Ode XXIX: In sooth, ye two fellows of

In sooth, ye two fellows of mine, ye will not cease your reviling of me : whatsoever I waste [of my goods], ye cannot attain [to my generosity].

Verily, in the folly of your understandings, ye will spare me nought of your foolishness and foul speech,

Or desist from speaking lies against me ; and I cannot compel you not to speak lies and base slanders.

If there were a bloodwit to pay for me, ye could not pay of it so much as a lamb. I never mishandled a boon-companion, nor ever besmirched my honour.

If ye say that I am aged, yet am I not found to be a miser or a nerveless wretch, nor a holder-back [from any fair enterprise].

I expose my wealth as an object of attack to protect me against disgrace, and whatever in my affairs shows signs of giving way or splitting off.

If thou seest that my weapon is now the little spear of Abu Sa'd, time was when I carried all the weapons of a warrior together—

The sword and the lance and the quiver and the arrows, goodly with the feathers cut evenly, the best of make,

Whose notches were cut squarely and spliced firmly [with sinews] by the most skilful in his art of all the arrow-makers of 'Adwan ;

Then he clothed them with black, coal-black, bushy feathers — the three front-feathers of the wing and that which is next.