Sol 6.1

  1. One of the budding-breasted maidens of Banu Nasr,

    darkness testified for her against the full moon.

  2. Like eggs brooded over by their ostriches,

    she is white amid canopies of hair.

  3. Drunken in her glances, though herself sober,

    her tears are a kind of wine.

  4. I never thought that the white of her eye

    and its black were pages of magic.

  5. She smiled, her necklaces showing,

    and I saw in her mouth what was at her throat.

  6. Among the wonders is finding in the

    sweet, limpid water the pearls of the sea.

  7. How did I come to love a cruel woman?

    Through her, passion sprang upon patience.

  8. I fondled her, but she recoiled; I said to her:

    I bent down seeking the source of raw gold.

  9. Their pavilions were pitched at Asma,

    as though within the courtyard of my breast.

  10. Fair and dark women in their tents,

    guarded by gleaming swords and brown spears.

  11. Union with them is sold for the lover's blood:

    who will buy at that price?

  12. If anything other than love were their army,

    I would confront them with a vast, surging host [verb uncertain].

  13. They shunned me, but their shunning was insincere;

    that is why their apparition travels by night.

  14. Darkness bestowed its beauties upon us,

    and I think its sender knows about us.

  15. Until, when dawn awakened it,

    it departed, proclaiming treachery at that hour.

  16. O night among the sands, made brief by

    the embrace's undoing of the headscarves' knots!

  17. Our footsteps almost betrayed

    our traces, though the wraps had erased them.

  18. The camp's dogs saw our suspicious conduct,

    but were too noble to bark or growl.

  19. There the seals of joy were broken,

    and of merriment, until the rising of dawn.

  20. But for religious scruple and exaggeration,

    you would be called nothing but the Night of Decree.

  21. The night's braid had unraveled

    and cast away its hairpins—the shining stars.

  22. The Eagle's leading flight-feathers had grown weary,

    and the west drew it toward a nest.

  23. A belt fell from Orion,

    shining, fastened around no waist.

  24. The Pleiades were cast from their hanging place

    by al-Simak's advance and al-Ghafr's spear.

  25. As the sun gathers them, they seem

    a band crowding around a secret.

  26. Like maidens under her stern rebuke,

    she takes Aldebaran along like an earring [reading uncertain].

  27. The curve of its crescent resembles

    the finger-circle marking the month's completed count.

  28. Upon the Milky Way, stars were strung,

    like vertebrae arranged within the back.

  29. These are bubbles upon its surface,

    floating; and this is a flowing stream.

  30. Its clouds are like Ibn Fadlan's hand,

    giving abundance by morning or traveling by night.

  31. Whether he settles in a desert or a town,

    his clouds take the place of rain.

  32. What noble virtues he carries beneath his arm,

    and what firm resolves within that breast!

  33. His intention was purified of grudges,

    and his heart washed clean of rancor.

  34. They blamed him for what his hand squandered,

    but he deemed praiseworthy deeds the most precious treasure.

  35. If he speaks, the keen, cutting sword goes forth;

    or if he charges, he destroys the lion with tiny ants.

  36. I see not a single person among people

    who is not bound to him by gratitude.

  37. It is as though he covered the earth

    with clouds arising from benevolence.

  38. His enemies have experienced his might

    and surrendered to the lion with cubs.

  39. His branding irons cauterized their hearts,

    and cautery is a cure for the mangy.

  40. Indeed, since hardships concerned themselves with him,

    they have struck against a solid boulder of rock.

  41. He bore calamities upon his shoulder

    until they returned to him with an apology.

  42. The attacking scourges of the days

    encountered in him one with a bloodied claw.

  43. Do not disapprove of an imprisonment that befell him:

    beautiful women are protected by seclusion.

  44. The sheath's mantle is not spread

    except over a patterned Indian blade.

  45. If they concealed him, every noble person

    gains dignity from a doorkeeper and a curtain.

  46. Eclipse covers the sun because it is great,

    but shuns the light of the shining stars.

  47. The full moon may hide itself for a night

    to become full on the month's fourth night.

  48. Was not Joseph, after his ordeal,

    transferred from prison to Egypt?

  49. You surely darted out of it, just as there sped forth

    a broad-winged eagle, striking birds with terror.

  50. You were patient until its deep darkness cleared:

    deliverance is the outcome of patience.

  51. The bitterness of every calamity is forgotten

    through the sweetness of forbidding and commanding.

  52. When the lute of songs resounds,

    the groaning of the old she-camel and young camel departs.

  53. When the thing you hate has departed,

    it is as though it never crossed your mind.

  54. Praise and thanks to God for

    what He has bestowed on you, and the vow's obligation.

  55. I seem to see you upon its withers,

    ascending at the peak of glory.

  56. Eminence casts its reins to you

    and does not turn aside at muttered rebukes.

  57. Great achievements are sometimes attained

    through gentleness, not charging and retreating.

  58. Likewise, thousands, despite their differing magnitudes,

    are counted with ten fingertips.

  59. I am one who is extravagant in his love

    and allegiance, in secret and in public.

  60. His eye tasted no sleep

    until the herald brought him glad tidings.

  61. Yours are favors I never recall

    without my breast swelling with praise for them.

  62. It is a favor from your hands, for which I give thanks

    throughout time and to the age's end.

  63. A promise from you once swore to me

    by your high rank that you would mend my affairs.

  64. I suppose you have not forgotten it,

    but I sought reinforcement through a reminder.

  65. The days have cut into my liver,

    and a touch of harm has surrounded me.

  66. I have found my reproaches of every calamity ill-omened,

    and grown weary of what I lament about time.

  67. If you draw me toward you by my upper arm,

    I will thrust at it with the spearheads of overpowering might;

  68. and you will turn every calamity away from me,

    as the purest wine dispels cares.

  69. May good fortune offer you its choicest,

    whether a mature maiden or a young virgin.

  70. May time's calamities pass you by, and may

    a flowing, gentle rain never leave your dwellings.

  71. Without you in this world, they would recognize

    its most generous men in name alone.

Sol 6.1