Today I wanted to write something completely different and so am posting, 'The Ode to Tarafah', a pre-Islamic ‘hung’ poem (as in, 'hung up for all to see') taken from the, 'Anthology of Islamic Literature' edited by James Kritzeck, 1964
In 1949, Philip Hitti, wrote in his book, ‘The History of the Arabs’,
“No people in the world manifest such enthusiastic admiration for literary expression and are so moved by the word, spoken or written, as the Arabs … The rhythm, the rhyme, the music, produce on them the effect of what they call ‘lawful magic’ " [sihr ha-lal].
The Ode is about riding your camel, with your tribe, in a desperate attempt to forget your love who has remained in the desert camp.
The Ode of Tarafah
A young gazelle there is in the tribe, dark-lipped, fruit-shaking,
flaunting a double necklace of pearls and topazes,
holding aloof, with the herd grazing in the lush thicket,
nibbling the tips of the arak-fruit, wrapped in her cloak.
Her dark lips part in a smile, teeth like a comomile
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 colyrium -- she gnaws not against them;
a face as though the sun had loosed his mantle upon it,
pure of hue, with not a wrinkle to mar it.
Ah, but when grief assails me, straightway I ride it off
mounted on my swift, lean-flanked 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 plying, 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 of the caller she returns, and stands on guard
with her bunchy tail, scared of some ruddy, tuft-haired stallion,
as though the wings of a white vulture enfolded the sides
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 the flesh 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
under neck 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 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 of her swift legs, smooth her swinging gait;
her legs are twined like rope untwisted; her forearms
thrust slantwise up to the propped roof of her breast.
Swiftly she rolls, her cranium huge, her shoulder-blades
high-hoisted to frame her lofty, raised superstructure.
The scores of her girths chafing her breast-ribs are water-courses
furrowing a smooth rock in a rugged eminence,
now meeting, anon parting, as though they were
white gores marking distinctly a slit shirt.
Her long neck is very erect when she lifts it up
calling to mind the rudder of a Tigris-bound vessel.
Her skull is most like an anvil, the 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 lip
a tanned hide of Yemen, its slit not best crooked;
her eyes are a pair of mirrors, sheltering
in the caves of her brow-bones, the rock of a pool's hollow,
ever expelling the white pus more-provoked, so they seem
like the dark-rimmed eyes of a scared wild-cow with calf.
Her ears are true, clearly detecting on the night journey
the fearful rustle of a whisper, the high-pitched cry,
sharp-tipped, her noble pedigree plain in them,
pricked like the ears of a wild-cow of Haumal lone-pasturing.
Her trepid heart pulses strongly, quick, yet firm
as a pounding-rock set in the midst of a solid boulder.
If you so wish, her head strains 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 fashioned of twisted hide.
Slit is her upper lip, her nose bored and sensitive,
delicate, when she sweeps the ground with it, faster she runs.
Such is the beast I ride, when my companion cries "Would I might ransom you, and be ransomed, from yonder waste!"
His soul flutters within him fearfully, he supposing
the blow fallen on him, though his path is no ambuscade.
When the people demand, "Who's the hero?" I suppose
myself intended, and am not sluggish, not dull of wit;
I am at her with the whip, and my she-camel quickens pace
what time the mirage of the burning stone-tract shimmers;
elegantly she steps, as a slave-girl at a party
will sway, showing her master skirts of a trailing white gown.
I am not one that skulks fearfully among the hilltops,
but when the folk seek my succor I gladly give it;
if you look for me in the circle of the folk, you'll catch me.
Come to me when you will, I'll pour you a flowing cup,
and if you don't need it, well, do without and good luck to
you!
Whenever the tribe is assembled you'll come upon me
at the summit of the noble House, the oft-frequented;
my boon-companions are white as stars, and a singing-wench
comes to us in her striped gown or her saffron robe,
wide the opening of her collar, delicate her skin
to my companions' fingers, tender her nakedness.
When we say, "Let's hear from you," she advances to us
chanting fluently, her glance languid, in effortless song."
Another Umm, this time 'Umm Khammas', a rebel and three times a widow, from the UAE carton 'Fareej'
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