Sol 5.6

  1. Do not blame me now that my cheek-whiskers have grown,

    now that I have become lost as a donkey—

  2. lost, I seek—though wheat has beguiled me—

    barley sold in exchange for poems.

  3. If I go missing by day, then track my musk—

    seek me on the perfumer’s shop-bench.

  4. I am a young ass from Upper Egypt; so, if you wish—

    have me cried for publicly, aloud.

  5. Yet, for want of fodder, my heart

    is constricted as though caught in a muzzle.

  6. Whenever I remember my kin, I droop

    beneath the burning pangs of recollection.

  7. Never shall I forget al-Hayti as he cries out

    through the night’s darkness, divulging my secrets:

  8. “Who has seen Ibn Daniyal for me—my companion,

    and companion of the whole band of rogues—

  9. the sage, the physician, lord of jest and earnestness,

    the celebrated man of letters throughout the cities;

  10. the nose of lofty discernment,

    the refuse of mankind and dung of dignity;

  11. honor’s testicle, glory’s anus, the droppings

    of pride—‘it is sugar!’—the beaver of verse?”

  12. O whiskers of al-Hayti, you stirred my nature

    after it had been still and settled.

  13. O whiskers of al-Hayti, what ails my tears,

    between my thighs pouring forth devastation?

  14. O whiskers of al-Hayti, the length

    of night has sorely harmed me after the revelers’ first sleep.

  15. O whiskers of al-Hayti, your dye today

    is like the hues of white daisies and pomegranate flowers.

  16. And if you choose a dye other than this, then hear

    a recipe from Shamandakh of the shrine:

  17. Take my loose dung, from ancient excrement,

    and dung from an anus, pure yellow;

  18. taste my shit, chew my droppings, and sniff a fart;

    eat hard dung, wars dye, and children’s droppings.

  19. Pound it fine whenever you wish, with henna,

    and add it to the farrier’s poultice.

  20. Then leave it in the sun until you see it,

    once a copper fals, take on a dinar’s golden hue.

Sol 5.6