Sol 5.6

  1. I have seen—and one like me, on seeing a marvel,

    remains bewildered by the wonder of it.

  2. In Ukbara I saw youths who seemed,

    for their beauty, like enchantments poured into the forms of dolls—

  3. like peacocks, save that they were human.

    In beauty they had attained the loftiest rank.

  4. Their Muslims had infected them with their own sweet nature;

    for a neighbor takes on his neighbor’s nature through close company.

  5. How lovely is Ukbara—its land and its inhabitants—

    and all it holds of fair faces and refinement!

  6. A land where wine stands open to all in the taverns,

    given freely to a spendthrift who squanders and plunders wealth.

  7. Whatever the wanton, roguish libertine desires, he obtains

    of debauchery, without difficulty or toil.

  8. Be a philosopher, and pass the day seizing your prize—

    the sweetness of life, snatched away in haste.

  9. Do not reserve one day for another day you fear;

    for life is shorter than you hope for and await.

  10. Be in the brothels early in the day, at midmorning,

    and drink in rapture from the grape’s tear.

  11. And at noon be in gardens, upon

    a meadow beneath a bower of vines and reeds.

  12. Whenever you wish, have whomever you love reclining,

    or standing, if you wish, or kneeling upon the knees.

  13. If you wish, sleep drowsily in the courtyards of houses,

    or safely in the cellars, with no need to hide.

  14. Roam through al-Jazira and frolic in its pleasure grounds;

    and if you complain of harm, go up to Aleppo—

  15. where a temperament flows freer than water in its seepage

    among the gardens, and is richer than Abu Lahab.

  16. How many effeminate catamites are taken with me when they behold my Ḥanafī bent—my crookedness;

    and how often I punish them with a thrust in the rump!

  17. Short of this, the fool has a remedy that suits him:

    to stand disgraced in the marketplace, in a dervish’s cloak, begging.

  18. In either case, the rogue finds his notoriety sweet—

    whether upon crucifixion-wood or upon a camel-saddle.

Sol 5.6