Sol 5.6

  1. Leave room between my skin and bones—

    enough to hold passion and bear sorrows.

  2. And spare my eye: perhaps sleep has lost its way

    in its nightly rounds, and I, though drowsy, might set it back upon its course.

  3. What the slanderers carried was no sincere counsel

    from anyone trustworthy, but calumny passed along.

  4. They reproached you over me and changed your inmost heart;

    then, seeing gray hair, you openly deemed my rejection lawful.

  5. Reproaching me is deemed justice, while the wrong done to my locks—

    they named it honor for me, yet it brought humiliation.

  6. Youth had not changed the color of my locks

    until my beloved began to change his colors.

  7. One white hair blackened my record in his eyes

    and, by appearing plainly, hastened him toward estrangement.

  8. If he shuns the withered brushwood in me, seeking what is sound,

    why did he pluck its youthful bloom as fragrant basil?

  9. O you who reproach me for sleep while savoring it—

    by God, what eyelids he has—what eyelids!

  10. Those who at Rāma forgot our covenant

    prospered, while the one among us most faithful to it suffered most.

  11. They departed; I turned gray though I had not aged—it was only

    youth itself departing, escorting the departing camel-litters.

  12. I find the dwellings just as I knew them; only

    my grief is that I miss the neighbors.

  13. O you who leave me—your parting makes me forget embraces;

    to you I complain of wind and branches.

  14. Even hard rock softened on farewell day out of pity for me—

    if only the departing beloved's heart had softened.

  15. O my solitude! How many brothers I have

    to outward sight—and how many more traitors among them!

  16. Wherever my gaze falls, a brother stands around me—

    sincere whenever wealth shakes its boughs.

  17. Tend my camels with me: if they grow lean,

    they remain my camels however their condition changes, or if they return fat.

  18. If time's adversity bites me, he helps it;

    yet you see him begrudge whatever good fortune I attain.

  19. I buy him dearly in the ease of life,

    and in its hardship he sells me for nothing.

  20. I meet them, as numerous as the stars,

    all around me—yet I face calamities alone.

  21. Brand them all faithless, making an exception only if

    you swear that you see no human being.

  22. Just as I make the deaf hear eloquence and understand it,

    and show the blind the wonders of my excellence.

  23. If Time has sobered and grown sound through one man,

    then through my long forbearance its folly has grown drunk.

  24. Though among virtues I found their very essence,

    in the fury of my striving I seek the eminent themselves.

  25. May one whose ribs harbor rancor against you ransom you—

    out of envy whose very water leaves fires behind.

  26. Bewildered: your two ancestral stocks fletched you like an arrow, while his fortress

    was weak-rooted and scattered him in flight.

  27. The abject man remained in his own land against his will,

    while you won glory by forsaking homelands.

  28. He did not consult you about her, but deemed his own judgment

    good; deprived of counsel, he failed and betrayed.

  29. Among the wonders: he drives you, a seasoned stallion, away from her,

    yet hopes to possess her as an untried colt.

  30. May no eye sleep after you, if sleep tastes sweet to

    an eye that, while awake, turns away from your excellence.

  31. Whether nearness or distance befalls me, wish for me

    a friend whose qualities delight you, whether he draws near or goes away—

  32. one you approve both when he attends the assembly and when alone,

    in affection, Hamdanid loyalty, and eloquence—

  33. rather than one who grows more hateful in your sight whenever I seek

    his intercession and expose him to you plainly.

  34. If today a single trait in him pleases you,

    tomorrow his virtues will come full and appear fair.

  35. And hear from her a maiden ode, virgin and unprecedented; whenever

    she is courted before you, I follow her with a mature companion.

  36. She is a breath of magic that has loosened the—

    reins of lords like you for me through her.

  37. With poems like this I purchased the affection of kings

    long ago, and through it they became my brothers.

  38. I made her a price for one like you; indeed I

    always bid every other price beneath her.

  39. Her dower, already received, is your affection for her sister,

    secured by the vizier's bond; now send her forth, a bride borne aloft.

  40. Her unveiling is in the arena of that praise

    which clears eyes and minds to behold her.

  41. Many a displayed beauty has had her loveliness obscured;

    your approval makes her reap excellence.

  42. They are two sisters; preserve me through them with all your effort,

    through a noble man by whom circumstances conveyed them to me.

  43. Tell him that true merit lies in meaning, though

    they have exalted So-and-so and So-and-so in his regard.

  44. Perhaps then, because of her, he will be restrained from betraying me,

    and after sorrow I shall be glad and exultant.

  45. Were it not for your trustworthiness, famed whenever

    you are entrusted with a secret or undertake a guarantee,

  46. I would never consent to appoint as her father

    a man whose peers meet their equals at his court.

  47. I would fear their jealousy might drive her away;

    prudence never trusts the jealous.

Sol 5.6