Ode CIV: Umamah came to me by night

Umamah came to me by night, and far was the distance she had to travel in the darkness, when all my comrades were sleeping by their camel-saddles.

' How didst thou find thy way hither ? and never wast thou strong afoot ' : and of the people some were awake and some plunged in slumber.

A man am I of a famous company, active in all good works, whose glory is high of head, inherited from our fathers :

They found their father a lord already, and their own nobility helped them, and their uncles and their ancestors, to add to their renown.

Since every living thing grows from a root, as the great thorny trees grow from theirs, one man abounds in noble deeds, while another is mean and of no account.

We render to the tribe all that is due and fitting : and we pardon its offences against us, and are [admitted by all to be] its chiefs.

And when the tribe loads its burdens upon us, we stand up therewith and bear them : and when it repeats the load, we bear it yet again ;

And whensoever we meet with the need of valour and resource, our wont, O Sumayyah, is to outwit with this art our foes.

Yea, we say not, when strangers seek shelter of us for the night — ' The way to our halting-place is not to be trodden without much toil ' ;

When some folk forbid to the stranger the path to their tents, the way to ours is a well-marked road.

Sumayyah said — 'Thou hast gone astray!' for that she saw that claims, and embassies to kings, one after another minished our store :

Yea, straying it may be — -never will I cease to do the like again and again, so long as we have left to us any store at all !