Sol 6.1

  1. Affection vexed our slanderers,

    Even if they hurled crushing blows between us.

  2. Our outward appearances are favored, and we close our eyes

    To them, and aspire to upright intentions.

  3. Freeing ourselves from the knots of rancor whenever

    The envious man laid a schemer's snare for us.

  4. In days when brotherhood's bride was not divorced

    By us, nor was the mother of purity barren.

  5. And now the envious man has unsettled us, as he wished

    For us; and the whistler's whistle has put us to flight.

  6. And it is as though it had been a dreamer's fancies—

    That affection—or the jest of an evening companion.

  7. And whenever you lose a friend's affection,

    You have indeed lost with it the pupil of your eye.

  8. And so I mourned your brotherhood, just as

    The doves mourned the early spring.

  9. Never! After that, you will not find

    One like me, even by offering wares and merchandise.

  10. Do not cast the friends around you aside,

    For eyes cannot survive without their sockets.

  11. I never thought the hue of our affection

    Was one that changes with the passing of time.

  12. And had I feared that, I would have ransomed it

    From it, with the color of my forelocks and braids.

  13. But every strange and astonishing thing

    Is the work of this turning waterwheel.

  14. And if you persist in severing ties, you will find

    No ill except reproach for the beloved who turns away.

  15. And if you seek pardon, I shall pardon it; its reward

    From me shall be a penitent's recompense from a forgiver.

  16. Until you see the clouds of reunion restoring

    That withered brush to the lush growth of a verdant meadow.

  17. Indeed, the branches regain their graceful form

    After they bent under the buffeting of fierce, cold winds.

  18. I am the one you know, when tongues falter

    In their words, or the horizon of thought grows cloudy.

  19. Between my mouth and my jaw joints lies a piece of flesh

    That mocked the throat pouch of the bellowing stud camel.

  20. I master speech; its pearls are gathered

    By my diving, even from the bottom of a surging sea.

  21. And when I compose prose, an orator's eloquence soars;

    And when I compose verse, a poet's eloquence rises.

  22. Mine, among the mounts of excellence, is every swift she-camel;

    I always saddle her for a traveler's provisions.

  23. How many a watering place offered clear water for my drinking,

    I frightened it and bereaved it with my departures.

  24. If my sheath is worn, my cutting edges are not worn;

    Or if it is blunted, my insights are not blunted.

  25. My steeds come first in the race,

    And others' steeds are in the tenth rank.

  26. And the foremost seats at scholars' gatherings are filled

    By me; the tail end is for the bewildered ignoramus.

  27. If some people speak of faults in me,

    A beautiful woman is not harmed by rival wives' fault-finding.

  28. Had you not been a kernel at the center of my heart,

    I would have forgotten you as I have some of my treasures.

  29. And I would have said: this is not the first to break

    A pledge, nor is this the first betrayer.

  30. But you settled in a dwelling within my heart,

    And there became the foster-child of a flourishing house.

  31. My ways, through time's injustice and its justice,

    Are to say, 'May you rise again!' to the foot of one who stumbles.

Sol 6.1