هل غادر الشعراء من متردم

Have the poets left any room for a patched-up word, … or have you recognized the ruined abode after deep doubt?

Speak to us, O abode of Abla in the al-Jaww plain, … and may you spend your morning safely, O abode of Abla, and remain in peace.

There I made my riding camel halt, as though it were a high pavilion, … so that I might fulfill the need of the lingering questioner.

While Abla dwells in al-Jaww and our people reside … in al-Hazn, then al-Summan, then al-Muthallam.

Greetings to you, O ancient ruin whose time has grown long, … left strong yet desolate after the departure of Umm al-Haytham.

She took up residence in the land of the visiting tribes, and consequently, … seeking you out has become difficult for me, O daughter of Makhram.

I became attached to her by chance while I kill her tribesmen … in claim—by the life of your father, this is no empty boast!

You have indeed settled in my heart—do not think otherwise— … in the exalted station of a cherished, honored lover.

How can she be visited when her people have spent the spring … at Unaizatayn while our people are at al-Ghaylam?

If you have resolved upon parting, then certainly … your riding litters were bound together in the darkness of night.

Nothing startled me except the baggage camels of her people … moving across the homesteads, grazing upon the bitter khimkhim fruit.

Among them were forty milking camels, … as black as the wing-feathers of the dark raven.

When she captivates you with a clear, gleaming set of teeth, … sweet to kiss and delicious in flavor.

As though a merchant's musk-vial in a sealed sachet … preceded the edges of her mouth to reach you from her lips.

Or like an untouched meadow whose plants were nourished … by a clean rain, free of dung and unmapped by signs.

Every pure, fresh downpour showered upon it, … leaving every depression in the earth rounded like a silver coin.

Pouring down continuously so that every evening … water flows over it without ever running dry.

And the solitary fly remains there, never departing, … humming like the tune of a singing, intoxicated reveller.

Chirping as it rubs forearm against forearm, … like the sparking friction of a crippled man kneeling over his fire-sticks.

You pass your evenings and mornings resting upon a soft feather mattress, … while I spend the night upon the back of a bridled, dark steed.

My mattress is a saddle resting upon a thick-shanked, … high-mettled charger with powerful flanks and a sturdy girth.

Will a swift, lean riding camel carry me to her abode— … a beast cursed with a waterless, exhausted drink?

A pacing mare that swings its body after a night journey, prancing forward, … striking the hard flint mounds with the heavy tread of a solid hoof.

As though in the evening it were striking the stony mounds … with a close-cleft, trimmed, and severed hoof.

Before it flocks of ostriches scatter in fear, just as … Yemeni tribes gather around a foreign, stammering speaker.

They follow the high crest of its head as if it were … a camel-litter hoisted atop a funeral bier, sheltered above them.

A small-headed bird that returns its chicks to al-Ushayrah, … resembling a slave clad in a long, tattered woolen cloak.

It drank from the waters of al-Duhrudayn and consequently became … crooked in gait, shying away from the watering troughs of the non-Arab tribes.

As though its wild flank shies away from the side … of a buzzing, evening-singing, persistent gadfly.

A hostile, led beast that whenever it is turned toward … in anger, wards off the handler with both hands and mouth.

It knelt down beside the sand-ridge as though … it were kneeling upon hollow, cracking, resonant reeds.

And like thick, congealed musk or ointment … whose fuel has heated the sides of a bronze pot.

Flowing out from the sweat-drenched neck of an angry, sturdy mount, … prancing like a battered, noble stallion.

If you pull your veil across your face to hide from me, yet I am … skilled at capturing the armored horseman.

Praise me for what you know of me, for indeed I am … generous in my disposition so long as I am not wronged.

But when I am wronged, then indeed my retaliation is fierce, … bitter in taste like the flavor of colocynth.

And truly I have drunk pure wine after … the midday summer heats had stilled, poured from a marked flask.

From a yellow glass vessel marked with ridges, … bound in my left hand to a bright, capped stem.

When I drink, I squander freely … my wealth, while my personal honor remains ample and unblemished.

And when I am sober, I do not fall short in generosity, … and as you know, my character is noble and bountiful.

How many a husband of a fair woman have I left stretched upon the ground, … his collar-bone heaving like the torn lip of a wounded camel.

My hands struck him first with a swift spear thrust, … and a gush of piercing blood the color of red sandalwood.

Why did you not ask the cavalry, O daughter of Malik, … if you are ignorant of what you do not yet know?

When I continually ride upon the saddle of a swimming, … muscular steed that contending champions batter and wound.

Now stripped bare for hand-to-hand lance combat, and at other times … retreating back to a dense formation of sturdy, tight-strung bows.

Anyone who witnessed the battle will tell you that I plunge into the fray … and remain strictly honest when the spoils are divided.

And how many a heavily armored warrior whose encounter the brave knights loathed— … neither fleeing far nor surrendering—

Did my hand bestow upon him an immediate spear thrust … with a straight, true-grained, leveled shaft of wood.

I pierced his garments through with the unyielding iron lance; … no noble man is forbidden to face the lances.

Then I left him as a meal for scavenging beasts to tug at, … gnawing upon his fine fingertips and wrists.

And how many joints of fine, full chainmail have I ripped open … with my sword, defending truth on behalf of a marked champion.

His hands were quick at the gambling arrows when winter struck, … a violator of merchants' boundaries, much blamed.

When he perceived that I had dismounted to attack him, … he bared his teeth in a grimace rather than a smile.

My last memory of him at midday was as though … his fingertips and head had been dyed dark with walnut bark.

So I pierced him with the spear and then subdued him … with a clear-bladed Indian sword, sharp and cutting.

A champion whose clothes hung upon him like foliage on a desert tree, … shod in leather sandals, and born a single child.

O what a prize of the hunt for whomever it was made lawful! … She is forbidden to me—would that she were not forbidden!

So I sent my female slave and said to her: 'Go, … spy out her news for me and bring back word.'

She returned saying: 'I found the enemies heedless, … and the doe is fully exposed to anyone who wishes to shoot.'

As though she turned her neck with the grace of a young fawn, … a pure, white-muzzled gazelle.

Word reached me that Amr was ungrateful for my favor, … and ingratitude corrupts the soul of the benefactor.

Truly I guarded my uncle's injunction in the bright morning heat, … when thirst draws the lips back from the whiteness of the teeth.

In the thick of a war whose terrors the brave do not complain of, … uttering nothing save muffled battle hums.

When they deflected the enemy spear-points with my body, I did not flinch … from them, though the space for my advance grew narrow.

When I saw the host of the enemy advance in a mass, … spurring one another on, I wheeled to attack without blame.

They called out 'Antarah!' while the lances looked like … the ropes of a well across the chest of my dark steed.

I continually hurled him against the gap in their throats and his chest, … until he was clothed entirely in blood.

Then he swerved aside from the impact of the lances upon his breast, … and complained to me with a tearful eye and a whinny.

If he had known how to converse, he would have complained indeed, … and if he had understood speech, he would have spoken to me.

Indeed my soul was healed and its sickness driven away … by the cry of the horsemen: 'Waik, O Antarah, charge forward!'

While the warhorses charge grimly into the muddy ground, … rushing between tall stallions.

My riding beast is obedient wherever I wish, guided by my intellect, … and I drive it forward with a resolute command.

Truly I feared that I might die before the wheel of war … turned completely against the two sons of Damdam.

The two who insulted my honor though I never insulted them, … and who vowed to shed my blood should they ever meet me.

If they attempt it, I have already left their father … as a meal for wild beasts and every ancient vulture.