r t

EARLY ARABIC POETRY

There is quite a large body of poetry in Arabic which is attributed to authors, khown or anonymous, of the century or so before Islam. We {rossess no texts of this poetry antedating the Islamic period; most of the poems werezryritten dowD for the 6rst time in anthologies compiled in the eighth and ninth centuries, In 1925, Taha Husayn, who was to become a prominent figure in modcrn Ardbic literature, published a book entitled Fi al-Shi'r al-JAhili (Conceming Pre-Islamic Poctry), whose thesis was so astoun.ling and downright offensive to Arab sentiment that it was promptly withdrawn from the market, Even in its revised form, published two years later, that thesis lost little ofits bite. heve reached the conclusion,' Husayn wrote, 'that the general mass of what we call pre-Islamic literature has nothing whatever to do with the pre-Islamic period, but was just simply fabricated after the coming of lslam. It is therefore Islamic, and represents the life, the inclination, the desires of Muslims, rather than the life of the preIslamic Arabs. I now have hardly any doubt at all that what has survived of genuine pre-Islamic literature is very little indeed, representative of nothing and indicative of nothing, No reliance is to be placed in it for

'I

the purpose of elucidaring the genuine literary picture of the preIslamic age.' European scholars had long expressed doubts about thb authenticity of much of the pre-Islamic poetry, but the extreme statement of this thesis and the ensuing controversy remain linked to the name of Taha Husayn. To understand the outrage the thesis provoked, it is necessary, fust of all, to realize that the body of poetry alleged to be pre-Islamic was not only accepted as authentic from the very start but was also regarded as the supreme canon and model of poetic excellence. To be sure, it was de6ed, assailed, and sometimes rificuled in succeeding centuries, but its basic authenticity was not called into question. The controversy is still far from closed, but the effect ofmore recent research has been to uphold the authenticity ofmuch ofthe poetry as pre-Islamic, while recqgnizing that it was sometimes highly edited, supplemented, and even altered by its early editors (who were, incidentally, mainly pbilolo gists)., r. For a fuller discussion of this controversy, see A, J. Arberry, The Seuen
Orles

(London, rg57), pp. zz8-54.

Odes 6r
On the surface, this poetry appears to express and to exalt that way

of

life and system of thought of the Arabs against which Islam fought. It the tribal virtues of revenge, fidelity to inherited feuds, and in raids. Especially in the longer, highly developed, and much loved form of the qasiilah, or ode, on the other hand, thtrsubjects tamer: recollectiorx oflove affairs (so to dignifr them), descriptions
ofscenery and animals, and accounts ofhunting exploits and otheg sports. However wild the content might occasionally be, the form ofihe preBlamic poetry exhibits a complexiry which is at 6rst startling and easily vinces one that the poetic art had long been practised adclperfected the Arabs, The metres and conventional sequence s of the qa$ilah, instance, were exceedingly demanding, and even the shorter p-oems

stylistically very sophisticated.' Recognized to be the greatest masterpieces of this poetry were the seven odes known as the Mu'allaqdt, 'the suspended ones', so titled; according to the traditional and suspect eccount, because they were the winners in an annual poetry competition, written in letters of gold, and for all to read. Recently, scholars have found better etymologies for the term, The poets ofthe Mu'allaqdt arc l\mnal-Qays, Tarafah, Zuhayr, Labid, Antarah, Amr, aodAl-Harith. The three trarulations ftom the Mu'allaqdt which follow represent very different dealings with their texts. The 6rst is a ftee paraby modem poets; the second is a literal translation by an Arabist more than a century ago; and the third is a translation by a conporary Arabist who has shown unco--ou skill in the translation of Islamic poetry.

