لمن الديار رسومهن خوالي — Jarir

Whose are these dwellings, their traces desolate?

They stand deserted after companionship and habitation.

The dwellings, after our stay there, were effaced by

rain and a fierce, sweeping blast of wind.

My piety has turned against my desire, and often

my camels yearned when the companions departed.

Indeed, I see the neighboring people have parted

without grievance and without mutual hatred.

I, when the archers are arrayed for their long-range shots,

in defense of honor, outshoot every far-shooting archer.

The riding-camels were sped by the brands I set on Mujashi‘,

and the cloth-clad zunbari vessel swims onward.

In two nights, whenever I chant a poem,

it reaches Oman and Tayy of the mountains.

This is our precedence, and my rebuke of Malik:

Do not let your smith's doom destroy you, Malik.

When they saw abundant torment befalling them,

the smiths became like elephant drivers.

O Qurt, you are companions in disgrace,

and baseness has fettered the smiths of ‘Iqal.

Farazdaq has become a led mount for al-Ba‘ith,

like a two-year-old camel paired with the tail-raising bull.

Your doom destroyed you, Farazdaq, as you joined forces;

that brought your people nothing but ruin.

Indeed, I have branded Mujashi‘ upon their noses,

and spared you the task of praising Ibn Ji‘al.

Blow into your bellows, Farazdaq; indeed, I

stand on a lofty height above your house's station.

When you took a stand at my people's frontier,

I preferred that to my sons and wealth.

I have invoked my horsemen and their deeds,

and invoked the worst of horsemen and deeds.

We are the commanders of every dreaded war,

while you attend your bellows, scorched by fire.

Who equals the rider of Dhu al-Khimar and Qa‘nab,

and the two Hantafs on a night of turmoil,

and al-Ridf when he mastered kings, and the man whose

gifts are immense on every day of generosity?

Those who, when women are left exposed, repel

a gray host with helmets and ranked companies.

They are a people who grieved your father, and among them

is lofty ancestral honor surpassing the sons of Qufayra.

Indeed, my horsemen seize kings,

and duel when the cry goes up: 'Come down and fight!'

Each a fair-faced man to whose face men look for light,

as pilgrims look for the rising crescent.

Our spearheads drive through, and Malik knows

that I have defended my rugged ground and my sands.

Ask ‘Amir's horsemen at Dhu Najab,

and ask ‘Uyayna on the day at the valley-bend of Zilal.

How many a difficulty we have warded off, after

the smiths failed to find a resourceful man's remedy.

The noble horses spend the night around our tents,

from A‘waj's stock or that of Dhu al-‘Uqqal.

Each high-headed, even when the course is long,

blazing over level ground, sure-footed over stony tracts.

Leaping forward, long-necked, as though its rein

were fastened to one of Awal's bare tree-trunks.

Smooth of skin when you remove its blankets,

with flowing mane and tail, spending the night spared menial work.

And the cherished mares—we lead them despite sore hooves,

as beasts of prey dig at pools of seeping water.

Those are noble deeds, Farazdaq; acknowledge them,

not driving your young camel that day in Ubal's hollow.

O sons of Qufayra, who can turn back our watering herd,

or who can lead when burdens grow heavy?

Did you think your day at al-Waqit was like our day,

the day of al-Ghabit at the summit of al-Adhal?

Let it not escape you that Mujashi‘

have the likeness of men, but are not men.

As for my invective, it is torment upon them,

and death for the fainthearted when I fight.

Like old she-camels whose nosebags have torn them, after

they voided dung from saltwort in Uthal's hollow.

Hollow bellies, shovels for gruel—and already

al-Zubayr's spoils have found shelter with the sons of al-Dhayyal.

You met A‘yan, al-Zubayr, and Ji‘thin,

heavy burdens of disgrace upon you.

Al-Zubayr called on Mujashi‘, and there stirred

the vilest noses and moustaches, bent on treachery.

Would that your neighbor and guest, al-Zubayr,

had entwined his rope with my ropes instead.

God knows, had he taken a pledge of protection

from us, tall spears would have been blood-streaked in throats.

Ji‘thin says, when she sees you masked:

'Shame on you, lion, father of cubs!'

Farazdaq faced a loss he did not remedy;

indeed, Farazdaq is too occupied to attend to you.

What is with your mother when she puts on her gown,

while my tunic is a flowing coat of iron mail?

You blackened your face, standing above your bellows,

and gave your mother the leftover red wine to drink.

Qufayra grew gray, her thigh-vein still swelling,

among the dry she-camels, a calf-dummy for tied udders and weanlings.

May God disgrace the sons of Khadaf and women

for whom gruel lay overnight like belly-swelling sickness.

Farazdaq and all the Sa‘sa‘as were borne

by coarse foreign women whose faces are like frying pans.

O Dabb, my right hand is now free—know this—

unfettered, and the smiths have not occupied my left.

O Dabb, I hope my branding irons strike

Kuz in wrath, and the clan of Bilal.

O Dabb, I have cooked Mujashi‘

with a cooking that separates the joins of the limbs.

O Dabb, but for your doom, you would not have been

a target for my arrows when my shooting grew earnest.

O Dabb, you are young she-camels, while I am

a raging bull camel in rut—my charge is feared.

O Dabb, others are the pure stock, and you are

followers, clients when the pure stock is reckoned.

O Dabb, you are mere padding for Sa‘d,

like the unbranded young she-camels you bunched together.

O Dabb, affection for the smiths has led you astray,

like the straying of the one-eyed Dajjal's followers.

Blow into your bellows, Farazdaq, and wait

in Karnaba for the returning travelers' gift.

He disgraced the battalion when he farted standing up—

Ostrich-dung, Shabba ibn ‘Iqal.

Al-Sid are not, when you invoked your maternal uncle among them,

like the sons of al-Ashadd, nor the sons of al-Nazzal.

My maternal uncle is he who subdued al-Hudhayl, while his horses

were in a cramped fighting ground, with room to maneuver.

Bring me your maternal uncle, Farazdaq, and know

that your maternal uncle does not measure up to my maternal uncles.