Ahmad al-Shidyaq - Leg over Leg - Volumes Three and Four

The full-bottomed ones among them.

Hopes never realized

Have destroyed all other hopes.

He 33watched the fire of love flare up

To burn and sear

But what do I care for my loins,

That the fire should engulf them, or my cauls?

He says, “Death from intercourse

Though I live a life of destitution,

Is more pleasing to me than living

One day without penetration.

A life with one’s semen trapped in one’s loins is a gloomy one

And the murk may be cleared only by the exhausting of one’s sperm.”

3.2.33

No advice given him is of any effect

Even when accompanied by a pledge of safety.

Is there any who can judge between us

To read an official ruling?

His absences and his summonses of me

In my mornings and my evenings,

His anger and his beatings,

Are to humiliate and repel me.

Things have gone too far and now

I have no one to doctor me and my ills.

Thus my subjection to pain never ceases

Because of his fondness for doing me injury.

So do not let my satires, my eulogies,

And my praises distract you:

My head is at the beck and call

Of one who calls on me to relapse into my desires.

There is no hope for a spineless reprobate,

A slave to seduction.

3.2.34

If my neck is snapped by him,

Do not remonstrate, my friends, at my twitching like a slaughtered animal,

And if my head is broken by him,

Do not weep at the shedding of my blood.

If my teeth are crushed by him,

Do not pretend not to see the bruising on my lip.

If my eye is poked out by him,

Do not turn a blind eye to the fact that I have been blinded.

Providence of old has acted

To mislead me and make me miserable

For had it wished it could have kept me

Sound, and how well it could have done so!

Had it wished, it could have blinded me

To a fat-thighed, long-legged woman.

Let this passion distress me

And give me hope of being cured,

And let this love consume me

And do not care about my imminent perdition,

For these are my bones and this my skin,

This my nature and my condition.

3.2.35

None will come between me

And a desire that is in my guts

But one who is coarse and inquisitive,

Ignoble, evil, and a scandalmonger.

If I force you to listen to my complaints against the beloved,

Number me among the sheep

And do not spare my collar,

My robe, or my limbs,

For the dullard is he who

Hears someone reproach his beloved and turns away without remonstration,

While the noble man is he who

Voices a complaint after first saying something conciliatory.

3.2.36

T

HE

S

ONGS

O Moon, you have no like

In your enchanting beauty

So have mercy on a lovelorn youth

Whose mind’s confused.

Torment me as you will—

Only indifference do I fear.

My sufferings have lasted too long,

While you have forgotten about me.

You Yūsuf of beauty

(May you be spared the prison!) 34

You have demolished the foundations

Of my hopes with sadness.

Who is it who has made it attractive to you

To repel any who love you?

This suitor’s eye is weeping,

His body worn out.

For how long this avoidance,

This fending off, this deprivation?

Beauty without charity

Is like irrigation by mirage.

3.2.37

Your passionate lover

Is bereaved of your acceptance.

Would that I might have an understanding of what

My censurers accuse me of.

Sleeplessness has wasted my body

And passion has been hard on me.

I have no goal, no goal at all

But you, you precious one,

You enchanter of lovers

With looks and glances.

Blessed be the Creator,

The guardian of your beauty.

I would give my money, my soul, and

My family as ransom for you.

Your acceptance is dearer to me than

Living a long life.

3.2.38

A

NOTHER

My eye sees none like you,

Rashā, 35so have mercy on the one you have slain!

All that is desired is your greeting,

And then, should you wish, your favor.

Everything about you’s charming—

My liver’s wounded by it.

My eye, faithful unto death, offers itself at your tomb as ransom—

And the love that’s in it is true.

You, O Moon, are toying with me,

While I am seared by your avoidance.

Any who’s once tasted your love

Will never again taste sleep by night.

O Rashā, who brushes me off out of coquetry

(All the answer I got was, “No no!”),

Speak to your slave

And respect the Almighty!

I give you my enslavement and abjection

And my insane love, the origin of my going astray.

Would that another might want you,

That he might be eaten away by avoidance like me.

3.2.39

I have grown tired of your abandonment—

Would that I might of my longing!

I ever keep my pledge to you

But you pay no heed to yours to me.

If there is to be union, tell me when.

In you alone I put my trust.

I ask God that you may live long

And that is my dearest wish.

O King of All Beauty,

The slave offers up a request—

Call him one day your serving boy,

If you should ever chance to think of him.

Long have I stood waiting at your door—

A glance from you is all I ask.

He who one day sees your figure,

Is lost thenceforth in love and grows thin.

My full moon is indeed a gazelle,

What captivates me in him is his coquetry.

O you who reprove me, reproach me not!

Verily, love is sanctioned by religion.

3.2.40

A

NOTHER

A tryst would be my physician,

O you who’ve captured my heart,

And love has been my fate,

From the day I became intoxicated.

In my grief’s A complaint,

should you take pity.

O twin of the graceful tree trunk,

Why all this scorn?

O Yūsuf of Beauty,

Love is hard.

You lisp coquettishly when you speak.

You’re a wonder to behold.

Should you inquire of my state,

Even your reproach would be of help,

But if you continue to toy with me,

That will be of no benefit as a cure.

From bearing your rejections

I have become as I am now.

From the postponement of your promises,

My body has been worn out.

My tears are my witness,

As is my preoccupation.

There is no escape

From the rule of love.

My abuser took pity on me

When he visited me on my sickbed

And my keening rose high

From what had oppressed me.

Your morning-bright face

Led me further astray.

You most beautiful of the charmers,

Grant me a meeting!

Command what you will,

You’ll find me obedient.

You’ll find me his willing ransom,

So far as I am able.

My passion has been set ablaze

By your amazing looks.

My body has been emaciated

By your saying no.

Any who have experienced what I have,

Will know my story.

My only portion of you

Is promises.

Enough of this rejection,

O source of my choking agony!

By you alone

Am I afflicted.

3.2.41

A

NOTHER

O lazy-lidded one, what came over you

To give the cold shoulder to a lover of your beauty?

O ben tree trunk, what made you turn

From one besotted who hopes for union with you?

Torture as you wish, my gazelle,

Except with coldness (that thing that makes the reprovers gloat).