ODES
The Ode oJAmru al-Qays

Beyond that reefofsand, recalling a house And a lady, dismount where the winds cross Cleaning the srill extant traces of colony between Four famous dunes. Like pepper-seeds in the distance The dung ofwhite stags in courtyards and cistems, Resin blew, hard on the eyes, one moruing Beside the acacia watching the camels going. And now, for all remonstrance and talk of patience, I will grieve, somewhere in this comfortless ruin And make a place and my peace with the past. r, The metres are desctibed ia detail by C, J. Lydl io Tratslotions iar Poelry (New York, r93o), pp. xlv-lii.
of

fucient

Uj_r*r,

Arobic poetry

chill gauze ofshifr

fourrd the pleiades. with sash and beads.

st and si{i

g from the
ost rny friends,
cds

seas.

widr chips ofincense,

eucalyptus
social intercourse

not seduced nds. Bur pain

ves, a brine curtain

'W'as

Odes
That moored its sting of stars on mountain masses. Night lay long, I longed for it rising, it rose

63

'With denser dawn between the thighs untensing.

I strapped a pouch, I walked where times of 6re Had gorged the passes. The wolf like a player 'Was roaring the pdcks his losses. I answered: 'Our trades line no pockets. You and the lover Ttriftlessly eat what you win.'W'e are leaner By this ploughing.' Next day the birds shut still in The hills I rode early a roan stallion, A new thing, a fiur dancer, After my cracked vases a crucible of the air.
The herds ripped away like cowries. I whipped 'With my hands this tuming top. 'W'e outstripped The first riders and lunged at the buffalo

And the rufled mates. Clashed till henna fecks Of their blood, but no tired ooze, dashed his neck. The cooks were busy that night jointing and broiling. I sat watching his limbs as sleek as rollers Of bridal oil. He stayed in my eyes, decked out A11 night in his trappings, not sent away, And webbed with decent tail his stride and dip.

My

stretched arm burns in a fash, between shoals

Of crowned cloud, that lean on both flan}s of the hiils.

Rain pours on Katheitha, kisses the big trees On Kanahbil, seizes the uplands of Qairan Chasing the ibex, erasing the less tha:l stone. Only the major peaks, the bare spindles Cap the deluge. Till dawn, and dwindling It leaves tendrils like gay wares of Yemen In sands where, drun-k at the rim ofvallies, The thrushes tell the sun spiced folly.

Till

evening, and far-offlike sprigs of wil{ onion The drowsy leopards at the limit of the vallies.

TRANSIATED BY HERBERT HOWARTH AND IBRAHIM SHUKRALIAII

64

Edrly Arabic Poetry

Thc Odc of Labid

Sites of dwellings arc thcse, over lvhich, since they l,r,cre last inhabited, many a long year has passed with its full tale of sacred ald profaue

months.

They havc bcen gifted with the showers of the constellations of spring, ard thc rains of the thunderclouds have fallen on them in torrents and in drizzle; rains from every cloud of the night, and morning cloud that covers the sky, ald evening cloud whose thunderpeals answer one another.

And so the shoots of the wild rocket have sprung up over them, arld the gazelle and the ostrich have their you:rg on the two sides of the valley;
and the antelopes lie quietly by their young, to which they have newly given birth, while their fawns roam in flocks over the plain.

And the torrents have newly laid bare the marks of the tents, as if they were lines of writing whosc text the pens rctrace; or the lines which a woman tattooing traces afresh, rubbing in her lamp-black iu circles, on which her pattern reappears.
And sotl stood there questioning them - but why should we que stion the hard and lasting stones that have no clear speech to answer with? They are tellalltlcss, and yet the lvhole tribe was once here; but thcy set out from tircm at dawn, and nougirt was lefr but thc trench and the
thatch. The women of the tribe filled thce with longing when they ser out

and entered within the cotton curtains, the framcrvork whercof

creaked;

litters all hung round, the woodwork of which is covered with a cloth, ovcr which are fine curtains aud embroiderys; (those u'omcn) in bands, as ifthc decr of Tu.lih were on the litters aud tbc gazelles of W'ajr=a, with their fa wns lying arourd them. They were stertcd, and the miragc fell awav from them as if thcy where tamarisks or huge rocks at the place where the valley of Bisha
coarse

oPens out. Does my camel resemble such a r,vild ass, or is she like an antelope that has lost her calf by the wild beasts and loitercd behind the herd,

