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A Ghazal Poem by al-ʿAbbās ibn al-Aḥnaf
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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 ...