ردّي عليّ

لا تفطميني عن هواك حبيبتي
ترجمة إنجليزية
شارك:
رُدِّي عَلَيَّ بِكِلْمَةٍ أُشْفَى بِهَاوَيَزُولُ عَنْ نَفْسِي أَلِيمُ عَذَابِهَا
صُبِّي كُئُوسَ الْحُلْمِ مُتْرَعَةً إِلَىأَنْ يَنْتَشِي(1) رُوحِي بِفَيْضِ حَبَابِهَا
وَتَرَفَّقِي بِي لَمْ تَزَلْ بِي لَهْفَةٌمُلْتَاعَةٌ فِي خَافِقِي أَضْنَى بِهَا
رُدِّي عَلَيَّ تَكَرُّمًا لَا تَبْخَلِيأَنْ تَفْتَحِي فِي النَّفْسِ مُغْلَقَ بَابِهَا
فِي مُقْلَتَيَّ مَسَائِلٌ حَارَتْ بِهَافِكَرٌ وَفِي عَيْنَيْكِ حَقُّ جَوَابِهَا
إِنِّي هُنَا مَا زِلْتُ أَرْوِي قِصَّتِيمَعَ مَنْ ظَمِئْتُ تَلَهُّفًا لِسَرَابِهَا
أَسْتَحْلِبُ الْعُصْفُورَ أَلْبَانَ الْهَوَىحَتَّى أُرَوِّيَ مُهْجَتِي بِشَرَابِهَا
قَدْ كُنْتُ أَخْشَى فِي النَّوَى مِنْ عَتْبِهَاوَالْيَوْمَ آمُلُ فِي لَذِيذِ عِتَابِهَا
قَالَتْ مُعَذِّبَتِي وَلَمْ تَرَ دَمْعَتِيتَسْتَمْطِرُ الرَّحَمَاتِ مِنْ أَهْدَابِهَا
كُنْ لِي كَمِثْلِ الْآخَرِينَ مَحَبَّةًوَصَدَاقَةً فَلَأَنْتَ مَنْ أَحْرَى بِهَا
وَيْحِي وَقَدْ جَعَلَتْ هُيَامِي قَطْرَةًسَقَطَتْ لِتَفْنَى فِي مُحِيطِ عُبَابِهَا
أَنَا لَسْتُ أَرْضَى أَنْ أَكُونَ كَمِثْلِهِمْفَرْدًا يُرَى فَيُعَدُّ مِنْ أَحْبَابِهَا
حَتَّى أَكُونَ وَحِيدَهَا مِنْ بَيْنِهِمْوَوَحِيدَتِي هِيَ فِي هَوَى أَتْرَابِهَا
أَوَ مَا دَرَتْ أَنِّي سَأُغْنِيهَا عَنِ الــشُّرَكَاءِ مِمَّنْ لَاذَ فِي أَعْتَابِهَا
إِنَّ الْجَمِيلَةَ كَالْحَلَاوَةِ قَدْ تُعَافُ … إِذَا تَزَاحَمَ نَحْلُهَا بِذُبَابِهَا
  1. (1) «أن ينتشي» حقها النصب «ينتشيَ»، وسُكّنت الياء ضرورةً لاستقامة الوزن.

مقدشو – الصومال
8/3/90م

Answer Me

  1. Answer me with a word to heal me, and to ease
    my soul of all its torment and its aching pain.
  2. Pour out the cups of dream, filled to the brim, until
    my spirit grows drunk (1) on their overflowing foam.
  3. And go gently with me: an anguished longing burns
    within my heart still, and I waste in its flame.
  4. Answer me, be generous, and don’t begrudge
    the opening of the locked door of my soul.
  5. My eyes hold questions over which all thought is lost,
    and yours hold the answers that are theirs by right.
  6. Here I am, still telling my story with the one
    whose mirage I have thirsted for, in yearning.
  7. I try to milk the sparrow for the milk of love1,
    to quench my heart with what it gives to drink.
  8. In separation I once dreaded her reproach;
    today I long for the sweetness of her chiding2.
  9. My tormentress then said, not seeing how my tear
    was praying that her lashes3 would pour down mercy’s rain:
  10. “Be to me as the others are, in love and friendship;
    you are the worthiest of them to have that claim.”
  11. Woe is me! She has made my passion a drop
    that fell only to vanish in her ocean’s surging waves.
  12. I will not be content to be as they are,
    just one, seen and counted in her lovers’ train,
  13. not till I am her only one among them all,
    and she, of all the girls her age, my only flame.
  14. Does she not know that I would spare her any need
    of rivals4 who seek shelter at her thresholds?
  15. A beauty is like sweets: she can become repellent…
    when her bees are jostled by her flies5.
  • (1) An yantashī, ‘that it grow drunk’, should properly take the subjunctive, yantashiya; the yāʾ has been made quiescent out of necessity, to keep the metre.

Mogadishu, Somalia, 8 March 1990

Notes

  1. ‘The milk of birds’ is an Arabic byword for something that does not exist or cannot be had, and in popular speech ‘sparrow’s milk’ is the thing no one can obtain. To try to milk a sparrow is to seek the impossible: the love he wants from her. ↩
  2. The verse turns on ʿatb and ʿitāb, two forms of the same root meaning ‘reproach’. The first is the reproach he once feared; the second, whose form suggests an exchange, is the lovers’ mutual reproaching he now hopes for, since even being scolded would mean she cares. ↩
  3. Tastamṭiru, ‘seeks rain from’, is the word for praying for rain. ‘Her lashes’ are the beloved’s: his tear pleads with her eyes to rain down mercy, that is, to be moved. She does not see it. ↩
  4. Al-shurakāʾ, ‘partners, sharers’, are the rivals who share in her attention, pictured as suppliants taking refuge at her door. He promises to be enough for her on his own, so that she will need none of them. ↩
  5. The final simile explains his refusal to be ‘one of the others’. Sweetness draws bees, which are welcome, but also flies; when the flies throng it, the sweet becomes repellent. The pause marked in the Arabic (…) holds back the unflattering point for a moment before it lands. ↩

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