Sol 5.6

  1. Khawla has deserted traces at the stony tract of Thahmad,

    Glimmering like the remnant of a tattoo on the back of a hand.

  2. There my companions halted their mounts beside me,

    Saying, “Do not perish from grief; endure.”

  3. The Malikite woman’s covered litters at dawn seemed

    Like great ships in the broad channels of Dada,

  4. Ships of ʿAdawli, or vessels of Ibn Yamin,

    Which the sailor now veers off course, now guides aright.

  5. Their prows cleave the water’s rippling foam,

    As a player dividing earth into piles with his hand.

  6. Among the tribe is a dark-lipped young gazelle, shaking off the arak fruit,

    Wearing two necklaces of pearls and chrysolite,

  7. A solitary doe tending a herd in a thicket,

    Reaching for the arak’s tips and wrapping herself in them.

  8. She smiles, revealing dark gums, as though a luminous

    Sand-hill had pierced the pure sand, moist with dew.

  9. The sun’s radiance watered it, except for its gums,

    Which were darkened—but not marred—with antimony.

  10. And a face on which the sun seems to have cast its mantle,

    Pure in color, never wrinkled.

  11. I dispel anxiety when it closes in

    With a crooked-necked, swift-trotting she-camel, going forth morning and evening—

  12. A trusty mount whose frame is like the planks of a bier; I urged her

    Along a broad road like the back of a striped cloak,

  13. A powerful, thick-cheeked Jamali camel, racing as though

    An ostrich were running to a shaggy, ash-gray male.

  14. She vies with noble, swift she-camels, placing

    Shin after shin over a well-trodden, wavering track.

  15. She spent spring on al-Quffayn among dwindling herds, grazing

    The rain-fed gardens of a soft-boughed valley.

  16. She startles at the herdsman’s cry and guards herself

    With the tail-swishes of a dark, thick-maned, mottled stallion.

  17. It is as though an eagle’s two wings enfolded

    The sides of her tail, stitched to its bone with an awl.

  18. At times she strikes behind the rider’s companion, and at others

    Upon a withered udder, shriveled like an old waterskin.

  19. She has two thighs filled out with flesh,

    Like the two doors of a lofty, plastered palace.

  20. The folded vertebrae of her spine curve like a bow,

    And firm ribs are joined to a closely layered backbone.

  21. It is as though two wild-lotus shelters enclosed her,

    And the bent arcs of bows lay beneath a strengthened back.

  22. She has two fleshy, twisted elbows, as though she

    Passes bearing the two buckets of a resolute night traveler.

  23. Like a Roman’s bridge whose master swore

    It would be flanked until raised high with bricks.

  24. Tawny beneath the chin and powerfully backed,

    Long-striding in the legs, her forelegs swinging.

  25. Her forelegs were twisted like a contrary-twined rope, and her upper arms

    Were given a braced, rooflike frame.

  26. Broad-leaning, surging, long-necked; then her shoulders

    Were raised for her upon a lofty, ascending build.

  27. The marks of the girth upon her ribs resemble

    Watering places in barren rock on a level upland.

  28. They meet, and sometimes show apart, like

    White gussets in a torn shirt.

  29. Long-necked and rising when she lifts it,

    Like the rudder of a boat ascending the Tigris.

  30. Her skull is like an anvil, as though

    Its joints, up to the file-sharp edge, were fused.

  31. A cheek like Syrian parchment, and a lip

    Like the edge of a Yemeni hide, whose border remains untrimmed.

  32. Two eyes, like twin mirrors, lie sheltered

    In two caves beneath the brow bones of a water-holding rock.

  33. They cast out the mote that troubles them, so you see them

    Like the kohl-lined eyes of a frightened wild cow with a calf.

  34. Her two ears hear truly, alert during night travel

    To a hidden whisper or a raised sound.

  35. Sharp-tipped: you recognize nobility in them,

    Like the ears of a lone ewe at Hawmal.

  36. A splendid, pulsing, lean, compact heart,

    Like a rock-pestle set in a solid slab.

  37. Her nose is marked, tapering, with a pliant tip,

    Noble: whenever you strike the earth with it, she gains speed.

  38. If I wish, she does not trot; and if I wish, she trots swiftly,

    Fearing a tightly twisted lash cut from hide.

  39. If I wish, her head rises above the saddle’s center,

    And she swims with her forelegs in the fleet pace of the khafaydad.

  40. On such a mount I press onward when my companion says,

    “Would that I could ransom you from her—and ransom myself!”

  41. His soul surged toward him in fear, imagining him

    Stricken, though he had spent the night beyond any ambush.

  42. When the people ask, “Who is the brave man?” I suppose that I

    Am meant, so I neither lag nor stand bewildered.

  43. I turned her toward them with the whip, and she sped away,

    While the mirage shimmered over the blazing stony ground.

  44. She swept along like a young servant at a gathering,

    Showing her master the train of a trailing white robe.

  45. I do not settle timidly in the ravines,

    But whenever the people seek aid, I give it.

  46. If you seek me in the people’s council, you will find me;

    And if you hunt me in the wine shops, you will catch me.

  47. Whenever you come, I will give you a brimming cup,

    But if you can do without it, abstain and increase your wealth.

  48. When the whole tribe assembles, you will find me

    At the summit of the lofty, firmly established house.

  49. My drinking companions are bright as stars, and a singing girl

    Comes to us in a striped cloak and saffron-dyed gown.

  50. The opening of her neckline is wide; she is delicate,

    Soft to the companions’ touch, her uncovered skin plump.

  51. When we say, “Sing to us,” she rises for us

    At ease, lightly responsive, without constraint.

