سلام

عبير الأبد
ترجمة إنجليزية
شارك:
سَلَامٌ عَلَى مَنْ لَا أُطِيقُ هَوَاهَاسَلَامُ مُحِبٍّ مُكْتَوٍ بِلَظَاهَا
أَقُولُ سَلَاماً وَهْوَ زَفْرَةُ وَاجِدٍوَأَنَّةُ مُشْتَاقٍ لِيَوْمِ لِقَاهَا
تَجُوبُ رِيَاضَ الْكَوْنِ تَسْتَافُ عَاطِراًمِنَ الزَّهْرِ مَزْهُوّاً يَفُوحُ شَذَاهَا
وَتَمْتَصُّ مِنْ كُلِّ الزُّهُورِ رَحِيقَهَاوَتَشْتَارُ مِنْ كُلِّ الْوُرُودِ نَدَاهَا
تَهُبُّ نَسِيماً فَوْقَ كُلِّ خَمِيلَةٍعَلَى الْأَرْضِ تَطْوِي سَهْلَهَا وَرُبَاهَا
وَتَرْكَبُ مَتْنَ السُّحْبِ وَهْيَ مَوَاطِرٌعَلَى رَوْضَةِ اللُّقْيَا يَزِيدُ نِدَاهَا
تَسِيرُ مَعَ الرَّقْرَاقِ مِنْ كُلِّ جَدْوَلٍوَكُلِّ نَمِيرٍ سَلْسَلٍ يَتَبَاهَى
وَتَخْلِسُ مِنْ شَمْسِ النَّهَارِ شُعَاعَهَاوَتَلْبَسُ مِنْهَا دِفْئَهَا وَضِيَاهَا
وَمِنْ ذَلِكَ الْبَدْرِ الْمُتِمِّ بَهَاءَهُوَسِحْرُ رُؤَاهُ يَسْتَحِثُّ سُرَاهَا
وَمِنْ رَوْعَةِ الْإِشْرَاقِ عِزَّ جَلَالِهَاوَمِنْ سِحْرِ أَلْوَانِ الْأَصِيلِ سَنَاهَا
فَحَتَّى إِذَا جَاءَتْ لَدَيْهَا جَثَتْ لَهَاتُقَبِّلُ خَدّاً ثُمَّ تَلْثِمُ فَاهَا
تَقُولُ لَهَا هَذِي رِسَالَةُ عَاشِقٍطَغَى حُبُّهُ فِي قَلْبِهِ وَتَنَاهَى
وَطَارَ لَذِيذُ النَّوْمِ عَنْ عَيْنِهِ جَوىًكَأَنَّ شَقِيّاً قَدْ مَضَى بِكَرَاهَا
وَلَيْسَ لَهُ شَيْءٌ يُسَلِّيهِ مَا سِوَىطُيُوفٍ لِمَنْ يَهْوَى يَلَذُّ رُؤَاهَا
فَجُودِي لَهُ يَوْماً وَزُورِيهِ مَرَّةًوَسُرِّي لَهُ نَفْساً يَعِزُّ عَنَاهَا

A Greeting of Peace1

  1. Peace be to her whose love I cannot bear:
    a lover’s peace, one branded2 by its blaze.
  2. I say “Peace”, and it’s the sigh of one consumed,
    the moan of one who longs for their meeting day.
  3. It roams the gardens of the world3 and breathes
    the flowers’ proud perfume, their wafting bouquet.
  4. It sips the nectar out of every bloom,
    and, like a bee, takes dew from every rose’s spray.
  5. It blows, a breeze, above each thicket on the earth,
    and folds its plains and hills behind it on its way.
  6. It rides the backs of clouds as they pour rain
    upon the meadow where the lovers meet, and louder grows its call.
  7. It travels with the ripple of each stream,
    of every clear, sweet brook that runs in proud display.
  8. It steals its rays out of the daytime sun,
    and wears its warmth and light as its array.
  9. And from that full moon, whose splendour is complete;
    and the magic of its face spurs on its journey through the night4.
  10. Its majesty grows mighty from the splendour of the dawn,
    its radiance from the magic of the colours of late afternoon5.
  11. And when at last it comes to her, it kneels before her,
    and kisses first a cheek, and then presses its lips to her mouth.
  12. It tells her: “Here’s a message from a lover
    whose love has overrun his heart and holds the utmost sway.
  13. Sweet sleep has flown out of his eyes for passion’s burn,
    as if some wretch had come and stolen his slumber away6.
  14. There is nothing to console him but the phantoms7,
    sweet to behold, of the one he loves.
  15. So be generous to him one day; just once, come visit him,
    and gladden a soul whose anguish is so hard to allay.”

Notes

  1. Salām means both 'peace' and 'greeting'. The formula salāmun ʿalā ('peace be upon…'), with which the poem opens, is the ordinary Islamic greeting and the customary opening of a letter, and it is also how classical poets address an absent beloved from afar. The whole poem is this one greeting, sent out on a journey. ↩
  2. Muktawin, 'branded, cauterised', is used of flesh seared with a hot iron; laẓā is flaming, blazing fire. The love he greets her with is the same love that burns him. The line opens with 'peace' and ends in fire, and the contrast is deliberate. ↩
  3. From here the greeting itself becomes a traveller. It crosses gardens, streams, clouds, sun and moon, gathering the beauty of the whole world before it reaches the beloved. This develops an old motif of Arabic love poetry, in which the breeze (nasīm, especially the east wind, ṣabā) carries a lover's greetings and messages. The poem opens with the greeting (salām), but the verbs that follow are feminine, pointing to the 'message' (risāla) that the traveller names itself in verse 12: the greeting and the message are one. Tastāfu means 'breathes in, sniffs'; in verse 4, tashtāru is the verb for gathering honey from the comb. In verse 5, 'folding away' the land (ṭayy al-arḍ) is the Arabic idiom for crossing great distances so swiftly that the earth seems to roll up behind the traveller. ↩
  4. Surā is travel by night. The full moon, which lights a night traveller's way, here draws the greeting onward by the magic of its face. ↩
  5. Ishrāq (sunrise) and aṣīl (late afternoon, the golden hour before sunset) form a contrast (ṭibāq). With the sun of verse 8 and the moon of verse 9, the greeting gathers the beauty of the whole day and night, from first light to dusk. ↩
  6. Karā is sleep, and shaqī is a wretch, a villain: sleep has been snatched away as though a thief had carried it off. The verb ṭāra ('flew away') pictures sleep as a startled bird. ↩
  7. Ṭayf, the phantom of the beloved, visits the lover by night in classical Arabic love poetry. Since sleep has fled from him (verse 13), these phantoms come to a waking man, which is why he begs in the last verse for a real visit instead. ↩

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