Ode CV: My heart settled firmly upon quitting

My heart settled firmly upon quitting Salma, and cut short its desires, after that she and I had both grown grey ;

And grey too are now my contemporaries, and they turn away from me, as thou strippest off garments and wearest them no more.

But if her arrow and mine both fail now to hit the mark, yet in the past for a long time we shot with them unerringly :

She made prey of men what time she shot them, and I made my prey the veiled maidens with breasts beginning to be rounded.

And if to-day she wins no game, and her hunter returns from the chase resigned to failure and disappointment,

Yet there are dwellings, now empty and desolate, where once she abode — at Namala I stayed my caravan among them,

On the valley sides, below Numail, [and pondered] as thou goest over a faded writing again with the pen —

The writing of a skilled scribe, one who spells correctly, having a good eye : he adorns his text, and is careful that he be not blamed.

I stayed therein my young she-camel, but the place gave me no answer : had there been there any living thing, it would have answered.

I thought there upon my return home : and whoso journeys as I journeyed will let his thoughts dwell on his return.

And many the swift camel I have sent on a journey — [when she sweats,] it seems as though the folds of her skin were covered with malab.

I repaired the breach in Ka'b, and it passed away : and the breach was one that gave no promise of being reparable ;

And the tribe's Ka'b became one Ka'b again, after that from internal hatreds it had been pronounced to be many Ka'bs.

I bore the bloodwit of the man of Quraish in their stead, and would have no wrongdoing or outwitting one another.

Thus do I accustom the wise men after me to do the like, whensoever just claims come upon the various groups [that make up the tribe].

By so doing I was beforehand with Qudamah or Sumair : but if they had been called to do the like, they would have answered — ' Gladly ! '

And I stand as the sufficient protector of people against trouble which has allowed them to see only patches of sky overhead ;

And [other] people shrink in dread from me and my helpers, as the old she-camels shrink when they fear the cord [which is tied round their thighs to make them yield milk].

Yea, I will bear the burden of the bloodwit : Ghani shall pay it, and I will cause Kilab to inherit the glory of it for ever.

And if I praise myself for this [great deed], verily I did therein on that morning a thing that was most right.

And my wont has always been, when a great matter overwhelmed my people with its difficulties, to rise to the height of it, not to creep like a coward before it.

First I praise God, and next the bounty of those men who make it their business to redeem plundered herds and captives.

When the clouds descend in rain on the lands of a people, we pasture therein our herds, though they be wrathful :

[We send to feed there] all our long-legged horses, stout in their limbs : when the reins of other steeds are slackened [because they are quite worn-out], they are still fresh and full of running —

And mares that thrust the girth backwards with their elbows, fleet like a deer of the leafy pastures that has caught sight of the hounds.