Satan's Army

     "Put war in your poem!" they say. "Tell of the armies
          and unrecruited rabble, and how peace was made
              between Bilal and Sa‘d."
      When peace of heart and eye's a struggle
          against passions bound to wipe me out!
      Armed combat is distasteful to recall. There are
          other battles to send the blood racing.
      How often am I slain in wars of eros
          where lions are dominated by gazelles?
      From quivering spears, my eyes roll away. By God,
          I'm here for quivering of shapely bodies.
      The stampede of desire on inner racetracks
          stirs me more than urged-on horses.
      Looks fly farther and hit harder
          than shafts of India on the soul.
      And arrows? Movements with gestural intention at a distance
          and soft words from up close
              are way more deadly.
      Love's arrows never miss the mark, or fail to bring it down,
          and leave no mark on the gut they skewer.
      How I marvel at the kohl-rimmed eye
          that leaves me wallowing in blood
              with no sword drawn!
      Basus, Dahis, and the heat of their battles
          would be easier than what I'm going through.
      My muse is unexcused, a sower
          of fruitless seed that no one wants.
      My genius is abandon to pleasure.
          It shirks at flattery that might garner me a wage.
      My society are jokers. With them I joke along,
          but if ever I'm their butt my jokes turn serious.
      Any way they turn, I am their cynosure,
          grave as a judge, daft as an ape.
      The peal of my wit goes up from a heart of lightning,
          raining merriment with boom and flash.
      And when I want someone, the hunt is on.
          Finesse and style lure them to my side.
      I can do it suave or funny,
          and sometimes I'm a foul-mouthed fool.
      What's due to lovers [often goes unpaid. The debt]
          depreciates, and is forgiven. Meanwhile, I'm paid
              cash money what's due me.
      Companions! I ask you. Have you ever seen or heard
          of a nobler master than one who comes on foot
              to meet his slave?
      He visits without assignation, saying,
         "This way, you're not hanging on a promised time."
      Like a star felicitous of orbit,
          the cup goes back and forth between us,
      kisses landing on narcissus eyes
          and apple cheeks for nibbling.
      Ask the cup: Why do you broadcast shame
          upon our cheeks, and shamelessness in what we do?
      At my caress, a blush of shame
          crosses his cheek, a blush of protest and affront
      upon a cheek that reddens in desire for revenge,
          even under sway of wine and leisure.
      I breached her teeth's barrier, and tasted
          pure snowmelt filtered through a honeycomb.
      I drank it in to quench the thirst
          that burned inside me, and said to her:
     "My breath seems like a draft of Hell without the flame,
          and your mouth a draught of Paradise without the chill."
     "In young men's lives are contrarieties
          in need of balance," she said, "so enjoy it!"
      So I toil on in conquest of what I want,
          a toil that brings my spirit great relief.
      From the cradle to my grave, my joy inveterate
          in youths frivolous and beardless,
      I go on mixing falsehood with <the truth>,
          concealing my aims, which only God knows,
              and evading censure.
      There are two moons. Her face is one of them,
          Dark night is doubled by her curling hair,
      a night of Paradise and sweetness
          never to be forgotten.
              We spent it in the Garden of Eternity.
      What need have I of roses? Her cheeks are Eden's own!
          When I want pomegranates, I rub her chest.
      But without spells and charms, desire is futile.
          The lonely antelope would never find a mate.
      Catch me all alone, and you will see
          a flock of hens come strutting for the cock.
      I praise God for all the blessings I've enjoyed,
          though Satan, no praise to Him, did all the work.
      Satan has planted the flag of his battles alongside
          my flag, for his hosts to congregate around.
      [News reaches me from all over:] If a prodigious birth
          is celebrated in China, word of it flies post-haste to me.
      When touched by love supreme, my verse becomes obscene
          and exudes scandal, like fragrance from the aloe
              touched by hot coal.
      The look on my face at the height of my passions
          [would terrify Gog and Magog, and send them running]!
              They could have done without the barrier,
                  had they my face to imitate
                      back in Alexander's day.
      There is no turning back the stampede
          of my desires racing to savor what is sweet,
              not if a thousand rebukes come in between.
      Only the Devil knows what to do with me.
          He alone will grieve openly when I die.
      Into his army I went as a lad, and rose
          through the ranks til the army was mine
              and the Devil in my service.
      If he predecease me, I will carry out
          his corrupting works to a degree of expertise
              never to be equaled after me

By Nasr al-Khubza’aruzzi (meter: ṭawīl)

The baker-poet of Basra

For those who really care about al-Mutanabbi's thievery from Abu Tammam, I shall expose his thievery from a latter-day poet far below Abu Tammam in stature and fame, lacking Abu Tammam's technique, his savvy, and his elevated style: namely, Nasr al-Khubza’aruzzi (The Rice-Bread Baker). Because if you really want to understand how al-Mutanabbi rips off Abu Tammam, you need to stop focusing on just him.

I'm well aware that some reject my view. They don't accept that al-Mutanabbi would copy the baker-poet, preferring Abu Tammam to a contemporary whose verse is ignored by scholars. They care only for imitations of al-Mutanabbi's great predecessor, whose prestige looms in their minds. But al-Mutanabbi's fans only know the sublimity and prosperity of his later years. They didn't know him when he was a total unknown of obscure station, even though this period of his life lasted longer than his riches and high estate, when his name became famous, and the sharpness of his acumen known to all.

The following report came to me from Abu 'l-Qasim ‘Ali ibn Hamza al-Basri, one of his closest friends who knew him best. Abu 'l-Qasim said he was with al-Mutanabbi at the time of his arrival in Kufa from Egypt, and observed his reaction when an old man [who had known the poet as a young man] used him less reverently than al-Mutanabbi was by then accustomed to. "Ho, Abu 'l-Tayyib!" the old man said. "When you took leave of us, you had three hundred poems in your catalog. Thirty years later, you're back with just a hundred some-odd poems. Did you go scattering them along the road?"
    "Cut the funny stuff," said al-Mutanabbi.
    "Then tell me what happened to the poem called al-Shāṭiriyya (?), your emulative response to the poem by al-Khubza’aruzzi. You went all the way to Basra to make him hear it! Why have you stricken it now?"
    "That one was a lapse of my early career," said al-Mutanabbi.
    "Do you remember any of it?" I asked the old man, and he recited a few verses for me.
     Abu 'l-Qasim said: A good while later, I found another pretext for asking al-Mutanabbi: "Were you ever in Basra?"
    "Yes," he said.
    "Where'd you stay?" I asked him, and he named a place I knew to be just four or five houses down from al-Khubza’aruzzi's shop. And then I knew the old man was telling the truth.

Abu 'l-Qasim reported also that he asked the baker-poet's neighbors about al-Mutanabbi, and was told that long ago, in his youth, Abu 'l-Tayyib had indeed fraternized with him. But the stans deny that al-Khubza’aruzzi would hold any appeal for him. Due to the baseness of his poetic art, and his contemporaneity, they don't consider al-Khubza’aruzzi worthy of study, let alone an actual source for al-Mutanabbi. And so they miss al-Mutanabbi's appropriations of his work.

From Fair Judge of the Thief and the Stolen-From: An Exposé of the Plagiarisms of Abu 'l-Tayyib al-Mutanabbi by Ibn Waki‘ al-Tinnisi