جنون

أوتار مبعثرة
ترجمة إنجليزية
شارك:
هَلْ بِي جُنُونٌ لِهَذَا النَّهْدِ يُشْقِينِيلَهِيبُهُ؟ لَيْسَ إلَّا النَّهْدُ يَكْفِينِي!
نَعَمْ فَذَاكَ حَقِيقٌ لَسْتُ أُنْكِرُهُلَكِنْ بِحِضْنِكِ ضَمًّا حِينَ يَحْوِينِي
أَنَا الْمُعَنَّى بِهَذَا النَّهْدِ أَعْشَقُهُوَلَيْسَ غَيْرُ رَوَاءِ النَّهْدِ يَشْفِينِي!
طَافَتْ نُهُودُكِ فِي بَالِي فَجُنَّ بِهَافَهَلْ سَبِيلٌ إِلَى نَهْدَيْكِ يَهْدِينِي؟
كَمْ ذَا تَمَنَّيْتُ أَنْ أَرْنُو إِلَى جَبَلَيْنَهْدَيْكِ يُشْعِلُنِي شَوْقًا وَيُطْفِينِي
قَدْ طَالَ لَيْلِي وَلَا طَيْفٌ يُسَامِرُنِيوَلَا أَرَاكِ بِحُلْمِ اللَّيْلِ تَأْتِينِي
قَدْ طَالَ لَيْلِي وَشَوْقِي اشْتَدَّ بِي عَرِمًاهَذَا الْجُنُونُ. فَمَا أَضْنَى الْمَجَانِينَ!

Madness

  1. Am I gone mad for this breast, whose flame brings me misery?
    Nothing but the breast will be enough for me!
  2. Yes, that is true, and I will not deny it1,
    but in your arms, held close, as they enfold me.
  3. I am the one this breast torments; I love it,
    and nothing but the breast's cool draught can cure me!
  4. Your breasts went circling2 through my mind, and drove it mad:
    is there a road to your two breasts to guide me?
  5. How often I have longed to gaze upon the twin
    mountains of your breasts, that kindle me with longing, then quench me!
  6. My night has grown long, and no phantom keeps me company3,
    nor in my dreams at night do I see you come to me.
  7. My night has grown long; my longing rages like a flood4.
    This is madness. How worn and wasted madmen are!

Notes

  1. The poet answers his own question from the first verse. 'That is true' can refer to the madness he is accused of, or to his claim that nothing but the breast will satisfy him; either way he admits it, adding only that it must be in her embrace. ↩
  2. Ṭāfat, 'circled', is the verb used of pilgrims circling the Kaʿba, and also of the beloved's phantom (ṭayf) that 'makes its rounds' to the lover by night. Her breasts are pictured as circling round his mind as pilgrims circle a shrine, and as haunting it like a night phantom. ↩
  3. Yusāmiru means to keep someone company in night-time conversation (samar). The beloved's phantom (ṭayf), which visits lovers by night, is a central motif of classical Arabic love poetry; here even that consolation fails him. ↩
  4. ʿArim means fierce and violent. The word is best known from the Qur'anic 'flood of al-ʿArim' (34:16) that burst the dam of Maʾrib, so the longing is pictured as a torrent breaking through. ↩

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