Odes

'6s

though the leader ofthe herd is its chiefstay; (or, that has left her calf and the leader ofthe herd is her chiefstay) a fat-nosed antelope that has lost her fawn, and she quits not the sides of the strips ofpasture, wandering about or crying for a white weanling, whose limbs have been rent by the asLgrey hunters whose food is never lacking; they found her offher guard and they killed it - verily the arrows of

6te do not

miss the mark !

Night comes onher, and a &izzling rain descends steadily, drenching the sluubs with its ceaseless downpour.
She makes her lair in the hollow trun-k of a tree with high branches, standing apart on the skirts ofthe san.lhills, whose 6ne sands are ever on tihe

move. The ceaseless rain reaches the stripe on her back in a night whose

clouds hide away the stars;

and she shines bright in the face ofthe darkness like a pearl from a that has dropped from its string; until when the darkness rolls away and the moming dawns on her, she comes forth with her legs slipping the mud.
seashell She becomes distracted and wanders about the pools seven nights coupled

of $o'eid, for

with seven whole long days; until, when she lost all hope, the udder dried up, which all her suckling and weaning had not drained; and she heard the sound of man from a place of concealnent, and it startled her, for man is her bane. And so sheranoff, thinking that eachofthetwo openings-wbatlay behind her and in Gont ofher - was alike to be &eaded; until, when the archers lost hope, they let loose trained dogs with

i i
.t

!
{
!
J

iI
lll

l
t
i

h-gi"g

ears, and

stiffcollars on their necks.

ti

Arrd they overtook her, and she turned upon them vrith those honx ofhers, like the spears of Semhar in sharpoess and length, to keep them off, for well she knew, if she fid not keep them o6 that her death was at hand among those decreed by f*e. And of them 'Wolf was run through and killed and drenched in blood, and Blackie was left in ttre place ofhis onset.

'With such a camel then, when the glittering

sands dance

in

the

noonday and their hillocks put on the robes ofthe mirage,

T-l.r.r.-c

66' Early Arabic

I

Poetry

will

accomplish my desire

because revilers revile me

- not falling short ofit through doubt or for any desire of mine.

TRANSLATED BY WII.LIAM 'WRIGHT

The ode*oS T*oloh

A young gazelle there is in the tribe, darkJipped, &uit-shaking, faunting a double necklace ofpearls and topazes, holding aloo{, with the herd grazirgin the lush thicket,
nibbling the tips of the arak-fruit, wrapped in her cloak. Her dark lips part in a smile, teeth like a camomile
on a moist hillock shining amid the virgin sands, whitened as it were by the sun's rays, all but her gums

that are smeared with collyrium - she gnaws not again'st them; aface zs though the sun had loosed his mantle upon it, pure ofhue, with not a wrinkle to mar it. Ah, but when grief assails me, straight.,vay I ride it off mounted on my swift, lean-fanked camel, night and day racing, sure-footed, like the planks of a litter ; I urge her on down the bright highway, that back of a striped mantle;
she vies with the noble, hot-paced she-camels, shank on shank nimbly plyrng, over a path many feet have beaten. Along the rough slopes with the milkless shes she has pastured in Spring, cropping the rich meadows green in the gentle rains; to the voice ofthe caller she returns, and stands on guard with her b*.hy tail, scared of some ruddy, tuft-haired stallion,

though the wings of a white vulture enfolded the sidcs of her tail, pierced even to the bone by a pricking awl; anon she strikes with it behind the rear-rider, anon lashes her dry udders, withered like an old water-skin. Perfectly firm is th,e fesh of her two thighs they are the gates of a lofty, smooth-walled castle and tightly knit are her spine-bones, the ribs like bows, her underneck stuck with the well-strung vertebrae, fenced about by the twin dens of a wild lote-tree; you might say bows were bent under a buttressed spine. 'Widely spaced are her elbows, as if she strode
as

