A Literary History of the ArabsNicholson, Reynold Alleyne
History
A Literary History of the Arabs
Nicholson, Reynold Alleyne
Arabic literature -- History and criticism
"Up, maiden! Fetch the morning-drink and spare not
The wine of Andarín,
Clear wine that takes a saffron hue when water
Is mingled warm therein.
The lover tasting it forgets his passion,
His heart is eased of pain;
The stingy miser, as he lifts the goblet,
Regardeth not his gain.
Pass round from left to right! Why let'st thou, maiden,
Me and my comrades thirst?
Yet am I, whom thou wilt not serve this morning,
Of us three not the worst!
Many a cup in Baalbec and Damascus
And Qáṣirín I drained,
Howbeit we, ordained to death, shall one day
Meet death, to us ordained."[219]
In the next passage he describes his grief at the departure of his
beloved, whom he sees in imagination arriving at her journey's end in
distant Yamáma:--
"And oh, my love and yearning when at nightfall
I saw her camels haste,
Until sharp peaks uptowered like serried sword-blades,
And me Yamáma faced!
Such grief no mother-camel feels, bemoaning
Her young one lost, nor she,
The grey-haired woman whose hard fate hath left her
Of nine sons graves thrice three."[220]
Now the poet turns abruptly to his main theme. He addresses the King of
Ḥíra, ‘Amr b. Hind, in terms of defiance, and warns the foes of
Taghlib that they will meet more than their match:--
"Father of Hind,[221] take heed and ere thou movest
Rashly against us, learn
That still our banners go down white to battle
And home blood-red return.
And many a chief bediademed, the champion
Of the outlaws of the land,
Have we o'erthrown and stripped him, while around him
Fast-reined the horses stand.
Our neighbours lopped like thorn-trees, snarls in terror
Of us the demon-hound;[222]
Never we try our hand-mill on the foemen
But surely they are ground.
We are the heirs of glory, all Ma‘add knows,[223]
Our lances it defend,
And when the tent-pole tumbles in the foray,
Trust us to save our friend![224]
O ‘Amr, what mean'st thou? Are we, we of Taghlib,
Thy princeling's retinue?
O ‘Amr, what mean'st thou, rating us and hearkening
To tale-bearers untrue?
O ‘Amr, ere thee full many a time our spear-shaft
Has baffled foes to bow;[225]
Nipped in the vice it kicks like a wild camel
That will no touch allow--
Like a wild camel, so it creaks in bending
And splits the bender's brow!"[226]
The _Mu‘allaqa_ ends with a eulogy, superb in its extravagance, of the
poet's tribe:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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