Sol 5.6

  1. God has stored up in Kunayza a stench

    pure in kind, incapable of adulteration:

  2. foul breath that cracks hard rock, and a nasal reek,

    and rank armpit odor—for she is nothing but a privy.

  3. Whenever she speaks or sings,

    the revelers’ noses begin to clog.

  4. You see her asking perfume and al-mur—

    —tak to conceal her stench, while she herself spreads it abroad.

  5. She offers herself for fucking amid the finery of this wor—

    —ld, though she neither feels desire nor inspires it.

  6. Her odor while alive is the odor of a corpse

    that spent the night in the grave, then was exposed by exhumation.

  7. Even tranquil souls recoil from her

    when she approaches—for she is nothing but a beast.

  8. Instead of tresses and braids, she was given

    as a burden a nose housing a nest for two chicks.

  9. Then, as the ugliest of all creation,

    a bier hurriedly bore her, bride-like, to the grave.

  10. Her dusty, pockmarked face resembles

    yesterday’s turd, its crown struck by a splash of rain.

  11. Smallpox did not disfigure her, though it is itself a blemish;

    every scar upon that face is an ornament.

  12. Whatever erased her beauty thereby beautified her;

    whatever earth covered of her, it spread as bedding.

  13. With such deformity, no ugliness seems out of place;

    amid such pits, no roughness seems hideous.

  14. The part of her body encircled by the sash is soft and plump,

    while the parts encircled by anklet and leg-rings are scrawny.

  15. She has a blaze of lust surpassing fuck—

    —ing, flaring like a fire when stoked.

  16. She has a vulva like a gazelle’s hoof,

    with a cleft in it as though it were a scratch.

  17. She loves intercourse only as butting,

    from afar, just as a ram draws back.

  18. And if she clamps onto a penis like a she—

    —dog one day, her grip cannot be sprung.

  19. Those who fuck her provide no payment for her;

    she is fitter to be fucked and pay the fee herself.

  20. Her voice shows hearts no gentleness;

    rather, it inflicts violence and brutal assault upon them.

  21. When she sings, she bequeaths deafness to hearing,

    so she owes compensation to everyone she sings to.

  22. She claims the nasal sweetness of youth, but that claim is refuted

    by that coarse and rasping voice of hers.

  23. If, with great effort, you try to soften it as it issues from her,

    you would think barley was being ground in her throat.

  24. She and her lute answer one another in brays,

    like a donkey’s bray answered by a foal.

  25. She is a brute; and though throughout an age we have heard

    singing by her likes, it was singing fit for brutes.

  26. One wag said when he saw her,

    and, delighting in mockery of her, grinned:

  27. “You have won all beauty, Kunayza, entirely;

    you are Bilqis—if only a throne would aid you.

  28. The vipers have charmed your face against the evil e—

    —ye, breathing upon it a spray of venom.

  29. A mere puff upon your face from the—

    —m is paltry, unless their puff is followed by a bite.”

Sol 5.6