Sol 5.6

  1. For such a prize, valor and generosity relish adversity,

    and on its peers every bounty is spent.

  2. It is sovereignty—its jewels are not won

    until death and annihilation are braved to reach it.

  3. The people shrank from it, so I rose to undertake it,

    like a sword that knows neither shrinking nor weariness.

  4. My people continued to deny and disown it

    until, their noses humbled, they acknowledged it.

  5. Thanks! The days have fulfilled what they promised:

    the resistant acknowledged it, and the entrenched submitted.

  6. Sovereignty is only that which

    the Sun of Kings confirms, and beneath which nations bow.

  7. The burdens of glory are what kings reckon

    as gains in high honor; folded within them are blessings.

  8. Here, all together, are the elders of Banu Hamdan;

    they sought refuge in your house when fear came, and found protection.

  9. They alighted with the noblest man with whom mortals have ever lodged,

    where bounty dwells and generosity stands secure.

  10. You were one of them, though you have become their lord:

    a king’s humility among his companions is greatness.

  11. Mere seniority came first, with no merit following it;

    among us, an aged man is not thereby preferred.

  12. Nor, in his birth, was Aqil preferred

    over his brother Ali by age or precedence.

  13. How can one be preferred whom miserliness has disgraced,

    whom a palsied hand, both legs, and deafness have disabled?

  14. Do not deny, O his sons, what I say, for never

    will the legacy be forgotten—not even should your elder pass away.

  15. His disgraces nearly brought him down, but he was rescued

    from them by your uncle’s fine defense of him.

  16. I commend to God’s keeping a people whom I will not name—

    the wrongdoers, though, had we wished, they could not have wronged us;

  17. those who speak while we refrain from answering them,

    and those who act unjustly while we accept what they decree.

  18. Whatever my state, I never mention them

    without my tears, for longing, pouring in a torrent.

  19. Souls—whether once united or parted—

    are, when contemplated, one soul, and all blood is one blood.

  20. May God watch over them as long as a ring-necked dove laments,

    and guard them forever, as long as the salam tree puts forth leaves.

Sol 5.6