{"collection":"Islam","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/isl/hanged/hanged1.htm","path":"isl/hanged/hanged1.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/isl/hanged/hanged1.htm","text":"Stop, oh my friends, let us pause to weep over the remembrance of my beloved.\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Here was her abode on the edge of the sandy desert between Dakhool and Howmal.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The traces of her encampment are not wholly obliterated even now.\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0For when the South wind blows the sand over them the North wind sweeps it away.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The courtyards and enclosures of the old home have become desolate;\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The dung of the wild deer lies there thick as the seeds of pepper.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0On the morning of our separation it was as if I stood in the gardens of our tribe,\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Amid the acacia-shrubs where my eyes were blinded with tears by the smart from the bursting pods of colocynth.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As I lament thus in the place made desolate, my friends stop their camels;\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0They cry to me \"Do not die of grief; bear this sorrow patiently.\"\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Nay, the cure of my sorrow must come from gushing tears.\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Yet, is there any hope that this desolation can bring me solace?\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0So before ever I met Unaizah, did I mourn for two others;\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0My fate had been the same with Ummul-Huwairith and her neighbor Ummul-Rahab in Masal.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Fair were they also, diffusing the odor of musk as they moved,\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Like the soft zephyr bringing with it the scent of the clove.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Thus the tears flowed down on my breast, remembering days of love;\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The tears wetted even my sword-belt, so tender was my love.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Behold how many pleasant days have I spent with fair women;\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Especially do I remember the day at the pool of Darat-i-Juljul.2\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0On that day I killed my riding camel for food for the maidens:\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0How merry was their dividing my camel's trappings to be carried on their camels.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It is a wonder, a riddle, that the camel being saddled was yet unsaddled!\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A wonder also was the slaughterer, so heedless of self in his costly gift!\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Then the maidens commenced throwing the camel's flesh into the kettle;\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The fat was woven with the lean like loose fringes of white twisted silk.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0On that day I entered the howdah, the camel's howdah of Unaizah!\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And she protested, saying, \"Woe to you, you will force me to travel on foot.\"\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0She repulsed me, while the howdah was swaying with us;\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0She said, \"You are galling my camel, Oh Imru-ul-Quais, so dismount.\"\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Then I said, \"Drive him on! Let his reins go loose, while you turn to me.\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Think not of the camel and our weight on him. Let us be happy.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\"Many a beautiful woman like you, Oh Unaizah, have I visited at night;\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I have won her thought to me, even from her children have I won her.\"\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There was another day when I walked with her behind the sandhills,\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But she put aside my entreaties and swore an oath of virginity.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Oh, Unaizah, gently, put aside some of this coquetry.\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0If you have, indeed, made up your mind to cut off friendship with me, then do it kindly or gently.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Has anything deceived you about me, that your love is killing me,\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And that verily as often as you order my heart, it will do what you order?\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And if any one of my habits has caused you annoyance,\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Then put away my heart from your heart, and it will be put away.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And your two eyes do not flow with tears, except to strike me with arrows in my broken heart.\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Many a fair one, whose tent can not be sought by others, have I enjoyed playing with.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I passed by the sentries on watch near her, and a people desirous of killing me;\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0If they could conceal my murder, being unable to assail me openly.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I passed by these people at a time, when the Pleiades appeared in the heavens,\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As the appearance of the gems in the spaces in the ornamented girdle, set with pearls and gems.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Then she said to me, \"I swear by God, you have no excuse for your wild life;\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I can not expect that your erring habits will ever be removed from your nature.\"\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I went out with her; she walking, and drawing behind us, over our footmarks,\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The skirts of an embroidered woolen garment, to erase the footprints.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Then when we had crossed the enclosure of the tribe,\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The middle of the open plain, with its sandy undulations and sandhills, we sought.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I drew the tow side-locks of her head toward me; and she leant toward me;\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0She was slender of waist, and full in the ankle.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Thin-waisted, white-skinned, slender of body,\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Her breast shining polished like a mirror.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In complexion she is like the first egg of the ostrich\u2014white, mixed with yellow.\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Pure water, unsullied by the descent of many people in it, has nourished her.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0She turns away, and shows her smooth cheek, forbidding with a glancing eye,\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Like that of a wild animal, with young, in the desert of Wajrah.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And she shows a neck like the neck of a white deer;\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It is neither disproportionate when she raises it, nor unornamented.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And a perfect head of hair which, when loosened, adorns her back\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Black, very dark-colored, thick like a date-cluster on a heavily-laden date-tree.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Her curls creep upward to the top of her head;\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And the plaits are lost in the twisted hair, and the hair falling loose.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And she meets me with a slender waist, thin as the twisted leathern nose-rein of a camel.