A. Z. Foreman Translates Pre-Modern Arabic Poets

Six Pre-Modern Arabic Poems

Lament for a Man Dear to Her

By an Unknown Woman (6th century AD?)

Roaming the land, he sought safety from death, and died.
I only wish I knew what wrong killed you and why.
Did you die sick, untended? Or slain asleep at night?
Or was your stroke of chance what killed the desert shrike?
Wherever young men roam the Fates in ambush lie.
Everything that you won came at the hardest price.
All things are murderous when you come to your Time.
What good that young men have did you lack in your life?
Disaster deafens you to questions I now cry.
I’ll steel myself, for you will never again reply.
I wish my heart could face your death a moment’s time.
I wish the Fates had spared your life, and taken mine.

Vengeance at Dawn

Attributed to Al-Muhalhil of Taghlib

My night of wake was long at An’amayn
 with ceaseless stars stuck in my sleepless gaze.
How can I age in life when a slain man
 of Taghlib leaves me with a man to slay?
Chide eyes for tears shed over tentmark ruins.
 A breast-born wound is torn over Kulayb.
A need throbs in the breast unsatisfied
 so long as doves among the branches wail.
How can he ever weep over ruined things
 who pledged to war with men in every age?
Can I forget Kulayb before I’ve quelled
 the sorrow whelming me in bloodparched rage?
My heart today make good your bloodwit vow.
 When they ride out at dawn, retaliate.
They fetch their bows and we flash lightning bolts
 as stallions taking on their stallion prey.
We steel ourselves under their flashing steel
 till they fall pounded by our long hard blades
and can keep up no more. We keep attacking.
 Whoever keeps the field is war’s true mate.

Lament for His People in Rawḥān

Attributed to ʿAbīd bin Al-Abraṣ

Were those my people’s dwellings that in the stoneland lie?
 They are now a dwindled vestige changed by the hands of Time.
There did I halt my camel to question what remained,
 But turned away with tears  gushing from my eyes
In streams as though my lids that moment had burst forth
  The downpour of a cloud from winter-laden skies.
Oh mine was once the kindest of ordinary peoples
 To all who had fallen captive or ill, or on hard times,
Good when they drew lots for camel-meat when winds
 Blew winter-hard, and neighbors united as a tribe.
And when the moment called  for spear-thrusts, they always did
 Color their spears from tip to hilt in the grim dye.
And when the moment called  for blades, they always did
 Beat back the foe as lions protective of their pride.
And when they heard the call  “Dismount!” they always rushed
 In coats of mail on foot headlong into the fight.
They are gone. I am still here but I am not forever.
 Change is the fate of things, the many shades of life.
God knows what I know not about the end they met.
 What I have is remembrance of things lost in their time. 

The Cycle of Death: A Muʿallaqah

Attributed to ʿAbīd bin Al-Abraṣ

The people are all gone out of Malḥūb,
 and Al-Quṭabiyyāt, and Al-Dhanūb.
The people are all gone, too, out of Rākis
 and out of Al-Qalīb and Dhāt Firqayn
And ʿArda and Qafā Ḥibirr and Thuʿaylibāt.
 There’s nowhere in the land where we remain.
The land has taken in the wild and beastly
 instead of its own people. Things have changed.
A land inherited by death it is.
 All who once lived there have been raided, razed,
Slain by the blade, or left to die alone.
 Grey hair marks only a survivor’s shame.
The tears gush from your eyes, as if their ducts
 were waterskins too hole-filled to retain
A single drop, or as cascades of water
 down hillside gullies newly washed in rain,
Or as a torrent through a wādī bed
 flooding the valley to a waterway,
Or a slight stream slow under bending palms
 wending with a wet murmur in their shade.

How can you yearn for youth’s fling, when your hair
 warns of a date with death in going gray?
Oh if this land is changed, its people scattered,
 don’t wonder. Theirs is not the first such fate,
Though all of that expanse be now deserted
 though it now havens drouth and dearth and plague.
There is no hope too firm for life to break,
 no happiness life will not wrest away.
No camel that won’t pass to heirs in death,
 no plunderer but is plundered for his take.
All who are gone on journeys may return
 but all who are gone in death have passed away.
Is a barren womb a peer to fertile women?
 Is a failed raider peer to men who gain?
Go prosper how you will. Sometimes the weak
 achieve. Sometimes skilled men are tricked astray.
Men won’t warn him who will not heed the warnings
 of Fate. To teach of wisdom is to fail
Without the heart-born gift of disposition.
 Too often has a friend fallen to hate.
Give aid in any land you find yourself in,
 and say not to yourself “I am a stranger.”
You can grow close with people from afar
 and be cut off from closest of relations.
Man founders in deceit, all the age of his life.
 Torture for him is a life into old age.

I have reached many slime-aged, still water pools
 traveling deathly, terrifying wastes,
with plumes of pigeon carcasses strewn about.
 The frenzied heart heaves fearful of the place.
I passed it on my weary way in worry.
 I and my brawny mount in morning haze.
My mount: a camel, onager-swift, strong-spined
 her withers smooth as dunes on windless days,
A nine-year tush has replaced her seven-year tooth,
 not too young or too old, in her prime age  
Like a wild ass gone rushing through the reeds,
 dark-furred with fight-scars round the neck and face.
Or like an oryx at his peak that feeds
 on bindweed1 as the northwinds round him rage.
But that’s an age ago. I see myself
 born by a swift, big-bodied mare again
Her frame firm to perfection, and her forelocks
 cleaving wide in the clearing of her face,
Oil-fluid her every movement, veins asleep,
 with a lithely gliding supple healthy shape.
She seems an eagle ready for the hunt,
 to fill her nest with hearts plucked from her prey,
Who spends the night perched high upon a rock
 like an old woman looking for her babies.
Then there she is in piercing cold at dawn
 where hoarfrost-dripping feathers gleam with day.
She sights a meaty fox out in the distance,
 nothing between them but one barren waste.
She shakes frost off her feathers, shakes herself
 alert and ready to launch out and take,
Then takes flight swifter than a hungry spear,
 aiming in one sharp swipe to fell her prey.
He hears her wings, and lifts his tail in terror
 as creatures will do only when afraid.
He spots her swoop, and crouches to a crawl.
 He looks up at her and his scared eyes gape.
She takes him, flings him onto the brute rock,
 crippling the prey beneath her in sheer pain.
She lifts him up, then dashes him back down.
 His face is scraped with stones. His body breaks. 
The talons tear into his flank. He squeals.
 His breast is pierced. His heart, food. No escape.

