A copy of Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych’s translation of Imru’ al-Qais’ poem from The Mu’ allaqat fir Millenials is appended. Numbers in parentheses refer to line numbers of that poem. Numbers in brackets refer to endnotes.
A curious reader unfamiliar
with the Arabic language and, for the most part, with Arabic literature, might well
begin with Imru’ al-Qais. A pre-Islamic poet, and thus, in the view of
believers, a dweller in the time of ignorance (the jahiliyyah), he is
nonetheless a fountainhead for Arabic literary tradition. Considered by many to be one of the finest
poets in the language, he has an undeniable place in its literary history as the originator or
early reinforcer of conventions that shaped the poetry of a number of Arabic-speaking
Muslim nations as well as work by Muslims writing in Persian, Bengali, and
other languages.
The work of the
earliest Arabic poets, unlike the later courtly poetry of Damascus, Baghdad,
and Granada, is full of the imagery of the nomadic camp. Poetry was always performed aloud, composed
according to the techniques of oral composition such that outstanding works
were subsequently transmitted for generations without writing (leading to
textual variations that vex modern scholars).
During evening gatherings in the tents of sheikhs, poetry aficionados
recited poems as entertainment. Verbal
sophistication was highly prized and poets competed at annual gathering in ʿUkāẓ
near Mecca.
In pre-Islamic
times the dominant mode seems to have been the qaṣīda, often translated
as ode, a form that makes rigorous demands, both in form and content. The classic early qaṣīda is composed
in a single quantitative meter and monorhyme (every line ending with the same
sound) [1].
In content the qaṣīda
typically begins with a scene of an abandoned campsite in the desert (called
the nasib) evoking loss or melancholy, followed by a journey, often with
lengthy descriptions of animals (the raḥīl), and concluding with a boast
(fakhr) in praise of the poet, his patron, or his tribe. Since so many aspects of the poem are
prescribed by convention, the artist’s task is not to be original but rather to
devise ever more craftsmanlike versions of past models. Less latitude than a modern reader might
expect was given to self-expression.
Like Alkman and other early Doric poets, the work was a community
expression generally embodying shared values.
In this context the poet is a conformist who defines his culture’s
received ideas. The social centrality of
such poems is indicated by the (perhaps legendary) hanging of winning poems on
the Kaaba for all visitors to see, leading to the collection called the Muʻallaqāt,
the Hanging Odes or Suspnded Poems.
Imru al-Qais is
the author of the qaṣīda conventionally placed first in this collection,
and he is often considered the most influential poet in the language. [2] This ode, as it is sometimes called, deviates
from the usual program of the form, lacking in particularly a conclusion boasting of the poet’s own prowess or the
power of the tribe. As the qaṣīda
seems to have been already developed to a sophisticated degree including its
conventional subdivisions, Imru al-Qais
is less likely to be suggesting a possible structure than he is expressing his
own individuality.
His self-image
includes a more than usually generous share of love-making. He is sometimes called the wandering king or
even the playboy due to his devotion to women.
His father was said to have been so angered by his pleasure-loving
lifestyle that he banished him, though, when his father was killed, he devoted
himself to revenge. [3]
The poem opens
with a melancholy memory of a past love at an abandoned campsite. The location is very specific with the
precision habitual to those who dwell in what looks like a trackless
waste. Similar to the Romantic Era
passion for ruins as picturesque and sublime, for Imru’ al-Qais the sight of a
place where people have passed fills him with a sense of the transience of
worldly things. His feeling is
strengthened by the association of the location not simply with the past in
general but with memorable erotic encounters.
(The antelope scat adds an unforgettable concrete detail, making the
heretofore vague image of the place suddenly photographic.) The poet’s bitter tears, repeated in the
bitter taste of the colocynth, define a tone familiar to readers of ancient
Greek lyric. To the extent that one
loves life, including sexuality, one will regret mortality. The more comfortable one is in one’s body,
the more difficult must debility and infirmity seem.
The sensuality of the poet’s reminiscences is luxurious, clove-scented, as he says. (8) Romantic boasting is for the poet more boastful than intimacy, and he recounts like a grand signeur the day he slaughtered his riding camel to make a barbecue for the lady bathers. Another palpable image brings the scene before the mind.
All day the playful maidens
tossed pieces of her
meat
And of her fat,
like twisted fringes
of white Damascus
silk.
