Sol 6.1

  1. Kulayb says, once its whiskers have grown thick

    and every quarter of its Marrut has grown fertile,

  2. to Su'ban of the sheep his mother tended

    until gray hair crowned her above her tresses:

  3. 'Will you not, when the swayback's back has shed its hair,

    be a suitor to the house of Bistam ibn Qays?'

  4. They met the two sons of Ji'al, the donkey-colts seeming

    like nests for them, the men with headbands askew.

  5. The two said to them, 'What is the matter with you in your cloaks?

    Is it fright, or someone frolicking around Rayyan?'

  6. They said, 'We heard that Hadra was married

    for a hundred camels, high of hump and withers.

  7. And we have inherited goats that seem

    like onyx from Zafar worn across the collarbones.

  8. With them we married the costliest of our women,

    and every blood-price we owe is payable in them.'

  9. The two said, 'Turn back; we fear for you

    the hands of every proud, quarrelsome man of Rabi'ah.

  10. Unless you turn back, none of you will return

    with an ear left—only scabbed sores.'

  11. Had you been among Hadra's equals, you would not have reproached

    a Darimi born of Layla and Ghalib.

  12. Win a woman like her from men like them, then reproach them,

    with your livestock, those brought home and those grazing far afield.

  13. And I surely fear, if you seek a bride from them,

    that you will meet what befell Yasar of the budding-breasted maidens.

  14. And had they accepted Atiyyah from me, I would have driven him

    to the house of Ziq as a middling young slave.

  15. They gave Dirar a wife before me, and gave one

    to Laqit; they are our equals in lineage.

  16. And if the sun gave her daughters in marriage to the stars,

    we would certainly marry them before the planets.

  17. And no people ever exacted a pledge from a freeborn woman's husband

    among men, except from you or from Muharib.

  18. Perhaps, over Hadra, you reproached me on behalf of the one

    whom the goats preferred above every milker—

  19. Atiyyah, or the man with two cloaks, as though he were

    Atiyyah, the she-ass's husband and rider.

Sol 6.1