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Pouring Water on Time A Bilingual Topical Anthology of Classical Arabic Poetry

Gerlach Press

On Generosity

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He only said "no"
when professing the shahadah
Had it not been
for the shahadah,
his 'no' would
have been "yes"

al-Farazdaq (d.110/728)

"Shahadah," the confessional creed or profession of faith, is the Muslim doctrinal formula: "There is no deity but God and Muhammad is His messenger." It is the first of the five fundamental tenets, or pillars, of Islam. Al-Farazdaq's line is described by medieval Arab literary commentators as the best verse ever composed on generosity.

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The branches of his palm
have borne fruit,
jujube,
for those who reap
his beneficence

Ibn al-Mu'tazz (d. 296/908)

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I marvel at a land
whose rocks do not sprout
green leaves
when the rain clouds
of their hands
pour forth
on it

al-Mutanabbi (d. 354/965)

In the medieval Arabic hierarchy of cultural values, hands are compared to rain-bearing clouds, the utmost form of generosity in a desert society.

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Were it possible for a people
to sit atop the sun,
for their generosity,
glory and noble descent,
they are the ones
who would do so

Zuhayr ibn Abi Sulma (d. 609 A.D.)

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You will find him jubilant
when you come to see him
as if you are giving him
what you have come
to ask for

Zuhayr ibn Abi Sulma (d. ca. 609 A.D.)

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He is so wont
to extend his hand
in giving
that, were he to clench his hand,
his fingers would not obey him,
And if he had nothing but his soul
in his hand
he would give it away
May those who seek his generosity
have fear of God

Abu Tammam (d. 231/845)

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Had you not,
in long time past,
with boldness and generosity,
rendered old glory youthful,
generosity would have
become senile

Abu Tammam (d. 231/845)

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The veil will not distance
my hope [of generosity] from you
Verily, the sky is beseeched for rain
only when it is veiled

Abu Tammam (d. 231/845)

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Rain clouds would be embarrassed
to look at your generosity
and compare it
to their own

Abu Nuwas (d. 198/813)

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Do not find fault
with a generous man
if he is destitute of wealth,
for floodwater is at odds
with high peaks

Abu Tammam (d. 231/845)

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Whoever would blame the brim-full sea
if it overflowed
Or rain clouds
if they suddenly
poured down

al-Buh. turi (d. 284/897)

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People's talk has not checked
your generosity
Whosoever could block
the course
of sudden heavy rain?

al-Mutanabbi (d. 354/965)

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No sooner does his dog
see a guest
than it will,
out of love and hospitality,
talk to him,
even though the dog
is speechless

Ibn Hamrah (n.d.)

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He is the sea
whencesoever you come to him
Beneficence is his depth
and liberality his shore

Abu Tammam (d. 231/845)

A very generous man is compared to the sea.

On Life

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If you abstain from pleasure
and youthful passion
you might as well be
a large, hard, desiccated rock
Life is naught
but what you love and desire
no matter how much the envious
scold and conspire

al-Ahwas. (d. 105/723)

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He loves long life
for fear of perdition
But he perishes
because of long life

'Abd al-Samad ibn al-Mu'adhdhal (n.d.)

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Perhaps what you fear
does not exist
Perhaps what you wish
will come to be
Perhaps what you deem easy
is not so easy
And perhaps what you think hard
will be easy

Abu 'l-'Atahiyah (d. 209/824 or -5)

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Our lives are naught
but lines that scan
Then comes the rhyme
so ends the man

Abu 'l-'Ala' al-Ma'arri (d. 449/1057) British translation

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Our life is but
a phrase, a breath
Then comes full-stop
and that's our death

Abu'l-'Ala' al-Ma'arri (d. 449/1057) British translation

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Verily, the boon of a people
is fleeting pleasure
and a man's life
is but a borrowed garment

al-Afwah al-Awdi (d. 570 A.D.)

