Sol 5.6

  1. A sun among fair beauties wounds me with her estrangement;

    her abandonment kills me, while union with her revives me.

  2. Life is sweetest when I am joined to her—indeed,

    I see only misery in my life whenever she shuns me.

  3. For the arrow of her eyes pains me in the heart,

    while the saliva of her smiling mouth heals me when sipped.

  4. O you who blame me for loving her, if what

    I have suffered befell you, what made me weep would make you weep.

  5. You blame me, yourself ignorant of passion, while

    my hearing is not with me—as though you had never reproached me.

  6. How could I understand the reproach you openly declared,

    when, deep in my heart, love for Saʿdā whispers to me?

  7. Were it not for love, Majnūn would never have gone on composing love verse about

    Laylā, nor would he have been driven mad by Laylā.

  8. I am the lovesick sufferer, yet I have never found

    any physician but her to tend me.

  9. Were Mount Sinai to encounter what repeatedly assails me,

    Mount Sīnīn itself would surely crumble from what I endure.

  10. How dear is the land of Yabrīn, and she who dwells there!

    Dear, too, is whatever comes from the land of Yabrīn:

  11. it wafts us the fragrance of lavender and wild ʿarār blossoms,

    as we dwell in the shade of a life never cut short.

  12. The air is clear, and the ʿarār blossoms brim luxuriantly;

    the meadow is lovely, its boughs swaying.

  13. The sun casts the robe of splendor over

    the meadow’s blossoms, drenched and dark just after the rain.

  14. Dew is gathered in the flowers’ eyes,

    like tears gathered in the eyes of dark-eyed beauties.

  15. Bowing she-camels crossed the trackless wastes, bearing us,

    their packs gaunt, their chin-beards tawny.

  16. They carry pearls of verse—pearls far finer than

    precious pearls concealed within their shells—

  17. until, after weariness, they brought us before

    the mightiest, most awe-inspiring, pure in affection and blessed of men:

  18. ʿAlī al-Muʿaffar; then his clouds poured down

    with noble gifts, and he was not deemed to have lost by giving.

  19. Through him lofty honors are won by every wielder of a striped blade,

    and every wearer of close-linked, finely tempered, firmly wrought mail.

  20. How many foes in battle has he felled with his sharp sword,

    as though he were Ḥaydar on the day of Ṣiffīn!

  21. Crown of glories, frequent climber of pulpits, the great pro-

    tector of freeborn women, sultan of sultans!

  22. O you who have outstripped all and reached the utmost bound, unfettered in your aim—

    your arena surpasses the furthest reach of every arena.

  23. If you raced the kings of the lands for supremacy,

    you would be the thoroughbred, and they mere packhorses.

  24. If you have spent everything you possess, down to the last hair,

    then rejoice: in lofty glory you have suffered no loss.

  25. How many a fair-minded man has wealth that takes refuge in his vaults,

    while your wealth lies freely cast forth, never hoarded.

  26. Wealth with which a man walls himself in does not adorn him:

    that is miserliness, though his wealth were Qārūn’s treasure.

Sol 5.6