هاك روحي!

عبير الأبد
ترجمة إنجليزية
شارك:
أَنَا كُلِّي وَكُلُّ مَا فِي يَدَيَّهْمِلْكُ عَيْنَيْكِ لَيْسَ شَيْءٌ لَدَيَّهْ
كُلُّ شَيْءٍ مَهْمَا تَسَامَى سَيَفْنَىمَا عَدَا الرُّوحَ إِذْ هِيَ الْأَبَدِيَّهْ
لَيْسَ عِنْدِي إِذَا قَبِلْتِ سِوَاهَاوَبَقَايَا أَوْتَارِ نَفْسٍ شَجِيَّهْ
هَاكِ رُوحِي حَبِيبَتِي فَامْلِكِيهَاإِنَّمَا الرُّوحُ فِي حِمَاكِ هَنِيَّهْ
هَاكِ رُوحِي تَصَرَّفِي كَيْفَ شَاءَتْلَكِ رُوحِي فَمَا تَزَالُ سَخِيَّهْ
لَا تَرُدِّيهِ مَا سَلَبْتِهِ غَصْبًاأَنْتِ عَنْ سَلْبِ مُهْجَتِي لَغَنِيَّهْ
لَا تَمُنِّي بِهَا عَلَيَّ امْتِنَانًافَهْيَ تَلْقَى لَدَيْكِ دُنْيَا هَنِيَّهْ
إِنَّ عِزَّ الْأَرْوَاحِ أَنْ تَمْلِكِيهَاإِي، وَإِلَّا فَإِنَّهَا لَشَقِيَّهْ
فِيكِ رُوحِي لَا تَمْلِكِينَ سِوَاهَافَهْيَ مِلْكٌ لَنَا وَلَيْسَتْ هَدِيَّهْ
امْلِكِينِي وَأَنْتِ مُلْكِي، وَمُلْكِيلَكِ مُلْكٌ، وَلَا تُبَالِي الْبَرِيَّهْ
فِيكِ نَفْسِي أُحِبُّ بَلْ لِيَ أَشْدُولَمْ أُغَازِلْ سِوَاكِ كُلَّ عَشِيَّهْ
أَنْتِ لَمْ تَعْشَقِي سِوَاكِ وَلَكِنْقَدْ تَجَلَّيْتِ فِي عُيُونِيَ رُؤْيَهْ
أَنْتِ رُوحِي فَكَيْفَ أُهْدِيكِ رُوحِييَا مَلَاكِي أَنَا وَأَنْتِ سَوِيَّهْ
نَحْنُ رُوحٌ قَدْ حَلَّ جِسْمَيْنِ حَقًّاكَمْ أَرَى فِيكِ مَا تَرَيْنَهُ فِيَّهْ

مقديشو — 12/2/1992م

Here, Take My Soul!

  1. All that I am, and all my hands hold, is the property
    of your eyes; nothing at all is left to me.
  2. Everything, however high it rises, passes away,
    except the soul, for the soul lives on eternally.
  3. If you accept it, I have nothing but my soul,
    and the remnants of the strings of a self in melancholy.
  4. Here, take my soul, my love, and make it yours;
    for in your keeping the soul rests easily.
  5. Here, take my soul, and do with it as it may please;
    my soul is yours, and still it gives so generously.
  6. Do not give back what you have seized by force;
    you are too rich to need to plunder my heart1 from me.
  7. Do not hold it over me as a favour2 you have done,
    for with you it has found a life lived pleasantly.
  8. It is the glory of souls that you should own them — yes,
    indeed! Otherwise, they live in misery.
  9. My soul is in you; you own no soul but this,
    for it is ours to own, and not a gift from me.
  10. Own me3, and you are mine to own; and all I own
    is yours to own. And pay no heed to all humanity.
  11. In you it is myself I love; no, to myself I sing;
    I have wooed no one but you, evening after evening.
  12. You never loved another but yourself, and yet
    within my eyes you stood revealed4, a vision I could see.
  13. You are my soul: how, then, can I give you my soul?
    My angel, you and I are one, completely.
  14. We are, in truth, one soul5 that has come to dwell in two bodies;
    how often I see in you what you see in me!

Mogadishu, 12 February 1992

Notes

  1. Literally, ‘you are too rich to need to rob me of my heart’s blood’. Muhja is the heart’s blood, life itself. The beloved has already taken his heart by force, and he begs her not to return it; there is no need for plunder, since he gives everything freely. ↩
  2. Mann is to remind someone of a favour one has done him, which in Arab ethics spoils the favour itself. The poet asks the beloved not to count her acceptance of his soul as a kindness to him, for the soul is the one that gains: with her it lives in ease. ↩
  3. The verse plays on the root m-l-k, ‘to own, to rule’: umlukīnī (‘own me’) wa-anti mulkī (‘and you are my possession’), wa-mulkī laki mulk (‘and my possession is a possession of yours’). Mulk means both property and sovereignty, so the lovers are at once each other’s owners and each other’s kingdom. The repetition makes ownership circular: neither gives, because each already holds the other. ↩
  4. Tajallā, ‘to reveal oneself, to become manifest’, is a key word of Sufi language, used of God’s self-disclosure to the heart. Here the beloved, who loves only herself, sees herself shining in the lover’s eyes: in loving him she loves her own image, and in singing of her he sings of himself (the previous verse). The two verses prepare the conclusion that they are a single soul. ↩
  5. The line recalls, and reverses, a famous verse attributed to the mystic al-Ḥallāj: ‘I am the one I love, and the one I love is I; we are two spirits dwelling in one body.’ The poet makes it one soul dwelling in two bodies, which is also the old definition of friendship ascribed to Aristotle. ↩

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