Sol 6.1

  1. Was it the traces of Hind's household that you recognized,

    at Jumran, desolate, refusing to disappear?

  2. You would take their recognizable markings, after

    two years had passed over them, for tattoos.

  3. I halted my she-camel to question them,

    yet what am I about—or what use is my questioning the traces?

  4. Their days reminded me of the old bond,

    and remembrance stirred an ailing heart.

  5. My tears overflowed, and I restrained them,

    streaming down my beard and my cloak.

  6. Then I urged on a pale she-camel, sturdy as a wild ass,

    massive and powerful, never weary of her swift trot,

  7. thick of flesh, built like a great male camel;

    when the others grunt, you find her silent.

  8. As though I draped her saddle-straps over

    a lean-bellied, stocky, ill-favored wild ass with a white belly,

  9. chiding females slender as withered spear-shafts,

    three of them, away from water, though parched with thirst.

  10. He grazed them on the stony upland until there withered

    the herbs of the water-hollows; he loathed the scorching wind.

  11. So they remained thirsty, with eyes turned sidelong

    toward the sun, afraid it might be obscured.

  12. When he realized that the day

    had departed, and perceived a dense, pitch-black darkness,

  13. he struck out across the night, driving his herd,

    with them, pressing, goading, and biting them onward.

  14. He brought them to water with the light of dawn,

    to watering-places that swept dense herbage away,

  15. brimming and green, like the color of the sky,

    where the brightest stars adorn the stars.

  16. And by the water was Qays, Abu Amir,

    hoping they would stand still for a while.

  17. In his hand was a curved bow from the Haram,

    made from cut branches, answering a twang with a low moan,

  18. and a slender, fine-tipped arrow—you see on its sinew binding

    a stain from what comes into contact with it.

  19. But he missed them, and they all fled,

    almost tearing their hides from terror.

  20. And if you ask me, I am a man

    who abases the ignoble and rewards the noble.

  21. I build high honor through noble deeds,

    satisfy my friend, and slake my drinking companion's thirst.

  22. A petitioner praises what I give him,

    when a seeker of gifts condemns the miser.

  23. I repay debts, faithfully fulfilling them:

    ill with ill, and kindness with kindness.

  24. And my people—if you call me a liar

    for what I say, ask someone who knows my people.

  25. Are they not those who, when hardship

    presses upon people and makes them forget good sense,

  26. hold their wealth cheap in a rightful cause,

    when calamities strip the grazing herdsman bare?

  27. Long-speared at break of day,

    men of valor who defend their households.

  28. Sons of war—on a day when they don armor,

    you would take them, clad in iron, for mighty bull camels.

  29. At Buzakhah—may my family be their ransom—

    when they filled al-Hazim with gathered hosts.

  30. And when Amir met, at al-Nisar,

    and at Tikhfah, a ruthless day at their hands,

  31. on which they took half the clan's wealth,

    Hawazin's, from wealthy and penniless alike.

  32. And Madhhij drove toward us at al-Kulab

    all its clients and its true-born tribesmen.

  33. And Madhhij drove [toward us] at al-Kulab,

    so they became crumbling remains, as though they had never been,

  34. from spear-thrusts that send unstaunchable blood surging,

    and blows that split massive heads.

  35. And their bodies lay at Taymun;

    whoever saw them likened them to dry, broken stalks.

  36. We left Umarah among the spears,

    Umarah of Abs, drained of blood and wounded.

  37. But for our horsemen, no call would have passed

    from Tamim to Tamim at Dhat al-Sulaym.

  38. It is not to disparage them that I recount

    my people's glorious deeds, nor to reproach them;

  39. rather, I recall our benefactions,

    both recent and those we performed long ago.

  40. And a dwelling of humiliation—we scorned to remain

    there, and so settled in an honorable abode,

  41. when some of them were, in the face of humiliation,

    like an ostrich of the rocks and a tender mother.

  42. And a dreaded frontier we occupied,

    where others fear [its menace] and dare not remain.

  43. There we made swords and spears

    our strongholds, and iron linked in ordered rings,

  44. and sleek horses kept close, before our families,

    among the tents, chewing their bits,

  45. accustomed in war never to leave their posts;

    when wounded, they do not complain of their wounds.

Sol 6.1