I wish no trace were left of their encampment.
I would not then be saddened at the sight.
When their camels stepped away, aboard their litters went
gentlewomen like does of Urāq with wide eyes.
Stopped at Dhū 'l-Jadāh, apart from menfolk,
they cast off overclothes to play at leapfrog.
[They travel in summer.] The sun rises on them
almost as soon as it sets, but it's no affront to them.
I wish the winds my message to their people would convey
at Murj Ṣurā‘ or al-Andarīn.
White cumuli that echo one another’s peal,
with lightning bolting at us from cloudy banks,
their mounded forms lit up by rearing ones,
now in darkest night and now again—
what are they, compared to beautiful Ghaniyya with her neighbor
on the day of their departure, and beautiful Umm al-Banīn?
And what are the eggs of the [ostrich,] bushy and confrontational,
nursed on albumen until they hatch?
Laid in one shape, all of them,
white in color, with prenatal chicks contained inside,
sheltered by a wing and brooded over,
shielded underneath its plumage,
in a safe spot on a high place fed by sweet breezes,
where the north wind’s moan is sometimes heard,
and the wadi of Na‘mān empties out
into the graveled clay of al-Adyathīn.
That is where yon citadel of wandering cloud unleashes,
and the buzz [of flies around the ponds it fills] erupts like crazy.
And what is the shine of the jeweler’s pearl,
pried from its covering by the strong-willed [diver]?
He keeps it wrapped in silks,
and when he takes it out, eyes sparkle.
Between the diver and the pearl come frightful sights:
great fish and whales and other marine giants.*
Avidly, he risks his life (nafs) for it.
The desire in his soul (nafs) is strong and grasping.
And noble mares are continually saddled
for riding off to look at pearls in the [cool of] morn and evening.
[I say to my beloved spouse:] After the saddle quits the withers
of my mount, and events befall me as I deserve,
stay clear of the wandering lowlife
who calls on people after dark.
He slurps a skin of cultured milk, then stoppers it
and says, "It’s your turn to pour. I already shared mine."
Beneath reproach, he reproaches others. Whether
your flesh is lean or fatty, he chews it [behind your back].
Constantly he lollygags around your door,
as if tethered with a strap there.
When times are hard, he’s useless.
He has no camels fit for milking, nor any unfit ones.
When I die? Get yourself the miser’s opposite,
a young fighter with a lean midriff,
one whose eyes dart like a falcon’s
when he finds that all is not as it should be.
Night for him is without darkness. He trusts
in a fearless camel and races her [as if by day].
His people are in debt to his brave actions.
The women wish to have no other man.
This is [my advice,] not some occult destiny I foretell
to you who think that everything’s an omen.
Let the outcry cease! My accuser makes a case
out of whatever I just did, forgetting my prior exploits.
[In youth], I wore a mantle of prestige, and then it was
required of me to toil and soon be judged.
Now my death is nearer than a phantom.
Between my life and me it totters nigh.
Many a day ends in disaster. And then
sometimes those days are far between,
[as on the night] I crept up and whispered to her: "Pay
your uncle's son no mind [and come with me]."
A qasida by Ibn Ahmar al-Bahili (meter: wāfir)
*Two verses interpolated from Uncommon Words in Prophetic Hadith
by Ibrahim al-Harbi
