ذكريات

عبير الأبد
ترجمة إنجليزية
شارك:
تَاللَّهِ لَمْ يَعْشَقِ الْمَجْنُونُ لَيْلَاهُكَمِثْلِ عِشْقِي لِمَنْ أَشْقَى بِذِكْرَاهُ
لَقِيتُهُ صُدْفَةً كَأَنَّمَا دَهِشٌبِنَا الزَّمَانُ فَلَا يَمْضِي لِمَجْرَاهُ
فَصَادَفَتْ نَظْرَةٌ مِنِّي نَظِيرَتَهَافَكَانَ فِيهَا حَدِيثٌ لَسْتُ أَنْسَاهُ
فِي عَيْنِهِ سِحْرُ هَارُوتٍ فَلَسْتَ تَرَىسِوَى دُرُوبٍ بِهَا عُشَّاقُهُ تَاهُوا
كَأَنَّمَا هُوَ فَنٌّ فِي الْحَدِيثِ عَلَىلَحْنِ السُّكُوتِ بِمَا لَمْ يَنْبِسِ الْفَاهُ
يَبُثُّنِي الْوَجْدَ أَنْغَاماً وَأَخْيِلَةًبِهَا أُجَنُّ فَأُضْحِي مِنْ سَبَايَاهُ
بَثَثْتُهُ وَجْدَ قَلْبِي مَا يُسِرُّ بِهِفَكَانَ أَرْوَعَ مِنْ نَجْوَايَ نَجْوَاهُ
أَبَحْتُهُ فِي فُؤَادِي مَرْتَعاً خَصِبًاأَوَّاهُ مِنْ رَعْيِهِ فِي الْقَلْبِ أَوَّاهُ
وَثَغْرُهُ وَهْوَ يَحْوِي مِنْ سُلَافَتِهِمَا لَسْتُ أَسْكَرُ إِلَّا مِنْ حُمَيَّاهُ
أَحْلَى مِنَ السُّكْرِ إِلَّا أَنَّ نَشْوَتَهُتَكَادُ تُشْعِلُ فِي جِسْمِي خَلَايَاهُ
وَخَدُّهُ وَهْوَ يَحْكِي لَوْنَ لَهْفَتِهِيَسْرِي بِهِ وَهَجٌ تَضْرَى شَظَايَاهُ
تَظُنُّهُ وَامِضاً مِنْ نَارِ لَوْعَتِهِأَبْقَى احْمِرَاراً عَلَى الْخَدَّيْنِ ذِكْرَاهُ
وَشَعْرُهُ حَلَكٌ تَهْمِي خَصَائِلُهُشَلَّالُ أُنْسٍ يُحَاكِي اللَّيْلَ تَيَّاهُ
يُؤَطِّرُ الْوَجْهَ تَأْطِيراً يَزِيدُ بِهِحُسْناً وَمَنْ يَا تُرَى فِي الْحُسْنِ حَاكَاهُ
الشَّعْرُ وَالنَّظْرَةُ الْوَسْنَى وَمَبْسِمُهُوَلَفْتَةُ الْجِيدِ بَعْضٌ مِنْ مَزَايَاهُ
لَوْ قُلْتُ أُحْصِي ثَنَاءً فِي مَحَاسِنِهِقَضَيْتُ عُمْراً وَلَمْ أَبْلُغْ خَبَايَاهُ
فَاللَّهُ أَبْدَعَ فِيهِ خَلْقَ جُمْلَتِهِوَلَا تَسَلْ كَيْفَ؟ فِيمَا أَبْدَعَ اللَّهُ
عَفٌّ وَمَنْهَجُهُ فِي الْحُبِّ عِفَّتُهُأَنْعِمْ بِهِ مِنْ عَفِيفٍ حِينَ تَلْقَاهُ
وَيَكْتُمُ الْحُبَّ حَتَّى لَوْ يَمُوتُ بِهِيَقْضِي شَهِيداً وَيُمْسِي الْخُلْدُ مَثْوَاهُ
قَدْ صَانَهُ اللَّهُ عَنْ فُحْشٍ وَمَنْقَصَةٍفَالْحُبُّ يَا وَيْلَتَا كُبْرَى خَطَايَاهُ
أَبَحْتُهُ فِي فُؤَادِي مَرْتَعاً خَصِبًاأَوَّاهُ مِنْ رَعْيِهِ فِي الْقَلْبِ أَوَّاهُ
