Abu 'l-Nashnash was a bandit of the Banu Tamim, an antisocial type and nuisance of the road who used to hold up caravans between the Hijaz and Syria. He was caught by one of Marwan's brigadiers, who fettered him and kept him prisoner, until Abu 'l-Nashnash took advantage of his captors' inattention and ran for it. He went along until he came to where a crow in a moringa tree was croaking and preening its feathers, and this filled him with disquiet. Then he came upon a group of the Banu Lihb, and said: "Ordeals and evils, imprisonment and dire straits—this man's been through them all, and escaped!" He looked to his right, and saw nothing. Then he looked to his left, and saw again the crow in a tree, croaking and preening its feathers.
"If the omen doesn't lie, this man's headed back to prison," a Lihbite said, "to languish in fetters until he's executed and exposed on a cross." "Suck a rock," said Abu 'l-Nashnash. "Suck it yourself," said the Lihbite. To which Abu 'l-Nashnash recited (meter: ṭawīl):
Many women ask where I'm headed, and many men.
Why ask the irregular where he's bound?
The broad highway, that's where. If someone hangs onto
what they'd better hand over, that's when I come near.
A lonely man who can't roam free and easy,
and no one is happy to see,
is better off dead than hovering
in penury around his master's well.
The open waste where the sandgrouse falters
is where Abu 'l-Nashnash comes riding through,
to avenge someone's killing, or take someone's stuff.
Is the prodigy not now in view?
He lies down to worse poverty, finding nothing he seeks
on darker nights than I've ever seen.
Live lawless or die noble. I have found no one
left behind that death came seeking.
From the Book of Songs
