متى تكمّل فراغاتي

أنت أبهى
ترجمة إنجليزية
شارك:
استمع إلى القصيدة
يَا مَنْ تُطِلُّ كَشَمْسٍ فِي صَبَاحَاتِيوَمَنْ بِهَمْسِكَ تَحْلُو لِي مَسَاءَاتِي
وَمَنْ يُنَفِّسُ عَنْ نَفْسِي تَحَمُّلَ مَاضَاقَتْ بِهِ النَّفْسُ مِنْ أَقْسَى عَذَابَاتِي
لَقَدْ بَرَىٰ اللَّهُ هَذَا الْخَلْقَ مَا انْتَفَضَتْإِلَّا لِشَخْصِكَ بَيْنَ النَّاسِ ذَرَّاتِي
يَشُقُّ صَمْتَ الدُّجَى صَمْتِي تَضِجُّ بِهِمَكْبُوتَةً فِي حَنَايَا الْقَلْبِ أَنَّاتِي
وَلَسْتُ أَمْلِكُ مِنْ نَفْسِي وَلَا نَفَسِيإِلَّا التَّأَوُّهَ أُخْفِيهِ بِضَحْكَاتِي
وَلَوْ دَرَى النَّاسُ مَا بِي أَشْفَقُوا وَرَأَوْافِي بَسْمَتِي تَتَوَارَى جُلُّ آهَاتِي
أَبْكِي بِصَمْتِي، أُمَنِّي النَّفْسَ مُتْعَتَهَاأَسْتَفْرِغُ الدَّمْعَ إِذْ تَذْكُو صَبَابَاتِي
فِي كُلِّ زَاوِيَةٍ مِنْ مُهْجَتِي شَجَنٌغَيْرُ الَّذِي فَاتَ، يَشْكُو أَمْسِيَ الْآتِي
مَضَتْ لَيَالٍ وَأَيَّامٌ عَلَى خَلَدِيخَلَتْ عَنِ الْأُنْسِ إِلَّا مِنْ شِكَايَاتِي
لَمْ أَدْرِ طَعْمَ الْهَوَى مِنْ قَبْلِ حُبِّكُمُوَلَمْ تَذُقْ مُهْجَتِي طَعْمَ الْمَسَرَّاتِ
وَمِلْءُ رُوحِي فَرَاغَاتٌ مُنَقَّطَةٌمَتَى تُكَمِّلُ يَا رُوحِي فَرَاغَاتِي؟
وَلَنْ تُكَمِّلَهَا مَهْمَا فَعَلْتَ بِهَاإِلَّا بِذَاتِكَ أَنْ تَنْسَاحَ فِي ذَاتِي
نَاشَدْتُكَ اللَّهَ أَنْ تَأْتِي تُكَمِّلُنِيفَقَدْ سَئِمْتُ وَطَالَتْ بِي جِرَاحَاتِي
أَقْبِلْ لِتَخْضَرَّ فِي قَلْبِي حَدِيقَتُهُمِنْ بَعْدِ جَدْبٍ وَأَمْطِرْ فِي فَضَاءَاتِي
أَنْتَ الرَّبِيعُ لِقَلْبِي مُذْ حَلَلْتَ بِهِقَدْ أَزْهَرَ الْقَلْبُ فَلْتَرْتَعْ فَرَاشَاتِي

When Will You Fill In My Blanks?1

  1. O you who rise, a sun, upon my mornings,
    and you whose whisper sweetens all my evenings,
  2. who lift from my soul the weight of all it could not bear
    among the very cruellest of my sufferings!
  3. God fashioned all this world of creatures; yet, of all mankind,
    for you alone have ever quivered all the atoms of my being.
  4. My silence splits the silence of the night,
    while, pent within my heart's recesses, all my moans are clamouring2.
  5. I own nothing of my self, nor of my breath3,
    except the sighs I hide beneath my laughing.
  6. If people knew what ails me, they would pity me, and see
    most of my sighs lie hidden in my smiling.
  7. I weep in silence; feed my soul on hopes of its delight;
    I drain my tears to the last when ardour blazes in my longings.
  8. In every corner of my heart there lies a grief
    besides the one gone by; my yesterday to come4 is now complaining.
  9. The nights and days have passed across my inmost heart,
    bare of all company except for my complainings.
  10. I never knew the taste of love before I loved you5,
    and never had my heart once known the taste of joyful things.
  11. And filling all my soul are dotted blanks:
    when, O my soul6, will you fill in my blanks?
  12. And you will never fill them, whatever you may do,
    except by letting your own self flow out into my being.
  13. By God I beg you: come to me, complete me,
    for I am weary, and my wounds drag on, unhealing.
  14. Come, so the garden in my heart may turn green once again
    after the drought; and rain down on my open spaces.
  15. You've been my heart's own springtime since you came to dwell in it:
    the heart has blossomed; let my butterflies go wandering.

Notes

  1. Farāghāt munaqqaṭa, 'dotted blanks' (verse 11), are the dotted lines left in a text or exercise to be filled in. The poem's closing image of the speaker's soul as a form with blanks waiting to be completed gives the poem its title. The speaker of the whole poem is the woman, addressing the man she loves. ↩
  2. The verse is built on paradox: a silence that breaks the silence of night, and moans that are both suppressed and loud. What cannot be voiced is felt all the more loudly within. ↩
  3. Nafsī, 'my self, my soul', and nafasī, 'my breath', differ only in a vowel (jinās). The speaker is master neither of herself nor of her own breathing, which comes only as sighs. ↩
  4. Amsī al-ātī, 'my coming yesterday', is a deliberate paradox: the future holds nothing but another yesterday. Tomorrow's grief is already known, and already complains. ↩
  5. Ḥubbikum, 'loving you', uses the plural 'you', a customary form of respect and discretion in addressing a loved one in Arabic love poetry. ↩
  6. Yā rūḥī, 'O my soul', is a common Arabic endearment for a loved one. Here it also plays on the first half of the verse: the soul full of blanks calls on 'my soul', the man she loves, to complete it. ↩

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