Assamawal Poem Poem by Assamawal ibn Adiya

When a man's honour is not defiled by baseness,
then every cloak he cloaks himself in is comely;
And if he has never constrained himself to endure despite,
then there is no way to attain goodly praise.
She was reproaching us, that we were few in numbers;
so i said to her, 'indeed, noble men are few.
not few are they whose remnant are like to us -
youths who have climbed to heights, and old men too.
It harms us not that we few, seeing that our kinsman is mighty,
where as the kinsman of the most part of men is abased.
We have a mountain where those we protect come to dwell,
impregnable, turning back the eye and it a weary;
Its trunk is anchored beneath the soil, and a branch of it,
soars with it to the stars, unattainable, tall.
We indeed are a folk who deem not being killed a disgrace,
though Amir and Salil may consider it.
The love of death brings our term of life near to us,
but their term hates death, and is therefore prolonged.
Not one sayyid of ours died a natural death,
nor was any slain of ours ever left where he lay unavenged.
our souls flow out along the edge of the swordblade,
and do not flow out along other than the swordblade.
We have remained pure and unsullied, and female
and stallions who bore us in due time to the best of bellies.
So we are so the water of the rain-shower in our metal
is no bluntness, neither is any miser numbered amongst us .
We disapprove id we will of what other men say,
but they disavow never words spoken by us .
Whenever a sayyid of ours disappears,
another sayyid arises, one eloquent to speak as noble men speak,
and strong to act moreover.
No fire of ours was ever doused against a night-visitor,
neither has any casual guest alighting foung fault with us.
Our days are famous amongst our foes;
they have well-marked blazes and white pasterns;
And our swords- in all west and east they
have been blunted from smiting against armoured warriors;
Their blades are accustomed not to be drawn
and the sheathed until the blood of a host is spilled.
If you are ignorant, ask the people concerning us
and them - and he who knows and he who is
ignorant are assuredly not equal.'
Surely the Banu l-Daiyan are as a pole for their people,
their mills turn and rotate around them.