قل للديار سقى أطلالك المطر — Jarir

Say to the dwellings: may rain water your ruins!

You have stirred longing—but what use are memories?

May you be watered by a brimming cloud whose downpour races onward,

or a swollen, pouring cloud, its rain streaming abundantly.

When the age was an age that

this age cannot approach, and among its wild creatures were white-browed ones.

My heart is with the women who departed at dawn

from Dhu Tuluh, with stony ground barring the way to them.

They said, 'Perhaps you are grieving.' I told them,

'Leave off blame: no complaint, and no excuses.'

Our fellow dwellers made the parting final when they set out

from Darat al-Ja'b, their camel litters in clusters.

When the south wind's stirred-up dust rose before them,

they turned the camels upland, and did not descend.

Each a tawny camel, through whose birth-coat had coursed by night

a succession of meadow pastures, until its down was shed.

Mature camels, as though pure liquid pitch had stained them

where the neck-bases meet the backs of the shoulders.

They saw the earth's uplands drying out,

and fresh growth dwindling, save where fertile hollows appeared.

Do you two see the tribe's laden camels, now urged onward?

A people secluded behind coverings other than Mosul cloaks.

They said, 'We see the mirage lifting doum palms—or women in litters.'

How distant was that sight they gazed upon!

What stirs you in a dwelling and a campsite?

Or why do you weep when your neighbors depart at dawn?

The herald called for the tribe's departure, and they left at dawn,

leaving us early, with neither doubt nor delay.

I dreaded their parting yesterday, when they departed at dawn

from us—but what use are anxiety and caution?

How many wind-swept heights of trackless desert lie between us and them,

the eye nearly splitting to pierce their unknown reaches!

Indeed, at Tikhfah, or in the days of Dhu Najab, we were

splendid horsemen when the bridle-straps tangled.

Their horsemen never shamed the forebears of Yarbu',

nor are they told 'No!' when they boast.

Ask Tamim and Bakr about our horsemen,

when turmoil gathered at the mountain's flank.

Had it not been for Yarbu's horsemen at Dhu Najab,

the road would have narrowed, and going to water and returning been thwarted.

If they pursue the cavalry, they do not merely wound its riders;

or, standing to fight, grapple with champions, who are crushed.

We have chosen brimful pools of glory

from a deep expanse whose clarity no murk has touched.

We and your mother are not people one hopes to wrong

when honor must be defended; there is no weakness in our bones.

You find Tamim, when their mighty chiefs plunge

into the depths of seas, bold even when the waters overwhelm.

Do you recognize our horsemen at Dhu Bahda,

on the day al-Hudhayl was held captive in the men's hands?

Those who strike when the horses are bloodied

by the impact of spears, and dust gathers above them.

At Dhu Bahda, al-Hudhayl was overtaken

by a lion who, when he charges, counts victory among his feats.

I hope for Taghlib, now that their affairs have run their course,

that no blessing be granted to the plan they devised.

Taghlib's sons failed when their advance water-seeker missed

the pool of noble deeds: glory is something to race for.

They journey blindly whenever they journey,

and ask, from out of sight, 'What is the news?'

And what have you deemed fit for bodies being burned

in the fire, when Saqar has burned their souls?

Those who devour foul provisions by themselves,

and camp when thickets conceal them.

Those in Mina's two gravelly valleys defend my ancestral honor,

those faces for whose sake rain is bestowed.

Give Khuzaymah and the Ansar their say;

and God strengthened, through the Ansar, those they supported.

I have seen you—and the truth provokes anger—

ashamed to hear al-Jahhaf or Zufar mentioned.

Men who bring back the people's grazing herds on raiding horses,

with tousled forelocks, when the camel herds are driven off.

Al-Ukhaytil is a pig encircled

by one of those calamities feared and awaited.

They drove the chests of battle-marked horses toward you,

plunging into spearplay, their flanks curved.

There were battles after which we said, 'Never again will be seen

a living soul of Taghlib, nor any trace.'

Until I heard a pig squealing in terror,

one of them, and said, 'I see the dead have been raised!'

Their living are the worst and basest of the living,

and the earth spits out their dead when they are buried.

Their call to prayer, when they pray, is defilement:

the ringing of bells; they do not know what surahs are.

You did not protect your women on the morning at al-Bishr,

nor stand firm against Qays as they stood firm.

You abandoned every man clad in his cloak,

and every woman with green-marked flanks, being disemboweled.

Why not keep quiet, so it might conceal some of your shame,

since no blood-money is paid for your slain?

You son of a foul-smelling woman—whom have you equated with us,

or whom have you ranked beside Qays when they stored up honors?

Qays and Khindif possessed glory before you;

you are not of their rank, nor are you their equals.

Die of rage and grief in your Jazirah!

They have crossed no valley floor with Mudar barring the way.

No people have been reckoned, however mighty and noble,

without our rightfully boasting above what they boasted.

We are pleased with God, for people have come to know

that no human among His creatures will rival us in glory.

And Taghlib, if it counts its achievements, has no

shining star, nor sun, nor moon.

Taghlib's sons were men whose fortune never rose,

like those destroyed in the land of al-Ahqaf when they perished.

A barren wind was poured upon them, giving them no respite,

until fate struck them with a stone-hurling storm.

You satirize Qays, though they have cut off your last remnants,

until al-Aws and al-Namir strengthened your numbers.

I have banished you from Najd, so you have no

Najd, and not a stone of its lowlands is yours.

You meet al-Ukhaytil among riders whose fine mantles

are striped woolen cloaks; they have made neither Hajj nor Umrah.

Those who grin toward the pig, craving it.

Oh, accursed be those mouths when they bare their teeth!

And those who draw their gambling lots over a pig:

a wretched slaughter-beast, and wretched folk when they gamble!

A Taghlibi is base when you see him plainly,

and a Taghlibi is base when he is put to the test.

And a Taghlibi, when his manly virtue reaches perfection,

is a hired slave driving the people's riding camels.

Taghlib's women have neither good sense nor ancestral honor,

nor beauty, nor religion, nor modesty.

God's Messenger did not approve their religion,

nor did the two virtuous men, Abu Bakr and Umar.

The Messenger came with the religion of truth, but they broke faith;

and does their disbelief harm God's Messenger?

O squint-eyed men of Taghlib, baseness has allied itself with you

as long as oil is pressed in Mardin.

They clothed themselves in baseness, fashioned from their own skins,

then draped themselves in robes of baseness and girded their waists with it;

those who revile Bakr's sons when their bellies are full,

and turn to Bakr when they grow poor.