  52. When she repeats the melody, you would think her voice

    The answering cries of bereaved she-camels over a dead young camel.

  53. My drinking of wine and my pleasure never ceased,

    Nor my selling and spending of both new wealth and inherited goods,

  54. Until my whole clan shunned me

    And I was isolated like a tar-smeared camel.

  55. I found the sons of the dusty earth did not reject me,

    Nor did the people of that far-spread leather tent.

  56. O you who blame me for attending battle

    And for witnessing pleasures—can you make me immortal?

  57. If you cannot repel my destined death,

    Then let me meet it first with what my hand possesses.

  58. Were it not for three things that belong to a young man’s life,

    By your grandsire, I would not care when my visitors rose to mourn me:

  59. First, outstripping the censuring women with a drink

    Of dark-red wine that foams whenever water rises over it;

  60. And my charge when the distressed man calls, bent in fear,

    Like the lord of the ghada thicket whom you awaken as he comes to water;

  61. And shortening a cloudy day—how delightful the clouds—

    With a full-bodied woman beneath a tent held up by poles.

  62. It is as though rings and bracelets were hung

    Upon an untopped ʿushar or castor-oil tree.

  63. A noble man quenches himself fully during his life;

    If we die tomorrow, you will learn which of us is parched.

  64. I see the grave of a groaning miser, stingy with his wealth,

    Like the grave of a wastrel corrupt in idleness.

  65. You see two heaps of earth, upon them

    Deaf slabs of close-laid stone.

  66. I see death choosing the noble and selecting

    The choicest wealth of the gross, tightfisted man.

  67. I see life as a treasure diminishing every night,

    And what days and time diminish must run out.

  68. By your life, death never misses a young man:

    It is like a loosened tether whose doubled end remains in the hand.

  69. What is wrong with me that I see my cousin Malik—

    Whenever I draw near, he withdraws and goes farther away?

  70. He blames me, though I do not know for what he blames me,

    As Qurt ibn Maʿbad blamed me among the tribe.

  71. He has made me despair of every good thing I sought,

    As though we had laid it beside the niche of a grave.

  72. For no offense I committed, except that I

    Appealed for justice and did not neglect Maʿbad’s camels.

  73. I upheld the bond of kinship; by your grandsire, I

    Attend whenever a matter calls for stern resolve.

  74. If summoned to a great crisis, I am among its defenders;

    And if enemies come against you with force, I strive my utmost.

  75. If they assail your honor with obscenity, I give them drink

    From the cup of death’s pools before threats are uttered.

  76. Though I committed no offense—and how like an offender

    Are the satire, accusation, complaint, and banishment laid on me!

  77. Had my patron been another man than he,

    He would have relieved my anguish or delayed my tomorrow.

  78. But my patron is a man who strangles me

    Despite my gratitude and entreaty—unless I ransom myself.

  79. The injustice of close kin is more bitter

    To a man than the stroke of an Indian-forged sword.

  80. So leave me to my nature; I shall remain grateful to you,

    Even if my home settles far away at Darghad.

  81. Had my Lord willed, I would have been Qays ibn Khalid;

    Had my Lord willed, I would have been ʿAmr ibn Marthad.

  82. Then I would have possessed abundant wealth, and been visited by

    Noble sons, masters born to one obeyed.

  83. I am the hardened man whom you know,

    Quick and fierce as the head of a blazing-eyed serpent.

  84. I swore that my flank would never cease to be the lining

    For a sharp, thin-edged Indian-forged sword—

  85. A cutting blade which, when I rise to avenge myself with it,

    Needs no second stroke after the first; it is no chopping blade.

  86. A trustworthy brother that never turns aside from a blow;

    When told, “Gently,” its restrainer says, “Enough—my stroke has sufficed.”

  87. When men race for their weapons, you find me

    Well defended once my hand wets the sword’s hilt.

  88. Many a sleeping herd, whose outlying beasts my menace stirred,

    Have I walked among with a naked, keen-edged sword.

  89. Then a huge, soft-footed, broad-striped she-camel passed,

    The prized possession of a stern, formidable old chief.

  90. He said, when her shank and leg had been severed,

    “Do you not see that you have done a mighty thing?”

  91. And he said, “What do you think of a drinker

    Whose deliberate aggression against us is severe?”

  92. Another said, “Leave him; its benefit is his alone;

    Otherwise, unless you hold him back, he will add the herd’s farthest beast.”

  93. All day the slave girls roasted strips from her young camel,

    And slices of fat, well-stretched hump-meat were brought to us.

  94. If I die, mourn me with the praise I deserve,

    And tear your neckline for me, daughter of Maʿbad.

  95. Do not make me like a man whose concern is not

    Like mine, whose deeds and presence do not avail as mine do—

  96. Slow in a grave crisis, quick to indecency,

    Humbled and struck down by the concerted will of men.

  97. Had I been an intruder among men, I would have been harmed

    By the enmity of the well-supported and the solitary alike.

  98. But my boldness toward men, my initiative,

    My truthfulness, and my noble stock drove them from me.

  99. By your life, my affair is no obscurity to me;

    Neither my day nor my night is everlasting darkness.

  100. And many a day I held my soul firm amid its combat,

    Guarding its vulnerable places against menace,

  101. In a station where a young man fears destruction,

    Where, when hearts clash, they tremble.

  102. And many a yellow, fire-singed gaming arrow: I watched its companion

    Upon the fire, then entrusted it to the hand of a man stiff with cold.

  103. The days will disclose to you what you did not know,

    And one whom you gave no provisions will bring you news.

  104. One whom you did not purchase travel supplies for will bring you news,

    Though you arranged no compact with him and appointed no meeting time.

gpt-5.6-sol