Al-Muhalhil: Vengeance at Dawn (From Arabic)

This post's guest of honor is ˁAdī bin Rabīˁa of Taghlib, commonly known as Al-Muhalhil "The Verse-weaver." Born presumably at the very end of the 5th century, he is among the earliest Pre-Islamic Arabian poets to whom any surviving verse of substantive length is attributed. He is chiefly known for poems dealing with the Basūs War, in which a 40-year feud between the tribes of Taghlib and Bakr was supposedly ignited when his brother Kulayb was killed for slaughtering another tribe's stray camel.

Vengeance at Dawn
By Al-Muhalhil of Taghlib
Translated by A.Z. Foreman

Long was my night of wake at Anˁamayn 　
　While sleepless at the ceaseless stars I gazed.
How can I age in life while a slain man 　
　Of Taghlib still calls for a man to slay?
Oh chide the eyes for tears shed over ruins.　
　In the breast a wound is torn over Kulayb.
In the breast there is a need unsatisfied 　　
　So long as doves among the branches wail.
How can he ever weep over ruined things　
　Who is pledged to war with men in every age?
How can I forget you Kulayb when I've not quelled　
　The sorrow whelming me, the bloodparched rage?

My heart today make good your bloodwit vow　
　When they ride out at dawn retaliate.
They fetch their bows and we flash lightning bolts　
　 As stallions threatening their stallion prey.
We steel ourselves beneath their flashing steel　
　Till they fall pounded by our long hard blades
And can keep up no more. We keep attacking 　

　For the man who keeps the field is war's true mate.

Audio of me reading this poem in Arabic

The Original:

باتَ لَيلي بالأَنْعَمَين طَويلا  أَرْقُبُ النَجْمَ ساهِراً لَنْ يَزولا
كَيف أٌمدي ولَا يزالُ قتيلٌ مِن بَني وائلٍ يُنادي قتيلا
أُزْجُرِ الْعَينَ أَنْ تُبَكِّي الطُلولا إِنَّ في الصَدْرِ مِنْ كُلَيبٍ فَليلا
إِنَّ في الصَدْرِ حاجةً لَنْ تُقَضَّى ما دَعا في الغُصونِ داعٍ هَديلا
كَيفَ يَبْكي الطُلولَ مَن هو رَهْنٌ بِطِعانِ الأنامِ جيلا فَجِيلا
كَيف أَنساكَ يا كلَيبُ  ولمّا أقضِ حُزناً ينوبُني وغَليلا
أيُّها القَلبُ أَنْجِزِ اليومَ نَحْباً مِن بني الحِصْنِ إذ غَدوا وذُحولا
انتَضَوا مَعْجِسَ القِسي وأَبْرَقْـنا كَما تُوعِد الفُحولُ الفُحولا
وصَبَرْنا تَحتَ البوارِقِ حتَّى دَكْدَكَتْ فيهِمِ السُيوفُ طَويلا
لم يُطيقوا أنْ يَنْزِلوا ونَزَلْنا وَأَخو الحَربِ مَن أَطاقَ النُزولا 

Romanization:

Bāta laylī bi-l-'Anˁamayni ṭawīlā arqubu l-najma sāhiran lan yazūlā

Kayfa umdī wa-lā yazālu qatīlun min Banī Wā'ilin yunādī qatīlā

Uzjuri l-ˁayna an tubakkī l-ṭulūlā inna fī l-ṣadri min Kulaybin falīlā

Inna fī l-ṣadri ḥājatan lan tuqaḍḍā mā daˁā fī l-ġuṣūni dāˁin hadīlā
Kayfa yabkī l-ṭulūla man huwa rahnun bi-ṭiˁāni l-'anāmi jīlan fa-jīlā
Kayfa ansāka yā Kulaybu wa-lammā aqḍi ḥuznan yanūbunī wa-ġalīlā
Ayyuhā l-qalbu anjizi l-yawma naḥban min Banī l-Ḥiṣni iḏ ġadaw wa-ḏuḥūlā
Intaḍaw maˁjisa l-qisiyyi wa-'abraqnā kamā tūˁidu l-fuḥūlu l-fuḥūlā
Wa-ṣabarnā taḥta l-bawāriqi ḥattā dakdakat fīhimi l-suyūfu ṭawīlā
Lam yuṭīqū an yanzilū wa-nazalnā wa-'aḫū l-ḥarbi man aṭāqa l-nuzūlā

Imru' al-Qays: From the Muˁallaqa: The Thunderstorm (From Arabic)

My translation of the finale of the famous Mu'allaqa attributed to Imru'l Qays. A terrific thunderstorm rages over the mountains on the northern edge of the Najd. The scene is imagined over so vast an area that it must be poetic fiction. (As the medieval commentators note:  Sitār, Yaḏbul and Qaṭan cannot possibly all be seen from the same place.) I include a recording in a reconstruction of how literary Arabic may have been prounced in the late Umayyad period (largely based on phonetic descriptions from early grammarians). For more on that see my discussion after.

