ما بال طرفك أحمرا

أوتار مبعثرة
ترجمة إنجليزية
شارك:
قَالَتْ تُرَى، مَا بَالُ طَرْفِكَ أَحْمَرَا؟قُلْتُ: الْهَوَى أَبْكَى الْعُيُونَ وَأَسْهَرَا
قَالَتْ: بِمَنْ فُتِنَ الْفُؤَادُ؟ فَقُلْتُ: مَنْظَلَّتْ تُتَيِّمُنِي، وَتَحْرِمُنِي الْكَرَى
قَالَتْ: كِلَانَا مُبْتَلًى فِي ذَا الْهَوَىيَبْدُو بِعَيْنِكَ مَا بِقَلْبِي أُضْمِرَا
مَا زِلْتَ فِي خَلَدِي كَأَوَّلِ يَوْمِنَاأَمْطَرْتَ فِيهِ فَصَارَ قَلْبِي مُزْهِرًا
وَاعْشَوْشَبَتْ أَرْكَانُهُ بِكَ مُبْهِرًاحَتَّى غَدَتْ عَيْنِي لِغَيْرِكَ لَا تَرَى

Why Are Your Eyes So Red?

  1. She asked, “Now tell me, why are your eyes so red?”
    I said, “It's love that keeps the eyes awake, and makes them weep.”
  2. She asked, “Who has enchanted your heart?” I said, “The one
    who keeps me still in love's thrall, and robs my eyes of sleep.”
  3. She said, “We both are stricken in this love:
    your eyes lay bare the secret that my heart would keep1.
  4. You're in my thoughts still, as on our first day,
    when you rained on me, and made my heart burst into bloom,
  5. and all its corners grew lush2 through you, you dazzled so,
    till my eyes could see no other one but you.”

Notes

  1. From this verse to the end, the beloved is the speaker; the verbs and pronouns of verses 4 and 5 are addressed to a man. Her reply turns the dialogue around: he has been describing his sleepless love, and she confesses that she shares it, so that his reddened eyes show what she has been hiding in her own heart. ↩
  2. Iʿshawshaba is an intensive form of the verb ʿashuba, 'to be grassy'. It means to grow thick and luxuriant with grass, the way desert ground does after rain. Together with 'rained' and 'burst into bloom' in the previous verse, it completes the image of the man as rain and of her heart as parched earth brought to life. ↩

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