صبّح على الشمس

أوتار مبعثرة
ترجمة إنجليزية
شارك:
صَبِّحْ عَلَى الشَّمْسِ تَبْدُو ثَمَّ نِبْرَاسًاكَحُسْنِ وَجْهِكِ إِشْرَاقًا وَإِينَاسًا
إِذْ يَنْثُرُ الْحُلْمَ فِي قَلْبِي وَيَنْشُرُهُيُنْسِيهِ مَا فِي سَبِيلِ الْحُبِّ قَدْ قَاسَى
يَخْفَى وَيَظْهَرُ بَيْنَ الْغَيْمِ مُبْتَهِجًافَيُبْهِجُ النَّفْسَ لَمَّاعًا وَنَوَّاسًا
فِي حَالَتَيْهِ أَلِيفٌ بَاسِمٌ بَهِجٌوَتَرْتَوِي مِنْهُ آمَالِي فَلَا تَاسَى
لَوْ أَنَّنِي مُدْرِكٌ دُرِّيَّ مَبْسِمِهَارَشَفْتُ مِنْهَا الرَّحِيقَ الْمُجْتَنَى كَاسًا

Bid the Sun Good Morning1

  1. Bid the sun good morning: there it shows itself, a lamp,
    like the beauty of your face in its warmth and in its light2,
  2. for it scatters dreams within my heart, and spreads them wide,
    and makes it forget all it has suffered on the path of love.
  3. It hides and shows itself among the clouds, rejoicing,
    and gladdens the soul, now gleaming, now flickering from sight.
  4. In either state it is friendly, smiling, glad,
    and my hopes drink deep from it, and grieve no more.
  5. If only I could reach the pearly gleam of her smile3,
    I'd sip from it the gathered nectar, cup upon cup.

Notes

  1. Ṣabbiḥ ʿalā, 'give the morning greeting to', is a phrase of everyday speech. The imperative is addressed to a man, while the face in the same verse belongs to a woman. It can be read as the poet addressing himself, a common device in Arabic poetry (tajrīd), or as a general call to any listener: go out and greet the sun. ↩
  2. Nibrās is a lamp. Īnās, rendered 'warmth', is the quality of putting one at ease, of friendly, reassuring presence. The sun is compared to her face, and not the other way round, which makes her face the standard of beauty. In the next three verses 'it' may be taken either as the sun or as the beauty of her face, since both hide and reappear, and both gladden him. Yanthuru, 'scatters', and yanshuru, 'spreads', in verse 2 differ by a single letter. ↩
  3. Durrī means 'pearly, glittering like a pearl'; the Qur'an (24:35) uses it of a brilliant star. Mabsim is the mouth in the act of smiling, and by extension the teeth, likened in Arabic poetry to pearls. In this last verse the poet turns from addressing her to speaking of her in the third person, a shift (iltifāt) that makes the closing wish sound like a longing spoken to himself. ↩

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