قسما هذه القوافي الحسان — Ibn Al Jazari

قسماً هذه القوافي الحسان

لم ينلها سحبان أو حسان

I swear, these beautiful rhymes

were never attained by Sahban or Hassan.

وإذا قيس لامرئ القيس معنى

بمعانيك ما له لمعان

And when a meaning of Imru' al-Qays is measured

against your meanings, it has no brilliance.

وقسا طبع ابن قيس وقسٍ

عن مداناتها وبان البيان

And the genius of Ibn Qays and Quss proved too coarse

to approach them, and eloquence withdrew.

وطوى ما ارتده من نظمه

الطائي فخرا ودأبه الأذعان

And he folded away the verse he had donned,

al-Ta'i, in pride; his wont is submission.

وأبو الطيب المنقح ما طابت

بأشعاره له الأوزان

And Abu al-Tayyib, the polisher, took no pleasure

in the meters of his own poems.

وإلى لفظك البديع هما دمعاً

وهامت بفضله همدان

And toward your wondrous diction he shed tears,

and Hamdan was enraptured by its excellence.

أفمن بعد هؤلاء في حلبة

الآداب ترجو سباقك الفرسان

After these, then, in the arena

of letters, do the horsemen hope to outrun you?

يا صلاح العلى بعثت بما منها

تحلى الأفواه والآذان

O Salah of the heights, you sent that which

adorns mouths and ears.

بنت فكر مليكة النظم والنثر

لها من نظامها تيجان

A daughter of thought, queen of verse and prose,

she has crowns fashioned from her own composition.

برزت في قلائد وعقود

دونهن الياقوت والمرجان

She appeared in necklaces and strings of gems,

inferior to which are rubies and coral.

وبدت تبهر العيون سناء

اين منه بهرام والهرمان

And she appeared, dazzling eyes with splendor—

where beside it stand Bahram and the two pyramids?

حركت ساكن الجماد معانيها

وزان الجمال منها الجمان

Her meanings stirred motionless, lifeless things,

and her pearls adorned beauty.

ذات من من غير من علينا

افضل المن ما عداه امتنان

Bestowing bounty without reproaching us for it:

the finest bounty; all else is a reminder of favors.

قلدتنا أوصافها فكان

المكتسى من ثيابها عريان

Her qualities garlanded us, so that

the one clad in her garments stood naked.

ودعتنا إلى الأجابة عنها

والأجابات عندها هذيان

And she invited us to answer her,

yet answers beside her are mere babble.

حظها في العلى العطاء من الفضل

وحظى الحضيض والحرمان

Her portion in the heights is the bounty of excellence,

and mine is the depths and deprivation.

هذبتها العلوم دهراً ومن احسن

اوصاف حسنها الأحسان

The sciences refined her for an age, and among the finest

qualities of her beauty is beneficence.

فلها اهتديت منها كأني

اعجمي ولفظها ترجمان

So, through her, I found my way to her, as though I were

a foreigner, and her diction an interpreter.

ولقد صدني واصداء فكري

عن قوافي القريض هذا الزمان

Indeed, I and the echoes of my thought have been barred

from the rhymes of poetry by this age.

ابداً اقطع الفيافي بقطع

الليل حتى كأنني السرحان

Forever I traverse the deserts through stretches of

night, until I seem a wolf.

وكأن الدجى قتام وعي يوم

عبوس نجومه الخرصان

And the darkness seems the dust of battle on a

grim day, its stars the spearheads.

كل بيداء يحسب الآل ماء

ضمنها من هجيرها الظمآن

In every wilderness, the mirage is taken for water

by one thirsting within it from its midday heat.

وكأني حسبت في حوز قيعان

سباريتها يرى العقيان

And it is as though I fancied, within a tract of plains,

that pure gold could be seen in their barren wastes.

فأظل الزمان أدأب ادلاجا

ودأبي في فيحها الامتحان

So I spend my time toiling in nocturnal travel,

and my constant toil in their expanses is ordeal.

وكأن الفلاة صدر كريم

وأنا السر والسُرى الكتمان

And the desert is like a generous man's breast,

and I am the secret, and night travel its concealment.

مفرد عن خليلةٍ وخليل

انما الصبر والنهي خلان

Alone, without a sweetheart or a friend,

with only patience and reason as companions.

فسميري بها السهى وضجيعاي

لديها السهاد والأشجان

So al-Suha is my night companion there, and my two bedfellows

there are sleeplessness and sorrows.

وأنيسي مع المهولات فيها

سابح أجرد أقب حصان

And my companion there, amid the terrors,

is a swimming-strided, sleek-coated, lean-bellied stallion.

غاصب صورة الهلال بأيديه

ونجم السماء منه العنان

Usurping the crescent's shape with his forelegs,

and his rein is a star of the sky.

يعجز البرق شأوه ومن

العجز عليه تظاهر الخفقان

His pace defeats lightning, and from

helplessness, trembling becomes visible upon it.

واخلاي لامة وتريك

ومجن ونيعة مرنان

And my close friends are armor and a helmet,

and a shield and a resonantly twanging bow,

وحسام مهند وسهام

وسنان يقله المران

and a sword of Indian steel, and arrows,

and a spearhead borne by a wooden shaft.

وإذا لم تجد معينا فآلات

المنايا علي المني أعوان

And if you find no helper, then the instruments

of death are helpers toward fulfilling wishes.

طالباً للعلى قديم حقوق

أحدث المنع دونها الحدثان

Seeking long-standing rights to lofty rank,

which time's vicissitudes have newly barred.

أفمن من مثل من دهته الليالي

بعدما ازدهته يرجي البيان

Then from one like him whom the nights have afflicted,

after once enchanting him, can eloquence be expected?

بيد أني امتثلت أمرك

فانحل لنا منه شعرك الفتان

Yet I have obeyed your command,

so your enchanting verse was thereby unraveled for us.

لا برحت الزمان تلغز الغازاً

هي الروح والورى جثمان

May you never cease, through time, posing riddles—

they are the soul, and humankind the body—

سالماً آمنا صروف الليالي

وعجيب من الزمان الأمان

safe, secure from the vicissitudes of nights;

though safety from time is a wondrous thing;

ما شد العندليب شجواًوفاحت

بشذاها الرياض والأغصان

as long as the nightingale sings plaintively, and there wafts

the fragrance of the gardens and branches.