أحببتها قدرا

أنت أبهى
ترجمة إنجليزية
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أَيْنَ الَّتِي أَحْبَبْتُهَا قَدَرَامِنْ قَبْلِ أَنْ أُلْقِي لَهَا نَظَرَا
هَٰذَا نَصِيبِي مِنْ مَحَبَّتِهَابَانَتْ لَنَا ثُمَّ اخْتَفَتْ قَدَرَا
فَاعْجَبْ لِحُبٍّ كَانَ مَنْشَؤُهُسَطْرٌ بَدَا ثُمّ امّحَىٰ أثَرَا
يَا أَحْرُفًا أَوْرَتْ بِمُهْجَتِنَاوَقْدًا وَلَا يَنْفَكُّ مُسْتَعِرَا
قُولِي لِمَنْ خَطَّتْكِ فِيْ عَبَثٍمَاذَا جَنَىٰ قَلْبٌ بِكِ انْبَهرَا
أَشْعَلْتِهِ مِنْ بَعْدِ مَا خَمَدَتْأَضْلَاعُهُ بَلْ كَانَ مُدَّثِرَا
أَسْكَرْتِهِ مِنْ بَعْدِ صَحْوَتِهِوَالْحُسْنُ خَيْرُ مَا بِهِ سَكِرَا
قَدْ كَانَ جَدْبًا بَعْدَ خُضْرَتِهِأنْعِمْ بِهِ مُعْشَوْشِبًا خَضِرَا!
مِنْ بَعْدِ دَهْرٍ ضَاعَ مِنْهُ سُدًىأَيْقَظْتِ فِيهِ الْوَجْدَ فَانْهَمَرَا
هَلْ مِنْ لِقَاءٍ غَيْرِ مُرْتَقَبٍنُفْشِي بِهِ مَا كَانَ مُسْتَتِرَا

I Loved Her as Fate Decreed1

  1. Where is the one I loved before
    I’d ever glanced at her, as fate decreed1?
  2. This is my portion of her love:
    she showed herself2 to us, then vanished, as fate decreed.
  3. So marvel at a love that sprang
    from a written line3 that came in sight, then left no trace to read.
  4. O letters that have struck4 within our heart’s blood
    a fire that keeps on blazing and will not recede!
  5. Say to the one who traced you idly: what misdeed
    has a heart done, that you have dazzled?
  6. You set it alight after its ribs had cooled,
    their fire gone out; indeed, it lay wrapped in its cloak5.
  7. You made it drunk when it had grown sober,
    and beauty is the finest thing to be drunk on.
  8. It had grown barren after it was green:
    how fine6 it is now, lush and thick with grass again!
  9. After an age it had wasted, all for nothing,
    you woke the passion in it, and down it poured.
  10. Might there be a meeting, one we never looked for,
    where we could bring to light all that has lain concealed?

Notes

  1. Qadaran means ‘by destiny, as fate decreed’, and the word closes both of the first two verses. Fate frames the whole love: it began by fate before he ever saw her, and by fate she disappeared. Repeating the rhyme word so soon gives it emphatic weight. ↩
  2. Bānat means ‘she appeared, became clear’. The same verb, bāna, also means ‘to depart, to part’, and bayn is the separation of lovers: the famous ode of Kaʿb ibn Zuhayr opens bānat Suʿād, ‘Suʿād has departed’. The word therefore carries both halves of his fortune at once, her appearing and her leaving, which the verse then spells out: ‘she showed herself, then vanished’. ↩
  3. The love was born from writing: he knew her first through her written words, a line that appeared and was then effaced. This explains verse 1, a love that came ‘before I’d ever glanced at her’, and verses 4–5, which address the letters themselves and the woman who wrote them. ↩
  4. Awrā is to strike fire from a flint or fire-stick (zand). The letters are the flint, his heart’s blood the tinder, and the spark has become a fire that will not die down. ↩
  5. Muddaththir, ‘wrapped in a cloak’, recalls the Qurʾānic address yā ayyuhā l-muddaththir, ‘O you wrapped in your cloak’ (74:1). The heart had drawn its cloak about itself and withdrawn from love, as embers lie banked under ash, until the letters rekindled it. ↩
  6. Anʿim bihi is an Arabic formula of exclamation, ‘how fine it is!’. Muʿshawshib comes from the intensive verb iʿshawshaba, ‘to be thickly covered in grass’: the long, heavy form of the word itself conveys abundance. Barren ground after rain is an old image for a heart revived by love. ↩

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