ما نحن إن جارت صدور ركابنا — Farazdaq

We are not, if the foreparts of our riding-camels veer astray,

the first whom Asim's guidance has deceived.

He sought the road to al-Unsulayn, but the camels turned left,

carrying him through far-flung waymarks, northward.

And how does the Anbari lose his way in a land

where the amulet-straps were cut away?

Had he been anywhere but the wilderness, I would have found him

slyly lurking at the necks of paired cooking-pots.

And [unclear word], when you charged a flock-tender

with night travel—one too weak to guard his kinswomen's privates—

he saw the night as perilous to him, though never had

the goats burdened him with great hardships.

We made our camels kneel at Hajar after the pebbles blazed,

and the sun's saliva melted above the turbans.

While we were at Dhu al-Arta, our thirsty men measured

a drinking-share for us with pebbles, fairly apportioned.

When we shared out the waterskin, there lunged

toward me the burly Anbari's branch-like limbs.

And he came with a boulder of his, as big as his head,

so he might be given water over it, among the sand ridges.

So the cup was too small for the [hearthstone?], when it was hurled

in by an Anbari breaking his fast, not fasting.

And when I saw the Anbari looking like

the dung of decrepit hyenas upon the saddle-pad,

I braced myself for him and shook up a little water

for a thirsty man whose head was pelted by scorching winds.

Parched within, his ears drooping, there had blazed

upon him the fire of a fiercely burning midsummer day.

And I said to him, 'Raise your eyelids: only

the swift camels' trot is your life in this world.'

At evening on the party's fifth day between waterings, when among them

the waterskins' remnants were like precious souls,

I favored him, when I saw what ailed him,

over the others, fearing the reproaches that might follow,

to preserve my honor; and had the waterskin been for sale,

its price would have risen beyond hugely burdensome sums.

At an hour when, had Hatim been among the party,

for all his generosity, Hatim's own soul would have begrudged it.

The goat-owner considered what lay in its bottom seam

cheap, even had he been given a thousand nursing dams for it,

from among the goats whose dogs you inherited,

and their tether-loops, yourself a short-legged dog.

So he denied my favor, as though I had not saved him; had they seen

my camp there—the goats—on the morning of al-Na'a'im,

they would have witnessed his denial of my kindness

at the bend of the sand ridge, when Asim was not standing.

He would surely know that I had quenched his heart

with a draught for a thirsty, dry-headed, distraught man.

And we were like Ibn Mama's companions when he gave drink

to the thirsty man of al-Namir on the day of al-Daja'im.

When Ka'b said, 'You have drunk your fill, Ibn Qasit,'

he would say to him, 'Give me more moisture for the throat.'

So I was like Ka'b, except that my death

had its day deferred for me at al-Akharim.

So we set off, and the Anbari's spittle seemed

to be on a male hyena's fangs as it clenched upon dung.

And I had hoped for thanks from him when he reached

the folk of al-Sham among the people of al-Hufayr and Rasim.

The Anbari wished to lampoon me, while I thought myself

strong of bit, a target for hurled missiles.

Had he been one of the townsfolk, he would not have repaid me

for the attack with a base quarreller's words.

When the aishum grass of al-Jifar turns green, and are sent

over them the spring's thundering rains,

then call to them for two months: wherever you summon them,

they answer on a mount marked on its legs,

at a country's fringe, away from Urayj ibn Jundab,

and from Junhud's clan, the ass of al-Qasa'im.

You see every Anbari turd with a tent

of thumam and aishum grass, its supports short.

Are you not my companions? And there was Ibn Amir,

with whom you lost your way at Falj of the deep waters,

the morning Maghra wept, when there copulated

with Maghra at al-Hayran the dreams of a sleeper.

Nor does the bondsman travel by night when night casts

over him the gloom of its massed depths.

It makes the bondsmen settle when their eyes are veiled,

like the twin chicks of sandgrouse.

But if it were a yellow bowl of tharid, you would find them

guides, with mouths thick at the jaw-hinges.

Whenever the two sons of Mufaddah meet, into dust are rubbed

the noses of al-Ja'ra's sons beneath the camels' footpads.

Al-Ja'ra' was nothing but a slave-girl;

we inherited her father from Tamim ibn Darim.

Whenever we gather, they submit their necks to judgment:

are they nearer to freedom, or meant to be divided into shares?

They sit at the entrances of pens, and you do not see

any of them present at momentous affairs.

Nor has al-Ja'ra' been freed from me, and for her there is no

release, though she shut her eyes upon a thousand humbled men.

Concerning them, my father had charged me to gather them

to me, and ward every oppressor away from them.

Whenever al-Ja'ra's sons wrap their heads,

their baseness shows between their beards and turbans.