From the Muˁallaqa: A Mountain Storm
Attributed to Imru' al-Qays
Translated by A.Z. Foreman

Do you see lightning, friend? Look there: its flash
forks through the cumulus like fingers, quick
to shed its distant light; there: like the lit

lamp of a monk who tilts oil on the wick.

I sat to watch it with my friends, between
Ḍārij and Al-ˁUdhayb. Oh I gazed far
enough to see the storm raise its right arm
on Mount Qaṭan, its left on Al-Sitār,
and dump its rainload round Kutayfa, slamming

trees' faces to the ground as it went wide.
Its shower bucked on over Mount Qanān
sluicing the mountain goats off every side.
It left no palm-trunk standing at Taymā
nor building built of anything but rock. 
Tall Mount Thabīr stood in its water-onslaught
like a tribe's chieftain in a stripelined cloak.
At dawn, debris on Al-Mujaymir's peaks
lay strewn like spun wool on a spindle-tip.
The storm had left its load upon the desert
like goods a merchant loosens from his hip.
That morning, finches noised about the dales
as if blind drunk on pepper-fiery wine.
That evening, raptors lay drowned at its edge
like ripped-out squills that freakishly entwine.

The Original:

أصَاحِ تَرَِى بَرْقاً أُرِيْكَ وَمِيضَـهُ    كَلَمْـعِ اليَدَيْنِ فِي حَبِيٍّ مُكَلَّـلِ

يُضِيءُ سَنَاهُ أَوْ مَصَابِيْحُ رَاهِـبٍ    أهَانَ السَّلِيْـطَ بِالذُّبَالِ المُفَتَّـلِ

قَعَدْتُ لَهُ وصُحْبَتِي بَيْنَ ضَـارِجٍ    وبَيْنَ العـُذَيْبِ بُعْدَمَا مُتَأَمَّـلِ

عَلَا قَطَنا بِالشَّيْمِ أَيْمَنُ صَوْبِـهِ       وَأَيْسَـرُهُ عَلَى السِّتَارِ فَيَذْبُـلِ

فَأَضْحَى يَسُحُّ المَاءَ حَوْلَ كُتَيْفَةٍ     يَكُبُّ عَلَى الأذْقَانِ دَوْحَ الكَنَهْبَلِ

ومَـرَّ عَلَى القَنَـانِ مِنْ نَفَيَانِـهِ        فَأَنْزَلَ مِنْهُ العُصْمَ مِنْ كُلِّ مَنْـزِلِ

وتَيْمَاءَ لَمْ يَتْرُكْ بِهَا جِذْعَ نَخْلَـةٍ     وَلاَ أٌجُماً إِلاَّ مَشِيْداً بِجِنْـدَلِ

كَأَنَّ ثَبِيْـراً فِي عَرَانِيْـنِ وَبْلِـهِ       كَبِيْـرُ أُنَاسٍ فِي بِجَـادٍ مُزَمَّـلِ

كَأَنَّ ذُرَى رَأْسِ المُجَيْمِرِ غُـدْوَةً    مِنَ السَّيْلِ وَالأَغثَاءِ فَلْكَةُ مِغْـزَلِ

وأَلْقَى بِصَحْـرَاءِ الغَبيْطِ بَعَاعَـهُ    نُزُوْلَ اليَمَانِي ذِي العِيَابِ المُحَمَّلِ

كَأَنَّ مَكَـاكِيَّ الجِـوَاءِ غُدَّبَـةً         صُبِحْنَ سُلافاً مِنْ رَحيقٍ مُفَلْفَـلِ

كَأَنَّ السِّبَـاعَ فِيْهِ غَرْقَى عَشِيَّـةً     بِأَرْجَائِهِ القُصْوَى أَنَابِيْشُ عُنْصُـلِ