Storm over Najd (From the Mu’allaqah)

Attributed to Imru’l-Qays

…..Do you see lightning, friend? Look there: its flash
    forks through the cumulus like fingers, quick
to shed its distant light; there: like the lit
    lamp of a monk who tilts oil on the wick.
I sat to watch it with my friends, between
    Ḍārij and Al-Udhayb. Oh I gazed far
enough to see the storm raise its right arm
    on Mount Qaṭan, its left on Al-Sitār,
and dump its rainload round Kutayfa, slamming
    trees’ faces to the ground as it went wide.
Its shower bucked on over Mount Qanān
    sluicing the mountain goats off every side.
It left no palm-trunk standing at Taymā
    nor building built of anything but rock.
Tall Mount Thabīr stood in its water-onslaught
    like a tribe’s chieftain in a stripelined cloak.
At dawn, debris on Al-Mujaymir’s peaks
    lay strewn like spun wool on a spindle-tip.
The storm had left its load upon the desert
    like goods a merchant loosens from his hip.
That morning, finches noised about the dales
    as if blind drunk on pepper-fiery wine.
That evening, raptors lay drowned at its edge   
like ripped-out squills that freakishly entwine.

Ode on the Capture of Al-Hadath “The Red City” for Lord Ali the Realmsword

By Al-Mutanabbi

Resolutions measure a man’s resolve
 and noble deeds a noble name.
Small deeds loom large to little eyes
 and great deeds shrink in a great man’s gaze.
Behold Lord Ali of the house of Hamdan.
 See how Realmsword is rightly his name.
From his forces he wills the force of his will
 which hardgut brigades can hardly attain.
He expects of his men no more than himself,
 more than the most lord-souled of lions can claim.
Agelong vultures in the vast drylands
 would give their lives to guard his blades.
They’d meet no harm even if made talonless
 since his sturdy arms of steel were made.
Does that Red City still realize her color1,
 whether cloudbursts brought the blood or the rain?
Where first she drank of flashing clouds
 she drank skull-wine the day he came.
While blade beat blade he built and braced her
 where she shook from the force of the Fates’ brute waves.
She lay mad in the hold of an unholy spell
 that dead bodies broke at break of day.

Though Fate-displaced to a foreign creed,
 your swords’ war-strike restored her Faith.
What nights yield to you is yours forever.
 What they steal from you they soon must repay.
Plans you pass are verbs in the present now
 having moved to past before men can negate them.
No Roman or Viking2 could raze that stronghold
 raised with pikethrusts  for pillars and base.
No wronged man died and no wrongdoer lived
 when they called her to justice. The Judge was Fate.

So clad in steel they came at you
 their coursers seemed legless crossing the plain.
When they flashed, their blades  all blended in
 with steel garments aglint with day,
A war-throng crawling from west and east
 clamoring till the ears of Orion ached,
A tongue-tangled troop of peoples
 with translators for each order relayed.

Then that molten time melted fake mettle
 till only war-metal and men remained.
Every lance shattered unless it shattered
 bulwarks of bloodwood and bucklers and mail
And fools gutless in fear of gutting
 fled from the ranks of fighters that day.
Where standing meant death you stood your ground
 as if on the sleeping eyes of utter bane.
While wounded, fear-fouled fighters ran past you
 you fought with a smile and a sun for a face
and went beyond bounds of bravery and reason
 till they said you knew the Numen’s ways.

I know how hawks  will hold birds down
 in a grip to gut  their grounded game.
You squeezed foes’ wings on a squirm-wild heart
 and dealt hard death to downstruck prey.
You skivered skulls when you still hadn’t won
 then vitals and throats as victory came.
You detested lances  and tossed them aside,
 your sword spitting on spears at close range.

Let any who quest for conquest’s light
 see its luster bare in lightweight blades.
You strewed them hard over Uháydib like coins
 strewn over a woman on her wedding day. 
Your horses trampled the hilltop nests
 where fodder galore before them lay.
Eaglets imagined  their mothers were back
 not the stout wingfoot  steeds that raced
till they slipped and you had them belly-sliding
 across the earth like crawling snakes.

Will the Domesticus3 dare every day against you
 with his neck fighting  his advancing face?
Does he not sense lions’  scent till he tastes it?
 Even wildbeasts can sense a lion on the way.
Our leader’s sorties struck him hard
 when his son, his wife’s brother  and his son-in-law slain.
Troops helped him scamp to escape the swords
 that were busy hacking  their heads away.
He got the message  of masterwork steel
 to his men, though told  in the tongue of strangers.
Not stupid, he was glad    to give up the fight
 when after his loss even life was a gain. 
You are no mere king who conquers his peer
     but the one God’s triumph over triune pagans,
You have ennobled  all North Arabs,
  Pride of the Outlands4 and all creation.
It’s you who should be praised  for my proud verse-pearls
 I simply string.  You set the shape.   
Your gifts gallop through the grind of war
 so you bear no regrets and I no blame
On a steed whose feet  fly to battle
 as soon as it hears the howling fray.

Oh Realmsword unsheathed  and ready forever,
 held in no doubt nor held at bay.
Joy to skull-strikers, to stout men’s deeds,
 to them that love you and Islam: you are safe.
And why wouldn’t God still guard your edge
 to behead his foes with you for a blade?

