Sol 6.1

  1. Have you visited the tribe's dwellings, or will you not visit them?

    And how far from the tribe are al-Jimad and its dwellings!

  2. And what use is the desolate dwelling to one in love,

    When its swirling dust races in crests and rises over the dwelling?

  3. The tribe's dwellings, from long decay, seem

    Like monks' scrolls whose lines have faded;

  4. Like the marks a Harithite woman pricked into a wrist,

    A Yemeni woman tattooing, her soot still remaining.

  5. Wild beasts elude the archers, though unwary,

    Yet Nawar fears beasts that do her no harm.

  6. If al-Farazdaq's judgment should fail him one day,

    And he envy Qays, he will do it no harm.

  7. To your ruin, you drove the weaklings, Mujashiʿ's weaklings,

    Into war with Qays, its blaze burning hot.

  8. You are, son of the smith, like one who gives his sword

    To his enemies while war's cauldrons boil.

  9. Never feel safe from the tribe of Qays, for they are

    Sons of chaste women whose laps have never been defiled.

  10. Blessed spear-brandishers who defend women,

    Bearers of noble offspring, whose bride-prices soar among Quraysh.

  11. Know that Qays are shining stars,

    Whose light cleaves the gloom of the dark night.

  12. Among Qays's deeds of old are reckoned

    Houses whose supports and walls stand tall.

  13. The horsemen of Qays defend their protected lands,

    And among them are mountains of might, their rugged slopes hard to climb.

  14. Qays are Qays of the reins and lances,

    And Qays defend the horses whose chests bleed.

  15. Sulaym, Dhubyan, ʿAbs, and ʿAmir—

    Fortresses reaching toward might, their structures towering.

  16. Have you not seen Qays, whose domain none dares assail,

    Whose prince rules over you with authority?

  17. Kings and maternal uncles of kings, and among them

    Are life-giving rains, whose showers revive the lands.

  18. For the mountains of might among the kin of Khindif

    Belong to Qays: it is mighty, and mighty is its champion.

  19. Have you not seen Qays, when Mujashiʿ faltered,

    Granting protection, while you find no tribe to protect it?

  20. Sons of Darim, who turned back the raiding horsemen

    On the morning of al-Safa, when only a tenth escaped?

  21. You came upon Qays with Mujashiʿ's weaklings,

    And returned on a leg whose mending was slow.

  22. As though, in the mountain pass, there had toppled upon them

    Nidad, then the mountains of al-Sutur, then its Nir.

  23. Jaʿfar vowed to cut off al-Farazdaq's nose;

    When the smith's nose is severed, its vows are fulfilled.

  24. Possessors of lofty enclosures, of Jaʿfar's kin—

    Whoever wrongs them is handed over, and their poor are given aid.

  25. Their life is glory, and for Jaʿfar are built—

    When it recalls the glory of life—its tombs.

  26. You fled from Jaʿfar on the day of Maʿbad,

    So he surrendered, al-Qalhaʾ's captive in bondage.

  27. Do you forget the two days of Rahrahan, while your mother

    Was led beside horses, her camel trotting?

  28. You recall what lay between al-Dibab and Jaʿfar,

    Yet forget the slain whose killers have not been killed.

  29. Blue spearheads were thrust forcibly into you

    At midmorning by stout lances, scarcely cracked.

  30. Then he said, 'For aid in your war with Jaʿfar,

    Its farms and palaces will suffice you.'

  31. If none but the smiths of Mujashiʿ

    Defend ancestral honor, its frontiers are lost.

  32. Have you not seen that God has disgraced Mujashiʿ,

    When its affairs are recounted after the ordeal?

  33. For they heed no sacred prohibition,

    And their protector never keeps faith with a neighbor.

  34. Mujashiʿ's houses were once built

    On filth, until their depths turned putrid.

  35. How many a shame among them, with chicks of its own,

    Is counted, and another's months are already complete!

  36. Sons of weaklings, they honor no covenant,

    And no woman under their protection has her curtains respected.

  37. The weaklings' pool—the weaklings of Mujashiʿ—was befouled

    By disgraces coming toward them, evening and morning.

  38. Is it a boast when Mujashiʿ's milk-skins curdle,

    And its caravan brings dates from Huwarin?

  39. Sons of milkweed, with no nabʿ wood in it, and of castor,

    Their two firesticks are tamarisk, its weak stems swaying together.

  40. Gruel from two cauldrons suffices Mujashiʿ,

    Whenever the war-bands' raider senses galloping.

  41. The peoples know full well that Mujashiʿ,

    When known for disgrace, offers little denial.

  42. Mujashiʿ's pact does not safeguard its neighbors

    When, in war, its envoy does not return with peace.

  43. Ghalib's two eyes were put out at his bellows

    By the smith's leaping sparks, when he sends them flying.

  44. I treated a patch of al-Farazdaq's mange

    With naphtha, so its spread is no longer feared.

  45. I gave him a first draught of poison, then another,

    With a cup of deadly venom, its juice bitter.

  46. The vilest visitor returned to the smiths,

    When the saddle was unbound from the fine she-camel's back.

  47. Is it one day the shame of al-Farazdaq's brothel,

    And another, Babylon's prostitutes and its wines?

  48. If ever you drink Babylonian wine, you care nothing

    For modesty; its juice is not poured for a chaste man.

  49. You have never ceased, O ʿIqdan, building disgrace,

    Whispering of it to a soul whose conscience is base.

  50. I saw you establish neither honor nor good sense,

    But brothels whose fees are paid.

  51. I stirred up disgraces against you; never would

    A perpetrator of shame lack someone to expose it.

  52. You have met a fierce serpent, not born of Mujashiʿ,

    And the most feared mountain snakes are their males.

  53. You praise Saʿd—may you never rise—and Minqar,

    At Hawmal of the wolves, their hamstrung beast crawling.

  54. You turned to one with withered veins, but never could

    Their flow water the mouths of those veins.

  55. Your blind mother cried on the night of Minqar

    For ruin: she had stumbled, and long was her misery.

  56. She spread a disgrace of al-Farazdaq through Najd,

    And it descended into al-Ghawr's mountains among those who go down there.

  57. By your life, Mujashiʿ's young woman is not forgotten,

    Nor the pledge whose deceiver duped al-Zubayr.

  58. Seafarers take word of your treachery onto the open sea,

    And sunken-eyed camels race over Marran, their plaited cords streaming.

  59. You bawled to one another on al-Zubayr's day, as though you were

    Hyenas whose dung had rotted inside a cavern.

  60. Had you been one of us, your neighbor would not have been shared out

    By beasts and birds that found no one to drive them away.

  61. Had we made a covenant with al-Zubayr, you would have found him

    In the place of a vulture whose nests cannot be reached.

  62. My horsemen have long fought in Tamim's defense,

    When war's snarling bares a fang's sharp edge.

  63. Who will convey from me a message to Tamim,

    Openly, with sincere counsel in my soul's depths?

  64. I turned Qays's affection toward you; never could

    Layla's smiths and her bellows be a substitute for them.

Sol 6.1