وكنت..

أوتار مبعثرة
ترجمة إنجليزية
شارك:
وَكُنْتُ إِذَا تَمَنَّى الْقَلْبُ مَرْأَىنَوَاهِدِهَا، وَفَاضَ الشَّوْقُ حُزْنَا
تُوَاجِهُهُ بِزَجْرٍ ثُمَّ رَفْضٍكَأَنَّ صَوَابَهَا بِالرَّفْضِ جُنَّا
وَمَا طَلَبِي سِوَى لَهْفٍ بِنَفْسِيأَمَا تَضَعِينَ لِلْأَشْوَاقِ وَزْنَا؟
أَنِيلِينِي مُنَايَ فَإِنَّ رَفْضًايُصَيِّرُ خَافِقِي صَبًّا مُعَنَّى
حَبِيبَةَ مُهْجَتِي لَا تَمْنَعِينِيوَجُودِي لِلْفُؤَادِ بِمَا تَمَنَّى
أَلَيْسَ تَرِقُّ نَفْسُكِ وَهْيَ تَرْنُوإِلَى دَمْعِ الْمُتَيَّمِ وَهْوَ مُضْنَى؟
أَيَبْعُدُ عَنْ حَبِيبِكِ مَا اشْتَهَاهُوَأَنْتِ أَحَنُّ فِي الدُّنْيَا وَأَحْنَى؟

And Whenever…

  1. And whenever my heart longed for a glimpse
    of her breasts, and its longing overflowed as grief,
  2. she'd meet it with a scolding, then refusal,
    as if refusing had driven her good sense insane1.
  3. What I ask is nothing but the yearning in my soul.
    Do you give longing no weight on your scale?2
  4. Grant me my wish, for a refusal turns
    my throbbing heart into a lover racked with pain.
  5. Beloved of my heart's own blood, do not deny me:
    be generous, and grant my heart the thing it longs to gain.
  6. Does your soul not soften as it gazes on
    the tears of the lover in thrall, so worn and drained?
  7. Should the one you love be kept from what he craves,
    when you're the tenderest and kindest3 heart the world contains?

Notes

  1. The simile is a playful paradox: ṣawāb, good sense or sound judgement, is said to have gone 'mad' (junna) in refusing him, as if only a deranged mind could say no to such longing. ↩
  2. Here the poet turns from speaking about her in the third person to addressing her directly (iltifāt), and the rest of the poem is a plea. The question is rhetorical, a gentle reproach: longing deserves to be weighed and heeded. ↩
  3. Aḥannu wa-aḥnā pairs two words of almost identical sound (jinās): aḥann, 'more tender-hearted', from ḥanān, tenderness; and aḥnā, 'more caring', from ḥanā, to bend over someone with affection, as a mother over her child. The question is rhetorical: one so tender cannot keep her beloved from his desire. ↩

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