\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Her form is like the stem of a palm-tree bending over from the weight of its fruit.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In the morning, when she wakes, the particles of musk are lying over her bed.\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0She sleeps much in the morning; she does not need to gird her waist with a working dress.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0She gives with thin fingers, not thick, as if they were the worms of the desert of Zabi,\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In the evening she brightens the darkness, as if she were the light-tower of a monk.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Toward one like her, the wise man gazes incessantly, lovingly\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0She is well proportioned in height between the wearer of a long dress and of a short frock.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The follies of men cease with youth, but my heart does not cease to love you.\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Many bitter counselors have warned me of the disaster of your love, but I turned away from them.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Many a night has let down its curtains around me amid deep grief,\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It has whelmed me as a wave of the sea to try me with sorrow.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Then I said to the night, as slowly his huge bulk passed over me,\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As his breast, his loins, his buttocks weighed on me and then passed afar,\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\"Oh long night, dawn will come, but will be no brighter without my love.\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0You are a wonder, with stars held up as by ropes of hemp to a solid rock.\"\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0At other times, I have filled a leather water-bag of my people and entered the desert,\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And trod its empty wastes while the wolf howled like a gambler whose family starves.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I said to the wolf, \"You gather as little wealth, as little prosperity as I.\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0What either of us gains he gives away. So do we remain thin.\"\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Early in the morning, while the birds were still nesting, I mounted my steed.\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Well-bred was he, long-bodied, outstripping the wild beasts in speed,\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Swift to attack, to flee, to turn, yet firm as a rock swept down by the torrent,\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Bay-colored, and so smooth the saddle slips from him, as the rain from a smooth stone,\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Thin but full of life, fire boils within him like the snorting of a boiling kettle;\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0He continues at full gallop when other horses are dragging their feet in the dust for weariness.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A boy would be blown from his back, and even the strong rider loses his garments.\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Fast is my steed as a top when a child has spun it well.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0He has the flanks of a buck, the legs of an ostrich, and the gallop of a wolf.\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0From behind, his thick tail hides the space between his thighs, and almost sweeps the ground.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When he stands before the house, his back looks like the huge grinding-stone there.\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The blood of many leaders of herds is in him, thick as the juice of henna in combed white hair.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As I rode him we saw a flock of wild sheep, the ewes like maidens in long-trailing robes;\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0They turned for flight, but already he had passed the leaders before they could scatter.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0He outran a bull and a cow and killed them both, and they were made ready for cooking;\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Yet he did not even sweat so as to need washing.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0We returned at evening, and the eye could scarcely realize his beauty\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0For, when gazing at one part, the eye was drawn away by the perfection of another part.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0He stood all night with his saddle and bridle on him,\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0He stood all night while I gazed at him admiring, and did not rest in his stable.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But come, my friends, as we stand here mourning, do you see the lightning?\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0See its glittering, like the flash of two moving hands, amid the thick gathering clouds.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Its glory shines like the lamps of a monk when he has dipped their wicks thick in oil.\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I sat down with my companions and watched the lightning and the coming storm.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0So wide-spread was the rain that its right end seemed over Quatan,\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Yet we could see its left end pouring down on Satar, and beyond that over Yazbul.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0So mighty was the storm that it hurled upon their faces the huge kanahbul trees,\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The spray of it drove the wild goats down from the hills of Quanan.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In the gardens of Taimaa not a date-tree was left standing,\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Nor a building, except those strengthened with heavy stones.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The mountain, at the first downpour of the rain, looked like a giant of our people draped in a striped cloak.\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The peak of Mujaimir in the flood and rush of d\u00e9bris looked like a whirling spindle.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The clouds poured forth their gift on the desert of Ghabeet, till it blossomed\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As though a Yemani merchant were spreading out all the rich clothes from his trunks,\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As though the little birds of the valley of Jiwaa awakened in the morning\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And burst forth in song after a morning draught of old, pure, spiced wine.\n \n \n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As though all the wild beasts had been covered with sand and mud, like the onion's root-bulbs.\n \n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0They were drowned and lost in the depths of the desert at evening.\n \n \n1. This is supposed to be the oldest of the \"hanged\" poems. Like the others it shifts abruptly from theme to theme, and is full of poetic comparisons. Indeed, its author is said to have started this fashion, winning for himself the name of \"The creator of images.\"\n2. The poet in this and the following lines refers to an incident which is thus told us: during his wooing of Unaizah he followed her and the other maidens when they rode on camels to the pool Darat-i-Juljul. The women bathed in the pool and he captured their clothes and would not surrender these until each one came out of the water in turn and asked for hers. They held back so long before they yielded to this, that afterward they complained of being faint with hunger. Thereon he lavishly slew his camel so they could have it immediately for food. When they had eaten, they would not leave him stranded in the desert, so divided the trappings of his camel, each carrying home a part upon her beast, while the carrying of the poet himself fell to Unaizah. She jestingly protested that the howdah on her camel's back was too small for them both.","title":"The Poem of Imru-ul-Quais","type":"page"}