قد كان طيفك مرة يغرى بي — Albohtry

Your phantom once used to be drawn to me,

Visiting my caravan and my mounts by night.

But now it visits only at intervals,

And visits spaced apart are a kind of estrangement.

We came to greet a dwelling of Uthaylah,

Its landmarks fresh at Dhu al-Ansab.

Recognizing it brought our old bond back to me,

Till it almost returned the echo of my answer.

The women dogged us with a spinster's reproaches:

We are blamed for love-talk and for spurning a full-breasted maiden.

Time's reversals kept devaluing my bargain,

Until I pledged my youth against gray hair.

Was I diminishing my own share, or at

My own expense that morning showing favor?

And you reproached me for a passion that overtook me,

One that reached David in the prayer chamber.

And to one much reproached for love I said, while

His eyes poured out streaming tears in torrents:

If you gave true lovers precedence in longing,

You would set aside your own anguish for mine.

Who will tell me of Ibn al-Mudabbir, as battle

Drives along the last of a dispersing dust-cloud?

Wrathful, he scatters with his sword's blows

Massed ranks of fierce warriors, angry and clad in iron.

A resourceful champion: his supporters were absent, while

His enemies were mustered on a day of fierce contest.

The sword's blade aided him: the young man's breast was not

Constricted, nor was the keen sword's point blunt.

Had he bargained for his own escape,

He would have found the means of escape inexpensive.

Had his horsemen aided him, there would have followed

Thousands of slain men in tattered battle-gear.

Indeed, the dauntless man cannot destroy his foe

Until his companions, too, are dauntless.

A fierce sense of honor set your brow before the swords;

It drew upon you the envy of those who fled.

And you refused to yield to dishonor, unlike them;

The proud man is unwilling to be shamed.

And a conspicuous wound whose mark your opponent made plain,

While horses stumbled in the billowing dust,

Was on your face, not your honor, for they knew

That faces are guarded by noble standing.

And though you were captured, captivity, for a man

Who chose captivity over flight, is no disgrace.

Had it been another, his strength would have given way

At what befell you, his breast tight with distress.

The deluded man slept through your night journey, not fearing

The watchman's drowsiness or the gatekeeper's drunkenness.

And he thought the gate was your way out, the one

To be feared; but your purpose lay away from the gate.

So you braved that terror; whenever you recount it,

The coward says, 'What you did was unwise.'

Nothing startled them but your darting out, sword drawn,

From what resembled the cloak of a gliding speckled serpent.

You shielded little boys and a woman with faltering steps,

Who kept looking back in fear of the pursuers.

She trembled with dread, yet took comfort in seeing

A moon bearing a sharp, cleaving sword.

She witnessed him on the day of al-Hinduwan, and would not

Exchange that day for the day at Dulab.

And she saw the swordplay of a beloved man, never shamed

By his stands before those he loved.

A day of giving was already assured by your bounty,

Until you added to it a day of swordplay.

Renown for valor you borrowed to add to what

You were granted in character and refinement.

And fresh work for the rhymes, adding

To the expansiveness you sought for them.

And a duty whose beginnings you instituted:

But for you, it would never have been prescribed for scribes.