Sol 5.6

  1. I yearned for the mountains—the mountains of Ṭayyiʾ—

    and my young she-camel yearned when she saw a red whip.

  2. I said to her, “The road lies before us,

    and surely we are bound for our home ground, if the way opens.”

  3. O you two riders in Jadīla’s highlands, know this:

    you are being made to endure manifest wrong—so take heed.

  4. We find nothing hateful except that Ibn Milqaṭ—

    I see he has given Awjar to al-Ghulāma.

  5. Yet I keep urging my mount onward despite her sore hooves;

    I am not one of your lovers, daughter of ʿAfzar.

  6. I have never ceased pressing on between Nāb and Dāra,

    through Liḥyān, until I feared I might become a Christian.

  7. Until I imagined night and dawn, when dawn appeared,

    as two coursing stallions, one black and one chestnut.

  8. Surely a pass in al-Rayyān, whose gateway is mine to command,

    where I call out to the house of al-Kabīr and Jaʿfar,

  9. is dearer to me than an orator I once saw:

    whenever I spoke a worthy word, it was turned into something blameworthy.

  10. She calls to her neighbor-women: “Indeed, Ḥātim—

    by my life, I see that since leaving us he has changed.”

  11. I have changed, indeed—but not for anything that warrants suspicion,

    nor have I ever said “no” to a man of generosity.

  12. Do not ask me; ask instead what sort of horseman I am

    when the warriors race toward the screened shelter.

  13. And do not ask me; ask what sort of horseman I am

    when the cavalry wheels amid lances already shattered.

  14. Never, while all his ten-month-pregnant she-camels graze together,

    shall my guest wake hollow-faced and dust-covered.

  15. Whenever you see me walking with my sword among the herd,

    you fear me, inwardly expecting one of them to be slaughtered.

  16. Even the farthest member of the encampment comes to my serving-bowl

    when the tall acacias have been stripped of their leaves.

  17. Do not ask me; ask my companions about me

    when the mounts writhe with hunger in the open wilderness.

  18. Indeed, I lavishly give away my keen-edged sword and my she-camel,

    when wine exhilarates me—and the broad-chested bay horse as well.

  19. I am worn like the frayed straps of a bridle; and never will you see

    a man of war except hollow-faced and dust-covered.

  20. A man of war—if war bites him, he bites it back;

    and if war bares its shank, he too girds himself to meet it.

  21. And I, when nothing lies between death and me

    but a handspan, guard my honor against retreat.

  22. Whenever you seek Jadīla’s friendship, you will find it—

    and its enmity likewise remains, enduring and deep-rooted.

  23. If they do not oppose us openly, we find them

    supporting our enemies, guiding them and warning them.

  24. When a single dune of Salāmān stands between me and them,

    I find the continuing bond between us severed.

Sol 5.6