Sol 6.1

  1. Listen, O Hamdan! Be resolute and gird yourselves.

    For a great calamity has visited you among the people.

  2. And summon Murad, then bind on your weapons,

    and gather noble steeds as one seeking strength in numbers.

  3. For I see a people who have made their own lives forfeit,

    and their leader, to all appearances, is a traitor indeed.

  4. And summon Sahar; call on Ka'b, your chieftains.

    For one ignorant of affairs is not like one who knows.

  5. For among Himyar are lords of sovereignty and pride,

    mighty rulers with none mightier above them.

  6. And summon Zubayd, whose leader has gone away;

    and he has not returned to it since he went roaming.

  7. Who, then, will carry a message from me to 'Adi,

    and tell him on my behalf, though I am not present,

  8. that you have put your own lives within others' grasp,

    and in the wake of days lie secrets?

  9. Sons of Mazin, why did you not admonish your brother,

    and speak to him with the words of one caring and wary:

  10. Come, and do not cast your hands toward the enemy,

    lest an ear be severed outright after the nostrils are mutilated.

  11. For if you escape us, we shall see the affair prospering;

    and if you perish, we shall take vengeance with white, cleaving blades,

  12. and with every solid, towering Rudayni spear,

    gleaming like a bright star in the Milky Way,

  13. and with al-Jawf of Hamdan, as numerous as the pebbles—

    horsemen of battle, neither unsteady riders nor cowards.

  14. When they don their meshed mail, they spring forward,

    like al-Sharif's swooping eagles, one following another.

  15. And you see the people of al-Zahirayn following him,

    some clad in mail and others without armor.

  16. As though the eerie cries of jinn were among their bows,

    when the bow splints groan against tightly twisted strings.

Sol 6.1