تهديد شديد اللهجة

لا تفطميني عن هواك حبيبتي
ترجمة إنجليزية
شارك:
غَيْرُ قَلْبِي يُدَاسُ أَوْ يَتَحَطَّمْفَاعْلَمِي إِنْ جَهِلْتِ فَالنَّاسُ تَعْلَمْ
وَسِوَى مُهْجَتِي بِصَدِّكِ يَشْقَىوَيَرَى الْأَسْرَ فِي قُيُودِكِ مَغْنَمْ
لَسْتُ مِمَّنْ يَرْضَى الْهَوَانَ وَإِنْ كَانَ لَدَى الْحُبِّ لِي دَوَاءٌ وَبَلْسَمْ
مَنْزِلُ الْحُبِّ ذُو جَلَالٍ وَلَكِنْعِزَّةُ النَّفْسِ مِنْهُ أَسْمَى وَأَعْظَمْ
أَلْفُ أُنْثَى إِنْ شِئْتُ تَحْتَ حِذَائِييَتَرَجَّيْنَنِي بِأَنْ أَتَقَدَّمْ
هَدِّدِي بِالصُّدُودِ مَنْ يَتَمَنَّىلَوْ يُنَاجِيكِ وَهْوَ فِيكِ مُتَيَّمْ
إِنْ يَكُ الصَّدُّ فِيكِ أَقْوَى سِلَاحٍفَلِغَيْرِي يَكُونُ أَمْضَى وَأَحْسَمْ
فَسِلَاحِي أَنَا أَشَدُّ وَأَعْتَىوَإِذَا مَا أَبْدَيْتُ فَالْمَوْتُ أَرْحَمْ
يُخْطِئُ الْمَرْءُ مَرَّةً وَسَأَبْقَىذَاكِرًا غَلْطَتِي لِكَيْ أَتَعَلَّمْ
وَهْيَ أَنِّي أَخْلَصْتُ فِيكِ وِدَادِيفَجَنَيْتُ الثِّمَارَ صَبْرًا وَعَلْقَمْ
وَاهِمًا فِيكِ أَنْ سَأَلْقَى هَنَائِيوَسَأَحْيَا طَوَالَ عُمْرِي أَغْنَمْ
غَيْرَ أَنِّي أَرَى بِنَاءَ فُؤَادِيوَصُرُوحًا شَيَّدْتُهَا تَتَهَدَّمْ
فَكَأَنِّي كَتَبْتُ فَوْقَ مِيَاهٍوَسَكَبْتُ الْهَوَى بِكَأْسٍ تَحَطَّمْ
وَسَأَبْقَى مَا عِشْتُ أَذْكُرُ لُقْيَاكِ وَلَكِنْ إِذَا تَذَكَّرْتُ أَنْدَمْ
وَسَأَحْيَا لِلْحُبِّ لَكِنْ عَزِيزًافِي حِمَاهُ وَلِلْهَوَى أَتَرَنَّمْ

صنعاء – اليمن
1/4/92م

A Strongly Worded Threat1

  1. It is some other heart that’s trampled or that breaks:
    know this, if you don’t know; the people know it all the same2.
  2. It is some other soul your coldness makes a wretch,
    that counts it gain to be a captive in your chains.
  3. I am not one to stoop to humiliation, even though
    love held a cure for me, a remedy and balm.
  4. Love’s station has its majesty,
    but self-respect is loftier and greater still.
  5. A thousand women, if I wished, would lie beneath my shoe3,
    pleading that I come forward and stake my claim.
  6. Go, threaten with your coldness one who longs
    only to whisper with you, one whom love for you has enslaved4.
  7. If coldness is the strongest weapon that you have,
    on others it will cut more keenly, and with surer aim.
  8. For my own weapon is harsher and more brutal still,
    and if I draw it, death would be the kinder fate.
  9. A man may err just once; and I will keep
    my error still in mind, so that I learn.
  10. And it was this: I gave you my affection, true and whole,
    and all the fruit I reaped was patience5 and colocynth,
  11. deluding myself that in you I would find my happiness,
    and live out all my life in gain.
  12. But now I see the building of my heart,
    the lofty towers I raised, collapsing to the ground.
  13. It is as if I’d written on the water,
    and poured my love into a cup that broke.
  14. As long as I live I’ll remember meeting you,
    but every time that I remember, I’ll regret.
  15. And I shall live for love, but proud and unbowed
    within its sanctuary; and it is passion I will sing.

Sanaa, Yemen, 1 April 1992

Notes

  1. Tahdīd shadīd al-lahja, ‘a threat in strong terms’, is the stock phrase of diplomatic communiqués and news bulletins. Applied to a lover’s quarrel, the official language gives the title its humour, and the poem that follows is indeed a stern warning addressed to the beloved. ↩
  2. The Arabic fronts ‘other than my heart’ (ghayru qalbī), giving the emphatic sense ‘it is not my heart that…’. The closing words, ‘people know it’, mean that his firmness is well known to everyone except her. ↩
  3. Taḥta ḥidhāʾī, ‘beneath my shoe’, is a deliberately harsh boast suited to the ‘threat’ of the title. Ataqaddam, ‘to come forward’, is the ordinary word for a man presenting himself to ask for a woman’s hand in marriage. ↩
  4. Mutayyam: one whom love has enslaved, from taym, ‘slave, servant’, as in the old tribal name Taym Allāh, ‘servant of God’. The command is ironic: such threats may work on a love-slave, not on the speaker. ↩
  5. Ṣabr means both ‘patience’ and ‘aloes’, the bitter juice of the aloe plant, which classical poets pair with ʿalqam, colocynth, the bitterest of desert gourds. The pun (tawriya) makes the harvest doubly bitter: he reaped the patience he had to show, and the bitterness of aloes and colocynth together. ↩

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