Ode XVII: My heart is cured of its

My heart is cured of its passion for Salma, and the railing women are tired of their admonitions : yet hardly did the love of Salma drop away — no easy thing was it to unlove her !

[She held] my heart until the foolishness of my youth had flown away, and until the beginnings of hoariness invaded my head and spread thereon ;

The juice of hinna dyes it red, but below the dyed hair are silvery shoots sprouting upwards like the white points of thagMm.

No welcome to grey hairs ! a fore-runner are they of One that comes later : when He knocks, no doorkeeper can bar his entrance.

Rich rainfall keep green the prime of Youth ! a trusty brother was he in the days gone by, the time of my folly,

When I sported with Salma : ah ! sweet was her speech to him that sought her — he had but to ask her bounty, and she freely gave.

White and fair, in her was lightness to him who tried her wit, and playfulness to occupy the heart of him who made that his end—

Those nights when she tempted the staid to folly with her dainty wiles, and her walk with a dragging step, and a twist that enticed the gaze ;

And her eyes like those of an oryx, among a herd whose pasture is the meadows where heavy rain-showers have fallen by night,

And her hair intensely black with luxuriant tresses, resembling the black snakes of Ramman, the lithe and long.

She steps with [a pair of legs smooth and soft like] two stems of papyrus, fed by sweet water and springs bubbling up among the roots of trees.

What man soever there be whose hands are empty of weapons, whose place, when War bares her teeth, is obscure and mean,

Of me at least the warriors of Dhubyan know that I am their knight who protects their folk, the champion of my tribe,

And that I repel the captain of the enemy, full of ardour though he be, and that I bring back from the fight my spear after it has been plied with blood to drink time after time.

And I have for use, what time War, stirred up again and again, becomes pregnant with mischief, and desperate affairs manifest their beginnings,

A horse long in the back, which has almost gone wholly into powerful withers, full of spirit at the goal and when called upon time after time for speed, perfect in shape and make,

With a loud trilling neigh, of the stock of as-Sarih : his voice is like the reed-pipes of a party of revellers to which timbrels with bells attached make answer.

When he is seen with the rider mounted, men say — ' A hunter's falcon ! ' : when he is led by a groom, there is in his walk an even smoothness ;

Thou wouldst say, when thou seest him standing at rest — ' The frame-work of a tent upon a rising ground, or a wolf standing up to gaze around ' :

One that stands out conspicuous from a crowd of other horses, and the safest of towers of defence, what time only steeds of race can bring safety from pursuit ;

A darter-forth to goals : and if he chase a herd of wild asses, he leaves them like a troop of camels which have all been slaughtered by a man boasting against another.

He seems to be gazing upwards with eyes intent, as though he had perceived some object of fear, and were striving to catch sound of it with his ear.

What time thou seest the other horses, after a long day spent in quick travel, with their eyes sunken deep, like clefts in a mountain where water lodges,

And after that I have worn away his flesh by constant work, so that his ribs show like palm-leaves laid side by side for a mat, which the weaving women part one from another,

Even then he looks on galloping and trotting as a duty laid upon him as he speeds along, though already [from exhaustion] his flanks cleave to his back.

His ribs are bent round, and the muscles thereon resemble arrows pared down by an arrow-maker skilful with his hands.

Hard are his hoof-rims, so that he cares not, when he gallops, whether there He before him a plain of soft even sand, or a tract of flint and stones.

[And I have, too,] a mare long of body, short of hair, whose spirit is unfailing, compactly and firmly built, [slender] as a staff, that has borne no foal,

A bay, with her back strongly-knit : as-Sarih and Jafil[, her sires,] have lifted her line to the best of strains.

She is one of those steeds of race that stretch themselves fully in their gallop, springing and light of foot, pressing on in her eagerness : her longing is the far-extending desert, plain giving into plain.

She turns her cheeks briskly to right and left, though her gallop has lasted long, as an adversary vehement in his contention casts his hands this way and that.

Her noble endurance, and her impetuosity in which is no flagging, carry her to the front of the dash of the galloping steeds ;

And if that which was withheld of the reins is restored to her, she lets herself go at full speed like the darting flight of a sandgrouse which hawks pursue.

A mare kept always close to the tent, never has she been bestridden except for a foray, nor have ever foals tugged at her teats.

When she has been fined down by training, she is like a young gazelle fed on hullab, with her muscles and upper parts firmly knit, and her lower limbs made nimble and light.

And in truth she has ever been to me a precious possession, born and brought up in our tents : of all possessions that which has been born and bred with one's people is the most precious ;

And I will keep her as my own so long as there is a presser for the olive, and so long as a man, barefoot or shod, wanders on the face of the earth.

