Sol 6.1

  1. Lo, by Him who gives life to humankind and causes death,

    My eye has indeed delighted in you, yet I have been wretched.

  2. I have been afflicted by abandonment from you, O you whom I love,

    And by your wasted, slender waist I have been afflicted.

  3. You turn away and shun me though I have done no wrong;

    So why, O desire of my sorrowful heart, have I been shunned?

  4. Love turned me away from my reproacher, and I am the one

    Whom passion's humiliation cast down when I fell in love.

  5. My beloved shunned me—rather, seared me with his abandonment;

    So in my liver I was seared by fire from him.

  6. A beloved—love for him has wasted me away; and if he

    Were to grant me a greeting, I would recover.

  7. Every fire has died down except mine, for I

    Have burned in it, deprived of union with him.

  8. His dwelling has drawn near me—there is his dwelling;

    Yet how far it is from me when I come!

  9. Before it are the wolves of the wilderness and its lions,

    And the eyes of enviers, with which I have been struck.

  10. Yearning in my love for him has robbed me of sleep;

    So I am bereft of sleep and the visiting dream-vision.

  11. I cannot visit the one I love;

    So I have been wretched in loving him—O men, help!

  12. A bewitching gazelle of languid gaze has taken me captive;

    And but for love, I would never before have been taken captive.

  13. I drank the cups of love unmixed—alas for

    The cups I was made to drink by the one I loved!

  14. My heart's yearning in love does not end;

    Ask the night about me—how I pass it.

  15. I was struck by the sword of a glance from the one I love;

    I consented to being slain for love of him—I consented.

  16. I was enraptured by the doves' cooing at midmorning,

    So it was as though song had made me rich.

  17. I remained as though drinking the daughter of a vine;

    With it, when the cups were handed to me, my thirst was quenched.

  18. Whatever the case, I do not cease loving the one

    Whose love I answered when I was called to him.

  19. A hand-reared gazelle whose glances flirted with me—

    So who can rescue me from them, now that I have been assailed?

  20. So after his departure, I have a groan following a yearning moan;

    If this passion persists in me, my death will be announced.

  21. Stop, you two; let us weep at the memory of the beloved, for I

    Have suffered through my long weeping in the dwellings.

  22. It is sorrow enough that I grow in yearning

    When I am admonished to turn away from him.

  23. God be with you, O camel-driver—be gentle

    With them, for they bring union near and make it slip away.

  24. The soul's desire is that the dwellings draw near with their people;

    So, through my anguish, I was afflicted with a greeting.

  25. Their dwelling grew distant from me, so I went to extremes in weeping;

    Yet how far it is from me when I come!

  26. They promised me union, then broke their word;

    So because of them I burned in the fires of passion.

  27. Their promises are deferred; as for their threat,

    By it I was unfolded and folded up in my anguish.

  28. If this persists in me, I shall surely be dead;

    And nothing kills me but the beloved's abandonment.

  29. My humiliation is easy for one like me to bear in loving

    A beloved to whom I was worthless when I fell in love.

Sol 6.1