Sol 5.6

  1. How many strangers have lodged in Medina—

    with neither Ḍābiʾ nor Qayār among them.

  2. As for those who made it their home, they struck camp and departed,

    and after the inhabitants were gone, the dwellings remained.

  3. Time bore them onward to their graves;

    and so Time journeys ever on with its people.

  4. Be where you will—in the deep sea or upon a height,

    or in a hollow—the current will overtake you.

  5. The prince’s wife has married a submissive retainer;

    where then is her fiercely jealous husband?

  6. Time is a beast of prey in guile, a lion

    in the kill; in its course, a swift-flying bird.

  7. Earth feeds upon bodies, as though

    this death were a provisioner for its soil.

  8. And God is praised: whenever the span of time grows long,

    evils swell, and the virtuous grow few.

  9. In this world, no portion falls to one of lofty ambition;

    among wild game, its choicest quarry are the wild asses.

Sol 5.6