حَتَّى غَدَوْتُ فَلَا رِجْلَايَ مِنْ خَوَرٍتَكَادُ تَحْمِلُنِي كَذَاكَ رِجْلَاهُ
لَمَّا جَلَسْنَا وَلَمْ تَبْرَحْ نَوَاظِرُنَاتُجِيدُ بَوْحًا لِمَكْنُونٍ كَتَمْنَاهُ
كُنَّا قَرِيبَيْنِ مِنْ بَعْضٍ وَمَا مَعَنَاسِوَى الْفَضَاءِ وَبَدْرِ اللَّيْلِ نَرْعَاهُ
تَكَادُ أَنْفَاسُهُ فِي الْوَجْدِ تَلْفَحُنِيكَذَاكَ أَنْفَاسُ وَجْدِي إِذْ تَلَقَّاهُ
لَكِنَّمَا صَدَّنَا عَنْ وِرْدِ مَوْرِدِنَاعَفَافُنَا وَهْوَ عَهْدٌ قَدْ حَفِظْنَاهُ
بِتْنَا عَلَى ظَمَأٍ لَا نَرْتَوِي أَبَدًاوَالْكَأْسُ مَلْآى وَلَكِنْ مَا شَرِبْنَاهُ
عِفْنَا اقْتِطَافَ الْجَنَى إِذْ كَانَ مَقْطَفُهَاجِنَايَةً فَكَفَانَا مِنْهُ مَرْآهُ
حَتَّى إِذَا أَشْرَقَتْ شَمْسُ الضُّحَى فَضَحَتْعَوَارَهَا فِي السَّنَى عَفْواً ثَنَايَاهُ
إِذْ قَامَ يَبْسِمُ لِي مُوَدِّعاً فَسَقَىمِنِّي الْحَشَا إِنَّمَا زَادَتْ بَلَايَاهُ
هَلْ كَانَ إِنْسًا تُرَى أَمْ مِنْ مَلَائِكَةٍفَكَانَ فِي مَلَكُوتِ اللَّهِ مَسْرَاهُ؟
وَكَيْفَ أَلْقَاهُ يَا أَهْلَ الْغَرَامِ وَهَلْفِي الْحُبِّ عَلَّامَةٌ تُجْدِي فَتَاوَاهُ؟
لَمْ يَطْرُقِ النَّوْمُ جَفْنِي مُذْ لَقِيتُ بِهِمِنَ الْهَوَى وَالْجَوَى مَا قَدَّرَ اللَّهُ
عَانٍ أَنَا وَنُجُومُ اللَّيْلِ تَشْهَدُ لِيلَعَلَّنِي بَعْدَ طُولِ السُّهْدِ أَلْقَاهُ
أَشْكُو إِلَى الْبَدْرِ شَكْوَى مَا أُسِرُّ بِهَافَيَسْخَرُ الْبَدْرُ إِمَّا الْقَلْبَ نَاجَاهُ
أُسَائِلُ اللَّيْلَ عَلَّ اللَّيْلَ يَعْرِفُهُوَلَا مُجِيبٌ سِوَى صَمْتٍ وَعَيْنَاهُ

Memories

  1. By God, not even Majnun1 loved his Layla so
    as I love one2 whose memory brings me woe.
  2. I met him once by chance, and it seemed as though
    time, stunned by us, stood still and would not flow.
  3. A glance of mine met its twin3, and in that glance
    there passed a conversation I cannot let go.
  4. In his eye is the magic of Hārūt4: you see
    nothing but paths where his lovers strayed, and wandered to and fro.
  5. It is as though he were an art of talk, set
    to the melody of silence5, telling what his lips have never told.
