أرقصني حبك يا بصبص

أرقصني حبك يا بصبص

والحُبُّ يا سيدتي يُرقِصُ

والحُبُّ يا سيدتي يُرقِصُ

Your love has set me dancing, O Baṣbaṣ,

Your love has made me dance, O Basbas;

And love, my lady, makes one dance.

and love, my lady, makes one dance.

أرمصتِ أجفاني بطول البكا

أرمصتِ أجفاني بطول البكا

فما لأجفانك لا ترمصُ

فما لأجفانك لا ترمصُ

You made my eyelids rheumy with long-drawn weeping,

You have made my eyelids rheumy with prolonged weeping;

So why do your eyelids never grow rheumy?

so why do your eyelids not grow rheumy?

وا بأبي وجهُكِ ذاك الذي

وا بأبي وجهُكِ ذاك الذي

كأنه من حُسنه عصعصُ

كأنه من حُسنه عصعصُ

Ah—may my father ransom that face of yours,

Ah, may my father be a ransom for that face of yours, which

As though, for all its beauty, it were a tailbone.

seems, in its beauty, like a tailbone.