(12)
Even this
adventurous liaison, however, ends on a note of rejection as she rebuffs the
poet. Just as in the lyrics of William
IX, his descriptions of his passion veer from the risqué to the courtly. She is his “slayer.” (21) The eyes of the beloved “pierce/ With their
two arrows/ The pieces of my slaughtered
heart.” (22) Jealous observers, here
guards and clansman, seek to frustrate love. (24) The portrayal of the beauty of the woman is
as poetic as the Song of Songs and as systematic as in a blason:
“Her collarbone shone like/ a polished mirror” (3), she resembles a “wild doe”
(31) or an “antelope” (33), her hair is “full and thick like dates” (35).
Her waist is as fine as
a twisted bowstring,
trim;
Her calf like a
papyrus reed,
well-watered,
tender.
She takes with fingers smooth, uncalloused,
as if they were
The soft dry worms
of Zaby Dune or
the tender twigs
of ishil trees. (37-8)
This highly erotic encounter is succeeded
by a passage of the profound desert night hanging over the poet “like a huge
camel” (45), the depth of the darkness corresponding to a kind of existential
woe as well as a more specific romantic longing. He obtains a sort of resumption of mastery in
the excellence of his noble horse, “now wheeling, now charging, advancing,
retreating” (50), His mount is itself
worthy of the detailed praise he has afforded his lover.
He has the flanks of a gazelle,
the ostrich’s two
legs,
The wolf’s lope,
the fox-cub’s
canter. (56)
This celebration of nomadic life
on horseback turns naturally into a scene of oryx hunting in which the prey is
depicted with the same care and, in one case at least, the very same image as
the beloved.
Then an oryx herd appeared before us
with does like virgins
Circling round a
sacred stone
in long-trained
gowns.
Then they turned like a string of onyx beads,
alternated black and
white,
On the neck of a
child
of two noble
families. (60-61)
The people feast then joyfully,
and any reader of Doughty’s Travels in Arabia Deserta will know how
likely it is that they were hungry indeed.
The poem then closes with a
scene of a titanic storm, implying the people’s hardiness and strength in
living in such harsh surroundings.
As if Mount Abān in the first rains
of the storm
Were a tribal
chieftain wrapped
In a striped
cloak.
As if the peak of Mount Mujaymir
in the morning
Ringed with dross
left by the torrent
were wool on a
spindle.
The storm set down its burden
on the desert of Ghabīt
Like a Yemeni
merchant alighting with
his fabric-laden
bags.
(74-76)
The erotic passages are of particular
interest to the literary historian, including, as they do, motifs that were to
become prominent in European medieval love poetry, while, from a synchronic
point of view, the poem expresses a major structural tension. On the one hand, the lover cannot force the
woman’s love. She may remain standoffish
in spite of his power, strength, and prestige.
In the same way, the experience of love is always time-limited, so the
melancholy opening section, while explicitly recalling a past romance,
represents the ephemeral character of all human experience. Again, the passing of the glories of the
world is unstoppable. One may lament
this fact without falling into despair.
The psychological balance is restored for
a time in this poem by the paean to the horse, itself a major signifier of the
wealth and prestige of its rider, the enabler of the successful hunt, and,
though the topic is not mentioned here, the warrior’s partner in battle. The magnificent storm with which the poem
concludes represents both the might of nature which can overcome even the
strongest and, on the other hand, the fortitude of the desert-dwellers who
cultivated a mild contempt for townsmen who might be overcome by the elements
if they ventured out of settled areas.
In this poem the persona is, like the poet
and like all of our species, caught between a feeling of mastery and of
helplessness, between delight and despair.
The central practices of the culture – nomadic encampments,
horsemanship, hunting – as well as the universal element of sexual love are
highlighted. It is this cultural
definition in a hundred lines or less that allowed the Arabic-speaking nomads
of Imru’ al-Qais’ era as well as before and after to compose works on such a
highly conventionalized format. Every
man was a rider, a hunter, a fighter, and a lover and so each present
comparable experiences. The most
significant common element, though, was certainly the knowledge that death is
certain, and even apart from that fact, the future is always uncertain. Living in a difficult environment among periodically
violent neighbiors, the Bedouins of Imru’ al-Qais’ circle might at times
console themselves with a love affair, an exciting hunt, now and then a
heavily-laden table and, if the occasion is to be gala indeed, a rousing poem
as well.
