Ode XV: Help, O my people ! Folly

Help, O my people ! Folly is [hateful] as her name : are the sick-nurses to tend me time after time because of my love of Salma ?

Suwaiqah of Balbal, as far as its runnels flow and the plain of dwarf tamarisk, filled my eyes with tears at the memory of my trysts with Salma —

Places of meeting where now feed only the black troops of ostriches, dark of hue like Indians taking short steps as though they were sore-footed ;

They feed together, in the raviny ground, in the company of a male . ostrich, small-headed and long-necked, looking like a gatherer of acacia-pods in Dhu-t-Talh, who culls them without lopping the tree.

She stood towards the side of the tent-curtain — and the passion that was in her, but for the eyes of men, had overwhelmed me ;

And she said — 'Wilt thou not stay, and satisfy a desire, O Father of Hasan, among us, and fulfil what thou hast promised to me?'

There has reached me, while my people had their dwelling among Juhainah, in Nis', and Radwa, beyond the penfolds,

The bitter cry of an old man crippled with years, and his aged wife, despoiled of their property, in as-Sal'a, the place of black snakes.

The twain have become poor and thirsty for milk, now that they have sold for a few goats and a pair of hounds strong and shaggy she-camels, big as boulders —

She-camels white and red, fat and well-liking, as though they were blocks of red ochre, their colour like cloths dyed with saffron :

Their firm solid thighs shatter to pieces the sticks of every driver who, at the water of Yam'ud, tries to repel them from the drinking-troughs.

O Zur'ah son of Thaub, the women dependent on your house have grown lean, while thou pleasest thyself with supping the froth of abundant fresh milk :

Yea, the women dependent on the Son of Thaub have suffered a surfeit of hard usage — he roasts them as one roasts strips of dried flesh.

I have left the Son of Thaub without a rag of defence ; and if I had willed it, my handmaids had sung to me songs of derision about [the Son pf] Thaub.

I should have delivered a smashing blow on the Son of Thaub that would have knocked him senseless, at the sight of which every leech and sick-nurse would have wailed [in despair].

Return then the milch-camels of the Tha'labite to him : to restore them is more honourable, and will better shield your good fame, than that more than one should suffer pain [from my satire].

But if ye return them not, then your ears will have to listen to scornful rhymes that will stick to you for ever like collars round your necks.

And Khalid, though he dwell among you at the two Abans, is not remote from us nor far away.

Thou hast cheated him out of his beasts, when thou sawest that he was but a lad, like the branch of a ben-tree, soft and pliable.

The milch-camels of the Tha'labite whimper with yearning for their native land, for Ghaiqah and al-Fadafid.

And the Son of Thaub cries 'aa among the herdsmen, as he pastures a herd of barren she-camels, and another of camels that have just brought forth and have not been put again to the stallion.

[How goodly those milch-camels of famine, whose heavy breathing guides the steps of the guest wandering through the night — how excellent as mounts for a man bested with need !]

These, [the barren,] or those others with their younglings sticking close to them, are like offspring of the white wild-kine wandering together with dust-coloured ostriches.

Nay, ye House of Thaub, the troop of Khalid's camels will be to you like a blazing fire — no good is there to you in Khalid's troop !

In them are infections of the plague of violent cough, and buboes with pustules sharp and prominent like the nipples of breasts of young maidens.

They suffer from mange, and they have been anointed all over with ghaiqah, a stinking ointment, and the urine of women whose monthly courses have ceased.

No, never saw I a calamity like it, when [Khalid] came to you, nor a recompense like the price which was paid him in return for his beasts.

But oh the pity that they did not join themselves by the cords of attach-ment to the all-sufficient protection of the Son of Darah !

Then had there restored them a people whose Father was like a lion strong and bold, long in the fore-arm, in Blshah.

Or if al-Lajlaj had been their protector, or the Sons of Ba'ith, then they had not leaped into the snare of the hunter.

Or if they had been women-clients of the House of Musafi', they would have been given back easily, without any friction, as camels hasten down to the watering.

Or if they had taken up their abode in the midst of the Banu-th-Tharma, they would have defended them with lances long in the spear-heads —

Keen warriors like drawn swords : then [after battle] they betake them-selves to bashful wives slender like reeds that sway this way and that.

But — as it is — they are in a conspicuous place against which men warn one another, wherefrom in their hides there are as it were the nibblings of crickets.

Then said I — and I could not hold my peace—' O Rizam son of Mazin, ye are parties to a foul deed wherein is the shame of all chaste women ! '