قالت المرءة في رثاء فتى

طافَ يَبغي نَجْوَةً مَن هَلَاكٍ فهَلَك
لَيتَ شِعْري ضَلَّةً أيّ شيءٍ قَتَلَك
أَمريضٌ لم تُعَدْ أَم عدوٌّ خَتَلَك
أم تَوَلّى بِكَ ما غالَ في الدهْرِ السُّلَك
والمنايا رَصَدٌ للفَتىً حيثُ سَلَك
طالَ ما قد نِلتَ في غَيرِ كَدٍّ أمَلَك
كلُّ شَيءٍ قاتلٌ حينَ تلقَى أجَلَك
أيّ شيء حَسَنٍ لفتىً لم يَكُ لَك
إِنَّ أمراً فادِحاً عَنْ جوابي شَغَلَك
سأُعَزِّي النفْسَ إذ لم تُجِبْ مَن سأَلَك
ليتَ قلبي ساعةً صَبْرَهُ عَنكَ مَلَك
ليتَ نَفْسي قُدِّمَت للمَنايا بَدَلَك

قال المهلهل التغلبي

باتَ لَيلي بالأَنْعَمَين طَويلا  أَرْقُبُ النَجْمَ ساهِراً لَنْ يَزولا
كَيف أٌمدي ولَا يزالُ قتيلٌ مِن بَني وائلٍ يُنادي قتيلا
أُزْجُرِ الْعَينَ أَنْ تُبَكِّي الطُلولا إِنَّ في الصَدْرِ مِنْ كُلَيبٍ فَليلا
إِنَّ في الصَدْرِ حاجةً لَنْ تُقَضَّى ما دَعا في الغُصونِ داعٍ هَديلا
كَيفَ يَبْكي الطُلولَ مَن هو رَهْنٌ بِطِعانِ الأنامِ جيلا فَجِيلا
إِنَّ في الصَدْرِ حاجةً لَنْ تُقَضَّى ما دَعا في الغُصونِ داعٍ هَديلا
كَيفَ يَبْكي الطُلولَ مَن هو رَهْنٌ بِطِعانِ الأنامِ جيلا فَجِيلا
كَيف أَنساكَ يا كلَيبُ  ولمّا أقضِ حُزناً ينوبُني وغَليلا
أيُّها القَلبُ أَنْجِزِ اليومَ نَحْباً مِن بني الحِصْنِ إذ غَدوا وذُحولا
انتَضَوا مَعْجِسَ القِسي وأَبْرَقْـنا كَما تُوعِد الفُحولُ الفُحولا
وصَبَرْنا تَحتَ البوارِقِ حتَّى دَكْدَكَتْ فيهِمِ السُيوفُ طَويلا
لم يُطيقوا أنْ يَنْزِلوا ونَزَلْنا وَأَخو الحَربِ مَن أَطاقَ النُزولا

قال عبيد ابن الابرص في رثاء قومه

لِمَنِ الدِيارُ بِبُرقَةِ الرَوحانِ  دَرَسَت وَغَيَّرَها صُروفُ زَمانِ
فَوَقَفتُ فيها ناقَتي لِسُؤالِها  فَصَرَفتُ وَالعَينانِ تَبتَدِرانِ
سَجماً كَأَنَّ شُنانَةً رَجَبِيَّةً  سَبَقَت إِلَيَّ بِمائِها العَينانِ
أَيّامَ قَومي خَيرُ قَومٍ سوقَةٍ  لِمُعَصِّبٍ وَلِبائِسٍ وَلِعاني
وَلَنِعمَ أَيسارُ الجَزورِ إِذا زَهَت ريحُ الشِتاءِ وَمَألَفُ الجِيرانِ
أَمّا إِذا كانَ الطِعانُ فَإِنَّهُم  قَد يَخضِبونَ عَوالِيَ المُرّانِ
أَمّا إِذا كانَ الضِرابُ فَإِنَّهُم  أُسدٌ لَدى أَشبالِهِنَّ حَواني
أَمّا إِذا دُعِيَت نَزالِ فَإِنَّهُم  يَحبونَ لِلرُكَباتِ في الأَبدانِ
فَخَلَدتُ بَعدَهُمُ وَلَستُ بِخالِدٍ  فَالدَهرُ ذو غِيَرٍ وَذو أَلوانِ
اللَهُ يَعلَمُ ما جَهِلتُ بِعَقبِهِم  وَتَذَكُّري ما فاتَ أَيَّ أَوانِ

