1. Do not deny youthful passion, tears, and sleeplessness,

    and recognize three afflictions of one who has loved.

  2. What of illness and its pallor can be concealed

    by a body restless when my patience's sustenance runs low?

  3. And how can it do anything but let its tears overflow—

    an eye that flutters when the east wind stirs?

  4. So leave me with a love from which reproach draws

    tears that race ahead when you say, 'Outrun them!' [reading uncertain]

  5. Indeed I was distraught, and the tribe's eye was distraught,

    and on the morning of parting I encountered terror.

  6. Umayra showed an aversion to visiting us,

    after binding us to passionate attachment.

  7. Ah, through a passing memory, she seldom departed

    from me, and the phantom image of Rima [uncertain reading] visited by night.

  8. She revealed a full moon in her saffron-dyed robes,

    and swayed a bān branch above a mound of dune-sand.

  9. She approached, swaying gracefully in her saffron-dyed robes,

    like the sun when it clothes itself in twilight's glow at its setting.

  10. She struts, swaying, in the finest [unclear term],

    swaying like a branch that bends and shakes off its leaves.

  11. She shows you a strange blackness when she unveils,

    of tresses that cover a dazzling white.

  12. I once traveled at a trot through the night of love,

    for a time, and galloped freely among love's horses,

  13. keeping close to a companion of the cup who gave me

    wine, now as a morning draught, now as an evening one.

  14. How many a pleasure he and I once enjoyed over

    morning wine, when the cock of dawn crowed,

  15. in a garden beside a pool; whenever there swept

    across it the east wind [text partly unclear], it rippled.

  16. with youths and young men who, when they became drunk,

    showed you neither stinginess nor recklessness among them.

  17. We spent the day soothing ourselves with delights,

    while the wine jar disgorged blood-like clots among us,

  18. of wine that, whenever mixing water was blended with it,

    revealed fragments of pearl upon gold,

  19. until it seemed that carnelian in our glass

    had been melted, and musk ground along its edges.

  20. Then I desisted; revelry would still have been my desire,

    had I thought a breath of youthful passion remained within me.

  21. Youth has departed, and this gray hair has dressed me,

    after fresh new clothing, in a threadbare robe.

  22. Time scattered my loved ones and gave me in exchange

    enemies for them, and burning for the heart's coolness.

  23. O Time, you changed the states of joy, but never

    changed any fine habit or character of mine.

  24. And I see myself, through my enemies' hatred, grief-stricken,

    embittered, choking on cups of hurt.

  25. Were it not for verses of poetry through which I find relief

    from the burning anguish of care, my lifeblood would have melted in dismay.

  26. One with an afflicted chest must bring up his sputum,

    and who can find words to lament his longing?

  27. When I resolve to stint on praises of

    Dhuhl and Ya'rub, the verse comes fittingly:

  28. the two noble, resolute lords, who

    have attained every rare distinction in glory.

  29. The finest virtues have sung to them, as though they

    were created from the two jewels of noble character.

  30. They glittered with a splendor befitting them,

    and shone with a light that fills the horizon.

  31. Crowned with the two crowns of eminence and exaltation,

    adorned with the two necklaces of chastity and piety,

  32. they wrapped themselves in ambition, shod themselves with resolve;

    they draped themselves in ardor and girded themselves with valor.

  33. The mighty kings among mankind vied with them, but they

    passed beyond the limit and raced ahead to the heights of glory.

  34. Each surged like a roaring sea of generosity

    for us, and poured down like a cloud of abundant, life-giving rain.

  35. The house of al-'Atik and the sons of kings possess

    on earth a light of glory that dazzles daybreak.

  36. Whoever does not acknowledge their mighty attainments of eminence

    has earned blame and sought ignorance and folly.

  37. O you who envy them unjustly, die of grief;

    and you who cannot match their striving, melt with rage!

  38. O my two lords, accept sincere counsel from

    my soul, and accept no flattery from anyone else.

  39. Here, both of you, take it—like a necklace of gold adorned

    with pearls interspersed within it in ordered sequence.

  40. And the potent musk of my praise

    of you will remain fragrant whenever it touches your honor.

Sol 6.1