مهلًا عليّ

لا تفطميني عن هواك حبيبتي
ترجمة إنجليزية
شارك:
مَهْلًا عَلَيَّ فَمَا فِي الْخَمْرِ تِرْيَاقِييَكْفِي فُؤَادِيَ سُكْرُ الْعِشْقِ يَا سَاقِي
ثُمَالَةٌ مِنْ طِلَا حُبٍّ مُعَرْبِدَةٌفِي كَأْسِ قَلْبِي.. تَهُزُّ الْيَوْمَ أَعْمَاقِي
لَوْ وُزِّعَتْ قَطْرَةٌ مِنْهَا عَلَى أُمَمٍلَأَسْكَرَتْهُمْ بِإِحْسَاسِ الْهَوَى الرَّاقِي
وَأَثْمَرَتْ مُهَجًا ذَابَتْ عَلَى مُقَلٍتَبْكِي بِدَمْعٍ عَلَى الْوَجْنَاتِ رَقْرَاقِ
لَمْ تُتَّخَذْ مِنْ كُرُومِ الزَّرْعِ بَلْ عُصِرَتْفِي الْقَلْبِ مِنْ كَرْمِ أَلْحَاظٍ وَأَحْدَاقِ
فَمَنْ يُشَارِكُنِي هَذِي الطِّلَا فَلَهُمِنِّي الْوَفَاءُ وَدَمْعُ الْوَجْدِ مِيثَاقِي
أُهْدِيهِ مِنْ رَاحِنَا مَا قَدْ يَذُوبُ بِهِسُكْرًا فَيَعْرِفُ.. مَا أَلْقَى بِأَشْوَاقِي
سُكْرُ الْهَوَى خَيْرُ سُكْرٍ فِيهِ مَحْمَدَةٌلَا بَارَكَ اللَّهُ بَعْدَ الْحُبِّ فِي الْبَاقِي

مقديشو
1985م

Go Easy on Me

  1. Go easy on me1: my antidote is not in wine.
    Love's drunkenness, cupbearer, is enough for this heart of mine.
  2. The dregs2 of love's wine, brawling in the goblet of my heart…
    are shaking me today down to my very depths.
  3. Were but a single drop of it shared out among the nations,
    it would make them drunk with the feeling of a love refined,
  4. and bear its fruit in hearts that melt away into the eyes3
    that weep, with shimmering tears that down the cheeks would shine.
  5. It was not made from vineyards in the field; it was pressed
    within the heart, where glances and dark eyes4 are the vine.
  6. Whoever shares this wine with me shall have my loyalty;
    the tears of passion are the covenant I sign.
  7. I'll give him, from our wine5, enough to make him melt in drunkenness,
    and then he'll know… the anguish of this longing that is mine.
  8. The drunkenness of love's the best, the one that merits praise6;
    after love, may God bless nothing that remains behind!7

Mogadishu, 1985

Notes

  1. The poem takes up the khamriyya, the wine poem of the Arabic tradition, with its cupbearer (sāqī) and its cup, but turns it inside out. The poet waves away the cupbearer's wine, which Islam forbids, and declares that love alone intoxicates him. Sufi poets had long used wine in this way as a figure for an intoxication of the heart. ↩
  2. Thumāla is the remnant left at the bottom of the cup, and ṭilā, one of the old names for wine, is literally grape juice boiled down. The paradox is deliberate: a mere remnant of love's wine is enough to make the heart brawl like a drunkard (muʿarbida, 'riotous, rowdy in drink'). ↩
  3. Muhaj dhābat ʿalā muqal can also be read as 'hearts that melted with longing for eyes', that is, hearts that pined away for the beloved's beautiful eyes. The reading chosen here follows the rest of the verse: the hearts dissolve and flow out as the tears of the weeping eyes. Both senses may be meant. ↩
  4. Karm is both the grapevine and the vineyard. The poet sets the vineyards of the field against a 'vineyard' of alḥāẓ, glances cast from the corners of the eyes, and aḥdāq, the pupils or dark centres of the eyes. The beloved's eyes are the grapes from which the heart presses its wine. ↩
  5. Rāḥ is a name for wine, but it is also the plural of rāḥa, 'palm of the hand'. Min rāḥinā can therefore be heard both as 'from our wine' and as 'from our palms', as though the poet poured it for his companion with his own hands. ↩
  6. Maḥmada is 'something praiseworthy'. The drunkenness of wine is blameworthy in Islam; the drunkenness of love, the poet claims, is the one kind that deserves praise. ↩
  7. Al-bāqī, 'what remains', means everything else: all that is not love is worthless. It can also be heard as what remains of one's life, so that a life that goes on after love has ended is not worth a blessing. ↩

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