Sol 5.6

  1. Do you see an evening traveler bringing news of one who departed at dawn?

    Can one who has taken provisions keep the tidings concealed?

  2. I love truthful speech from every speaker—

    except a croaking raven that said among them, “He has gone.”

  3. Come, you two: ask them to give me the Arḥabiyya she-camel as a gift,

    so that we may renew our covenant—or appoint a meeting.

  4. Our whips are forbidden to touch their hindquarters:

    O you two camel-drivers, urge them onward with camel-song!

  5. When will you two reach the water to which came

    the gazelles of Sulaym, and quench your burning thirst?

  6. Do not let kissing its bubbles distract you from it,

    imagining them a mouth upon which to cool yourselves.

  7. Long indeed have you two gazed upon a gazelle of the sands

    and likened it to a languid beauty wearing bracelets.

  8. I spread my breast as a bed for Love’s side, though

    my soul dreads passion, fearing ruin.

  9. I drove the phantom from my eyes, because

    in its falsehood it tries to extend a hand toward me.

  10. I see the phantom, like a mirror, fashion an image

    to deceive my eyes, just as an echo bewitches the ear.

  11. Do you suppose that patience for you is in my nature,

    yet grieve whenever the Tihāman lightning climbs toward Najd?

  12. They said, “Do you complain, then return lovestruck?”

    I said, “What has appeared of my passion, reproacher, is what has appeared.”

  13. Bodies are visited when they fall ill, yet I see

    no visitors for these hearts when they complain.

  14. Do not suppose that every breast contains the same lump of flesh,

    or that every heart is as enduring as mine.

  15. And greet an encampment we came to by night at a falsely promised tryst:

    we found no guiding light beside their fire,

  16. nor were their guards heedless—only we

    fell upon them as softly as dew falls.

  17. When we met, the thought of parting from them inflamed my heart,

    and they did not deny the fire it had kindled.

  18. After them, my tears withdrew from between my ribs,

    fearing they might overwhelm them and then congeal.

  19. Yet life offers diversion to a man who spends his night

    consulting the keen Indian sword about a deadly stroke.

  20. Whenever his eyelids complain of the sores of sleeplessness,

    he applies to them antimony made from the night’s own dye.

  21. He imagines the darkness as luxuriant hair, thick in growth,

    and takes the sun’s disk for a rosy cheek.

  22. In place of a beauty, he accepts the gazelle when it gazes—

    its eye-corners darkened with kohl, its neck slender and tall.

  23. So too the nations were pleased with the state’s great champion

    as leader and lord over religion and worldly life.

  24. Religion and worldly life dwelt secure throughout his courts,

    as though they had fastened on a firmly knotted amulet.

  25. His resolve aimed at noble deeds and the heights,

    and struck true: glory was among the quarry he took.

  26. When night travelers make the radiance of his brow their goal,

    the caravan may dispense with Polaris and Farqad.

  27. Upon the bridge of his nose gleams a light of majesty

    before which chins fall prostrate in the dust.

  28. He opened the sanctuary of his wealth to every seeker

    among mankind, until it was said he meant to renounce possessions.

  29. In generosity he has a meadow more frequented

    than the brimming spring, with more who come to drink.

  30. The clouds retreat from his precincts, for

    whenever they contend with him in bounty, he proves more generous.

  31. Can one who merely rains down water equal one

    whose fingertips pour silver and gold?

  32. A cloud’s lightning is fire; but from the lightning of his face comes

    a joyful radiance, eager for generosity and bounty.

  33. Little does his eye sleep; his cares travel by night

    with the bright coursing stars, in pairs and one by one.

  34. Whoever makes the winning of glory his greatest concern

    folds up the whole mantle of night while sleepless.

  35. Whenever the caller repeats his cry for a day of fierce battle,

    he girds himself with battle, turbans himself in it, and wears it as a cloak.

  36. The elders of Juthwa have learned that he is

    the longest-reaching of them and the mightiest in hand.

  37. Against them he kept driving home swift, piercing thrusts, until

    the Rudayni spears complained of bending under his force.

  38. He saw that affection avails nothing and brings no profit,

    and that only the melodies of sword and spear avail among foes.

  39. He acquires nothing but a keen Indian sword,

    a brown, supple lance, and a tall, sleek-haired steed.

  40. Whenever he threatens a people, though their homes lie far

    from him, he keeps them forever rising and sitting in alarm.

  41. The spear leveled in his right hand

    is no more penetrating than the rightly aimed arrow of his judgment.

  42. The neighing of steeds kept close and ready is his music—

    if only al-Gharīḍ and Maʿbad could hear it!

  43. The gushing gore from necks reminds him of

    maidens bringing chilled Babylonian wine.

  44. Had wine no likeness to valor

    and generosity, he would not have made the cup its drinking place.

  45. I have sent my counsel to the people of Iraq:

    leave the lion in its lair as sovereign.

  46. Never trust his downcast gaze—for his cunning

    could draw the malignant lizard from the hardest ground.

  47. I see for you upon the heights a fire whose moths are

    your guests, served long slices of tender, fatty meat.

  48. Do not exhaust the white camels by slaughtering them, for

    once they are exhausted, you will slaughter bondwomen and male slaves for them.

  49. How many a battlefield have you made the lances drunk with its blood,

    and there fed the sword until it grew unruly!

  50. Even if your peers denied your prowess in battle,

    the vultures would come to you bearing witness to what they saw.

  51. To you we conveyed her, though the soles of her feet found

    no resting place or destination but your lofty house.

  52. Though the night journey was long, we urged onward over sore feet

    a noble, eminent stallion and a sturdy, thick-limbed she-camel.

  53. A man like you is one from whom a captive hopes for release,

    even though chained by the injustice of the nights.

  54. If among this age and its people you are

    a great man, then in excellence you have become peerless.

Sol 5.6