Sol 5.6

  1. She pays no blood-money for those she has slain;

    long has she been slaying, though no victim lies dead.

  2. Ah, if only she had witnessed my tossing through the night,

    when every intimate friend had then withdrawn from me.

  3. She draws near, tempting the man of folly and youthful passion

    to hope for her—yet when sought, she grants nothing.

  4. When she appeared, the taste of the sweet moisture in her mouth

    was like hail upon the polished branch of a balsam tree.

  5. Indeed, she drew near to me beguilingly when she approached—

    a nearness neither grudging nor freely bestowed.

  6. Through you, a surge of glory has risen toward the heights,

    raising your house upon a proud and towering eminence.

  7. Indeed, al-Muʿallā built your noble house for you

    upon the crest of a rising hill, far from any floodcourse.

  8. I am under the protection of Mālik and al-Mundhir,

    guarded by those men against every cunning plotter.

  9. And when I am carried to prayer, I seem to be

    a burden that makes its matching counterweight sag.

  10. The men walk with me borne upon their hands—

    how admirable, this fettered man they carry!

  11. The fires of hospitality have been imprisoned with me,

    kept from every wayfarer camping apart and every newcomer.

  12. I used to feed those fires with every fat she-camel,

    for nighttime visitors, with the swiftest dispatch.

  13. Those fetters indeed set out from Iraq upon pregnant she-camels,

    their rings now fastened firmly around me.

  14. The men run when the she-camels are driven, once they urge them to race,

    with the nose-rein of a racing she-camel and every braided cord.

Sol 5.6