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When an old man cries "ugh"!
He is not tired of life
but only tired
of feebleness

al-Mutanabbi (d. 354/965)

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I am alive today
only because I hid myself
from death
and death knows not
where to find me

al-Baha' Zuhayr (d. 657/1258)

On Time and Days

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I shielded myself from time
with the shadow
of its wings
So my eyes see time
but time sees me not
If the days were asked
about my name
they would not know it
and about my abode
they would not know
where I am

Abu Nuwas (d. 198/814)

Time (dahr, zaman, zaman) in the Arab mind signifies days, fate, eternity, death, long time or long life, good or bad life. When used in a construct phrase, time means vicissitudes or blows of fate, misfortunes, trials and tribulations, adversities etc. "Days", which also means life, is used interchangeably with "time", especially when made necessary by the exigencies of meter and/or rhyme. "fa-law tus'alu 'l-ayyamu" can also be read as "fa-law tas'ali 'l-ayyama": Were you to ask the days.

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I am but like time–
If it is sober and awake
I am sober and awake,
And if it acts foolishly
I do the same

Bashshar ibn Burd (d. 167/784)

"Maqa" (to act foolishly) also means to perish.

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Calamities visit us
morning and evening,
so hard and so often,
that even time
is almost felled
by them

Abu Tammam (d. 231/845)

The rhyme word "yusra'u" (felled by them) can also mean: rendered epileptic. Thus, time is felled or rendered epileptic by its own calamities.

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His generosity has made my time
so supple and easy
that I can almost tie such time
into a knot.

Walid al-Khath'ami (n.d.)

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Ancient people came to life
when time was young and fresh
and it made them happy
But alas! we have come to life
when time is old
and decrepit

al-Mutanabbi (d. 354/965)

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O time!
Straighten your neckveins
for you have drowned mankind
with your clamorous clumsiness

Abu Tammam (d. 231/845)

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If time were to endure
half of what I have endured
It would have to ponder long
about which of its two burdens
was heavier

Abu Tammam (d. 231/845)

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How many of your men,
slender and of fine physique,
have the ravages of time,
despite their turpitude,
carefully preserved

Abu Tammam (d. 231/845)

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The days have dismounted him
from their backs
after he had steadied his feet
in their stirrups

Abu Tammam (d. 231/845)

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It was as though I poured water
on time
when I unsheathed hope,
a sharp sword,
to protect him
against time

Abu Tammam (d.231/845))

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We laugh, but inept is our laughter;
We should weep and weep sore,
Who are shattered like glass,
and thereafter,
Re-moulded no more

Abu 'l-Ala' al-Ma'arri (d. 449/1057)

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I marvel at time,
how swiftly it sped
between me and her
But when all was finished
between us
time came to a standstill

Abu Sakhr al-Hudhali (2nd half of seventh century A.D.)

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And I, albeit I come in Time's late hour,
Achieve what lay not
in the ancients' power

Abu 'l-Ala' al-Ma'arri (d. 449/1057)

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Is Time aught but night
and its following day
And aught but the rising
of the sun
and then its
setting

Anonymous

On Gray Hair and Youth

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Gray hair is loathsome
but loathsome also
is its departure
Marvel at a thing,
though being loathed,
is so loved
and desired

Ibn al-Mu'tazz (d. 296/908)

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The whiteness of the hawk
is truly more beautiful,
if you ponder it,
than the blackness
of the crow

al-Buhturi (d. 284/897)

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A burnished sword
is more effective
in battle
than an unburnished one

Anonymous

A burnished sword denotes gray hair, and along with it prudence and wisdom.

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A young man may gray quickly–
Marvel not,
for white blossoms
can be seen
on a young and tender branch

Ibn al-Rumi (d. 283/896)

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Gray hair rises in youth
as if it were a night
flanked by a bawling day

al-Farazdaq (d. 110/728)

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Marvel not, O Salma, at a man
who wept
when gray hair grinned
on his head

Di'bil al-Khuza'i (d. 246/860)

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A shameless guest
alighted on my head
I would rather take the stroke
of a sword
Perish, O you non-white whiteness!
To me, you are more black
than all darkness
Love nourished me
when I was a child
and nourished my gray hair
when I reached puberty

al-Mutanabbi (d. 354/956)

Al-Mutanabbi was in love when he was young and had gray hair when he reached puberty.

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Women's ills I'm wise to diagnose:
If a lover ages
or his money goes,
So ends their love.
It's money they adore
Wher e'er it be:
In youth and strength alone
they greatness see

'Alqamah ibn'Abdah (d. 598 A.D.)

