“When night—the bane of every lovesick heart—draws near,
we grow anxious, while they rejoice at its approach.
Had they to endure the same as we endure,
they too would toss sleepless upon their beds.”

He said, “I asked her to repeat the piece and gave her the three dirhams. She replied, ‘You will surely receive in their place a thousand dinars, and a thousand dinars, and a thousand dinars.’ Al-Rashid gave me three thousand dinars in a single night for that very melody.

[In that same year there died] Bakr ibn al-Nattāḥ, Abū Wāʾil al-Ḥanafī (1), the famous poet who took up residence in Baghdad during the reign of al-Rashid and was on familiar terms with Abū al-ʿAtāhiya.

Abū Ḥaffān (2) said, “Among the recent poets of the ahl al-ʿadl the most gifted are four, the first of them being Bakr ibn al-Nattāḥ.”

Al-Mubarrad related: “I heard al-Ḥasan ibn Rajāʾ say: A group of poets gathered—Bakr ibn al-Nattāḥ was among them—reciting poems to one another. When they had finished their long compositions, Bakr ibn al-Nattāḥ recited for himself:

‘What would it have harmed her to write in kindness,
though my eyelids should dry or close in despair?
She rejects every plea made on behalf of a lover
who longs only for death.
O soul, be patient; know that whatever
we hope from her is the same as what has slipped away.
The eyes do not fall ill from a slayer’s glance
except because he has already made them sick.’

“At this they rushed forward and began kissing his head.” (3)

When he died, Abū al-ʿAtāhiya lamented him, saying:

“Bakr, the son of Nattāḥ—Abū Wāʾil—has passed away,
and poetry itself has now departed.” (4)

In that year there also died Buhlūl the Madman; he used to visit the graveyards of Kufa and utter words of wisdom, and—as noted earlier—he admonished al-Rashid and others. (5)