[Yea, and I have] also a coat of mail flowing down over the body, wide-extending, of the make of the Tubba's, held together with firm pins, from which the broad-headed long arrows fall away in disgust [because they cannot pierce it] :

Glittering scales like the back of a fish — no lance has any effect on it, much less those wretched little shafts that strive to penetrate it ;

White is it, marked with streaks of brass-work, with its rows of scales closely set : rings it has, which extend [in the sleeves] beyond the fingers.

Its fame is widely spread abroad, and fingers are crooked to point it out, when on a day of mustering for defence the tribes are gathered together,

And [I have] a coif of mail hanging down from a Himyarite helmet glistening in the sun, from which stones fly shattered into small pieces :

The rays of the sun on its sides send forth a radiance like the lamps of hermits, brightly kindled on candlesticks [to guide the wayfarer].

And a shield [I have], that looks like the sun in the dust-cloud of the dark day [of battle], and a glittering sword, that cuts straight through the thing it strikes ;

Of the best and purest of steel, its edge never ceases to be keen : ancient generations forged and fashioned it :

A smooth blade of India — when its edge is raised to smite the tops of the helms, the shoulders beneath are not safe from its stroke ;

When he that wields it rushes towards his foe, already has he addressed to it this word — ' May all blades be thy ransom !

' Art thou not of finest temper ? The topmost crests [of the helmets] cannot stop thee, and thou fallest not short however far be the stroke for the hand that wields thee.'

A sword that makes no sound when it is drawn forth from its sheath : its surface has been polished and cleared of all rust by the armourers.

And [I have] a spear even and regular in its internodes, as though a stream of oil, flowing continuously, covered it :

Solid all through — when it is shaken, a vibration runs through its upper parts, as a serpent of the sands wriggles when he is making for a place of refuge :

A point it has, whose keen edges pierce everything, slender and thin like the new moon that shines amid the blackness of night.

Enough of this ! — What thinkest thou of the mind of a company from whom have reached me insulting and violent words ?

They snap at my honour behind my back : but before they get at it there is for their nibbling a wide space to be eaten through !

[They attack me] notwithstanding that I have had experience [in such things], when my side was found to be solid and hard, and he with whom I contended in shooting the arrows [of satire] was made to bark at me in discomfiture and terror ;

And I have passed the point of forty years [and reached my prime], and my spear is found always to be without a rival to meet it in strife.

Yea, verily they know from of old that when the contest becomes severe, I interpose therein [as a master] skilled to deal with it.

I warrant to him with whom I contend that my words shall be so striking that the night-traveller shall sing them as he fares along, and the caravans be urged forward by them on their road ;

Well remembered are they, cast forth with multitudes to bear them about : their sound is gone forth in full sunshine into every land ;

They are repeated again and again, and only increase in brilliancy, when the diligent lips of men test my verse by repetition.

And he whom I attack with a couplet, it sticks to him and is conspicuous like a mole on his face — and there is nothing that can wash out a mole !

Thus is my requital for the gifts men bring ; and if I speak, the sea is not exhausted, nor is my voice hoarse with too much use.

Turn then thy shaping of verse, if indeed thou art copious in song — and in sooth the copious in song knows how to say whatsoever he wills —

To the picturing of a man of Subah who has suffered long from distress : arrows has he of the make of ar-Eaqam, and a yellow [bow of nab'-wood] with all the sap dried out of it ;

These are all that remain to him out of that which he shaped with his knife — and a few dogs on whose necks the chains tinkle as they move to and fro —

Blackey, the Hunter's Tip-cat, Long-body, Slim, Wolf, and the Gripper,

The offspring of two hounds of Seleucia that were his livelihood — but they died, and his frame dwindled to nothing, sunk as he was in misery ;

He made up his mind, when they died, to hunger and disappointment : but his Demon said to him — ' Thou hast the charge of a household to meet ! '

So he went about among his fellows, begging from them the means to live : but returned home with all his prayers encountering nought but stubborn rock,

To his boys lean as arrows without heads, and a foolish gad-about wife— and the worst of wives are those that have no sense !

And he said to her — 'Hast thou anything to eat? As for me, I have nought to do but to curse mankind to thee — may thy mother lose all her sons ! '

She answered him — ' Yea, this well and its water, and a bit of skin a year old, shrivelled and dried up.'

Then, when he had eaten all he could of the meat she offered, and he lay at even utterly worn out, filled with anxiety that was no vain thing,

He drew over him, seeking sleep, the skirt of his mantle, but the tumult of cares within kept slumber far from his eyes !