وله ايضا

أَقفَرَ مِن أَهلِهِ مَلحوبُ فَالقُطَبِيّاتُ فَالذُّنوبُ
فَراكِسٌ فَثُعَيلِباتٌ فَذاتُ فِرقَينِ فَالقَليبُ
فَعَردَةٌ فَقَفا حِبِرٍّ لَيسَ بِها مِنهُمُ عَريبُ
وَبُدِّلَت أَهلُها وُحوشاً وَغَيَّرَت حالَها الخُطوبُ
أَرضٌ تَوارَثَها شَعوبُ وَكُلُّ مَن حَلَّها مَحروبُ
إِمّا قَتيلاً وَإِمّا هالِكاً وَالشَيبُ شَينٌ لِمَن يَشيبُ
عَيناكَ دَمعُهُما سَروبُ كَأَنَّ شَأنَيهِما شَعيبُ
واهِيَةٌ أَو مَعينٌ مُمعِنٌ أَو هَضبَةٌ دونَها لُهوبُ
أَو فَلَجٌ ما بِبَطنِ وادٍ لِلماءِ مِن بَينِهِ سُكوبُ
أَو جَدوَلٌ في ظِلالِ نَخلٍ لِلماءِ مِن تَحتِهِ قَسيبُ
تَصبو وَأَنَّى لَكَ التَّصابِي أَنّى وَقَد راعَكَ المَشيبُ
إِن تَكُ حالَت وَحُوِّلَ أَهلُها فَلا بَديءٌ وَلا عَجيبُ
أَو يَكُ أَقفَرَ مِنها جَوُّها وَعادَها المَحلُ وَالجُدوبُ
فَكُلُّ ذي نِعمَةٍ مَخلوسٌ وَكُلُّ ذي أَمَلٍ مَكذوبُ
وَكُلُّ ذي إِبِلٍ مَوروثٌ وَكُلُّ ذي سَلَبٍ مَسلوبُ
وَكُلُّ ذي غَيبَةٍ يَؤوبُ وَغائِبُ المَوتِ لا يَؤوبُ
أَعاقِرٌ مِثلُ ذاتِ رِحمٍ أَم غَانِمٌ مِثلُ مَن يَخيبُ
أَفلِحْ بِمَا شِئتَ قَد يُبلَغُ بالضَّعفِ وَقَد يُخدَعُ الأَرِيبُ
لاَ يَعِظُ النَّاسُ مَن لاَ يَعِظِ الدَّهرُ وَلا يَنفَعُ التَلبيبُ
إِلّا سَجِيّاتِ ما القُلوبِ وَكَم يَصيرَنَّ شانِئاً حَبيبُ
سَاعِد بِأَرضٍ تَكُونُ فِيهَا وَلا تَقُل إِنَّنِي غَريبُ
قَد يوصَلُ النازِحُ النائي وَقَد يُقطَعُ ذو السُهمَةِ القَريبُ
وَالمَرءُ مَا عَاشَ فِي تَكذِيبٍ طولُ الحَياةِ لَهُ تَعذيبُ
بَل رُبَّ ماءٍ وَرَدتُ آجِنٍ سَبيلُهُ خائِفٌ جَديبُ
ريشُ الحَمامِ عَلى أَرجائِهِ لِلقَلبِ مِن خَوفِهِ وَجيبُ
قَطَعتُهُ غُدوَةً مُشيحاً وَصاحِبي بادِنٌ خَبوبُ
عَيرانَةٌ مُؤجَدٌ فَقارُها كَأَنَّ حارِكَها كَثيبُ
أَخلَفَ ما بازِلاً سَديسُها لا حِقَّةٌ هِي وَلا نَيوبُ
كَأَنَّها مِن حَميرِ غابٍ جَونٌ بِصَفحَتِهِ نُدوبُ
أَو شَبَبٌ يَحفِرُ الرُخامى تَلُفُّهُ شَمأَلٌ هُبوبُ
فَذاكَ عَصرٌ وَقَد أَراني تَحمِلُني نَهدَةٌ سُرحوبُ
مُضَبَّرٌ خَلقُها تَضبيراً يَنشَقُّ عَن وَجهِها السَبيبُ
زَيتِيَّةٌ ناعِمٌ عُروقُها وَلَيِّنٌ أَسرُها رَطيبُ
كَأَنَّها لِقوَةٌ طَلوبُ تُخزَنُ في وَكرِها القُلوبُ
باتَت عَلى إِرَمٍ عَذوباً كَأَنَّها شَيخَةٌ رَقوبُ
فَأَصبَحَت في غَداةِ قِرَّةٍ يَسقُطُ عَن ريشِها الضَريبُ
فَأَبصَرَت ثَعلَباً مِن ساعَةٍ وَدونَهُ سَبسَبٌ جَديبُ
فَنَفَضَت ريشَها وَاِنتَفَضَت وَهيَ مِن نَهضَةٍ قَريبُ
يَدِبُّ مِن حِسِّها دَبيباً وَالعَينُ حِملاقُها مَقلوبُ
فَنَهَضَت نَحوَهُ حَثيثَةً وَحَرَدَت حَردَةً تَسيبُ
فَاِشتالَ وَاِرتاعَ مِن حَسيسِها وَفِعلَهُ يَفعَلُ المَذؤوبُ
فَأَدرَكَتهُ فَطَرَّحَتهُ وَالصَيدُ مِن تَحتِها مَكروبُ
فَجَدَّلَتهُ فَطَرَّحَتهُ فَكَدَّحَت وَجهَهُ الجَبوبُ
يَضغو وَمِخلَبُها في دَفِّهِ لا بُدَّ حَيزومُهُ مَنقوبُ

قال امرؤ القيس في معلقته

أصَاحِ تَرَِى بَرْقاً أُرِيْكَ وَمِيضَـهُ    كَلَمْـعِ اليَدَيْنِ فِي حَبِيٍّ مُكَلَّـلِ
يُضِيءُ سَنَاهُ أَوْ مَصَابِيْحُ رَاهِـبٍ    أهَانَ السَّلِيْـطَ بِالذُّبَالِ المُفَتَّـلِ
قَعَدْتُ لَهُ وصُحْبَتِي بَيْنَ ضَـارِجٍ    وبَيْنَ العـُذَيْبِ بُعْدَمَا مُتَأَمَّـلِ
عَلَا قَطَنا بِالشَّيْمِ أَيْمَنُ صَوْبِـهِ       وَأَيْسَـرُهُ عَلَى السِّتَارِ فَيَذْبُـلِ
فَأَضْحَى يَسُحُّ المَاءَ حَوْلَ كُتَيْفَةٍ     يَكُبُّ عَلَى الأذْقَانِ دَوْحَ الكَنَهْبَلِ
ومَـرَّ عَلَى القَنَـانِ مِنْ نَفَيَانِـهِ        فَأَنْزَلَ مِنْهُ العُصْمَ مِنْ كُلِّ مَنْـزِلِ
وتَيْمَاءَ لَمْ يَتْرُكْ بِهَا جِذْعَ نَخْلَـةٍ     وَلاَ أٌجُماً إِلاَّ مَشِيْداً بِجِنْـدَلِ
كَأَنَّ ثَبِيْـراً فِي عَرَانِيْـنِ وَبْلِـهِ       كَبِيْـرُ أُنَاسٍ فِي بِجَـادٍ مُزَمَّـلِ
كَأَنَّ ذُرَى رَأْسِ المُجَيْمِرِ غُـدْوَةً    مِنَ السَّيْلِ وَالأَغثَاءِ فَلْكَةُ مِغْـزَلِ
وأَلْقَى بِصَحْـرَاءِ الغَبيْطِ بَعَاعَـهُ    نُزُوْلَ اليَمَانِي ذِي العِيَابِ المُحَمَّلِ
كَأَنَّ مَكَـاكِيَّ الجِـوَاءِ غُدَّبَـةً         صُبِحْنَ سُلافاً مِنْ رَحيقٍ مُفَلْفَـلِ
كَأَنَّ السِّبَـاعَ فِيْهِ غَرْقَى عَشِيَّـةً     بِأَرْجَائِهِ القُصْوَى أَنَابِيْشُ عُنْصُـلِ

