أسعى إليك

لا تفطميني عن هواك حبيبتي
ترجمة إنجليزية
شارك:
أَسْعَى إِلَيْكِ وَلَا أَدْرِي مَتَى أَقِفُيَحْدُو خُطَايَ إِلَى أَرْجَائِكِ اللَّهَفُ
تَشُدُّنِي نَحْوَكِ الْأَشْوَاقُ لَاهِثَةًلَوْلَا الْأَمَانِي لَقَدْ أَوْدَى بِيَ الشَّغَفُ
لَوْ لَمْ يَكُنْ أَمَلِي فِي الْوَصْلِ مَا بَرَدَتْنِيرَانُ وَجْدِي بِمَا أَلْقَى وَلَا أَصِفُ
أُخْفِي جَوَى الْقَلْبِ حَتَّى عَنْكِ مُصْطَبِرًاوَقَدْ يَرَى النَّاسُ أَنِّي شَفَّنِي الْكَلَفُ
وَأُرْسِلُ الزَّفْرَةَ الْحَرَّى.. فَأَمْزُجُهَابِأَنَّةِ الشَّوْقِ لَا يُدْرَى لَهَا طَرَفُ
كَأَنَّنِي وَالْخُطَى تَغْدُو إِلَيْكِ هَوًىأَجْرِي وَرَاءَ سَرَابٍ سَوْفَ يَنْصَرِفُ
تَعَاوَرَتْنِي هُمُومُ الْحُبِّ مُرْجِفَةًوَمُهْجَتِي بِلِحَافِ الْحُزْنِ تَلْتَحِفُ
وَمُقْلَتِي شَخَصَتْ فِي كُلِّ نَاحِيَةٍوَدَمْعُهَا لِارْتِقَابِ الْمُلْتَقَى ذَرِفُ
هَلَّا ظَهَرْتِ لَنَا غَيْمًا يُبَاكِرُنَاعِنْدَ الْأَصِيلِ بِصَوْبٍ مِنْهُ نَرْتَشِفُ
أَعْيَيْتِ خَاطِرَنَا فِي لَهْفَةٍ وَضَنًىوَلَا أَرَى أَنَّنَا لِلْوَصْلِ نَزْدَلِفُ
دُرُوبُنَا اخْتَلَفَتْ لَكِنَّمَا.. أَبَدًاقُلُوبُنَا فِي هَوَاهَا لَيْسَ تَخْتَلِفُ
قَدْ أَنْكَرَ الْقَوْمُ حُبِّيكُمْ بِلَا أَرَبٍلِذَا يَرَوْنَ بِأَنِّي مَسَّنِي الْخَرَفُ
فَالْحُبُّ عِنْدَهُمُ مَآرِبٌ قُضِيَتْلِحِينِهَا.. وَالْهَوَى مِنْ بَعْدِهَا تَرَفُ
فَلَا وَرَبِّكَ لَمْ يَدْرُوا لَوَاعِجَنَاوَلَا لِمَعْنَى الْهَوَى حَسُّوا وَلَا عَرَفُوا
وَقَاتَلَ اللَّهُ قَوْمًا تِلْكَ فِكْرَتُهُمْعَنِ الصَّبَابَةِ غُلْفًا أَيْنَمَا ثُقِفُوا
قَالُوا تَلِفْتَ عَلَى مَنْ لَسْتَ تُدْرِكُهُهَوِّنْ عَلَيْكَ فَقُلْنَا حَبَّذَا التَّلَفُ
إِتْلَافِيَ الرُّوحَ فِيمَنْ قَدْ خُلِقْتُ لَهُوَجْدًا وَشَوْقًا مَدَى الْأَزْمَانِ لِي شَرَفُ
إِنْ كَانَ حُبِّيكِ جُرْمًا فِي شَرِيعَتِهِمْفَلْيَشْهَدُوا أَنَّنِي لِلْجُرْمِ مُقْتَرِفُ

