Ode XXXIX: Ar-Ruwa' has cast off affection for

Ar-Ruwa' has cast off affection for thee, and determined on separation from thee and farewell.

And she said, ' What is he now but a worn-out old man ? ' and repulsion was strong in her, and she sought not to overcome it.

Yea, and if [through advancing years] I have come back to my senses, and a veil of hoary hair gleams white o'er my brow,

Yet I know how to cleave close to a friend though he be far from me, and the fruit, of hating me is an unwholesome pasture.

And I guard, though they be absent, the cause of my tribe, and it is not neglected with me, nor is it lost.

And through me the poor starveling is made happy when he seeks me : but the valiant fighter mislikes entering on a contest with me.

And it stops the voice of blame that I am [admitted by all to be] noble, and that the place of my dwelling is high upon the mountain for all to see,

And that I am obeyed among the Children of Bakr son of Sa'd, what time all their scattered companies are gathered together.

And many [the host of horse] whose flanks were closely compacted, great in multitude, moving along with its spear-heads shining in the sun,

At whose attack I have been present, and have stood my ground therein, what time the pithless weakling quaked with affright.

And many the stubborn adversary, difficult to handle, ready to distort anything from the truth, whose sole object to be grasped at was to hurl at me revilings,

Obstinate like a horse jerking upwards his head, to whom I have been a bit to tame him, and a bandage to blind his eyes :

When he wriggled and struggled, he was straightened out by the force of adversity and by crushing blows, so that the raging veins in his neck calmed down.

And many the shag-pated waif whose kin have turned away from him, a castaway like an old saddle-cloth, with no force of resolve or energy left,

A wretch full of misery, to whom I have brought happiness once more, so that into his life spaciousness has returned again.

And many the water, its depths corrupt through long loneliness, in a solitary wilderness, round whose sides the beasts of prey wander to and fro,

I have visited, what time the Pleiads had dropped to their setting, while under my saddle-pad was a big-framed long-stepping camel,

Stout and muscular, that moves the upper part of his forelegs to and fro, and speeds along upon nimble shanks set in a well-knit frame.

He has a ring in his nose which, when he presses sideways out of the course, pulls his neck round, and the spinal cord of his neck becomes soft in consequence.

It seems as though his saddle were bound upon a sturdy wild-ass, who has found the grazing in the water-courses of Ma'qulah to his mind —

Water-courses coming down from upland meadows well soaked by successive showers that have fallen under the constellation of the Ram.

He has become therefrom stout and well knit together, like a cable of palm-fibre the loosely-laid strands of which have been rolled close together by a skilful Syrian woman.

He turns hither and thither a long-bodied she-ass, long of neck, whose body-hair flies about in the wind, and in her are streaks of white [like the gores in a shirt].

When the two came down into the plain, she gained somewhat upon him in their running : but in spite of her boldness, he kept closely up to her ;

He turned away from the drinking-places of the valley of Qaww, and the broken rugged path towards the Harrah did away with her superiority in speed ;

And the nearest watering-place where they arrived, at the setting-in of night, was Uthal, or Ghumazah, or Nuta'.

And he brought her down to drink when the night was one pitch-darkness, and the twain were nowise weary when the dawn broke upon them.

But with the dawn he lighted on a serpent of the Children of Jillan, whose only gear was his bent bow and his arrows :

When he slaughters not for his children fresh juicy meat of the foremost of the wildings, they have to go hungry.

So he let fly at them an arrow, slender, with its head worn down on both sides by sharpening — but a breaking of the bow-string caused him to miss the shot !

And he cried Woe upon his mother, while [the wild ass] sped away at headlong speed, about him a cloud of dust from his galloping, spreading in the air.