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Prime of youth
and black hair
are madness
so long as they are not
disobeyed

Hassan ibn Thabit (d. 54/674)

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Gray hair wanted me
to deceive myself
so I could forget the memory
of young ladies
Were my youth and gray hair
to quarrel
and I let youth win
I surely would not care

Abu Sakhr al-Hudhali (d. 2nd half of 7th century A.D.)

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Suffice it to you, O man,
that gray hair is an offense
to a beautiful belle
and that youth
is an intercessor with her

Abu Hazim al-Bahili (n.d.)

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I had hardly fulfilled
the utmost vanity
of my youth
before it came to an end
and lo!
Life followed

al-Namiri (n.d.)

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I was stripped of youth
when it was fresh and tender
as a branch is stripped
of its leaves
Oh, how I wish that youth
would return!
so I could tell it
what gray hair has wrought

Abu 'l-'Atahiyah (d. 210/825)

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Loss of youth is death
whose taste is pure,
whereas the taste of death
is lost by death

Ibn al-Rumi, 'Ali ibn al-'Abbas (d. 896/283)

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Ramim cast her eyes upon me
that evening at Aram 'l-Kinas
when grayness* had come
between us
Oh for the days,
when if she had cast her eyes
upon me,
I would have returned her glance
But alas! My days
of amatory struggle
are long past

Abu Hayyah al-Numayri (d. 183/799)

The Arabic for "grayness" "sitru 'l-lah" was given different meanings by medieval literary historians/critics (e.g. al-Mubarrad (d. 285 or 286/898 or 899), including: fear of God; modesty; veiled intentions, veil, curtain, screen, shame, Islam, forbidden pleasures. I opted for the meaning: grayness or old age, because the poet was lamenting the loss of youth when it was most needed.

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She said: you have grown old
and your hair has become gray
I said to her:
This is the dust
of the battles
of days

Ibn al-Mu'tazz (d. 296/908)

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Beautiful women shame me
for my gray hair
How can I ever enjoy
old age?

Al-Buhturi (d. 284/897)

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Do not be frightened
by the first appearance
of faintly shining
hoariness
It is but the smiling
of wisdom
and knowledge

Abu Tammam (d. 231/845)

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My heart awoke from Salma's love
when its vanity reached
its sunset
And the horses and camels
of youth
have indeed been
unsaddled

Zuhayr ibn Abi Sulma (d. 13/627)

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I loved gray hair
when they said:
it was a guest,
just as I love guests
who are here to stay

Di'bil al-Khuza'i (d. 246/860)

On The Length of a Lover's Night

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Has the night changed
and its stars not moved
Or has it become so long
that methinks the stars
are utterly confused ?

Jarir (d.110/728)

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The night,
because of my ardent love,
rebels if I try
to slow it down
and love would be restrained
if the night were to become young

Anonymous

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Many a night,
dark as the waves of the sea,
has let down its curtains upon me
to try me
And I said to the night,
when it stretched its lazy loins
followed by its fat buttocks
and heaved off its heavy breast,
Well now, you tedious long night,
won't you clear yourself off
and let dawn shine?
Yet dawn, when it comes, is in no way
better than you
Oh, what a night of nights you are!
It's as though the stars
were tied to the Mount of Yadhbul
with infinite hempen ropes;

Imru' al-Qays (d. ca. 545 A.D.)

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O Umaymah! Let me endure
exhausting grief
and the slow-moving stars
of night
The night stretched so long
that I thought it would never end
and those who herd the stars
would never go home
All of that I endured
with a heart
unto which the night
brought grief from
remote pastures
and in which all-exhaustive grief
has multiplied

al-Nabighah al-Dhubyani (d. ca. 604 A.D.)

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My night fell asleep
and my cares vanished

Ru'bah ibn al-'Ajjaj (d. 145/762)

You have slept with no pity
for the wakeful lover
Indeed, the night of lovers
has no end

Khalid al-Katib (d. 262/ 875)

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Your hands pillow your cheeks
every night
until you see dawn's light
You stay awake watching the night
hoping it will exhaust itself
But alas! There is no end
to lovers' night

Bashshar ibn Burd (d. 167/ 783)

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Excerpted from Pouring Water on Time A Bilingual Topical Anthology of Classical Arabic Poetry by Mansour Ajami. Copyright © 2016 Gerlach Press. Excerpted by permission of Gerlach Press.
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