لمن الديار كأنها لم تحلل — Jarir

Whose are these dwellings, as though never inhabited,

between al-Kinas and the acacias of al-A'zal?

Once I saw in you—and all new things pass to decay—

love's death and healing for the beholder's eye.

She looked at you with eyes like those of a doe with a fawn,

which had broken her snare in upper Yalyal.

When you sought her bounty, she withheld it,

but when you hinted at her affection, she was not stingy.

I remembered you while the riding camels bowed low,

as though they were sandgrouse in a trackless desert,

giving drink at al-Udama to wilderness chicks,

with downy brows and red crops.

O Umm Najiya, peace be upon you,

before evening departure and before the reproachers' blame.

When you set out at dawn, may a greeting reach you early,

ahead of the departure of the cawing, white-legged crows.

Had I known that my last meeting with you

was the day of departure, I would have done what I did not.

Or had I feared the imminence of a swift separation,

I would have been content, or asked what had never been asked.

I prepared a deadly poison for the poets,

and made the last of them drink from the first one's cup.

When I set my branding iron upon al-Farazdaq,

and al-Ba'ith howled, I cut off al-Akhtal's nose.

He who raised the sky has disgraced Mujashi',

and built your edifice in the lowest depths:

a house whose courtyard your smith blackens with soot,

with filthy seats and a foul entrance.

You built the meanest house ever built,

so I demolished your house with two mountains like Yadhbul.

Indeed, my forefather built me a house amid noble deeds,

while you blew your bellows in days of old.

The ancestral glory of Mujashi', those smiths, has baffled you;

so look—perhaps you can claim descent from Nahshal.

And praise the chiefs of Banu Fuqaym, for they

killed your father, and his killer remains unslain.

Leave al-Barajim alone, for your drink among them

has bitter consequences, like the taste of colocynth.

I poured down upon you from the sky,

until I snatched you, O Farazdaq, from on high,

after my blow against al-Ba'ith, who seemed

a male bustard puffed up in fear of the falcon.

I branded you, O Ba'ith, with my branding iron,

and al-Farazdaq howled beneath my chest's hard press.

It is enough for al-Farazdaq that Mujashi' be reviled,

and that he count the verse of Muraqqish and Muhalhil.

The smiths of Banu Qufayra pursued an outrunner,

abundant in impromptu verse, bolting against the bit.

Al-Zubayr was killed while you sat with your sitting-wrap tied;

shame on your sitting-wrap, which was never untied!

Do not speak of kings' robes, for you,

after al-Zubayr, are like a menstruating woman still unwashed.

Little son of Shi'ra, why do you block our path

with the two blind men? Qufayra counts for nothing—move aside.

In the faces of Mujashi' there has plainly appeared

a baseness whose mist rises and never clears.

I left Mujashi' as though they were

truffles in the path of a massed army.

My stronghold is with the two mountains of Tamim,

and my house stands on the loftiest high ground.

Our sober judgment matches the mountains in weight,

and our hothead surpasses the hotheads in deeds.

Then turn to Quraysh's two arbiters, for they

are the people of prophecy and the revealed Book.

Then ask, when the anklets are exposed and there is kindled

a war blazing like a fire set alight,

and the horses pant beneath armored warriors, who have seen

the lookout's flashing signal on the lofty, towering height:

do Banu Tuhayya equal my horsemen,

and Banu Khadaf? That has never been equaled.

When I grow angry, pebbles are hurled behind me

by the sons of my rock, like the choicest stone:

Amr and Sa'd, O Farazdaq—among them are

bright stars and towering mountains.

Al-Farazdaq, when he sought refuge with his maternal uncle,

was like a weakling sheltering beneath a qarmal shrub.

Boast of Dabba, since your mother is one of them;

a son of Dabba has no noble paternal or maternal uncles.

Mudar judged for us against you on account of our superiority,

and Rabi'a delivered the decisive verdict.

Indeed, He who raised the sky has built for us

a house that overtops you and cannot be moved.

Tell Banu Waqban that their judgments

have grown so light they do not weigh a mustard seed.

Vain boasting has debased your judgment, so you are

like moths that swarm over the fire of one warming himself.

You describe swords while others strike with them,

O son of smiths—that is the sword-polisher's work.

And at Rahrahan your buttocks quivered,

and you panicked like potbellied, unarmed men.

Al-Farazdaq was castrated—and castration is humiliation—

yet he hopes to risk a contest with mature camel stallions.

The female circumcisers feared, among Mujashi's daughters,

things like hooked staffs or the antlers of a stag.

Qufayra held al-Farazdaq back, after

al-Farazdaq had strained his utmost, sparing no effort.

What distracted your father from noble deeds and high rank was

bending iron clamps and raising the cauldron.

Deliver my gift to al-Farazdaq; it is

a burden added to an exhausted, overladen beast.

We straighten the tilt of heads, and we reap

the crowned one's head with a keen, severing sword.