  6. He breathes his passion into me in melodies and visions
    that drive me mad, until I am his captive6, and his own.
  7. I poured out to him my heart’s passion, all it kept concealed,
    and his whispered confiding was lovelier than my own.
  8. I gave him leave to graze my heart, a fertile field7:
    ah woe, the way he grazes in my heart, ah woe!
  9. And his mouth, holding of its finest wine8
    the only draught whose heady fire can lay me low,
  10. is sweeter than sugar9, except that its rapture
    all but sets every cell aflame, from head to toe.
  11. And his cheek, as it tells the colour of his longing,
    has a glow that runs through it, whose sparks grow fiercer as they go.
  12. You’d think it a flash from the fire of his anguish,
    whose memory has left on both his cheeks a crimson glow.
  13. And his hair is jet-black, its tresses pouring down,
    a waterfall of joy that rivals night in its proud flow.
  14. It frames the face, and framing it, it makes its beauty grow;
    and who, I wonder, has ever been his match in beauty?
  15. The hair, the drowsy glance10, the smile, the turning of the neck:
    these are but a few of all the graces he can show.
  16. If I set out to count, in praise, his charms,
    I’d spend a lifetime, and not reach the depths they hide below.
  17. For God has fashioned all of him with wondrous art;
    and do not ask “How?” of what is fashioned by God.
  18. He is chaste, and chastity’s his way in love:
    how fine and chaste a soul, as, meeting him, you’ll know!
  19. And he hides his love, though he should die of it:
    he’d die a martyr11, and eternity would be his home.
  20. God has kept him far from all indecency and flaw,
    and love is the greatest of his sins12, ah woe!
  21. I gave him leave to graze my heart, a fertile field7:
    ah woe, the way he grazes in my heart, ah woe!
  22. Until I grew so faint my legs could scarcely carry me,
    and it was just the same with his.
  23. When we sat down together, our eyes did not cease
    to tell with eloquence the secret we would not let show.
  24. We were close to one another, and with us was nothing
    but the open sky, and the night’s full moon, which we watched13 glow.
  25. His breath, in passion, all but scorched me,
    and so, in turn, did my own passion’s breath, meeting his own.
  26. But what held us back from drinking at our spring14
    was our chastity: a pledge we’d kept and would not forgo.
  27. We spent the night in thirst, and never quenched it:
    the cup was full, and yet we did not drink.
  28. We shrank from plucking the fruit15, for the plucking
    would be a crime, and just the sight of it sufficed us.
  29. Until, when the morning sun had risen, his teeth16,
    without effort, outshone it and put all its flaws on show,
  30. as he rose, smiling at me in farewell, and watered
    my inmost heart, and yet only made the trials he brings me grow.
  31. Was he a human being, I wonder, or one of the angels,
    whose night journey17 lay through the kingdom of God?
  32. And how am I to meet him, O people of passion? Is there
    in love a learned scholar18 whose fatwas can avail?
  33. Sleep has not knocked upon my eyelids since, through him,
    I met such love and burning as was decreed by God.
  34. I am a captive, and the stars of night bear witness for me:
    after this long sleeplessness, I’ll meet him yet, who knows?
  35. I complain to the full moon of a grief I’ve told no one,
    and the moon mocks whenever my heart confides its woe.
  36. I ask the night, in hope the night may know him,
    and there’s no answer but a silence, and that silence we came to know19.

