1. Umamah keeps us hoping with promises,

    but they do not quench thirsty hearts.

  2. But for my love of her—by the God of Moses—

    I would have forsaken youthful passion and beautiful women.

  3. I can no more endure separation from the snub-nosed beauty

    than a fish can endure separation from Euphrates water.

  4. When she is pleased, I am pleased; and I am overcome,

    when she is angry, as by fits of stupor.

  5. I am the hawk hovering over Numayr,

    despite those noses rubbed in the dust.

  6. When Numayr hears my voice ring out,

    you would take them for women listening silently.

  7. You hoped for my death, sons of Waqban,

    and I hope my life will last long for you.

  8. When they gather against me, leave them alone,

    and leave alone a hawk battering houbara bustards.

  9. When the doves—the doves of Najd—coo,

    they announce the death of the neighbor of al-Aqari' and al-Hutat.

  10. Whenever the night rouses a sorrowful owl,

    it weeps for him in anguish until death.

  11. Does Layla's smith boast of the soot-blackened one,

    and of the patched bellows and the anvil?

  12. And your mother, Qufayrah, reared you

    in the house of baseness, amid dung-heaps overgrown with plants.

  13. You dealt treacherously with al-Zubayr and betrayed him;

    so what steadfastness can Tuhayyah hope for?

  14. Nor was the fierce one afraid of me;

    so what can Tuhayyah expect from my fierceness?

  15. The noblemen of the clan, if present, suffice me;

    and if I instruct them, they honor my instructions.

  16. And the sons of Qufayrah met their doom when they came to me

    with a smith forever striking the anvil.

  17. I left the smith more obedient than a eunuch,

    docile and compliant in his nose-ring.

  18. Do you hope, with the two smiths and the cowards,

    for lofty, camel-like bellowings against Yarbu'?

  19. They held their ground at Dhu Najab to defend their honor,

    and they drove back the army at Waridat.

  20. And when we boast, we are lifted above you

    by the lofty, towering heights of Yarbu'.

  21. They stripped the tyrants of a royal crown,

    at Tikhfah, amid the clash of armored warriors.

  22. For al-Farazdaq has indeed drowned, as over him rose

    wave-crests from the Euphrates, crashing together.

  23. I saw you, Farazdaq, among Sa'd,

    when they were attacked by night—what a wretched comrade in the raid!

  24. Woe to you! You have never met a noble man

    who sleeps, as you do, heedless of unavenged wrongs.

  25. You forgot Ji'thin's defloration and sat with your knees wrapped;

    ah, damn your boasting of those knee-wraps!

  26. The places where her knees rest have bled,

    from repeated kneeling, not from prayer.

  27. She calls to Ghalib and the sons of 'Iqal;

    you have indeed disgraced your people before the assembled company.

  28. We found women of the sons of 'Iqal

    in a house of humiliation, targets for the archers:

  29. beauties, fouler than donkeys,

    and more wanton than polytheist women.

  30. And you contend with a wretched talon,

    yet my rock refuses to soften for you.

  31. Is al-Zibriqan not the ass most deserving

    of being shot, since he exposed himself to the archers?

  32. The sons of Quray' undertook what you neglected:

    that your neighbor should meet a sudden death.

  33. He dangled from Ibn Murrah, as you well know;

    he dangled down, then you jolt the bucket.

Sol 6.1