Sol 6.1

  1. One evening, at the upper reach of al-Jawf's watercourse, I was led by

    a passion that nearly made me forget self-restraint or brought folly back.

  2. That evening, torrents from my eyes defied me,

    though I sometimes told their weeping, 'Hold back.'

  3. I did not fear imminent separation until I saw them

    bringing back the full-grown Ghurayriyya camels for their departure.

  4. For love of the Asimiyya woman, I love a group

    of people who had been neither friends nor kin.

  5. I watch over them in their absence, for love of her,

    and bestow on them my respect and generosity.

  6. Indeed, al-Farazdaq's wife bolted, and she was held back—

    Hadra—by a people who did not deem him worthy of her.

  7. They judged marriage kinship with that clan a disgrace upon them,

    and Bistam superior to Ghalib.

  8. She cried, 'O men of Dhuhl!' in aversion to Mujashi;

    and will Hadra call upon Dhuhl after that?

  9. And what place has the son of the two-bellows man in Khalid's house?

    Can a house hold piglets and bees together?

  10. Had she patched your two bellows, she would have been like a traveler

    leaving rain-fed pasture to choose barrenness and drought.

  11. The smith has been denied passage, though he can see

    Shayban's spring and its level camel resting-ground.

  12. They withheld al-Farazdaq's wife and closed ranks

    against him; he met forbidding obstacles on the way to her.

  13. Al-Hawfazan's people did not repay you

    with injustice, nor tell their companion, 'Hold back.'

  14. Your smith spent the night complacent about Hadra,

    and slept, without putting a lock on her fetter.

  15. He slept and did not travel by night; she did, and at dawn

    gazed at sand among Asnuma's dunes.

  16. Shayban's Hadra has been spared being seen

    as a smith's wife, or having him for a husband.

  17. When she crossed the wilderness away from Masḥulan and defended herself

    with Shayban's help, the smith found trouble barring his way to her.

  18. They tore Ibn Habis's heart out with terror,

    as horses stampede camels with their massed charge.

  19. You were angry with us because we denied Mujashi,

    long ago, the flowing water, so they dug for shallow water.

  20. Indeed, what brought on the fear of Malik was

    hearts that shared draughts of stupidity and folly.

  21. Before that, my harrying of Mujashi had long continued;

    over Hadra they faced thunderbolts and hardship.

  22. They did not make her kneel for your smith, O house of Dawtar—

    surely the basest of all who put a sandal on a foot.

  23. They had no desire for marriage ties with the house of Mujashi,

    nor did they see the smiths' kind as a match for their own.

  24. After thirty years of our trading volleys at one another,

    have you now, smith's son, grown unable to exact revenge?

  25. Whenever we renew our exchanges, I strike you such a blow

    that, after the bones are sundered, you see a deep hollow left by it.

  26. Your bond deceived al-Zubayr, so no

    protected neighbor after him could trust a bond of yours.

  27. Stand, and ask the peoples who gives the spears their drink,

    and who dispels affliction, and who defends the ancestral stock,

  28. and who kills champions while the horses rush forth

    with their riders, as sandgrouse flock to a shallow stream.

  29. Behold, many a tyrant have we stripped of his crown,

    and he became a captive among us, complaining of his fetters.

Sol 6.1