قال المتنبي يمدح سيف الدولة

عَلى قَدْرِ أهْلِ العَزْم تأتي العَزائِمُ   وَتأتي علَى قَدْرِ الكِرامِ المَكارمُ
وَتَعْظُمُ في عَينِ الصّغيرِ صغارُها  وَتَصْغُرُ في عَين العَظيمِ العَظائِمُ
يُكَلّفُ سيفُ الدّوْلَةِ الجيشَ هَمّهُ   وَقد عَجِزَتْ عنهُ الجيوشُ الخضارمُ
وَيَطلُبُ عندَ النّاسِ ما عندَ نفسِه   وَذلكَ ما لا تَدّعيهِ الضّرَاغِمُ
يُفَدّي أتَمُّ الطّيرِ عُمْراً سِلاحَهُ   نُسُورُ الفَلا أحداثُها وَالقَشاعِمُ
وَما ضَرّها خَلْقٌ بغَيرِ مَخالِبٍ   وَقَدْ خُلِقَتْ أسيافُهُ وَالقَوائِمُ
هَلِ الحَدَثُ الحَمراءُ تَعرِفُ لوْنَها   وَتَعْلَمُ أيُّ السّاقِيَيْنِ الغَمَائِمُ
سَقَتْها الغَمَامُ الغُرُّ قَبْلَ نُزُولِهِ   فَلَمّا دَنَا مِنها سَقَتها الجَماجِمُ
بَنَاهَا فأعْلى وَالقَنَا يَقْرَعُ القَنَا   وَمَوْجُ المَنَايَا حَوْلَها مُتَلاطِمُ
وَكانَ بهَا مثْلُ الجُنُونِ فأصْبَحَتْ   وَمِنْ جُثَثِ القَتْلى عَلَيْها تَمائِمُ
طَريدَةُ دَهْرٍ ساقَها فَرَدَدْتَهَا على    الدّينِ بالخَطّيّ وَالدّهْرُ رَاغِمُ
تُفيتُ کللّيالي كُلَّ شيءٍ أخَذْتَهُ   وَهُنّ لِمَا يأخُذْنَ منكَ غَوَارِمُ
إذا كانَ ما تَنْوِيهِ فِعْلاً مُضارِعاً   مَضَى قبلَ أنْ تُلقى علَيهِ الجَوازِمُ
وكيفَ تُرَجّي الرّومُ والرّوسُ هدمَها  وَذا الطّعْنُ آساسٌ لهَا وَدَعائِمُ
وَقَد حاكَمُوهَا وَالمَنَايَا حَوَاكِمٌ   فَما ماتَ مَظلُومٌ وَلا عاشَ ظالِمُ
أتَوْكَ يَجُرّونَ الحَديدَ كَأنّمَا    سَرَوْا إليك بِجِيَادٍ ما لَهُنّ قَوَائِمُ
إذا بَرَقُوا لم تُعْرَفِ البِيضُ منهُمُ   ثِيابُهُمُ من مِثْلِها وَالعَمَائِمُ
خميسٌ بشرْقِ الأرْضِ وَالغرْبِ زَحْفُهُ  وَفي أُذُنِ الجَوْزَاءِ منهُ زَمَازِمُ
تَجَمّعَ فيهِ كلُّ لِسْنٍ وَأُمّةٍ    فَمَا يُفْهِمُ الحُدّاثَ إلاّ الترَاجِمُ
فَلِلّهِ وَقْتٌ ذَوّبَ الغِشَّ نَارُهُ    فَلَمْ يَبْقَ إلاّ صَارِمٌ أوْ ضُبارِمُ
تَقَطّعَ ما لا يَقْطَعُ الدّرْعَ وَالقَنَا   وَفَرّ منَ الفُرْسانِ مَنْ لا يُصادِمُ
وَقَفْتَ وَما في المَوْتِ شكٌّ لوَاقِفٍ   كأنّكَ في جَفنِ الرّدَى وهْوَ نائِمُ
تَمُرّ بكَ الأبطالُ كَلْمَى هَزيمَةً   وَوَجْهُكَ وَضّاحٌ وَثَغْرُكَ باسِمُ
تجاوَزْتَ مِقدارَ الشّجاعَةِ والنُّهَى   إلى قَوْلِ قَوْمٍ أنتَ بالغَيْبِ عالِمُ
ضَمَمْتَ جَناحَيهِمْ على القلبِ ضَمّةً  تَمُوتُ الخَوَافي تحتَها وَالقَوَادِمُ
بضَرْبٍ أتَى الهاماتِ وَالنّصرُ غَائِبٌ  وَصَارَ إلى اللّبّاتِ وَالنّصرُ قَادِمُ
حَقَرْتَ الرُّدَيْنِيّاتِ حتى طَرَحتَها   وَحتى كأنّ السّيفَ للرّمحِ شاتِمُ
وَمَنْ طَلَبَ الفَتْحَ الجَليلَ فإنّمَا   مَفاتِيحُهُ البِيضُ الخِفافُ الصّوَارِمُ
نَثَرْتَهُمُ فَوْقَ الأُحَيْدِبِ كُلّهِ    كمَا نُثِرَتْ فَوْقَ العَرُوسِ الدّراهمُ
تدوسُ بكَ الخيلُ الوكورَ على الذُّرَى  وَقد كثرَتْ حَوْلَ الوُكورِ المَطاعِمُ
تَظُنّ فِراخُ الفُتْخِ أنّكَ زُرْتَهَا   بأُمّاتِها وَهْيَ العِتاقُ الصّلادِمُ
إذا زَلِقَتْ مَشّيْتَها ببُطونِهَا    كمَا تَتَمَشّى في الصّعيدِ الأراقِمُ
أفي كُلّ يَوْمٍ ذا الدُّمُسْتُقُ مُقدِمٌ   قَفَاهُ على الإقْدامِ للوَجْهِ لائِمُ
أيُنكِرُ رِيحَ اللّيثِ حتى يَذُوقَهُ   وَقد عَرَفتْ ريحَ اللّيوثِ البَهَائِمُ
وَقد فَجَعَتْهُ بابْنِهِ وَابنِ صِهْرِهِ   وَبالصّهْرِ حَمْلاتُ الأميرِ الغَوَاشِمُ
مضَى يَشكُرُ الأصْحَابَ في فوْته الظُّبَى  لِمَا شَغَلَتْهَا هامُهُمْ وَالمَعاصِمُ
وَيَفْهَمُ صَوْتَ المَشرَفِيّةِ فيهِمِ   على أنّ أصْواتَ السّيوفِ أعَاجِمُ
يُسَرّ بمَا أعْطاكَ لا عَنْ جَهَالَةٍ   وَلكِنّ مَغْنُوماً نَجَا منكَ غانِمُ
وَلَسْتَ مَليكاً هازِماً لِنَظِيرِهِ    وَلَكِنّكَ التّوْحيدُ للشّرْكِ هَازِمُ
تَشَرّفُ عَدْنانٌ بهِ لا رَبيعَةٌ    وَتَفْتَخِرُ الدّنْيا بهِ لا العَوَاصِمُ
لَكَ الحَمدُ في الدُّرّ الذي ليَ لَفظُهُ   فإنّكَ مُعْطيهِ وَإنّيَ نَاظِمُ
وَإنّي لَتَعْدو بي عَطَايَاكَ في الوَغَى  فَلا أنَا مَذْمُومٌ وَلا أنْتَ نَادِمُ
عَلى كُلّ طَيّارٍ إلَيْهَا برِجْلِهِ    إذا وَقَعَتْ في مِسْمَعَيْهِ الغَمَاغِمُ
ألا أيّها السّيفُ الذي لَيسَ مُغمَداً   وَلا فيهِ مُرْتابٌ وَلا منْهُ عَاصِمُ
هَنيئاً لضَرْبِ الهَامِ وَالمَجْدِ وَالعُلَى  وَرَاجِيكَ وَالإسْلامِ أنّكَ سالِمُ
وَلِمْ لا يَقي الرّحم?نُ حدّيك ما وَقى  وَتَفْليقُهُ هَامَ العِدَى بكَ دائِمُ


