Abu Dhuayb al Hudhali

Abu Dhuayb al Hudhali Poems

Abu Dhuayb al Hudhali Biography

A poet and a knight. The ancient Arabic references say that the poet Hassan ibn Thabit, also included in this selection, described him as “the most important poet of his time”. His language is eloquent and his poetry full of realistic scenes and sensual, concrete images. The beloved in his amatory poems is a vital presence and usually has something to say in the poem. The ancient sources describe him as a brave knight, and a handsome man and sensitive lover. Amongst the most beautiful and famous of his long poems is an elegy for his five sons who died from the plague, and a love poem from which the extract in this selection is taken.)

The Best Poem Of Abu Dhuayb al Hudhali

Elegy (Marthiya)

why does your side not agree to a place in which to lie
unless that place is rough for you to lie on it
I haved stayed behind after they, with a life that is
full of misfortune. I see myself trying to follow them and overtake them.
How eager I was to protect them,
but when Fate advances it can not be wardes off .
when Fate fixes its claws,
you find every charm to be of no avail.
My eyes now that have gone, it feels as though
my pupils have been put out by throns, blinded by weeping.
As though I am small stones before Fate,
ground down on the slabs of al- Musharraq.
my show of patience is for those who wish me ill.
I will make them think that I will not be humbled by the mischief of fortune.
The soul wants much when you cause it to want much;
but when it is brought back to little it is content .
They stayed jostling each other for a time ar the meadows there,
while sometimes was serious in his jostling, sometimes playful.
He drove them from high ground/edge of the harra;
the water was bather; and an open road was the opposite of what he wanted.
At the bend in the valley between Nubayi and
the confines of Dhu l- Arja they seemed like camels
herded together and griven off as plunder.
It is as though they are a sheaf of arrows and as though
he is a maysir player shuffling them and drawing them out in turn.
And it is as though he is a whetstone turning over and over in the palm of the hand-though he is more powerful.
They arrived at the water when Capella was above Orion's belt,
as a watcher sits over the maysir players, not moving .
They made ready to drink in the parts of the valley that retained sweet,
cold water that had a pebbly bottom and in which hooves disappeared.
They drank; then they heard a noise, a vantage point providing
cover between its source and them, and they heard something
that caused them doubt, the sound of rasping.
And a twang coming from a hunter girt up for action,
in his hand a resonant bow and bow and some arrows.
They disliked what they heard and shied away,
and a long-necked female pressed close to, and the two pressed on in front.
He shot and sent as arrow straight through a stout female
that had not recently conceived, and the arrow fell to the ground with its feather stuck together.
The flanks apeated to him as it turned away and made haste,
and he goped in the quiver,stretching behind himself for an arrow.
He shot and caused a swift, long-flying to pierce its flank,
and the ribe of the beast wrapped themselves round the arrow.
He distributed to them their deaths - one fleeing with
the last remains of life still flickering, one falling with its legs folding under it
They fall with arrow-heads sticking in them,
and their forelegs appear to be coverd with the red striped cloths of the Banu Tazid.
Fate - there survives not against its accidents a male oryx
that has been chased by the dogs and is terrified.
The well-trained dogs have brought terror to its heart;
when its heart; when it sees the coming of the true dawn, it is fearful.
It is an animal that takes refuge in the artr bushes
when rain troubles it and a firece, cold wined blows on it .
It casts its eyes to the horizon, glancing with half-closed eyes,
and what it sees confirms what it hears.
It begins to warm its back in the sun; but the first
of the leading hounds appear close to him, urges on by their owner.
In fright he makes a dash, but his ways of escape are blocked be grey,
well-trained hounds, two of them unmutilated, one lop-eared.
They bite him, and he drives them off defends himself
with sturdy legs and marked with two streaks .
He turned on them with two horns with sharp points,
which looked as though they had on them red eye
coming from what had been mixed up and was welling out .
As though two spits not yes smelling of cooked meat had
hastened to him with roast of roisterers pulled away .
Fate - there survives not against its accidents the clad
in rings of armour and wearing helmet .
The insides of her thigh part to reveal a dark-red like
an ear-ring, dry; no milk has ever been left in it to be sucked.
She refuses to show her strength when goaded,
only sweat that pours down .
In all his wrestling of champions and all his feninting one day a bold,
daring has been ordained for him.
Who is carried at speed by am agile mare throgh the strength in its bones;
it is like a strong an agile, the motion of whose legs shows no lameness
Each was girt with a sword of brightest sheen,
so sharp that it cut whenever it touched what it was aimed at .
Each of the two stole the soul of the other with piercing thrusts,
like thursts into pieces of cotton which can not be repaired

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