to admonition.
حتى إذا الشَّمسُ بها آذَنت
خيامَها الصُّفْرَ بحلِّ الأواخ
At last, when the sun there gave notice
Until when the sun warned therein,
to her yellow tents that their tethers should be untied,
Its yellow tents at the rising of cocks.
راحوا عن الراح وقد بدَّلوا
مشيَ الفرازينِ بمشي الرِّخاخ
they departed from the wine, having substituted
They went from comfort and had exchanged
the gait of chess viziers for the gait of rooks.
The gait of the vigorous for the gait of the lame.
Sol 6.1