“Take your fill of this world, for you will not abide;
Drink its limpid draught while it runs clear and leave the dregs behind. (1)
Put no trust in Time; I trusted her myself,
Yet she spared me no estate and observed for me no right. (2)
I slew the champions among men and left no foe alive,
Nor did I ever grant a soul reprieve, even on mere suspicion. (3)
I swept the palaces of rule of every stalwart contender,
Scattering them westward and rending them eastward. (4)
When I had climbed to the stars in might and elevation,
And every human neck was bowed to me in bondage, (5)
Death loosed at me an arrow that quenched my blazing fire;
Behold me now, flung in haste into my grave. (6)
Thus, in reckless folly, I ruined both my worldly life and my religion;
Who, then, of those I struck down is more wretched in his end than I? (7)
Oh, would that I knew what I shall meet after death:
Will it be Allah’s mercy, or shall I be cast into His Fire? (8)
Al-Ṣūlī also related that al-Muʿtaḍid said:
“O you with the languid glance and wide, dark eyes—
My slayer through your coyness and beguiling grace!” (9)
(1) al-ranq (with a silent n) denotes turbidity; maʼun ranq is water that has become muddy.
(2) In al-Kamil of Ibn al-Athir the verse reads: “wa la taʾman al-dahr ʾinnani qad ʾamantuhu” (Do not feel safe from fate; I once trusted it), whereas al-Bidaya has: “ʾinni ʾittamantuhu” (I entrusted it).
(3) Al-Kamil records the expression “ʿala tughiyyih” (for his rebellion), while al-Bidaya reads “ʿala khuluq” (for his disposition).
(4) Both al-Kamil and al-Bidaya have: “wa ʾakhlaytu dar… naziʿ,” and al-Kamil also gives the variant: “fa sharradtuhum” (so I dispersed them).
(5) Al-Kamil and al-Bidaya read: “wa ṣarat riqab” (and necks became subject).
(6) The same two sources read: “alqa” (he cast).
(7) Al-Bidaya adds the line: “fa-man dha-lladhi mithli” (So who is there like me?). Al-Kamil omits this and instead cites: “wa lam yughni ʿanni ma jamaʿtu wa lam ʾajid / li-dhi-l-mulk wa-l-iḥyaʾ fī ḥusniha rifqan” (What I amassed did not avail me, nor did I find for the Lord of sovereignty and life any leniency in her beauty).
(8) Al-Kamil reads: “ilā niʿam ar-Raḥman ʾam…,” Tārīkh al-Khulafāʾ: “ilā niʿmat li-llāh,” and al-Bidaya: “baʿda mawtī hal ʾaṣīr…”. Locations: al-Kamil, 7/514-515; al-Bidaya wa-n-Nihāya, 11/94; Tārīkh al-Khulafāʾ, 595-596.
(9) al-daʿj is blackness: some say simply darkness, others the intense black of the iris together with an intense whiteness of the eye, and still others the combination of deep blackness and the eye’s large size.