1. Stop, my friends, and we will
weep
over the memory of a loved one
And an abode at the dune’s edge of Siqt
al-Liwā,
between al-Dakhūl, then Hawmal,
2. Then Tūdih, then al-Miqrāt,
whose trace
was not effaced
By the two winds weaving over it
from south and north.
3. You see the droppings of
white antelope
Scattered on its wide grounds and
dried-up puddles
like peppercorns.
4. On the morning when they loaded
the camels
to depart, before the tribe’s acacia trees,
I wept splitting
bitter colocynth.
5. My friends stopped their mounts
there
over me and said:
“Don’t die of grief,
control yourself!”
6. “There is no cure for me
but pouring tears,
And is there a better place to weep
than the worn traces of a ruined abode?”
7. Console yourself as once before
you did
for Umm Huwayrith
And her neighbor at Mount Maʾsal,
Umm Rabāb.
8. When they rose there wafted
from them
a fragrance, redolent
As the East breeze when it bears
the scent of clove.
9. Then out of ardent love my eyes
sent flowing down my neck
A flood of tears
until they soaked my sword-belt.
10. And the many days of delight
with the damsels!
And, best of all, the day
at Dārat Juljul!
11. The day I slew my she-camel
for the maidens—
How amazing when they loaded up
her saddle and its gear!
12. All
day the playful maidens
tossed pieces of her meat
And of her fat, like twisted fringes
of white Damascus silk.
13. And how about the day I
entered the howdah,
ʿUnayzah’s howdah,
And she said, “Damn you! Look what you’ve
done!
I’ll have to go on foot!”
14. She kept on, as the high-sided
saddle
lurched to one side,
“You’ve crippled my camel, Imruʾ al-Qays!
Get down!”
15. So I said to her, “Just keep
going
and loosen his reins,
Don’t keep me from a second taste
of your sweet fruit.”
16. Many a woman, like you,
pregnant and nursing,
I have visited at night
And distracted from her amuleted
one-year-old.
17. When he cried from behind her,
she turned
her upper half toward him,
But the half that was beneath me
did not budge.
18. Then one day, on the back of a
dune,
she rebuffed me,
And swore an oath never
to be broken.
19. O Fātimah! Enough
of this teasing!
And if you have resolved to cut me off,
then do it gently.
20. If something in my character
has hurt you,
Then pull my clothes away from yours—
they’ll slip right off.
21. Were you emboldened to abuse
me
because your love is my slayer
And whatever you command my heart to do,
it does?
22. Your
eyes do not shed tears
except to pierce
With their two arrows
the pieces of my slaughtered heart.
23. With many a pale and curtained
maiden
whose tent none dares approach,
I took my pleasure,
unhurried.
24.
I stole past guards
to get to her, past clansmen,
Eager, if they could conceal it,
to slay me.
25. When
the Pleiades were spread out
across the sky
Like the pleats of a sash with
alternating
gold and gems,
26. I came when she, before the
tent curtain,
had shed her clothes for sleep
And was clad in nothing but
an untied shift.
27. She cried, “By God, there’s no
way
to dissuade you!
And I don’t see the veil of your error
lifting!”
28. I led her forth from her tent
and as she walked she trailed
Over our tracks the train of her gown
of figured silk.
29. Then, when we had crossed
the clan’s enclosure
And made our way to a sandy hollow
surrounded by long winding dunes,
30. I drew her temples toward me,
and she
leaned over me
With a slender waist, but full where
her anklets ring.
31. Her skin white, her waist
thin,
not full,
Her collarbone shone like
a polished mirror.
32. Like the first inviolate
bloom,
white mixed with yellow,
Nurtured on water limpid,
unmuddied.
33. Now hiding, now baring a cheek
full and smooth,
She guards herself with the glance
Of a wild doe at Wajrah with fawn.
34. Her neck, like the neck
of a white antelope,
Is not overly long when she raises it,
nor lacking in ornament.
35. A jet-black head of hair
adorns her back,
Full and thick like dates upon
a cluster-laden palm.
36. Some locks are secured on top,
while others
Stray between the braided
and the loose.
37. Her waist is as fine as
a twisted bowstring, trim;
Her calf like a papyrus reed,
well-watered, tender.
38. She
takes with fingers smooth, uncalloused,
as if they were
The soft dry worms of Zaby Dune or
the tender twigs of ishil trees.
39. At nightfall she lights up
the dark
Like the lamp in the night-cell
of a hermit monk.
40. Late into the morning her bed
is fragrant
as though strewn with crumbs of musk,
And she, still in her loose night
clothes,
sleeps on ‘til noon.