1 “Outlands” is my rendering of ˁawāṣim. The word has often been misread as meaning “capitals” which is its sense in Modern Arabic. The term ˁawāṣim here refers to a part of the frontier zone between the Byzantine Empire and the Empire of the Caliphs. The forward strongholds of this zone were called ṯuġūr “mouths”, while those further rearward were called the ˁawāṣim “guardianesses”. 

2 Domesticus (or, rather δομέστικος) was Bardas’ Byzantine military title, loaned into Arabic as dumustuq, which is the word Al-Mutanabbī uses.

3 “Red” was a term that could be used for non-Arabs, especially Persians, Greeks or “Franks” (Western Europeans) who were seen as being of lighter complexion. E.g. Atānī kullu aswada minhum wa’aḥmar “Every one of them, Arab and not, came to me”. A saying attributed to Muhammad has it that buˁiṯtu ilā l-‘aḥmari wa-l-aswad “I was sent to the red and the black” of which the most straightforward interpretation is “to all mankind, Arab and not.” The term Al-Ḥamrā’ as a collective adjective may also be used to refer generically to foreigners, or to emancipated slaves. Al-Hadaṯ Al-Ḥamrā’ “Red Hadath” is the traditional appellation of the city. The color is — I think — being played on at multiple levels. She (the city is morphosyntactically feminine) is in the most obvious sense “red” after being soaked with blood. But she was also a “red” (foreign, Greek) city when under Byzantine rule, which she no longer is. She is now “red” (emancipated from bondage) now that Lord Realmsword has relieved her of foreign control. Despite her traditional appellation, she may not even know that she is now red in one sense, and was red in the other, so completely has she now been redeemed to her proper place under Islamdom.

4 The original text uses the word Rūs which in Modern Arabic simply means “Russians.” Anglophone commenters on this poem have usually so translated it, and Arabic commentaries often leave the word unglossed as though its meaning were transparent. But the Arabic word Rūs, at this time, actually referred to Norsemen (specifically the Byzantine Varangian guard is probably what is meant.) Since English “Rus” is far too scholarly, and “Norsemen” would be a bit too specific, I have used the most readily intelligible term Vikings.

Translator’s Note:

This is a collection put together specifically for ANMLY, in response to the desire for “work that is recalcitrant, wayward, rebellious…formally…or in some clever way that hasn’t occurred to us yet” and work that is “too resistant to have yet reached English-reading ears”. The form I use to translate most of these selections has never been attempted in translating Arabic poetry into English before. Even the form that my translator notes below take is likewise unorthodox, combining a neutral scholarly voice in prose with responses in verse. Each note opens with my poetic response to the poem and its author.

I have loved Arabic poetry since I first knew enough Arabic to be able to read some in my early 20s. I have spent the past four years of my life focusing on early Arabic poetry while preparing my dissertation on it. For sedentary peoples who do not live a pastoral life in the desert (which includes not only the earliest commentators but probably everyone who will ever read these words) it is material from a lost world and making it accessible to people in this one takes some doing. It is notoriously difficult to make work in English translation. It has historically been difficult for English-speaking learners of Arabic to learn to even appreciate. Even quite educated modern Arabic speakers generally read it in editions full of glosses and notes. There is no shortage of translations of pre-modern and pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, but the most successful of them (in my view) are either quite old or quite relentless in domesticating this poetry into the idioms of contemporary English readership. I have included one later Islamic-era poem as a coda.

