لقد نادى أميرك باحتمال — Jarir

Your leader has indeed called for departure,

and shattered the settled companions' resolve.

Was it yearning that made you gaze that morning at Rahba,

to see which way the camels had been sent?

And what a friend you have burdened yourself with,

who feeds us hopes yet grudges giving!

She has indeed left thirsty birds circling,

and withholds the pure, bubbling, limpid water.

And she said, "What business have you with playing the youth?

How long since your days of yearning and coquetry?

What do you hope for? The love of lovely women is not

for men of throat-clearing and coughing."

Leave me be: my gray hair has already restrained me,

as have my experience, my gray hair, and my middle age.

She saw how the passing years had diminished me,

as the moon's dark phase diminishes the crescent.

And who can endure as a target for death

and for days that pass along with the nights?

The dream-phantom visited us at Dhat Irq;

so may God bless that phantom!

For your night-travel falls short of ours,

and of the swift stride of the anklet-marked, fleet she-camels.

Indeed, what shamed al-Farazdaq when we shot

were crushing blows that split the archery target.

For the last of the poets shall receive from me,

as the first do, by way of punishment,

branding irons as long as I live; and after me,

branding irons in Hazra's or Bilal's keeping.

On al-Farazdaq's nose—if only it would deter them!—

is a fresh, unfaded brand of mine.

When al-Farazdaq dies, stone him,

as you stone the grave of Abu Righal.

And whenever you lived abroad among a people,

you were the worst guardian of your clan's honor.

Your nose was mutilated while you stayed there, abased,

and you were disgraced at the hour of departure.

Do you forget al-Zubayr, slain by Sa'd,

and Ji'thin, when she was handled every which way?

And al-Farazdaq's father spent the night calling,

with a cry of humiliation, ill at ease.

Qufayra has indeed grown accustomed to milch camels,

and weaving a tunic from the hair of weaned camel calves.

Mujashi' and the sons of Humays circle

around a smith, between the worst father and maternal uncle.

Qufayra—evil was what she earned her sons—

and Layla of the smith, the smith of Banu 'Iqal.

An evil mother brought them al-Farazdaq,

beside the donkey's trough, upon a bed.

The caliph will disgrace you; then you will be disgraced

by the might of the Lord of generosity and majesty.

Get yourself, Farazdaq, a people like mine

in exchange for yours, if you can make the exchange.

And if you begin to seek that, then move

Shamam and al-Miqarr to Wi'al.

Yarbu' surpasses the choicest,

as the right hand is preferred to the left.

And Yarbu' defends Tamim,

and the farthest shooter falls short of their range.

And we fought the kings at Dhat Kahf,

and the spearheads were already dyed with clotted blood.

And when we caught up, Ibn Kabsha was struck

by Hushaysh, where the lice-pickers part his hair.

Honors you cannot attain until

you dislodge the firmly rooted mountains.

Take kohl, an incense burner, and perfume,

for you are not men, O Farazdaq.

And sniff the scent of your clothes chest, for you are not

men of close grappling or combat.

The showing of Banu Qabaqib was disgrace,

and shame whenever feats of valor were recalled.

You flapped like female bustards before the falcons,

so false hopes disgraced the two hermaphrodites.

And whenever you met Banu Hilal,

and Ka'b and the horsemen of Hilal,

you gurgled, Farazdaq, when you took fright,

like meat gruel left overnight in heavy, swollen scrotums.

And 'Abs, at the pass on 'Amr's day,

made him drink the deadly poison of blood-sated spears.

And your Ma'bad called on 'Udas ibn Zayd,

so he was handed over to shackles in the worst plight.

And whenever you met Banu Numayr,

you met death, dark with dust and full of shadows.

As though, on Waridat's stony ground, you were

summer ostriches rushing along with their chicks.

So send a Mujashi'i among the sheep,

hairy-nostrilled, a father of ewe-lambs.