أين التي..

أوتار مبعثرة
ترجمة إنجليزية
شارك:
أَيْنَ الَّتِي.. لَوْ سَلَتْنِي بَاتَ يَعْذِلُهَافُؤَادُهَا .. وَأَتَتْنِي بِالْجَوَى لَهَفًا؟
أَيْنَ الَّتِي لَوْ قَلَتْنِي كَانَ عَذَّبَهَاضَمِيرُهَا وَأَرَتْنِي فِي الْهَوَى شَغَفًا؟
أَيْنَ الَّتِي.. لَمْ أَكُنْ إِلَّا مُتَيَّمَهَا؟وَقَدْ كَفَانِي هَوَاهَا فِي الدُّنَا شَرَفًا
مَهْمَا قَسَوْتِ، فَلَنْ أَرْتَدَّ عَنْ شَغَفِيإِنِّي أَتَيْتُكِ أُبْدِي الشَّوْقَ وَالْأَسَفَا
لَوْ أَفْتَدِيهَا بِرُوحِي وَالَّذِي مَلَكَتْيُمْنَايَ، لَمْ يَكُ فِي بَذْلِي لَهَا سَرَفَا
لَوْ أَنَّ كُلَّ حُرُوفِ الْحُسْنِ قَدْ نُظِمَتْلَكُنْتِ فِي أَبْجَدِيَّاتِ الْهَوَى الْأَلِفَا

Where Is She Who…

  1. Where is she who, if she forgot me1, would lie awake all night
    reproached by her own heart, and come to me aflame?
  2. Where is she who, if she spurned me1, would be tormented
    by her own conscience, and would show me all the ardour of her love?
  3. Where is she… whose love's captive I have been, and nothing more?
    Her love was honour enough for me in all the world to claim.
  4. However harsh you are, I will not turn back2 from my passion:
    I've come to you with longing and with sorrow to confess.
  5. Were I to ransom her with my soul and all my right hand holds,
    in what I gave for her there would be no excess.
  6. If all the letters of beauty were strung in a line,
    you would be, in the alphabets of love, the alif3.

Notes

  1. Salatnī, 'she forgot me, found consolation away from me', and qalatnī, 'she spurned me, came to hate me', differ in one letter and open the two verses in parallel. Qalā is the verb of the Qur'an's consolation to the Prophet (PBUH) (93:3): 'Your Lord has not forsaken you, nor has He spurned you.' The first three verses ask, with the repeated 'Where is she who…?', for a beloved who no longer exists: one who would regret any unkindness to him. ↩
  2. The poet turns suddenly from speaking of her ('where is she?') to addressing her ('however harsh you are'), then turns back to 'her' in verse 5 and to 'you' in verse 6. This alternation (iltifāt) is a mark of agitation. Artadda, 'turn back', is the verb used of turning away from one's faith, so love is spoken of as a creed he will never abandon. ↩
  3. Alif is the first letter of the Arabic alphabet and the first in the abjad order of letters. It is a single straight upright stroke, and poets compare the beloved's slender, upright figure to it. 'The alif of love' is thus the first, the foremost, the letter from which all the rest begin, and at the same time an image of her graceful form. ↩

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