The question of how to translate traditional Arabic poetry has vexed many Euroglot translators. Arabic poetry is traditionally not only metrical (using a quantitative system akin to that of Greek or Latin verse) but rhymed. Moreover, it is monorhymed. The same rhyme-sound repeats itself through the poem, sometimes over a hundred or more lines. While there are European languages (Russian is one of them) that can accomodate such a constraint, they do not include English. What I have done in most of these selections is use assonance instead, where the function of rhyme is performed by identity of vowels, regardless of the consonants after them. Different languages have different traditions areound assonance as a formal feature. It is the norm in Old Irish poetry, for example. It is reasonably common in Modern Dutch poetry. It is exceedingly normal in Spanish poetry. It is very rare in English, though there is no intrinsically linguistic reason why this should be so. As a translator, I’m often on the lookout for opportunities to do interesting things with form, and assonance to me seemed like a useful way to handle the constraint of Arabic monorhyme in English. In all but one of these selections, I have done so. It is the fashion to seek idiomaticity and contemporaneity at all costs in translation. I have disagreed, and felt free to use more archaic or recondite language when the tone and moment seemed to call for it.

The Unknown 6th Century Arabian Woman Who Composed a Lament in Abu Tammam’s Hamasa

            You did not know what killed him, but we do
not even know his name. The gods that maim
our memory spared little more of you
than sand-stung tremolos, heart’s salt, a name
of Woman Steeled in Grief, a nomad cry
the blending centuries vortexed into life
as mother, sister, daughter, aunt and wife
of a young man cast out by kin to die.
            Lines scratched into the manuscript like rock
as time sandblasts mere lineage from the mind
bear ghastly filiation. This is shock
no human should forget. Gods gouge me blind
if ever I tune out that underbreath
in which you live to mourn, that death is death.

This short poem, which seems to be pre-Islamic, is preserved in a personal collection of poetry compiled by Abū Tammām. The attribution found in the Ḥamāsa is probably false, and the only clues as to the poem’s provenance would seem to be the features of the text itself. Like Arab commentators I find it difficult to shake the sense that the man being lamented is a ṣuʿlūk. (The word is usually translated as “outlaw” though the term “desperado” conveys more of the Arabic word’s flavor.) A ṣuʿlūk, as the tradition would have it, was a man who had been exiled by his tribe and was forced to eke out a painful, empty-bellied and often short life on his own. If one is to believe the sources (and here the general picture seems to me more likely to have some truth to it than any specific instances), despite the terrible consequences of exile, it was not infrequent. Sometimes the man in question may have simply been an obnoxious and intolerable person too maladjusted for communitarian tribal life. In most cases, though, it would have been for serious crimes which made the man impossible to trust or a liability to retain, acts which might would bring shame upon, or even incur outside aggression against, the entire tribe if the individual responsible was not cast out. If, for example, a man were to kill a member of another tribe in a way that his community could not support, then he might have to be exiled. To keep him around would be to condone his action and therefore essentially an act of war.

Al-Muhalhil of Taghlib

            Grief weighs like camel knees upon the nape
of Al-Muhalhil. Bloodlust like disease
multiplies from the manic gut. Agape
his own damn heart will gulp him to the lees.
            Virulent now the cry AVENGE KULAYB
bloats eyes blind. Fuck eventualities.
He’ll really do it. Nobody foresees
a sundown from a melted astrolabe.
            His verse is that. White of a bloodshot eye.
Sparks between ribs. Quit drink, swear off the whore
for spearing till the Banū Bakr die.
            What happened then? Think.     You have likely seen
what happens when your captain for a war
thinks from a brain all versified to spleen.

ʿAdī bin Rabīʿa of Taghlib, commonly known as Al-Muhalhil “The Verse-weaver.” Born presumably at the very end of the 5th century, he is among the earliest Pre-Islamic Arabian poets to whom any surviving verse of substantive length is attributed. He is chiefly known for poems dealing with the Basūs War, in which a 40-year feud between the Banū Taghlib and  the Banū Bakr was supposedly ignited when his brother Kulayb was killed for slaughtering another tribe’s stray camel. While pre-Islamic tribal poetry might be crudely summarized as a literature of love, loss, pride and war, the social order it appears to suggest is dominated by feuding, ancient grudges and warfare in defense of honor, a world in which existence itself was a dangerous game, where stoicism and hardiness were the only refuge from the callous Fates and inevitable heartbreak.

ʿAbīd bin al-Abraṣ

    Old tentmarks in the stoneland of Rawhan
from a tribe crushed by what he dared not name
are long gone. Sagas peopled round a man
in verses from the dark. This he became.
   Read him. Feel arteries reel as wastewinds blow
blood to a shivered heart. Stare up through skies
into a hawk’s imaginary eyes
where brains aim claws with no such thing as No,
    and grasp the comfort, safe from wings or kings,
in treading shadows. You have not yet died.
Have you not seen how desert sunrise swings
survivor creatures to a hill’s dark side?
    ʿAbīd is now an echo of such things
and helps me walk through time with humbler pride.

The poetry attributed to the pre-Islamic poet ʿAbīd bin Al-Abraṣ, like that attributed to Al-Muhalhil, is traditionally reckoned by medieval commentators to be among the very earliest to survive. Judging by the fact that his most famous of poems has an anomalous meter that falls outside the meters allowable in classical prosody, as well as the fairly high frequency of anomalous syntactic constructions and unusual vocabulary of most of his work (anomalous and unusual, that is, from the point of view of the later and better-understood stages of Arabic) there is no reason to disagree with them on this point, at least with regard to the bulk of the material. Fortunately for the modern reader of Early Arabic (or, at least, fortunately for me) ʿAbīd’s language is often as moving as it is difficult, the more so thanks to his most frequent subject: the disaster that befell his tribe, the Banū Asad. The nature of the disaster remains unspecified in the poems and therefore unknown to us, but judging by the evidence from the poems it would have involved some sort of attack by superior forces (presumably one of the sedentary Arab kingdoms) which left many of the Banū Asad dead, and forced most of the rest to flee much of their former territory. The historical reality underlying the poetry is murky and probably will never be cleared up. The information on ʿAbīd’s life accompanying the poetry in Islamic literary compendia does not help much, as it has every sign of being based more on the poems than anything else, though it may contain some refraction of general truth about conflict with Kindite royalty. In any case, even admitting the qualifications which must attend any corpus which has gone through centuries of oral transmission, I see no substantive reason not to read the body of material attributed to ʿAbīd as (more or less) genuine pre-Islamic in content. That does not prove, of course, that all such early work attributed to ʿAbīd is necessarily by him. It may well be that only a few poems are genuinely his (if any) and that ʿAbīd as we know him is a half-archetypal figure around whose name various early poems of disparate authorship, containing a particular species of tribal lamentation, coagulated. If true, this would account for some the toponymic discrepancies that perplexed the commentators. Moreover, as is the case with most pre-Islamic poets, some (though by no means most) of the content which bears the poet’s name seems (on linguistic grounds as much as anything) to come from a much later period.

