ألا طرقت موهنا مهدد — Bashar Ibn Burd

Lo, Mahdad came visiting late at night,

when the high-rising star had already set.

She visited a close-ranked troop, like spears,

and youths of war, which blazes for them.

So I passed the night greeted by one present

with the night, but at morning nowhere to be found.

I play with a ghoul that sleep has guided

to us; she strays afar and seeks the watering place.

Then, when I awoke and did not find her,

I awoke with my heart mortally struck by her.

I turn over a grief for her that lies heavy,

and two eyes whose pasture is Farqad.

Ah, the grief after a jinni woman,

wearing necklaces and a neck-ornament!

And oh, my aching liver! From her we have no

gift, nor have I any claim of favor upon her,

except my eye's yearning for her face

and that I pine in grief whenever she leaves.

I wept from sickness—the sickness of love—

to her, and because none would share my sorrow.

She has promised a gift for tomorrow;

how often she has promised you, yet you receive nothing!

And I, despite her long promise-breaking,

do hope for fulfillment and bear no grudge.

When people belie my hopes of her,

and she has an appointment tomorrow,

I endure her freely offered signs,

out of loyalty; a young man's patience is more rewarding.

And no day withholds the sickness of love

from a lover, when the morrow gives it him to drink.

And on many an ill-starred night of Jumada,

whose wind chills whenever it stirs,

we prepared a resting place for our guests,

though not every day do they have a resting place.

And I, whenever a barker howls

and my foaming sea surges against him,

surely hurl piercing shafts by which

the fledglings of the vile suffer, finding no joy.

O Hammad, you are not our equal;

you are a man who, they claim, copulates.

It is marvel enough—an astonishing marvel—that I

see you speaking, O Ajrad!

I never thought someone whose sickness

was like yours would speak rather than stay still.

You sat on silk-and-wool cloth after going barefoot,

and now you are among servants, waited upon.

And you challenged men, wrangling with them;

oh, the wonder of time that never ends!

And why do you not sit with your knees clasped

upon the fine carpet, summoning delegations?

Your father is Shabir—how noble he is!

And in your arse is a watering place for those you lead to drink.

Your mother is one of those women whose concern is

a gray-haired man, while her hair-parting congeals.

When asked, she is never tight-fisted,

but melts and does not freeze.

On nights when her house is not sought out,

she stays recalling whom she would sheath.

When the drinkers bring forward their jug,

you keep prostrating yourself before their jug.

And you worship a head, praying to it,

but God you do not worship.

And you display love for the Prophet of guidance,

while, unbelieving in him, you bear witness.

You commit idolatry on a night of the fasting month,

deeming it lawful, as the dusky one gazed.

And your daughter—you scraped her arse as a test,

in debauchery, as a file rasps.

And you bed women, keeping abreast of them,

and among your concerns is the black snake.

And if a fawn appears, you intercept it,

as a sleek galloping horse charges forward.

And if told, 'Pray; they have sounded the call,'

you tremble as a cripple trembles.

And if war rises in all its breadth,

you sit it out and urge others to sit.

And if one day you come to a feast,

you eat as a hulking glutton eats.

And if a secret is kept, you divulge it,

as a tale-bearer, as the hoopoe brought word.

So you are the one made wretched, and it is you who,

by what I have recounted and what I recount,

will know, if my brand appears

upon you and the reciter sings of you.

I reproach Ibn Nihya because he

loves sleeping, yet does not sleep.

And how can I blame a man in whose arse

is an incurable disease that never goes away?

Ibn Nihya disobeyed me—away with him!

As the far-off, twisted one went away.

When he gains rank, he stumbles beneath it,

as the dusky snake crawls.

And he submits to you when you frighten him,

as the date-drying floor yields to the foot.

And he adopts his brethren's unruly zeal,

profiting, as the outcast takes.

And it is ruled out that I did not fuck his mother;

but al-Muthanna is not ruled out:

indeed, his cock has roamed in her arse,

as the kohl-stick moves within the eye.