If we are a people who would wipe out what you have wrought
and squeeze it dry, the way one milks a full-uddered she-camel, never a barren beast—
[They were mere middlemen among the offspring of Luʾayy ibn Ghalib;
every stalwart, keen-eyed falcon drove them off toward us.
The clan of Nufayl are the vilest ever to tread the gravel,
the most ignoble of Maʿadd, whether barefoot or shod.]
So tell Qusay that our cause will soon be proclaimed,
and give him, once we are gone, the tidings of disunity.
Should some grave calamity strike Qusay in the dead of night,
we shall seek refuge in the mountain passes, without recourse to them.
Had they fought in earnest within their own dwellings,
we would have been a sorrow to their women and suckling children.
Every friend—every sister’s son—we cherish; yet, by my life,
we have found his absence of little worth,
save for a band of Kilāb ibn Murrah’s stock:
they stand absolved in our sight of any craven betrayal.
[We held our ground against them until their host was scattered,
and every aggressor and ignoramus was beaten back from us.
Within their midst the watering-trough of the Siqāyah was ours;
we were the rocky heights, the very backbone of Ghalib.
Young men of the Muṭayyabīn and of Hāshim—
like gleaming swords in the hands of master polishers.
They avenged no blood and shed none,
and allied themselves only with the basest of tribes,
in combat where the youths appeared like ravenous lions
over shreds of quarry.
Sons of a favorite bondwoman—Hind al-Kiyyah—
the Banū Jumah, slaves of Qays son of ʿĀqil!
Whereas we are the noble progeny of chieftains
by whom peoples are acclaimed in the face of falsehood.]
Excellent indeed—beyond refute—is the sister’s son of the clan,
Zuhayr, a sword unsheathed, singled out from its scabbard;
lofty-browed among the loftiest nobles, belonging to a lineage
distinguished in the very arena of glory.
By my life, I am bound by ardent devotion to Aḥmad and his brothers,
with the constancy of a lover ever faithful.
Who among mankind could hope to match him,
when judges weigh men in the scales of excellence?