1. O pinnacle of beauty, is there

    a known limit to your cruelty?

  2. I am tormented by love for you,

    and my heart is enthralled by you.

  3. How long will you forsake me? And I do not

    know for whose sake I suffer injustice.

  4. Forever you threaten me, and decree

    estrangement, and pass judgment.

  5. And you have sanctioned my killing, O king

    of beauty, though it is forbidden.

  6. Or did you not know that I

    am a Muslim in the religion of loving you?

  7. What harm would it have done you to forgive

    and be among those who show mercy?

  8. O moon grown full—nay, by your worth,

    you are greater in my eyes.

  9. Be gentle: in my innermost being, from

    your eyelid’s languid droops, lie arrows.

  10. I am the one whose chastity you have known;

    and it is enough for you that you know.

  11. You taught me what I had not

    known before loving you.

  12. I have tears for you; whenever

    I hide my love for you, they reveal it.

  13. And indeed, I have concealed my ardent longing,

    and I think it cannot be concealed.

  14. How can I escape, when my heart

    is captivated and besotted with love for you?

  15. By God, how lovely you are,

    wearing a sharbush cap and a turban!

  16. By God, O full moon of the darkness,

    grant me union, for union with you is a prize.

  17. And leave aside the reproachers’ words:

    for my malady has its source in them.

  18. I swear by your countenance,

    besides which I swear by nothing;

  19. and by a stature—the tawny lances

    are lighter and safer than it;

  20. and by Harut’s eye, from

    whose glances we learn:

  21. beyond your smiling mouth, in which

    I am enraptured, there is no other smiling mouth.

Sol 6.1