The second of the two poems translated here attributed to ˁAbīd is a “Muʿallaqah”. The muʿallaqāt (plural) are a collection of pre-Islamic poems especially esteemed by tradition. The origin of the term muʿallaqa has been much debated. Traditionally it is understood to mean “that which is suspended, hung up” and to refer to poems which were so illustrious as to earn the honor of being hung on the walls of the Kaʿba at Mecca. This explanation, which goes back to the tenth century and is part of common knowledge among educated Arabs even today, has largely been rejected by scholarship as entirely fictitious and based on little more than folk etymology. The most probable explanation for the term is that it was originally the title of the first section of the anthology compiled by Abū Zayd Al-Qurašī entitled Jamharatu Ašʿāri l-ʿArab, with the term al-muʿallaqāt meaning something like “the precious” (other sections have similar titles such as al-muntaqayāt “the chosen.”) There was uncertainty for a long time as to precisely which poems were muʿallaqāt. The poem translated here is a muʿallaqa by some reckonings, but not most.

Imru’l Qays

    How much to know of him I do not know.
The name’s no name. His great work’s making loi-
-ters, time-dilated, linked to one mind no
more than Achilles’ shield to Schliemann’s Troy.
    It’s there, though. Lightning over Najd forever
forks hands through crownbright clouds. In nights like seas
sky-hitched ropes no philology can sever
anchor Mount Yadhbul to the Pleiades
    as waves break on the brain with cares. You see
ruins, and know the nomad here must cry.
So stop and weep with him in memory
in verses vaguely true, knowing they lie
    strung as the faint remainder of a day,
    the windblown trace of campments gone away.

This translation is an excerpt from the muʿallaqah attributed to Imru’l-Qays, the most famous of all pre-Islamic poems. I have rendered it in full rhyme and have not used any kind of monorhyme, in part to showcase a different formal approach. How much of the material preserved under Imru’l-Qays’ name really goes back to him is an undecided question. This poem probably grew and was expanded in the course of its transmission. My translation of the finale of the famous Mu’allaqa attributed to Imru’l Qays. A terrific thunderstorm rages over the mountains on the northern edge of the Najd. The scene is imagined over so vast an area that it must be poetic fiction. (As the medieval commentators note: Sitār, Yadhbul and Qaṭan cannot possibly all be seen from the same place.) Legends abound about Imru’l Qays, and there is no real reason to credit them as historical. Even his real name is unknown. Imru’l Qays was a nickname.

Al-Mutanabbi

    At court he learned disguise, to measure tears
in melody, to make his manias ride
a bridled beast and flatter the Amirs
who stood in terror of the terrified.
    As a boy, earlier than most, he’d spied
how words mean more than merely what they mean
and rode the hearts of Bedouin. Having seen
a fluent life, end-stopped by thieves, he died
    a friend to desert knights to his last breath,
to sword and spear, to parchment and his pen.
    His patrons’ fame has emptied out its men
like scum that made a marsh now dried to death
under his vatic glow. He’s lived to curse
his masters into footnotes to his verse.

The year is 954 A.D. Al-Ḥadath Al-Ḥamrā’ is a strategically important town on the Arab-Byzantine border, between Mar’aš and Malaṭiyah, which depended for protection on a fortress built on nearby Mount Uḥaydib. After being captured and demilitarized in 950 by the Byzantines, it was retaken in October of 954 by Sayfu l-Dawla Abū Ḥasan Bin Ḥamdān, the Emir of Aleppo (whom I have seen fit to anglicize unorthodoxly as Lord Ali the Realmsword) who set about refortifying it, only to be interrupted by the appearance of Byzantine forces under the command of Bardas Phocas. Before the end of the month, a decisive battle was fought around Mount Uhaydib. After a day of heavy fighting, Lord Realmsword with a small company of hardened men broke through the Byzantine line. Bardas’ forces retreated, leaving members of his own family as prisoners. Lord Realmsword was then able to finish up the fortification of Al-Hadath, whereupon he had the pleasure of hearing his court poet Abū Ṭayyib Al-Mutanabbī recite the poem translated here in celebration of the occasion. This poem is easily Al-Mutanabbī’s most famous. I include it here in part as a continuation of my process of formal experimentation with pre-modern Arabic verse. To translate this poem, I came up with a new verse-form that seemed fit for purpose, combining assonance with a four-beat alliterative meter (loosely based on Old English verse, though with many restrictions relaxed). I’ve never used that form since, and I don’t know if I ever will.

 

A. Z. Foreman is a literary translator, poet and language-acquisition addict currently working on a doctorate in Near Eastern Languages at the Ohio State University. His translations from Arabic, Persian, Chinese, Latin, Occitan, Ukrainian, Russian, Irish and Yiddish have appeared in sundry publications including The Los Angeles Review, Metamorphoses, Blue Unicorn, Lunch Ticket, the Penguin Book of Russian Poetry, Asymptote, Ilanot Review, Pusteblume and also two people’s tattoos. His own poetry has appeared in La Piccioletta Barca, Apricity, The Word’s Faire, Rundelandia, The Mid-Atlantic Review, 1922 Review, The Borough, In Parentheses, The Brazen Head, Grand Little Things, The Blue Unicorn and Jerkpoet. But most importantly, if you have a dog he’d love to pet it.

 

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