تقول

أوتار مبعثرة
ترجمة إنجليزية
شارك:
تَقُولُ عَاشِقَتِي فِي بَوْحِهَا «انْقَلِعِ»تَعْنِي بِهَا «لَا تُفَارِقْنِي» أَوِ «ابْقَ مَعِي»
تَقُولُ لِي كُلَّمَا أَغْرَقْتُ فِي غَزَلِيوَاحْمَرَّ خَدُّ الْهَوَى لَهْفًا «أَلَسْتَ تَعِي؟»
تَعْنِي بِهِ «أَنْتَ مَنْ فِي الْكَوْنِ يَفْهَمُنِيفَنَاجِنِي بِحَدِيثِ الْعِشْقِ وَابْتَدِعِ»
تَقُولُ: «مَجْنُونُ» تَعْنِي «أَنْتَ تُؤْنِسُنِيوَأَنْتَ لِي كُلُّ مَا فِي الْكَوْنِ مِنْ مُتَعِ»
تَقُولُ لِي: «حَيَوَانٌ» وَهْيَ قَاصِدَةٌ«يَا أَنْبَلَ النَّاسِ يَا رُوحِي وَيَا وَلَعِي»
تَقُولُهَا فِي دَلَالٍ وَهْيَ تَبْسِمُ لِيوَبَوْحُ أَنْفَاسِهَا يُغْنِيكَ فِي الدَّلَعِ
فَالْحُبُّ يَخْلِطُ وَالْأَشْوَاقُ قَدْ مُزِجَتْفِيهَا الْمَشَاعِرُ فَانْسَاقَتْ وَلَيْسَ تَعِي

She Says

  1. My love, in her confidences, tells me “Get lost!”1
    and what she means is “Don't leave me,” or “Stay.”
  2. Whenever I lose myself in love-talk, and the cheek of passion
    blushes with eagerness, she says to me: “Don't you understand?”
  3. And by it she means: “You are the one in all creation who understands me,
    so whisper love's words to me, and find new things to say.”
  4. She says “Madman!”2, meaning: “You are my delight,
    and you are every pleasure in the world to me.”
  5. She calls me “Animal!”, and what she means
    is: “O noblest of men, my soul, my passion!”
  6. She says it coquettishly, smiling at me,
    and what her breath confides tells you all you need of her play.
  7. For love mixes everything up: in longing the feelings
    are blended, swept along, and do not understand3.

Notes

  1. Inqaliʿ, literally ‘uproot yourself’, is a blunt colloquial dismissal, like ‘Get lost!’ or ‘Clear off!’. The poem is built on such everyday insults, affectionate abuse between lovers, each one decoded as its tender opposite. ↩
  2. Majnūn, ‘madman’, is also the name by which Arabic tradition knows its most famous lover, Qays, the Majnūn of Laylā, driven mad by love. The insult carries a hidden compliment. ↩
  3. Laysa taʿī, ‘and do not understand’, repeats the rhyme word of verse 2, a-lasta taʿī, ‘Don’t you understand?’. The poem answers her question at the end: in love, it is not he who fails to understand; the feelings themselves no longer understand what they say. ↩

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