فَسيري فَأُمّي أَرضَ قَومِكِ إِنَّني

أَرى حُقبَةً خَوقاءَ جَمّاً فُثوقُها

Go on, then, and make for your people’s land—for I

see a gaping span of time, its breaches manifold.

وَأَثني عَلى سَعدٍ بِما هِيَ أَهلُهُ

وَخَيرُ أَحاديثِ الغَريبِ صَدوقُها

And I praise Saʿd for what she truly merits;

the best of a stranger’s tales is the truthful one.

عِظامُ المَقاري يَأمَنُ الجارُ فَجعَها

إِذا ما الثُرَيّا أَخلَفَتها بُروقُها

Her serving vessels are immense; the neighbor is safe from deprivation at her hands

when the Pleiades’ flashes break their promise of rain to her.

خَلا أَنَّ أَعرافَ الكَوادِنِ مِنقَراً

قَبيلَةُ سوءٍ بارَ في الناسَ سوقُها

But Minqar are the very manes of plodding nags—

an evil tribe whose market has gone unsold among the people.

تَحَمَّلَ باني مِنقِرٍ عَن مُقاعِسٍ

مِنَ اللُؤمِ أَعباءً ثِقالاً وَسوقُها

The founder of Minqar took upon himself, on Muqāʿis’s behalf,

heavy burdens of baseness—and the driving of them.

إِوَزَّى بِها لا يَأطِرُ الحَملُ مَتنَهُ

وَيَعجِزُ عَن حَملِ العُلا لا يُطيقُها

He shoulders them; the load does not bend his back,

yet he is too weak to bear nobility—he cannot carry it.

أَلَم تَعلَموا يا آلَ طَوعَةَ إِنَّما

يَهيجُ جَليلاتِ الأُمورِ دَقيقُها

Have you two not learned, O house of Ṭawʿa, that

it is the smallest things that stir the gravest affairs?

تَنابِلَةٌ سودُ الوُجوهِ كَأَنَّهُم

حَميرُ بَني غَيلانَ إِذ ثارَ صيقُها

Sluggish idlers, black of face, as though they were

the donkeys of Banū Ghaylān when their dust-cloud rises.