hal min rasūlin mukhbirin |
‘annī jamī‘a l-‘arabī |
man kāna ḥayyan minhumū |
wa-man thawā fī t-turabī133 |
Meter (al-rajaz): XXSL XXSL / XXSL XXSL.
Shorter meters such as this one and those of the following two poems became more frequent among the “Moderns,” even though the longer meters remained popular.
In this poem Bashshār ibn Burd (ca. 95/715–ca. 167/784), the first great poet of the “Moderns” (al-Muḥdathūn) and the first important non-Arab Arabic poet, mocks the uncouth Bedouin ancestors of the Arabs and boasts of his noble Persian ancestry and of the fact that Iranian troops were instrumental in bringing the Abbasid dynasty to power during his lifetime. The poem is thus a mixture of hijā’ (lampoon, invective) and fakhr (boasting).
Who’ll be my messenger and tell
all Arabs who I am,
Those still alive and those
who are lying in the earth:
That I’m of noble lineage,
high above all others!
My grandfather is Chosroes,
my father is Sasan,
Caesar’s my mother’s brother, if
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I reckon my descent.134
a crown upon his head.
With proud disdain he sits in court;
all knees are bent for him.
Each morning to his court he comes,
arrayed with blazing gems.
Only in ermine dressed, he stands
screened from the common gaze.
Attendants, hurriedly, bring him
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the vessels made of gold.
He did not drink diluted milk
from goatskin poured in mugs.
My father never urged
a scabby camel with a song;
He never, forced by famine, pierced
a bitter colocynth;
He never hit acacia trees
with sticks, to get the fruits.
We never roasted monitors
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that flick their quivering tails.
I never dug for, never ate
a lizard from the rocks.
My father never warmed himself,
astraddle, at a fire,135
No, and my father never rode
a camel’s pack saddle.
But we are kings and always were,
for ages in the past.
It’s us who brought the cavalry
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from Balkh—and that’s no lie—
And let them, safe from foe, drink from
Aleppo’s rivers two.136
Then, after Syria was subdued,
of Christian crosses full,
We marched with them to Egypt, in
an army large and loud,
And seized its realm, instead of ours
that had been seized from us.
The horses took us past Tangier,137
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a place so marvellous.
Then we restored the power to
the Arab Prophet’s kin.138
Who will oppose the Guidance and
the Faith, and is not seized?
And who, who will resist it, and
will be from plunder free?
Our wrath is a most worthy wrath,
for God and for Islam.
I, son of double Persian stock,
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defend it zealously.
We bear our crowns and own our strong,
disdainful sovereignty.