Sol 6.1

  1. By my life, I journeyed by night—not a laggard's night journey—

    on a gaunt-eyed she-camel, hollow-flanked,

  2. a robust, male-like beast whose swift gait the pale camels cannot match

    when, bearing riders, they resemble tilted well-frames.

  3. Keeping alongside sunken-eyed, lean camels that hastened

    in quest of a king's bounty, neither puny nor coarse.

  4. As though the hackberry-wood saddles, when they rocked,

    were upon white-bellied sandgrouse of Alij.

  5. They sped toward a drink from Ubagh, worn thin

    by the noonday heats of white-hot days blazing upon them.

  6. When they carried water from the dune tracts, they hurried,

    water-bearers for downy chicks in a trackless waste,

  7. twins alike, in a sickly land,

    sheltering in the khidhraf of firm ground and in irb.

  8. When the driver shouted at them, she sprang ahead,

    the one with a great span from lips to tailbone.

  9. How many a sea she crossed, and a night they waded through,

    toward you, Commander of the Faithful—and how many a plain!

  10. Turning aside, veering away from people in whom it seems

    you see a gathering of fair-haired Slavs.

  11. They skirt the floor of al-Sahsahan, while there appear

    dwellings in a valley, of Numayr and Kalb.

  12. They turned right from Najd al-Uqab and bore left,

    the pale camels taking us away from Adhra, home of Banu al-Shajb.

  13. They turn us aside from everything, as though we were

    mutes, unable to offer greetings or tell our lineage.

  14. When Capella and the Pleiades rose, she thrust

    the sides of her neck between the two Simaks and the Heart-star.

  15. Toward you, Commander of the Faithful, I saddled her,

    under an auspicious bird-omen, toward a spacious lodging.

  16. Toward a believer whose countenance dispels

    the disquiet that descends with worries and distress;

  17. a resting-place for the needy, who ask him to rain down

    a generous man's gifts of captives and spoils.

  18. You see the fine chain-mail, its loose folds flowing

    upon one who makes light of calamities and war.

  19. War's brother—when it rears, biting fiercely, he rises to meet it,

    in every condition, whether yielding or difficult.

  20. A leader who advanced with the horses until there rattled

    necklaces on the necks of hard-worked, bowed-backed mounts,

  21. staring wide-eyed, each a cherished steed,

    readied for battle or to face a mounted band.

  22. Gaunt, they have repeatedly faced every great ordeal,

    draped in Shatti cloth, with good spoils won.

  23. They veer from the road's hard center through hoof-soreness,

    yet despite their ailments they gallop like crosswinds.

  24. When they are tasked with distant travel, there is always

    a raven on a bent-backed one of them or on a male foal.

  25. And every year you send an expedition against the Romans,

    far-ranging in hoofprints and the course of its mounted host.

  26. They cast their young along the pass, as though

    with their afterbirths they tore striped cloaks.

  27. Daughters of Ghurab, their months not yet complete,

    shaken by the long desert wastes and the strain.

  28. And it has two days: a day of encampment,

    and a day it complains of sharp gravel, dreading the pass.

  29. Plunging into darkness, it breaks open upon a blazing warrior,

    an eager pursuer of enemies, neither weary nor timid.

  30. Around the son of Abi al-As Quraysh has rallied,

    its true stock for him; outsiders are not like true stock.

  31. God has placed the caliphate among you,

    for a fair-faced noble whose table is neither bare nor barren.

  32. You all reproached us, Qays Aylan,

    and what foe have we not left to spend the night aggrieved?

  33. Those tribes have surely learned that we

    are bold warriors, severing strife's tether.

  34. If the war of Nizar's two sons has subsided,

    it has already vindicated us against Kilab and Ka'b.

  35. And in al-Huqb, men of Qays's many clans lie as though,

    at the bend of al-Tharthar, they were timber piled on timber.

  36. And there they made Jaz' ibn Zalim taste death

    with a piercing stroke between rib-ends and entrails.

  37. And Banu al-Sam'a's broken remnants kept seeking refuge

    with every woman, greasy of arms and heel.

  38. The two days of Rahit, born of your folly, were

    destruction for peoples, a calamity among calamities.

  39. You challenge the people of right with Muharib's two sons,

    and Banu al-Ajlan's riders—riders enough for you!

  40. The chieftains of Abi al-As, on the morning

    Damascus seethed with the likes of tar-smeared, mangy camels,

  41. lead a wave of Umayya that has not inherited

    Sulaym's dwellings in the Hijaz or the uplands.

  42. Kings and arbiters and men of valor,

    when provoked, they are masters of strife.

  43. They came forth from the sacred month and became

    lords of a kingship neither newly acquired nor usurped.

  44. The spears fend off while cavalry is wheeled against them,

    and in the hands of death-seeking men they are like meteors.

  45. My eye has never seen a kingship like the one I saw

    come to you without spear-thrusts or blows,

  46. and through Muslim's horsemen, black of buttocks,

    on the morning a living man wards off death in anguish.

  47. But God saw you as the proper bearer of His right,

    despite enemies and lying obstructers.

  48. May God curse a band of Kulayb, as though they were

    Hijazi goat-kids fleeing to a pen.

  49. Mere shanks: their encampment is not spacious,

    nor are they protectors who defend the herd.

  50. Sons of the dog, were it not that Darim's sons

    defend you amid upheavals and war,

  51. you would have warded off Malik with tribute,

    as the lowly pays it under compulsion.

  52. And she who delivered Jarir with a groan

    is treacherous of eye and wayward of heart.

  53. Guests are not glad to alight with her

    when the acacia tops are like gray mares.

  54. They say, "Defend us from behind, Jarir!"

    but Jarir is neither a defender nor staunch.

Sol 6.1