Sharp-tipped, her noble pedigree plain in them, The fearful rustle of a whisper, the high-pitched cry, Her ears are true, clearly detecting on the night journey Like the dark-rimmed eyes of a scared wild-cow with calf. In the caves of her brow-bones, the rock of a pool's hollow,Įver expelling the white pus more-provoked, so they seem Her eyes are a pair of mirrors, sheltering Her cheek is smooth as Syrian parchment, her split lipĪ tanned hide of Yemen, its slit not best crooked Meeting together as it might be on the edge of a file. Her skull is most like an anvil, the junction of its two halves Her long neck is very erect when she lifts it upĬalling to mind the rudder of a Tigris-bound vessel. White gores marking distinctly a slit shirt. Now meeting, anon parting, as though they were The scores of her girths chafing her breast-ribs are water-coursesįurrowing a smooth rock in a rugged eminence, High-hoisted to frame her lofty, raised superstructure. Swiftly she rolls, her cranium huge, her shoulder-blades Thrust slantwise up to the propped roof of her breast. Her legs are twined like rope untwisted her forearms Reddish the bristles under her chin, very firm her back,īroad the span of her swift legs, smooth her swinging gait It should be all encased in bricks to be raised up true. Like the bridge of the Byzantine, whose builder swore Widely spaced are her elbows, as if she strode carrying the two You might say bows were bent under a buttressed spine. Underneck stuck with the well-strung vertebrae,įenced about by the twin dens of a wild lote-tree They are the gates of a lofty, smooth-walled castle -Īnd tightly knit are her spine-bones, the ribs like bows, her
Perfectly firm is the flesh of her two thighs. Lashes her dry udders, withered like an old water-skin. Of her tail, pierced even to the bone by a pricking awl Īnon she strikes with it behind the rear-rider, anon With her bunchy tail, scared of some ruddy, tuft-haired stallion,Īs though the wings of a white vulture enfolded the sides To the voice of the caller she returns, and stands on guard In Spring, cropping the rich meadows green in the gentle rains Nimbly plying, over a path many feet have beaten.Īlong the rough slopes with the milkless shes she has pastured
She vies with the noble, hot-paced she-camels, shank on shank Sure-footed, like the planks of a litter I urge her onĭown the bright highway, that back of a striped mantle Mounted on my swift, lean-flanked camel, night and day racing, Pure of hue, with not a wrinkle to mar it.Īh, but when grief assails me, straightway I ride it off That are smeared with colyrium - she gnaws not against them Ī face as though the sun had loosed his mantle upon it, Whitened as it were by the sun's rays, all but her gums On a moist hillock shining amid the virgin sands, Her dark lips part in a smile, teeth like a comomile Nibbling the tips of the arak-fruit, wrapped in her cloak.
Holding aloof, with the herd grazing in the lush thicket, Translated by A J Arberry.Ī young gazelle there is in the tribe, dark-lipped, fruit-shaking,įlaunting a double necklace of pearls and topazes, This is one of the seven mu'allaqat or "hung" poems of pre-Islamic times. (translated by Emilio Garcia Gomez & Cola Franzen)