Sol 5.6

  1. For Arabic you unveiled her, radiant in splendid robes—

    a peerless maiden, a daughter of the earliest age.

  2. ،

    You raised Qays and Lubna, striding once again

    across Arabia’s soil, among sheep and camels.

  3. Once they were tales enchanting to the ear;

    now they entrance both ears and eyes.

  4. A drama whose heroic glory Qays did not attain—

    rather, it revealed you to us in the hero’s form.

  5. ،

    Had it not named the lore handed down about him,

    I could not have told you two apart in the tenderness of your love poetry.

  6. With phrasing sweet and easy as maidens’ nectar,

    in language as gracefully poised as maidens’ forms.

  7. : « »

    What even brilliant colors cannot portray,

    you portrayed in “mustafʿilun faʿil” meter.

  8. You taught those devoted to Arabic that it possesses

    an art whose pillars stand firmer than a mountain.

  9. !

    May your glory give you joy: the shade of power passes,

    but poetry has a shade that never passes.

  10. ،

    Maidens’ bracelets are made of diamond, yet I see

    no bracelet like the reed pen upon a man’s hand.

Sol 5.6