أعينيّ جودا ولا تجمُدا ألا تبكيانِ لصخرِ النّدى ؟
This is the first of a poetry series I intend to make online; there is a surprising dearth of bilingual anthologies of Arabic poetry, and when they do exist, they are either obscurely academic or free of any annotations whatsoever. So this may be helpful for a student of Arabic who’s not quite fluent but wants to start reading poetry!
Al-Khansa was a contemporary of Muhammed and eventually converted to Islam. Having lost all her close male relatives- her beloved brothers and sons-to warfare, her elegies are surprisingly sanguine. Rather than mourning a loss, she evokes a presence: of a sturdy heroic leader, who is not obliterated by death (the term itself is never used), but rather finds through it a higher glory. The theme is universal in times of war; it is in fact eerily similar to Thetis and Achilles.
Why else does al-Khansa matter? She was (literally) one of the world’s first Muslims, and a feminist. When she was told by fellow poet al-Naghiba that she was the greatest poet amongst those with breasts, she answered ‘I’m also the greatest among those with testicles.’ Now that’s a riot grrrl. When googling for an image, I was saddened to find out that Daesh has an al-Khansa brigade, an all-women religious enforcement unit. Babes with burqas and bullets yo.
أعينيّ جودا ولا تجمُدا ألا تبكيانِ لصخرِ النّدى ؟
Oh my eyes, be generous and do not freeze, / will you not weep for Sakhr of the dew?
ألا تبكيانِ الجريءَ الجميلَ ألا تبكيانِ الفَتى السيّدا؟
Will you not weep for the audacious one, the handsome one, / will you not weep for the young commander?
إذا القوْمُ مَدّوا بأيديهِمِ إلى المَجدِ مدّ إلَيهِ يَدا
When the clan stretched its hands to glory, / he stretched his own hand to it,
فنالَ الذي فوْقَ أيديهِمِ من المجدِ ثمّ مضَى مُصْعِدا
Then he obtained that which is above their hands in glory, / and then he moved on in ascension.
يُكَلّفُهُ القَوْمُ ما عالهُمْ وإنْ كانَ أصغرَهم موْلِدا
The clan tasked him with providing for them, / although he was the youngest amongst them
طَويلَ النِجادِ رَفيعَ العِمادِ قد سادَ عَشيرَتَهُ أَمرَدا
Long of height, high of poles, / he had mastered his clan when he was still beardless
تَرى المجدَ يهوي الَى بيتهِ يَرى افضلَ الكسبِ انْ يحمدَا
You see the glory descending to his house, / he sees the best earning in being thanked.
وَانَ ذكرَ المجدُ الفيتهُ تَأزّرَ بالمَجدِ ثمّ ارْتَدَى
And if glory was mentioned and found, / he wore the glory below, he wore it above.
Grammar
أ: old form of ya, meaning oh, lo, behold
عينيّ: dual of عين eye + 1st person possessive
جودا: imp of جاد يجود to be generous
لا تجمُدا: neg imp of جمد يجمد to freeze, be immobilized
تبكيانِ: dual of بكى يبكي to cry. side note: the verb bakûm means ‘to cry’ in Akkadian, and we find it used elegiacally in the myth of Nergal and Ereshkigal
لصخرِ النّدى: l+Sakhr= for Sakhr. Sakhr + al-noun= idafa, possessive, hence: Sakhr of the dew
إذا: when
مَدّوا: plural of مَدّ to stretch
أيديهِمِ: their hands, plural of يَد
فنالَ: f + verb= then he…
مُصْعِدا: ‘ascendingly’مُصْعِد (ascension) + ا
أصغرَهم موْلِدا: the youngest of them in terms of birth (from ولد)
رَفيعَ العِمادِ: high of poles (the tent), meaning he hosts many guests, and is honorable
أَمرَدا: boy with a mustache but without a beard
الكسبِ: masdar (verbal noun) of كسب, to earn
يحمدَا: passive حمد, to be thanked (same verb as in alhamdulilah)
تَأزّرَ: past of ارتدى، يرتدي , to wear clothes on the lower half of the body. presumably meaning glory on earth, in the battlefield.
ارْتَدَى: clothes for the upper half of the body: glory in heaven.
So proud of your accomplishments with translation, I have been exposed to something I never would have been aware of. Thank you. Looking forward to the next one!
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Is Sakhr the name of that deceased hero?
There is something both pure and purely evil in this poetess, that you can also find in more modern variants of militant islamic poetry, e.g. Ahlam al-Nasr http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/06/08/battle-lines-jihad-creswell-and-haykel — it’s literally a death cult.
I would have liked to be able to read, by contrast, the writings of Asma bint Marwan.
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Yes and the brother of Khanssa
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Thnk u so much for translation
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Analysis of al-Khansas poetry
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