41. At one like her the staid man
gazes with ardor
When she stands at her full height
between
woman’s gown and maiden’s shift.
42. Grown men find consolation for
the follies of their youth,
But my heart refuses solace for
its love for you.
43. How often did
I quarrel over you
And reject sincere advice that, though
reproachful,
was generously given.
44. Many a night like the
billowing sea
let down its veils over me
With all kinds of cares
to torment me.
45. Then I said to it when, like a huge camel,
it stretched out its spine
Then
raised its haunches
and heaved its ponderous chest
46. “O long night, will you not
dispel
to reveal the dawn?
Though
the dawning day will be
no better for me!
47. “O what a night you are!
as if each of your stars
Were
tied to Mount Yadhbul
with a tightly twisted rope.
48. “And the Pleaides stand in
midcourse
motionless,
As if suspended by flaxen cords
from obdurate rocks.”
49. At daybreak I ride forth,
the birds still in their nests,
On a huge steed, sleek and swift,
like a lasso for wild game.
50. Now wheeling, now charging,
advancing, retreating,
all at once,
Like a mighty boulder the torrent has
washed
down from the heights.
51. A dark bay: the saddle pad
slips from its back
Like raindrops rolling
off hard rock.
52. His gallop, like a downpour,
still bursts forth
When the dragging hoofs of flagging
coursers
kick up dust.
53. Lean yet full of vigor,
as if his pounding gallop
When he seethes with heat
were a cauldron’s boil.
54. The slender youth
slips from his back;
The sturdy riders’ robes
fly out behind.
55. His gallop streams like a
boy’s
pebble-on-a string
When he tightly twirls the string with his
two hands
then pulls!
56. He has
the flanks of a gazelle,
the ostrich’s two legs,
The wolf’s lope,
the fox-cub’s canter.
57. Full in the flanks; from
behind
a thick tail fills the gap
Between his legs, reaching almost to the
ground,
not crooked.
58. As if, when he heads off, his
rump,
hard and smooth, were a stone
On which a bride pounds perfume or
bitter colocynth is crushed.
59. As if the blood on his throat—
blood of the herd’s frontrunners—
Were henna on an old man’s
combed white hair.
60. Then
an oryx herd appeared before us
with does like virgins
Circling round a sacred stone
in long-trained gowns.
61.
Then they turned like a string of onyx beads,
alternated black and white,
On the neck of a child
of two noble families.
62. He took us straight
to the leaders of the herd,
Leaving behind those that lagged
in an unbroken cluster.
63. One after another he overtook
a buck then a doe,
But still was not awash
with sweat.
64. Some cooks laid out the meat
in strips
to slowly roast on embers;
Others threw it into pots
to quickly boil.
65. At evening, our glances shied
before this steed:
To whatever part we raised our gaze—
dazzled, it dropped.
66. All night he remained, with
his saddle and bridle
upon him.
All night he stood beneath my eye,
not loose to graze.
67. Friend, can you see lightning?
Look,
there is a faint gleam,
Like two hands flashing
in the cumulus’ high crown.
68. Its flash lights up the sky—or
like
the sudden flare of a monk’s lamp
When, tilting it, he soaks
the twisted wick with oil.
69. I sat with my companions
between Dārij and ʿUdhayb.
How distant was the storm
at which I gazed!
70. Over Mount Qatan, as I read
the signs,
the right flank of its downpour falls,
Over Mount Sitār, then Mount Yadhbul,
falls the left.
71. By late morning it began
pouring down its rain
around Kutayfah,
Overturning the lofty kanahbal-trees
upon their beards.
72. As the fringes of its rain
passed
over Mount Qanān
They drove white-footed goats
down every path.
73. In Tayma ʾOasis it did not
leave
a single palm trunk standing
Nor a single stronghold but those
of gypsum-plastered stone.
74. As if Mount Abān in the first
rains
of the storm
Were a tribal chieftain wrapped
In a striped cloak.
75. As if the peak of Mount
Mujaymir
in the morning
Ringed with dross left by the torrent
were wool on a spindle.
76. The storm set down its burden
on the desert of Ghabī�t
Like a Yemeni merchant alighting with
his fabric-laden bags.
77. It was as if the song-birds of
the valley
at daybreak
Had drunk a morning draught
of fine spiced wine,
78. As if the wild beasts drowned
at evening
in its remotest reaches
Were wild onions’
plucked-out bulbs.
