Sol 5.6

  1. Truly, in the mountain pass below Salʿ,

    lies a slain man whose blood shall not go unavenged.

  2. He left the burden upon me and departed;

    I alone am equal to bearing that burden for him.

  3. And I, his sister’s son, am on the trail of vengeance—

    a stubborn man whose knot of resolve cannot be undone.

  4. Head bowed, he beads with venom, as when a viper lowers

    its head—a deadly male serpent breathing poison.

  5. The news of what befell us looms grimly upright;

    it swelled until death itself seemed small within it.

  6. Time despoiled me, and time was tyrannous.

    May my father ransom him: his neighbor is never humbled.

  7. A blazing sun amid bitter cold; yet when

    Sirius rises, he is coolness and shade.

  8. Lean in both flanks, though not from poverty;

    open-handed, lionhearted, proudly assured.

  9. Ever journeying with firm resolve, until

    resolve alights—wherever it alights, he does.

  10. He has two tastes: honey and bitter colocynth,

    and everyone has tasted both.

  11. Rain from the clouds, engulfing wherever bounty avails;

    but when he strikes, he is a seasoned lion.

  12. Among his people, dark-lipped, he trails his ample robes;

    when he raids, he is a lean, swift samʿ—the wolf–hyena hybrid.

  13. He rides alone into mortal terror, and none

    accompanies him but a battle-notched Yemeni blade.

  14. Young warriors journeyed in the midday heat, then traveled by night

    through darkness until it rolled away, and then they encamped—

  15. each resolute man girded with a cutting blade,

    like lightning’s spearhead when it is drawn.

  16. Thus we exacted the blood-vengeance from them, and none

    of Lihyan escaped except the barest few.

  17. They drank mere snatches of sleep; and when

    they drowsed, I startled them, and they scattered.

  18. Though Hudhayl had blunted his blade,

    how often he himself had blunted Hudhayl!

  19. How often he forced her to her knees in an encampment

    so grindingly confined that the unarmed man is slain there.

  20. How often at dawn he fell upon her in her highlands;

    from him, after slaughter, came plunder and captured herds.

  21. Hudhayl was scorched by him—a reckless champion

    who never tires of war until they tire.

  22. He gives the upright spear its first drink, until

    once it has drunk, it has from him a second draught.

  23. The hyena laughs over Hudhayl’s slain,

    and you see the wolf howl exultantly over them.

  24. Noble birds of prey set out at dawn, full-bellied,

    stepping over them, too laden to take wing.

  25. Wine has become lawful, though it had been forbidden;

    only through the grievous ordeal it underwent did it become lawful.

  26. So pour it for me, Sawad son of ʿAmr:

    for since my maternal uncle’s death, my body has grown gaunt.

Sol 5.6