متى كان الخيام بذي طلوح — Jarir

When were the tents at Dhu Tuluh?

May rain water you, O tents!

Some of their familiar features have grown strange, and tilted

are their supports; the thumam grass has decayed.

Lavender rises high above your sandy plain,

in blossom, and clouds have poured rain upon you.

Eight years have passed over the tribe's encampment,

added to twenty; the encampment is worn away.

I say to my companions when we depart,

while the eye's tears pour in streams:

Will you pass the traces without greeting them?

Then your words are forbidden to me.

Stay: one day is only like another,

but a companion has a claim to loyalty.

My life be ransom for the one whose avoidance is hard

for me, and whose visits are rare,

whom I do not see at evening or morning,

yet who visits me when the sleepers sleep.

Is there not, for what I sought—may my life ransom you—

fulfillment, or an end to my need?

My life be ransom for yours, O bedfellow,

when sleep surges amid drowsiness.

Do you forget when Sulayma bade us farewell

by a balsam branch? May the balsam be watered!

You left men driven from water, who saw relief,

so they circled, then never reached the water, and circled again.

If the doves felt the longing that we felt

at Sulmanayn, the doves would grieve.

For no longing is like yours on the day we said,

Peace upon an old dwelling at Nazira.

Will you not requite me, when my soul's confidant is

talk of you and fevered longing,

and I drive the riding camels through a star's searing heat

on a night of thirst for camels due fifth-day watering?

They flung the stony ground's pebbles aside as they bore us, until

the sandal-thongs and ankle-straps tore apart.

As though the saddle rested on a lean-bellied, sturdy wild ass

with a haunt on the hard ground of al-Shurayf.

The poets howled to one another

against me; vengeance has struck them.

They are like foxes when they meet

a mighty lion growling in his den.

When I unleash a thunderbolt upon them,

they see another blazing and seek respite.

Thus one is shorn of ears, or castrated,

and another's skull-bone lies in fragments.

If they wish, I offer them a swift gallop

and a canter mingled with fierce resolve.

Al-Akhaytil has lied: I have sharpness

when the crowds cry out, and firm resolve.

Taghlib are no guardians of just judgment,

nor do they resent being wronged.

If the sons of Jusham ibn Bakr are blamed

for al-Rahub's kneading-woman, they have earned the blame.

The battles have brought healing; no Taghlibi has

any answer after them, nor any argument.

My Khindifi lineage has secured the verdict for me,

and a sharp sword whose consequences are venom.

When Khindif and Qays surge forth,

the mountains of my might cannot be assailed.

They cared for me and established me securely

on broad ground where my footing cannot slip.

I did not blame the builders, nor did they blame

my defense when the press upon us grew fierce.

If they stretch out their rope, we stretch out

a rope whose loop cannot be broken.

Yarbu, when they boast and count their honors, have

horsemen of proven valor and great gifts.

They are battle-hardened at every frontier,

and if they ride in answer to an alarm, they raid.

Women offer themselves as ransom for us when we clash,

and the valiant king grants us our terms.

No noble man marries into Taghlib,

nor are the maternal uncles of those they beget noble.

When they gather over wine bought for a copper coin,

there is hair-pulling then, and mutual slapping.

They name al-Fulays, yet neither

Abd al-Malik nor Hisham is named among them.

You were not spared the day you urged Qays on:

the tribe was scattered and the grazing herds seized.

I am rid of you; you are not garlanded for a race,

with your fetlocks and shank-bones shattered.