Ode XC: O ye two brothers of mine

'O ye two brothers of mine, of our father and mother, let our two clients of Quda'ah take themselves away !

'And if ye will not do that, then, I adjure you, do not fasten upon us a burthen which we reject with anger !

'For we are the children of Sahm son of Murrah : we find for ourselves no other descent but theirs, and no one else who claims kinship with us.

'When we count up our ancestry, ye see that our father is your father : and ye certainly shall not find us prone to evil speech against you.'

But when I saw that patience brought me no profit, and that the day was all darkness, showing the stars at noon,

We burst upon them there in the hollow plain — ' May ye have no mother ', we cried, ' and no father ! '

We set on them with our swords, thin in the smiting edges, whetted keen, and with tawny spears that quiver when they are brandished, stubborn.

And they blenched not, what time our host dashed into theirs, but they looked full-face at Death unmixed, the dusky.

No wonder ! But when Muharib came upon us with a thousand horsemen, eagerly pressing on, in a host together—

They, the clients of our clients, to take captive our women ! O Tha'labah, verily ye have brought here a hateful thing, Tha'labah !

I said to them — 'Ye house of Dhubyan, what has come to you — may ye perish ! — that this year ye walk not in the right way ? '

Their chiefs invited one another to the worst of deeds, and Maudu' has become thereby a place to which that [shame] will cleave for ever !