Sol 5.6

  1. I am told that Kalb has wished to trade abuse with us;

    many a time they have abused us, only to win no victory.

  2. You set us against men who cut down my equal,

    gathered in a ring as gamblers gather in their circle.

  3. No blood-money lies upon them for which they can be called to account,

    nor does any binding claim accrue to them from what they win at play.

  4. They had indeed been warned of a serpent atop its rocky height,

    and reports and warnings of it had reached them.

  5. They spent their whole night asleep upon patterned carpets,

    while their night kept vigil there, and they never knew.

  6. There they said, “The water has lulled its serpent to sleep”;

    but the male serpent hardly ever sleeps.

  7. They called the envoys of their peers liars, and came undone—

    beneath the men, their burdens—in the crisis; then they scattered,

  8. until they clearly beheld the cavalry’s fine, battle-marked steeds,

    and death’s blazing star, before which eyesight dims,

  9. amid a storm cloud of Kalb, its warriors flashing whenever

    a downpour from them fell upon their foes, who were stripped bare,

  10. until we drove them to al-Balqāʾ and broke their ranks.

    Humiliation drives Kalb into its holes wherever they burrow for refuge.

  11. They pass beneath the horses’ bellies, felled by

    blue-gray spearheads and dusky Khattian lances.

  12. Woe, then woe, sons of Māwiya! They have spread

    from you close by—and nearer than you, O Zufar.

  13. What would they think if they met us while the horses bore us—

    massive, iron-hard chargers, neither spent nags nor colts?

Sol 5.6