Note:

The Arabic of my audio recording is in what I choose to call "Early Classical Arabic" pronunciation. To put it grandiosely, it is a kind of Arabic that hasn't been heard for over a thousand years. To put it plainly, it is a speculative reconstruction of the kind of Arabic pronunciation the grammarian Sibawayh might have used, based on his description of Arabic speech-sounds, and augmented with some inference based on typology. The main differences from textbook Classical Arabic as it is taught and learned today are as follows:

The ج was /ɟ/ (not /dʒ/)
The ش was /ɕ/ (not /ʃ/) 
The ص was (for an indeterminate number of speakers including Sibawayh) an affricate /t͡sˤ/ rather than the fricative /sˁ/.  (For reasoning behind this reconstruction see this article by Ahmad Al-Jallad).
The ض was a pharyngealized lateral, probably /ɮˤ/ or /d͡ɮˤ/ (the modern /dˁ/ pronunciation is much more recent)
The ت and ك appear to have been quite strongly aspirated /kʰ tʰ/. 
In addition to the familiar three vowels /a: i: u:/ there existed /e:/ for many speakers (and, more marginally, /o:/ for some.) 
The vowel /a:/ was optionally raised to [e:] due to i-mutation under a complex of different circumstances, partially neutralizing the contrast between /a:/ and phonemic /e:/ and giving the realizations of /a:/ a range and distribution not commonly heard in modern elevated poetic recitations. 

Although I render ش as alveolo-palatal /ɕ/, full disclosure requires noting that another possibility would be a true palatal non-sibilant /ç/, which is what many (perhaps most) posit based on a strict interpretation of Sibawayhi's statement. Now, Sibawayhi, who doesn't get enough credit as a phonetician, could probably have distinguished palatal from alveolo-palatal articulation. But whether he would have cared to is a different question. Although he groups ي ش ج at the same place of articulation, it is only ش which causes assimilation of the definite article. Thus there was something about šīn that made it pattern, for assimilation purposes, with the coronals rather than the dorsals. The most straightforward interpretation would be that this is because šīn was indeed a sibilant. Sibilants as an articulatory class involve a centerline grooved tongue focusing the airstream such that it strikes the teeth. Whereas non-sibilant fricatives do not involve the teeth as a secondary articulator. Sibilants, probably because of the need to involve the teeth, are always coronal. Alveolo-palatal articulation sits uneasily in a no-man's land between the dorsal and coronals, and is as far back as you can go and still produce a sound that behaves acoustically and structurally like a sibilant. For /ç/ to function as a sibilant, it must thus have front articulation [ç̟], which (notational and theoretical games aside) makes it functionally /ɕ/. 

One phonologically interesting way in which Sibawayhi's Arabic was likely counterintuitive from the standpoint of many modern accents of the standard language, and doubly so for non-native Arabic speakers given how they tend to be taught, is that what we normally think of as voiced plain stops /b d ɟ/ and voiceless plain stops /t k/ did not — strictly speaking — have presence or absence of voicing per se as their distinguishing feature. In this, Sibawayh's Arabic would align with certain modern dialects like San'ani Arabic. (See Phonation and glottal states in Modern South Arabian and San’ani Arabic by Janet Watson and Barry Heselwood for this and more, including a good explanation of a crucial articulatory category in Sibawayh's description.) The chief featural distinction between the two sets was probably aspiration in the latter and non-aspiration (with adductive glottal tension) in the former. In a dialect like this, although /b d ɟ/ probably did not have fully specified voicing, much of the time this would be of little phonetic consequence since in most positions voicing would be triggered positionally. In post-pausal position, however, although /b d ɟ/ would trigger a glottal prephonation state, their actual voice-onset time would not necessarily be different from that of a voiceless non-aspirated stop. 

