Beyond
Every Soul Drinks of Death
Aya Labanieh translates from the Classical Arabic. Original by Qays Ibn Al-Mullawah
Originally Published in Ancient Exchanges: Passage
Every Soul Drinks of Death
Translated from the Classical Arabic by Aya Labanieh
Every Soul Drinks of Death
Poem to my father.
I slaughtered my she-camel
on the grave of Mullawah
between brittle desert trees.
I did it after the riverbeds
of his friendships
had dried up.
I said to her
Be my sacrifice, for the dawn
of coming day
I will walk
as yesterday by you
I was carried.
May God not keep you far
from me, oh father. I know
that every soul of Death
does drink.
There Shone Laila’s Fire
Near the oasis shone
Laila’s fire.
Though you may journey
to Taounate, camel-back
to the coast
you could not stray
under as
infernal a gaze
as this.
A tribesman said:
I glimpsed a planet!
in the black it shone
like the bright star
of the Bear.
You are wrong to think so,
I said to him.
That blaze above you
is Laila’s fire.
The further back
I crane my neck
the more fiercely appears
her light to me.
How useless this firewood
my tribesmen cut! If only
they had left the trees
intact, walking along us
in the dark.
Oh night—how often is it
that I run to your black face
with pressing need
only to forget
when I turn to you
for what I came.
My companions,
do not shake me
for more tears—
When my eyes water
I reach for that friend
who, seeing my state,
will cry for me.
I do not chance upon
these vistas, except in
agony. I do not chant upon
these lyrics except
to allay what I feel.
God may join together
those frayed threads
some day
even as they think
no reunion
possible.
God Curse the Tribes
God curse the tribes that claim
to have cured love, after decades
of trial.
Have they not witnessed
my oath to Laila?
Mortal
she may be,
guiding our livestock
to the campsite at dusk.
Gray
may have grown
the hairs of her sons
and gray the hairs
of their sons, and yet
she hangs
in my heart’s halls
unchanged
by Time’s passing.
This tribe beguiled me
with promises of friendship.
I sat with them, and they fed me
gilded words
I sat with them and they flaunted
triumph over love!
This gathering
depletes me, I who spend
my prayers for rain
on the tribe of Laila,
on those rings of womenfolk,
their desires adrift
chasing the whims
of their flock
through the sand.
There is no repentance
to be had from this love.
No poverty can move her
from my mind’s eye
and no wealth.
Though women dye their locks
her color, and show themselves
to me, I cannot forget
the one in my heart.
I am only
a desperate man
enfolding the pillars of houses
with my weak arms.
My companions, my foresight
is as frail as I am. What God has meted
out for us, I claim
no knowledge.
Every Soul Drinks of Death
By Qays Ibn Al-Mullawah
كل امرئ للموت شارب
عقرت على قبر الملوح ناقتي بِذي الرَّمْث لَمَّا أنْ جَفاهُ أقارِبُه
فَقُلْتُ لها كُونِي عَقيراً فإنَّني غداة غد ماش وبالأمس راكبه
فلا يُبْعِدنْكَ اللّه يابْنَ مُزَاحمٍ فكُلُّ امْرِىء ٍ لِلمَوْتِ لابُدّ َشاربُه
لاحت نار ليلا
بِثَمدَينِ لاحَت نارَ لَيلى وَصَحبَتي بِذاتِ الغَضا تَزجي المَطِيَّ النَواجِيا فَقالَ فَقالَ بَصيرُ القَومِ أَلمَحتُ كَوكَباً بَدا في سَوادِ اللَيلِ فَرداً يَمانِيا فَقُلتُ لَهُ بَل نارَ لَيلى تَوَقَّدَت بِعَليا تَسامى ضَوؤُها فَبَدا لِي فَلَيتَ رِكابَ القَومِ لَم تَقطَعِ الغَضا وَلَيتَ الغَضى ماشى الرِكابَ لَيالِيا فَيا لَيلُ كَم مِن حاجَةٍ لي مُهِمَّةٌ إِذا جِئتَكُم يا لَيلُ لَم أَدرِ ما هِيا خليليَّ إِن لا تبكياني ألتمس خليلا إِذا أنزفت دمعي بكى ليا فما أشرف الأبقاع إِلا صبابة ولا أنشد الأشعار إِلا تداويا وقد يجمع الله الشتيتين بعدما يظنان كلّ الظنّ أن لا تلاقي
لحى الله أقواماً
لحى الله أقواماً يقولون إننا وجدنا طوال الدهر للحب شافيا
وَعَهدي بِلَيلى وَهيَ ذاتُ مُؤَصِّدٍ تَرُدُّ عَلَينا بِالعَشِيِّ المَواشِيا
فَشَبَّ بَنو لَيلى وَشَبَّ بَنو اِبنِها وَأَعلاقُ لَيلى في فُؤادي كَما هِيا
إِذا ما جَلَسنا مَجلِساً نَستَلِذُّهُ تَواشَوا بِنا حَتّى أَمَلَّ مَكانِيا
سقى الله جاراتٍ لليلى تباعدت بهنّ النّوى حيث احتللن المطاليا
ولم ينسني ليلى افتقار ولا غنىً ولا توبةٌ حتى احتضنت السواريا
ولا نسوةٌ صبغن كيداء جلعداً لتشبه ليلى ثم عرَّضنها ليا
خليليَّ لا والله لا أملك الذي قضى الله في ليلى ولا ما قضى ليا
Translator’s Note
While there are many adaptations of Majnoon’s story, most famously by the twelfth century Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi, this Arabic edition is purported to be the original as composed by Majnoon himself. While many English translations have been made of the story’s Persian adaptations, few have translated the “original” Arabic poems—a lacuna I intend to fill, one poem at a time. There has yet to be a complete translation of the Arabic Majnoon poems compiled by al-Walibi, though a handful have been translated in isolation.
The work below was produced during New York City’s pandemic lockdown earlier this year. As such, there is an undeniable escapist urge that permeates the lines—the translation is more free and “modern” than many would expect, and I privileged the surfaces of words (their alliterations, assonances, oblique rhymes) over their semantic exactness. Also, given the compact and rich nature of some Arabic formulations, I decided to loosen the verse structure, and take up as much space on the page as a line needed to carry its meaning into the English language. As a result, one could say the ghazal nature of Majnoon’s poems is lost in my rendition, as the original couplets are transformed into stanzas of varying length. As with all translation efforts, this work was a balancing act: trade-offs and sacrifices were necessary to do justice to the unparalleled eloquence of al-Mullawah’s passion and pain.
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Qays ibn Al-Mullawah (or “Majnoon”) was a seventh century poet from the Najd region of Saudi Arabia, most famous for his verses mourning his unrequited childhood love, Laila al-Aamiriya, who he was not allowed to marry. He is thought to have inaugurated the ghazal genre of love poetry, which spread across the Middle East, Persia, Turkey, Southeast Asia, and Europe in the centuries that followed.
Bio by Aya Labanieh
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Aya Labanieh is a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University, and her research centers on conspiracy theories, modernity, and religion in twentieth century Middle Eastern literature and politics. Her poetry has previously appeared in COUNTERCLOCK Journal and The Lamp literary magazine, and several of her poems were awarded the University of California, Irvine Bret Baldwin Prize. When she is not engaged in scholarship or fiction, she can likely be found organizing with political campaigns and unions in California and New York, her old and new homes respectively.