هل تعرف اليوم من ماوية الطللا — Akhtal

Do you recognize today the traces of Mawiyya’s dwelling?

Its people packed up and left it, while it could not move.

In the hollow of Khaynaf, at Umm al-Walid, and she

Has enthralled your heart, or brought it to ruin.

The summer winds swept their blowing sand across it

Until it changed after companionship and fell into obscurity.

Nothing remains there but a mottled creature whose feet I glimpse

Whenever it senses a figure rising into view.

At times it grazes in Khaynaf, then vanishes into

Empty land, drinking freely from flowing water.

Through the two months of Jumada; then, when Rajab came,

The earth brought to term what it had carried.

As though a perfume seller had circled it all night

Until it wore a cloak and sandals of saffron-colored dye,

Dyed by the blossoms of lavender, which had flourished for it

With the moisture brought to the waste by the early rain.

Its grazing delights its eyes there,

Yet its heart remains filled with fear.

Then, when night closed its eyes, it was wrapped

In rain that hissed whenever the wind stirred it.

Its clouds hung low; when their laden masses shook,

They filled the gaps in the earth with water and poured abundantly.

It passed the night anxious and watching the lightning,

Like one in a night of illness, neither dozing nor sleeping.

It spent the night sheltering beside a dune’s arta tree;

Whenever it sensed a flood beneath it, it moved.

Drenched by the steady rain, it looked like one prostrating,

A worshipper who rose in the night to pray.

It pushed the dirt away with its two horns and chest,

As a cavalry leader sorts out the spoils.

The raindrops seemed like coral pearls falling from it

As they struck its horns, back, and hindquarters.

Then, when the sun met it at dawn,

A lean, hungry hunter, wasted with hunger, came upon it.

Gaunt and slender as a desert wolf, he crept up

Whenever the wild creature heard no sound from him.

He urged on droop-eared Saluki hounds; as they rushed forward,

They feared Jadila or Thuʿal along the tracks.

Their handlers trained them for the hunt, as though

They fed them honey made of wild animals’ blood.

The creature darted off like a brilliant star laid bare

By rain clouds that cleared after a long downpour.

Whenever I thought the fastest hounds had caught it,

It wheeled on them after they had given it a little room.

It kept stabbing at them sideways with its pointed horn;

When its horn struck a fierce one, it killed.

They seemed, covered in blood,

To be approaching a blazing fire that threw off flames.

When a wounded hound came to them, they gathered around it

As horsemen gather, wary of an armored champion.

At last they drew back from it; it stood tall and hard pressed,

But showed no sign of defeat and did not retreat.

Troubling thoughts can keep me awake and drive me on;

Sharp pangs among them make me put the camel to work.

Neither enemy territory daunts me,

Nor the harsh land where its chameleon basks in the sun.

It stays watching for the sun as the heat scorches it;

When it sees the sun slope away, it turns aside.

As the day stretches on, it seems

Like a Yemeni who stands and recites long passages.

I have lived through the ages of this time

Until gray hair has covered my head and blazed white.

Through every crushing hardship, were it not for a trusted friend,

It would have seemed neither slight nor bearable to me.

I have led the drinking company while a singer entertained us,

Her husky voice rough in its repeated notes.

A loud-voiced singing woman who often lingered

Among young men eager for amusement and flirtation.

My youth departed after all its pleasures,

As though it had been a guest who stayed, then left.

In those days I did not obey the reproachful women,

Nor hold on to money when someone in need asked.

I forgave one who bore me ill will and turned away from me,

Though I could see his spite and hostility.

Had I confronted him with a blow of my own,

He would not have been like a wolf content with what it ate.

A painful loss befell me: someone close to me died,

Yet afterward I came to hope again.

I see that death comes to the one for whom it is decreed,

And that death suffices him and gives him plenty to face.

While a person is envied for being safe,

Time betrays him, and he passes from his former state.

Leave aside the obscure man; do not ask how he fell.

Ask instead what Misqala al-Bakri has done:

One who spends and gives, never reproaching others,

And whose soul does not torment him over what has passed.

His gifts are generous; other people, when asked,

Give a pittance, like water coaxed from a trickling spring.

And ask of a horseman who does not halt beneath his banner

On the day of battle until he puts his spears to use.

A mighty man on whom the obligations of blood money rest;

When hundreds of camels are laid upon him, he bears the burden.

If a man with weak limbs took it on,

Or one too limited for such burdens, he would falter.

You have loosened the captives’ bonds,

When they expected neither refuge nor a way in.

You rescued them from the depths of a dark plight

At the sight of which a coward would shrink away.

They would give their lives for you, though all of them weep

And see themselves as having neither rank nor weight.

Among Maʿadd, no young man serves his people so well:

When he resolves on a worthy deed, he does it.

He gives a hundred loudly bellowing camels; as they are driven,

The muscles along their backs leap when they move.

Rabiʿa will remain in good fortune

So long as God keeps death away from your life.

A radiant man, he does not think the world will preserve him forever,

And he does not ask of something lost, ‘What has it done?’