أراك

أوتار مبعثرة
ترجمة إنجليزية
شارك:
أَرَاكِ فَيَشْتَدُّ الْحَنِينُ بِخَافِقِيكَعَاصِفَةٍ هَبَّتْ بِأَحْبَالِ عَالِقِ
بِرُوحِي ذَاكَ الْوَجْهُ بِالْبِشْرِ مُفْعَمًاوَشَعْرٌ كَشَلَّالٍ يَصُبُّ بِشَاهِقِ
وَثَغْرٍ وَدَدْتُ الرَّشْفَ مِنْ خَمْرِ دَرِّهِلَوْ أَنَّ حُمَيَّاهُ تُصَبُّ لِعَاشِقِ
وَخَدٍّ أَسِيلٍ أَخْجَلَ الْوَرْدَ حُمْرَةًوَمَلْمَسُهُ أَنْدَى عَلَى كَفِّ وَامِقِ
وَطَرْفٍ أَبَانَ الْوَجْدَ مِنْ قَلْبِ شَادِنٍفَأَغْضَتْ حَيَاءً مِنْ عُيُونٍ رَوَاشِقِ
وَجِيدٍ مَشُوقٍ لِلشِّفَاهِ تَرُودُهُوَتَقْبِيلِ مُشْتَاقٍ بِأَنْفَاسِ شَائِقِ
وَصَدْرٍ لَوْ أَنِّي أَصْطَفِيهِ لِرَاحَتِيلَمَا كَانَ إِلَّا بَيْنَ نَهْدَيْهِ خَافِقِي
بِنَفْسِي ذَاكَ الْخَصْرُ أَضْمَرَهُ الْجَوَىفَأَرْهَفَ جَنْبَيْهِ تَبَارِيحُ عَاشِقِ
جَمَالٌ كَأَنْ قَدْ صِيغَ وَفْقَ مُرَادِهَافَسُبْحَانَ رَبِّ الْحُسْنِ سُبْحَانَ خَالِقِي
تَجَمَّعَ فِيكِ الْحُسْنُ ثُمَّ تَوَزَّعَتْمَفَاتِنُهُ بِالْعَدْلِ بَيْنَ الْخَلَائِقِ

I See You

  1. I see you, and yearning surges in my throbbing heart,
    like a storm that has burst on the ropes of a man still clinging.
  2. My soul be the ransom1 of that face, brimming with joy,
    and of hair like a waterfall from a lofty height, streaming,
  3. and of a mouth whose flowing wine2 I long to sip,
    if only its heady draught were poured out for a lover,
  4. and of a smooth cheek3 that has shamed the rose with its redness,
    and is dewier still to the touch of an adoring palm,
  5. and of a glance that showed the passion in a young gazelle's heart,
    then she lowered her eyes, shy of eyes like arrows, piercing4,
  6. and of a neck that longs for lips to roam it,
    and for the kiss of one who yearns, and his breath of longing,
  7. and of a bosom which, were I to choose it for my rest,
    would find my heart nowhere but between its breasts, beating5.
  8. My life be the ransom1 of that waist, made slender by passion,
    its sides pared fine by a lover's suffering6!
  9. A beauty fashioned, it would seem, just as she willed it:
    glory be to the Lord of beauty, glory be to my Creator!
  10. In you all beauty gathered, and then its charms
    were justly shared out among all created beings7.

Notes

  1. Bi-rūḥī, ‘with my soul’, and in verse 8 bi-nafsī, ‘with my life’, are Arabic formulas of devotion meaning ‘I would give my soul (my life) as a ransom for…’. Each feature of the beloved that follows, face, hair, mouth, cheek, glance, neck, bosom and waist, is governed by this oath of devotion. ↩
  2. Darr is the flow of milk or of rain, and is used of wine and of anything that streams generously. The same letters read durr mean ‘pearls’, the standard image for teeth, so the mouth is at once a flowing spring of wine and a string of pearls. ↩
  3. Khadd asīl, a cheek that is smooth, soft and gently long, is a set phrase of praise in classical Arabic love poetry. ↩
  4. Shādin is a young gazelle, a classical image for the beloved’s grace and large dark eyes. Rawāshiq, from rashaqa, ‘to shoot arrows’, describes eyes whose glances pierce like arrows. ‘Shy of’ (ḥayāʾan min) is taken to mean that she lowered her gaze out of modesty before the piercing looks fixed on her, the lover’s among them. The phrase could also mean that she lowered her own arrow-darting eyes in shyness after they had betrayed her feeling. ↩
  5. The list of the beloved’s features is still running: the bosom is hers, and the poet’s heart would choose to rest nowhere but between its breasts. ↩
  6. Aḍmarahu means ‘made it lean’, a word used of a racehorse trained down to slenderness. The conceit is that her slender waist was thinned by love’s torments (tabārīḥ), as though she too had been wasted by passion. ↩
  7. The closing conceit reverses the usual order: she is not given a share of beauty like everyone else; rather, all beauty was first gathered in her, and what the rest of creation has is only what was later shared out from her. The preceding verse’s tasbīḥ, ‘Glory be to…’, is the Muslim exclamation of wonder at God’s work. ↩

English translation prepared by artificial intelligence and reviewed against the Arabic for accuracy of meaning and rhetoric.