Notes

  1. Majnūn Laylā, 'the one driven mad by Layla', is Qays ibn al-Mulawwaḥ, a poet of seventh-century Arabia. His hopeless love for his cousin Layla, whom he was not allowed to marry, made him the proverbial lover of Arabic, Persian and Turkish literature. To swear that one's love exceeds Majnun's is to claim the utmost. ↩
  2. Throughout the poem the beloved is referred to with masculine forms ('he', 'him'), following an old convention of Arabic love poetry that veils a woman's identity. The translation keeps the masculine; the portrait itself (the drowsy eyes, the black hair framing the face, the turn of the neck) is the classical portrait of a beautiful woman. ↩
  3. Naẓra ('a glance') and naẓīra ('its counterpart, its equal') come from the same root, a play on words (jinās) that English cannot reproduce. The two glances meet as equals, and the conversation is held by the eyes alone, as verse 5 goes on to say. ↩
  4. Hārūt and Mārūt are the two angels who, according to the Qur'an (2:102), taught sorcery to the people of Babylon. 'The magic of Hārūt' is a stock image in Arabic poetry for eyes that bewitch. ↩
  5. Laḥn means 'melody, tune', and also speech that hints rather than states, meaning conveyed by allusion (as in the Qur'anic laḥn al-qawl, 47:30, 'the tone of their speech'). Both senses are at work: the beloved's silence is music, and it is also a language of hints that the lover understands. ↩
  6. Sabāyā are captives taken in war. The lover is not merely enslaved by love; he is part of the beloved's spoils. ↩
  7. The lover gives the beloved his heart as open grazing land, and the beloved grazes there at will, taking whatever he pleases of it. Awwāh is a cry of pain, 'ah, woe!', and the verse opens and closes on it. The same verse is repeated, word for word, as verse 21. ↩
  8. Sulāfa is the finest wine, the first that flows from the grapes before they are pressed; ḥumayyā is wine's heady fire, the heat it sends to the head. Classical Arabic love poetry often likens the beloved's mouth and kiss to wine. The lover's only intoxication is this one. ↩
  9. Al-sukkar ('sugar') echoes al-sukr ('drunkenness') and the verb askaru ('I grow drunk') of the verse before. The two words are spelt alike in Arabic, so the reader hears the sweetness and the intoxication together. ↩
  10. Each item belongs to the classical portrait of beauty: al-naẓra al-wasnā, the 'drowsy', languid glance of heavy-lidded eyes, and the turn of the jīd, the long neck, which recalls a gazelle turning its head. ↩
  11. The verse echoes a saying attributed to the Prophet (PBUH) and widely cited in Arabic literature on love, though its authenticity is disputed: 'Whoever loves, and stays chaste, and conceals it, and dies, dies a martyr.' The chaste lover who hides his love is promised the martyr's reward, and khuld, eternity, is a name of Paradise. ↩
  12. The irony is gentle: God has kept the beloved free of every fault, so that his only 'sin' is to love. Yā waylatā ('ah, woe!', 'woe is me!') makes a mock lament of what is really praise. ↩
  13. Narʿāhu means 'we tend it, watch over it', as a shepherd watches his flock. Sleepless lovers in Arabic poetry are said to 'tend the stars' (raʿy al-nujūm): they lie awake watching them through the night. ↩
  14. Wird is coming down to water, and mawrid the watering place. Union between lovers is pictured as a thirsty traveller reaching water, and the next verse carries the image on: thirst, a full cup, and no drinking. ↩
  15. Janā ('ripe fruit, plucked fruit') and jināya ('a crime') come from the same root, a play on words (jinās) that English cannot keep. The fruit is forbidden, and plucking it would turn the harvest into a crime. ↩
  16. Thanāyā are the front teeth, whose whiteness and brightness in a smile are praised in classical poetry. When the morning sun rises, the beloved's smile outshines it and lays bare its ʿawār, its flaws, 'without effort' (ʿafwan). The sun is put to shame. ↩
  17. Malakūt is the unseen kingdom of God, the realm of the angels. Masrā, a journey by night, fits the night the two have spent, and recalls the Night Journey (isrāʾ) of the Prophet (PBUH). The question is one of wonder: a being so pure seems to have come from heaven. ↩
  18. ʿAllāma is a title of the most learned religious scholars, and a fatwā is a formal legal opinion. The lover asks, half in jest, whether love has its own jurist who can rule on his case. ↩
  19. Waʿaynāhu, ‘we took it in, we were aware of it’, is from waʿā, ‘to grasp, to be conscious of’. The night gives no answer but silence, and that silence is something the lovers understand. The same letters could be read wa-ʿaynāhu, ‘and his eyes’, but the word here is the verb. ↩

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