Ode VII: Ask Ma'add who were the knights

Ask Ma'add who were the knights who did not keep faith with those with whom they had covenanted, and yet got no booty !

Qurzul ran away with them, while men listened [to the battering of their hoofs], and the long locks fluttered, streaming in the breeze,

As they galloped away ; and they had left Rabl'ah lying among those that slew him, when the fighters were close together in the press of battle —

In his hand a lithe spear-shaft, well straightened in the clip, on it a spear-head kindled to wrath, eager for men's flesh.

If Khalid son of Nadlah had had any fear of your treachery, there had borne him away a swimmer whose reins outstrip [all other steeds that race with her] —

A mare short of hair, spare like a straightened spear : her back has not been wrinkled with the cold, nor has her food been stinted.

And al-Harith was there, shouting loud his call for help — among his companions a sure refuge and support :

There gallops with him a full-grown steed with a deep-toned neigh, that leads as their best all the horses of the tribe, stout, the heads of his long bones well covered with fat,

His rider arrayed in a fair coat of mail, woven double, sinning like a pool [smitten by a breeze], in the best part of a hollow, kept full by constant showers.