Labid: Lament for Arbad (From Arabic)

This poem is an elegiac lament for Arbad, the deceased adoptive brother of the poet to whom this text is attributed. It is also one of my favorite texts in all Arabic literature. It may have come into existence at some point in the middle of the 7th century. The legends of Labid, the (supposed) author, are many. 
To my knowledge, line-terminal assonance as a true formal device (as opposed to a mere stylistic option) in Western European verse traditions is found chiefly in medieval French, medieval Irish, and modern Dutch, as well as Iberian Romance of all periods from the earliest recorded Mozarabic ballad-fragments right through Neruda and Lorca. Yet it has not much been used as a formal feature in literary English verse (though translators of assonant verse from Romance languages have reproduced it occasionally, as Dorothy L. Sayers did in her translation of the Chanson de Roland, and J.F. Nims in one of his translations from Lorca.)  English poets, when they make use of end-line sound correspondences that fall short of full rhyme, seem to prefer consonance instead of assonance, repeating syllables with the same consonant in the coda (as in spooked/licked) rather than the same vowel in the  nucleus (as in sex/best). Which is odd in a way, since vowels are higher on the sonorance hierarchy and are acoustically more discernible than consonants. Perhaps a motivating factor was that, in English, consonant correspondences are usually fairly consistent across dialects, whereas vowel correspondences are very often not. Regardless, I suspect that poets like Heaney or Pinsky, in preferring consonance as a formal feature, are composing less for the ear than for the eye. For assonance is indeed a common fixture of English lyric forms that, unlike the sonnet, still depend primarily on oral performance and aural consumption. Any English-speaker who has, by virtue of not living under an Everest-sized rock, been exposed to contemporary popular music has heard it. And if English assonance is good enough for Eminem or the Beatles, then it's good enough for ancient bedouins. 
My quatraining of the distichs was inspired by the translation practice of my former teacher, Michael Sells, who is in my unapologetically biased view the only decent literary translator into English that pre-Islamic poetry has had in perhaps half a century. Needless to say, while I respect Sells immensely, I cannot agree with his contention that rhyme and meter in English necessarily entail an "artificiality which has been the largest impediment to making the Arabic ode accessible to non-Arabic speaking audiences." There is no intrinsic reason why a "a natural flow of language and diction" cannot coexist with a formalized prosody. If "a natural English diction no longer allows the kind of rhyme and meter necessary" to make that work, my response is that it's time to find a different kind of natural English. English, like any other language, is in fact capable of more than its speakers typically imagine, and if the translation is giving English-speakers something they're not quite used to, that is not necessarily a bad thing.      

Lament for Arbad

Attributed to Labīd bin Rabīˁa (c. 560)

Translated by A.Z. Foreman
Click to hear me recite the original Arabic

We perish and rot 　
　　but the rising stars do not.

　When we are gone, 
　　　tower and mountain stay. 

Once I was under　
　　a coveted neighbor's wing.

　And with Arbad, that protector 
　　　has passed away.

I'll stand ungrieved, 　
　　though Fortune force us asunder

　For every man 
　　　is felled by Fortune one day.

I am no more enthralled　
　　by newfound riches

　than grieved by aught 
　　　that Fortune wreaks or takes.

For men are like desert camps: 　
　　one day, full of folk

　but, come the morrow, 
　　　an unpeopled waste.

They pass away in flocks, 　
　　and the land stays on:

　a trailing herdsman 
　　　rounding up the strays.

Yes, men are like shooting stars: 　
　　a trailing light 

　collapsed to ashes 
　　　after the briefest blaze.

Men's wealth and kin 　
　　are but a loan of Fortune.

　All that is loaned
　　　must be at last repaid. 

Men are at work. 　
　　One worker razes his building

　to the ground, another 
　　　raises something great.

Among them are the happy 
　　who seize their lot,

　and unlucky others: 
　　　beggars till the grave. 

If my Doom be slow in coming, 
　　I can look forward

　to ailing fingers 
　　　clenched about a cane,

While telling tales 　
　　of youth and yesteryear,

　on slow legs, trying to stand 
　　　yet bent with pain.

I am become a sword 　
　　whose sheath is worn

　apart by the years since smithing, 
　　　though sharp the blade. 

Do not be gone!¹ 
　　A due date for death is meted

　to all. It is yet to come...
　　　then comes today!

Reproachful woman!² 　
　　When fine lads trek forth,

　can you say who of them 
　　　shall return from the fray?

Will you grieve 　
　　what fell Fortune wreaks on men?

　What noble man 
　　　will disaster not waylay?

No, by your lifeblood: 　
　　neither pebble-reader

　nor auguress³ know 
　　　what fey things God ordains.

If any of you would doubt me, 　
　　simply ask them

　when a lad shall taste of Doom, 
　　　or the land taste rains.