صنعاء – اليمن

I Hasten Toward You1

  1. I hasten toward you, and I cannot tell where I shall stop;
    and yearning, chanting like a camel-driver2, spurs my steps toward your domain.
  2. Longings drag me toward you, panting as they go;
    but for my hopes, this passion would long ago have left me slain.
  3. Were it not for my hope of union, the fires of my love
    would never have cooled, for all I suffer and do not explain.
  4. I hide my heart's burning, patient, even from you,
    and yet to others' eyes the love that wastes me3 may be plain.
  5. I send the burning sigh out… and I blend it
    with the moan of longing, whose end no one can ascertain.
  6. It is as though, while my steps go toward you out of love,
    I were running after a mirage that soon will fade from the plain.
  7. The cares of love have taken turns4 with me and left me trembling,
    and my heart has wrapped itself in sorrow's counterpane.
  8. My eye stares out in every direction,
    and its tears, as it watches for our meeting, stream like rain.
  9. Will you not show yourself to us, a cloud that hastens5 to us
    at close of day, and let us sip the showers of its rain?
  10. You have worn our minds out with longing and with wasting pain,
    and I do not see us drawing any nearer6 to union.
  11. Our paths have diverged, and yet… our hearts,
    in their love, will never, ever diverge7.
  12. People have scorned my love for you8, a love that seeks no gain,
    and so they think that dotage has laid its touch upon my brain.
  13. For love, to them, is needs fulfilled when their time has come…
    and passion, once they're met, a luxury, superfluous and vain.
  14. No, by your Lord9, they have never known the torments that we bear;
    they have neither sensed the meaning of love, nor known it.
  15. May God fight10 a people who think this way,
    their hearts encased11 against ardent love, wherever they are found!
  16. They said: “You have ruined yourself for one you'll never attain.
    Go easy on yourself!” And we said: “How welcome such ruin!”
  17. To wear my soul to ruin, in passion and longing, through all the ages,
    for the one I was created for, is my honour12.
  18. If loving you is a crime by their law,
    then let them bear witness: I have committed that crime13.

Sanaa, Yemen

Notes

  1. Asʿā ilayki, 'I hasten, I strive toward you'. The verb saʿā also names the saʿy, the pilgrim's ritual running between the hills of Ṣafā and Marwa in Mecca. In verse 10 the poem uses nazdalif (see note 6), another word from the language of pilgrimage, so the lover's journey to the beloved takes on the colour of a pilgrimage. ↩
  2. Yaḥdū is the verb of the ḥādī, the camel-driver who sings the ḥudāʾ to urge his camels on across the desert. Yearning is the singer, and the lover's steps are the camels driven by the song. ↩
  3. Shaffanī al-kalaf: literally 'infatuation has made me thin', so wasted that he has become almost transparent, like fine cloth. The lover hides his passion, but his emaciated body betrays it, a standard sign of love in the Arabic tradition. ↩
  4. Taʿāwara is used of people taking turns at something, blow after blow. The cares of love come at him one after another, never letting him rest. ↩
  5. Yubākirunā, literally 'comes to us early in the morning', is used here with ʿinda al-aṣīl, 'in the late afternoon'. The verb is taken in its wider sense of coming promptly and eagerly, and the time is the traditional hour of lovers' longing, the close of day. The prayer for a rain cloud draws on the desert image of the beloved as life-giving rain. ↩
  6. Nazdalif, 'we draw near', is the verb from which Muzdalifa, the halting place of the Hajj between ʿArafāt and Minā, takes its name. It completes the pilgrimage imagery opened by the first word of the poem (see note 1). ↩
  7. The verse turns on ikhtalafat ('diverged, parted') and takhtalif ('differ'), two forms of the same verb; the English keeps the echo with 'diverge'. The paths go different ways in the world, but the hearts never differ in their love. ↩
  8. Ḥubbīkum, 'my love for you', uses the plural 'you', a form of respect and discretion in addressing the beloved, before the poem returns to the singular in its last verse. ↩
  9. Fa-lā wa-rabbika, 'No, by your Lord', echoes the oath of the Qur'an, 4:65. The oath is addressed to the listener, whoever he may be, and gives the denial the weight of scripture. ↩
  10. Qātala Allāh, literally 'may God fight', is an old Arabic imprecation meaning 'may God destroy' or 'God curse', found in the Qur'an (9:30: qātalahum Allāh). ↩
  11. Ghulf, 'encased, wrapped over', recalls the Qur'anic 'Our hearts are wrapped' (qulūbunā ghulf, 2:88), said of those who shut their hearts against God's message; here the hearts are shut against ṣabāba, ardent love. Aynamā thuqifū, 'wherever they are found', is also a Qur'anic phrase (3:112, 33:61). ↩
  12. Talaf ('ruin, perishing') in verse 16 and itlāf ('destroying, spending to the last') here come from the same root; the English keeps the echo with 'ruin'. What the critics call ruin, the lover calls honour (sharaf), a word that also rhymes with talaf. ↩
  13. The verse uses the language of Islamic law: jurm ('crime'), sharīʿa ('law'), yashhadū ('let them bear witness') and muqtarif ('the one who commits it'). The lover accepts the charge and, in effect, pleads guilty. The Arabic returns to the singular 'you' (ḥubbīki), speaking to the beloved directly. ↩

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