Sol 5.6

  1. By your life, no cherished woman could repay me for my hardship,

    Nor for risking my life against spiteful foes, nor for spending my wealth;

  2. Nor for journeying when the deepest darkness grows dense,

    With the caravan until they mistake the stony upland for a valley;

  3. Nor for saying to my companions, before they could yet discern it,

    “The heart’s desire may appear to you ahead of me”;

  4. Nor for seeking bounty in enemy territory, as though

    The rising Pleiades sought shade beneath lofty spearheads—

  5. In a land rife with battle, amid whose tumult you hear

    Swift urging when darkness falls, and a camel-driver’s song.

  6. When the time for a night halt comes there, you would think it

    A dense thicket, so closely packed is all within it.

  7. If a thousand men strayed from it, not one would be missed,

    Though it traveled through enemy country for many nights.

  8. We halt to face it—for whenever such a host comes upon us,

    We entertain it with close-woven, piercing spears.

  9. When we met, their own ill fortunes foretold them

    A press of blows whose intervals you saw crowding close.

  10. I was told that my uncles, the sons of al-Fizr, had arrived by morning,

    Wishing they had loosed vipers against me.

  11. If you seek me among Tamim, you will find me

    Upon a rugged height that towers above the hills.

  12. You will find me, with ʿAmr and Malik, defending my household,

    Clothing the reckless in tough, unyielding sinews,

  13. With every keen Rudayni spear, iron-hard at the point—

    Those are the weapons with which we subdued our enemies.

  14. Many a traveler called until the dogs barked, with night between us,

    Watching the successive stars with both his eyes.

  15. He journeyed after night enveloped him, while the east wind bore his voice

    To me; since yesterday he had remained hungry.

  16. He uttered one cry, like despair itself, when

    The deserts encircled him and he bestrode hard uplands and empty wastes.

  17. I said to my household, “That is the voice of a frightened traveler,

    Calling—or an owl calling its loudly shrieking young.”

  18. I waited and listened intently until I understood it,

    Though a crosswind had driven back whoever traveled by night.

  19. I rose, fearing the night traveler might escape me

    On a far-ranging mount that surmounts the hidden, broken tracks of the wild.

  20. When I saw the wind snatching away his dog-rousing cry,

    While night had already driven the southern Simak down toward setting,

  21. I swore to them: “If our dogs do not answer him,

    I myself shall kindle a fire that answers the caller—

  22. A fire mighty in radiance, raised high for seekers of bounty,

    Its blaze rising level with the fire-kindlers’ faces in my courtyard.”

  23. I told my two servants, “Hurry to it, for surely

    Its radiance alone can summon any son of humankind.”

  24. It did not die before its fuel had lit up

    A wilderness traveler urging his mount onward barefoot.

  25. I rose toward the kneeling camels as they slept—and it was not to be that

    My blade would spare the four-year-old she-camels following one another.

  26. I plunged among their inner ranks, where you might see

    Aged she-camels in my herd still rich in reserves of strength.

  27. That was only because I chose, for the guest’s repast,

    The choicest pregnant she-camels and refractory young ones nearing maturity.

  28. I gave my sword free rein among camels whose humps stood like spears,

    Striking swiftly, heedless of my herdsmen’s weeping.

  29. Then we rose to a great black cauldron, guarantor of the feast,

    Fiercely boiling whenever the hearthstones bore it—

  30. A raging monster like an elephant’s belly; none had seen its equal.

    You could see breastbones floating in it like flood-scum.

  31. From the foot of ʿUnayzah we brought beside it

    Three massive hearthstones, like a small Hajarite herd, planted firm.

  32. When we lowered the pot upon them, it rumbled,

    Then quieted and laid its broad supporting sides over them.

  33. It stood firm, as though the boiling within it were a raiding party

    That had sighted livestock already hidden nearby by night.

  34. Whenever they fiercely stoked it with fuel, it raged

    Against the meat until it left the bones bare.

  35. The roar of boiling within its chambers seemed

    Like rivals contending, each gripping the other’s forelock.

  36. Amid the tents it had a booming voice, as though it were

    A purebred, loudly bellowing she-camel that denies no seeker meat.

  37. It softened the ends of the bones until they grew tender,

    Gulping down the slaughtered camel’s joints whole, just as they were.

  38. My two servants did not sit until I had served him

    Milk and abundant fat from the humps of milk-dry she-camels.

Sol 5.6