Footnotes:

1- "Do not be gone" lā tabˁadan is a formulaic phrase (westerners would call it a "cliché" I guess) used to refer to the recently dead (likewise lā yabˁadan "let him not be gone.") Its ritual function may have been to express psychological shock (i.e. "how can he have left us?") as well as the belief that the person so commanded will survive as long as their memory and, by definition, the verse-lament in their name. The verb is baˁida/yabˁadu meaning "to perish, to depart." This verb and the related, more common baˁuda/yabˁudu  "to be distant, far" seem to have semantically bled into one another in Early Arabic. E.g. Qur'an 11:95 a-lā buˁdan (=baˁuda) li-Madyana ka-mā baˁidat (=baˁida) Thāmūdu "Yea let Midian perish even as Thamud perished."

2- The ˁāðil or "reproacher/rebuker" is a stock figure from early poetry, -usually a woman but sometimes a man- a paragonal "straw (wo)man" to whom the speaker can impute attitudes which he would like to argue against. Like many other stock addressees of early poetry (such as Yā ṣāḥi "O Companion" or Yā rākibu "O Rider/Messenger"), this persona may have developed from some sort of ritual or practical function now lost to us. 

3-The ḍawāribu bi-l-ḥaṣā (literally "pebble-casters", here rendered as "pebble-readers") were —according to tradition —  women who tried to divine the future by casting pebbles on the ground in some fashion. The zājirātu ṭ-ṭayri "women who chase birds away" (here rendered as "auguresses") were presumably women who tried to divine the future in some manner that involved scaring birds. 

The Original:

قالَ لَبيد بنُ الربيعة العامِريُّ

بلينا وما تبلى النجومُ الطَّوالِعُ وتَبْقَى الجِبالُ بَعْدَنَا والمَصانِعُ

وقد كنتُ في أكنافِ جارِ مَضَنَّةٍ  ففارقَني جارٌ بأرْبَدَ نافِعُ

فَلا جَزِعٌ إنْ فَرَّقَ الدَّهْرُ بَيْنَنا وكُلُّ فَتى ً يَوْمَاً بهِ الدَّهْرُ فاجِعُ

فَلا أنَا يأتيني طَريفٌ بِفَرْحَةٍ وَلا أنا مِمّا أحدَثَ الدَّهرُ جازِعُ

ومَا النّاسُ إلاّ كالدِّيارِ وأهْلها بِها يَوْمَ حَلُّوها وغَدْواً بَلاقِعُ

وَيَمْضُون أرْسَالاً ونَخْلُفُ بَعدهم كما ضَمَّ أُخرَى التّالياتِ المُشايِعُ

ومَا المَرْءُ إلاَّ كالشِّهابِ وضَوْئِهِ يحورُ رَماداً بَعْدَ إذْ هُوَ ساطِعُ

ومَا المالُ والأهْلُونَ إلاَّ وَديعَة ٌ وَلابُدَّ يَوْماً أنْ تُرَدَّ الوَدائِعُ

ومَا الناسُ إلاَّ عاملانِ: فَعامِلٌ يتبِّرُ ما يبني، وآخرُ رافِعُ

فَمِنْهُمْ سَعيدٌ آخِذٌ لنَصِيبِهِ وَمِنْهُمْ شَقيٌّ بالمَعيشَة ِ قانِعُ

أَليْسَ ورائي، إنْ تراخَتْ مَنيّتي، لُزُومُ العَصَا تُحْنَى علَيها الأصابعُ

أخبّرُ أخبارَ القرونِ التي مضتْ أدبٌ كأنّي كُلّما قمتُ راكعُ

فأصبحتُ مثلَ السيفِ غَيَّرَ جفنهُ تَقَادُمُ عَهْدِ القَينِ والنَّصْلُ قاطعُ

فَلا تَبْعَدَنْ إنَّ المَنيِّة َ مَوعِدٌ عَلَيْنا فَدَانٍ للطُّلُوعِ وطالِعُ

أعاذلُ ما يُدريكَ، إلاَّ تظنيّاً، إذا ارتحَلَ الفِتيانُ منْ هوَ راجعُ

أتجزَعُ مِمّا أحدَثَ الدّهرُ بالفَتى وأيُّ كَريمٍ لمْ تُصِبْهُ القَوَارِعُ

لَعَمْرُكَ ما تَدري الضَّوَارِبُ بالحصَى وَلا زاجِراتُ الطّيرِ ما اللّهُ صانِعُ

سَلُوهُنَّ إنْ كَذَّبتموني متى الفتى يذوقُ المنايا أوْ متى الغيثُ واقِعُ