Sol 6.1

  1. My love has indeed said farewell, and my watcher has wandered astray.

    And the valley of pleasure has become grassless.

  2. I let Fizr go for God's sake; tell him:

    You are free—but how is Umm Ḥabīb?

  3. And the Zanj fledgling went mad—rather, his arse went mad.

    So I became a 'gusher' for him, as a physician [wording unclear].

  4. I reviled the Zanj fledgling, at the cost of my honor.

    For if you are a Kaʿbī and were my beloved,

  5. The Kaʿbī indeed branded with fire, using a branding iron,

    Upon your slave father's arse, after Shabīb.

  6. Ibn Khulayq saw my thrust in his mother's arse,

    Then set about covering it and condemned my penis.

  7. So I told him: She has departed, and I praised her;

    So do not revile me for my sin in your mother's arse.

  8. Steady, son of the clan's Zanj man; it was only

    Sinful treachery that prompted you to revile me.

  9. You boasted of a peppercorn-curled head from your father

    Over us, and of a wanton woman with a white-spotted perineum.

  10. How astonishing: a Bāhilī reviles me,

    A mount whose back serves Kindīr and Arīb.

  11. Kindīr has indeed died, and his death made you weep.

    You were bereft of a hard penis like a smokeless flame.

  12. You stole my poetry and gained wealth through it,

    Yet a picker of date stones was never a good earner.

  13. Now tell the bachelors of al-Buṣayrah: Come,

    With your need, from far away and near.

  14. Khulayq's daughters are bridled and ready;

    When the men set off in the evening, they are saddled for riding.

  15. By my life, you have indeed been given a wife of dubious conduct,

    And a young man may banish care with a dubious companion:

  16. A fat slaughter-camel for the camel-lottery gamblers,

    And a useful woman who earns the young man a small share [sense uncertain].

  17. But, Zanj fledgling, when you knew her

    As a friend to the Zanj of the two villages and to the Nubians,

  18. You took, for your truehearted friends, from her arse

    A share—so secure a share in her arse for me.

  19. I shall give you what a young man gives of his inherited property,

    With an arm's support, even if it exposes my sins.

  20. Sons of Khalaq, today your father disgraces you:

    A bastard, coal-black in color, of no noble stock.

  21. His inherited traits are plain in your faces:

    His nostrils—and the head does not lie.

  22. Resign yourself to them, O son of al-Khulayq, for they are

    A Zanj man's inherited traits, passed down with defects.

  23. May God curse the sons of al-Khulayq, for they are

    Pigs of a privy, set to burrowing.

Sol 6.1