Odes 67
carrying the two buckets of a sturdy water-carrier; like the bridge of the Byzantine, whose builder swore it should be all encased in bricks to be raised up true. Reddish the bristles under her chin, very firm her back, broad the span ofher swift legs, smooth her swinging gait; her legs are tw'ined like rope uprwisted; her forearms thrust slantwise up to the propped roof of h6r breast. Srviftly she rolls, her cranium huge, her shoulder-blades high-hoisted to frame her lofty, raised superstructure. The scores ofher girths chafing her breast-ribs are water-courses furror,ving a smooth rock in a rugged eminencq norv meeting, anon parting, as though they were white gores marking distinctly a slit shirt. Her loug neck is very erect when she lifts it up calling to mind the rudder of a Tigris-bouad vessel. Her skull is most like an anvil, tlr.e junction of its two halves meeting together as it might be on the edge of a file. Her cheek is smooth as Syrian parchment, her split iip a tanned hide of Yemen, its slit not bent crooked; her eyes are a pair of mirrots, sheltering in the caves of her brow-bones, the rock of a pool's hollow, ' ever expelling the white pus mote-provoked, so they seem like the dark-rimmed eyes of a scared wild-cow with calf. Her ears are true, clearly detecting on the nightjourney the fearful rustle of a whisper, the high-pitched cry,
sharp-tipped, her noble pedigree plail i.i them,

pricked like the ears of a wild-cow of Haumal lone-pasturing. Her trepid heart pulses strongly, quick, yet fum as a pounding-rock set in the midst of a solid boulder. Ifyou so wish, her head strainp to the saddle's pommel
and she swims with her forearms, fleet as a male ostrich, or if you wish her pace is slack, or swift to your fancy, fearing the curled whip Iishioned of twisted hide. Slit is her upper lip, her nose bored and sensitive, delicate; when she sweeps the ground with. it, 6ster she runs.

my companion cries ''Would I might ransom you, and be ransomed, from yonder
Such is the beast I ride, when waste

!'

Early Arabic Poetry

His soul flutters within him fearfully, hc supposing the blorv fallen on hirn, though his path is no ambuscade. When the people dcmand, ''W'ho's the hero?' I suppose myself intended, and arn not sluggish, not dull of rvit; I arn at her r,vith the lvhip, and my she-camel quickens pace what tirne the mirage of the burnirg stone-tract shimmels; elegantly she steps, as a slave-girl at a party will sr,r,ay, showing her master skirts of a trailing rvhite got n. I am not one that skulks fearfully among the hilltops, but '"vhen the folk seek my succour I gladly give it; if you look for rne in the iir.l" of th.'folk yJu'[ furd me thcre, aud if you hunt me in the taverns there you'll catch me. Come to me when you will, I'11 pour you a fowing cup, and if you don't need it, well, do '"vithout and good luck to you ! 'W'henever the tribe is assembled you'll come upon me at the summit of the noble Flouse, the oft-frequented; my boon-companions are'"vhite as stars, and a singing-rvench comes to us in her striped gown or her srffron robe, wide the opening of her collar, delicate her skin to my companions'furgers, tender her nakedness.

'W'hen

we say, 'Let's hear from you,' she advances to us

chanting fuently, her glance languid, in effortless song. TRANSIATED BY A. J. ARBERRY

*.

POEMS FROM EARLY ANTHOLOGIES

My love is ascending with the Yemen caravan My body is in Mecca in chains.

But once she came eddying to',vards me The bars lvere fast but she came Came and gave me greeting, aud rose And turned and pivoted my life that rvay