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44 44 A Ghazal Poem by al-ʿAbbās Ibn al-Aḥnaf ‫�ا‬‫ه‬ �ِ‫�ب‬ �‫�ج�ا‬ � ‫ح‬ � ‫و‬�� ‫�ا‬‫د�ه‬‫و‬��‫�ص�د‬ �‫�ب‬� ‫ت‬ �‫ل‬� � ‫�ذ‬ �‫ب‬ �‫�ت‬�‫و‬�� ‫�ا‬‫ه‬ �ِ‫�ب‬ �‫ت�ا‬ �‫ك‬ � � �‫ب‬� ‫ي‬ � � ‫�ت‬�‫ر‬‫ي‬ ��‫م‬� ‫أ‬ � ّ ‫ي‬ � � ‫ل‬��‫ع‬ � ْ‫ت‬ �‫ل‬��‫�خ‬ �‫ب‬ � ‫�ا‬‫ه‬ �ِ‫�ب‬ �‫ك�ا‬ � � �‫��س‬ َ ‫ت‬ � ‫ن‬ �‫م‬� ّ ‫ك‬��‫�ف‬�‫ن‬ �‫�ت‬� ‫�ا‬‫م‬� ‫ن‬ �‫ي‬ ��‫ع‬ �‫ل‬� � ‫ا‬‫و‬�� ‫ة‬�‫ر‬‫و‬�‫م‬� ‫غ‬ � �‫م‬� ‫ى‬ � � ‫و‬�‫ه‬ � ‫ل‬� � ‫ا‬ ‫ب‬ � َ ‫ر‬ ُ ‫ك‬ � �� ‫ي‬ � � ‫�ف‬ � � ‫س‬�� ‫�ف‬�‫ن‬ �‫ل‬� � ‫ف�ا‬� � � bakhilat ʿalayya ʾamīratī bi-kitābihā wa-tabadhdhalat bi-ṣudūdihā wa-ḥijābihā fa-n-nafsu fī kurabi l-hawā maghmūratun wal-ʿaynu mā tanfakku min taskābihā151 Meter (al-kāmil): SSLSL SSLSL SSLSL / SSLSL SSLSL SSLSL (SS may be replaced by L). Al-ʿAbbās ibn al-Aḥnaf, (d. ca. 188/804), who lived in Baghdad, composed only love poetry of a kind sometimes called “courtly,” most of it for a high-born, inaccessible lady whose identity is unknown and whom he calls Fawz (“Victoria”) and sometimes Ẓalūm (“Unjust”). Suʿād is Fawz’s servant girl. The motif of “I wish I were…,” at the end, he also employs in other poems ; in one he puts into the mouth of Fawz these words: “ʿAbbās, I wish you were my trousers on my body, or / I wish I were the trousers of ʿAbbās! // I wish he were the wine and I the water from / a cloud, forever mixed together in a glass!”152 My princess, stingy with her letters, spends a lot on spurning me, hiding from sight. Thus is my soul submerged in passion’s pangs; my eyes shed streams of tears incessantly. For how much longer will her anger last? I’ve melted from her anger and reproach. She seizes someone’s heart, all of it; then she turns away, leaving him mindless, mad. So much have I endured from Love: woe Love! If Love had hands, it would cast out my soul. 5 45 45 45 45 al-ʿAbbās Ibn al-Aḥnaf Suʿād came, gloating, with a message: “Fawz forbids you to come walking past her door!” What can one, passion’s slave, say in reply? One is made speechless and cannot respond. Woe to me, if I try to get in touch, and woe to me if I won’t try the same. Suʿād, I beg you, fetch me from her house a handful of its dust for me to smell! Then it will be as if I sip her sweet saliva, touch her hennaed fingers fine. I wish I were her toothbrush, in her hand,153 that I could smell the sweetness of her teeth; Or that I were her shift, enjoying all the softness of her skin and of her clothes, So that I would not leave her for one hour, beneath her clothes, close neighbor to her belt! 10 ...

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