from the article:
If He Were Not a Star
ولو لَمْ يكن نجماً لما كانَ باظري وقد غبتُ عنهُ مُظلماً بعد نورِهِ سـلامٌ على تلك المحاسنِ من شَجٍ تناءت بنعماه وطيبِ سرورِهِ
If he were not a star I’d be unaware, now he’s gone, that I’m here floating in the black.
Do we wish peace upon the lights who leave us, longing for the warmth of illumination?
Beggar
سار شعري لك عنّى زائراَ فأَعرْ سَمْعَ المعالى شِنْفَهُ وكذاك الروضُ إذْ لم يَسْتطعْ زَورةً أَرْسَلَ عنه عَرْفَهُ
I sent my poem to visit you, a beggar before majesty— like scents affected from a garden: Reaching, yet touchless.
Jamil & Buthaina
أزوركَ أم تزورُ فإنَّ قلبي إلى ما تشتهي أبداً يميلُ فثَغري موردٌ عذبٌ زلالٌ وفَرْعُ ذُؤَابتي ظِلٌ ظَليلُ وقد أَمَّلتُ أن تظما وتَضْحَى إذا وافى إليك بيَ المقِيلُ فَعَجل بالجوابِ فما جميلٌ أنَاتُك عن بُثينةَ يا جميلُ
Come for me or shall I come to you for my inclination curls toward whatever you prefer
So let me be the recess to restore you and my embrace be the branches that melt you into shadow
I wish only that my sacrifice stirs in you a sough satisfying enough to stifle any slander
Now give me a lovely mouthed reply so I may elude being the latest adulterous iteration of Buthaina beholden to her Jamil
Again
ثنائي على تلكَ الثّنايا لأنّني أقول على علم وأنطق عن خُبْرِ وأُنصفها لا أكذبُ الله إنّني رشفتُ بها ريقاً أرقَّ مِنَ الخمرِ
You come to come again. I know you know these folds.
Tell me true, tell me something. I love sipping your words, thinner than wine.
Undeserving
سـلامٌ يفتحُ في زهرةِ ال كمامَ ويُنْطِقُ وُرقَ الغصونْ على بازح قد ثَوَى في الحَشا وإن كان تحرم منهُ الجفونْ فـلا تحسبوا البُعدَ يُنسيكمُ فذلكَ والله ما لا يَكونْ
your peace opens me to phosphor, to unmuzzle as yet unpronounced blooms even in eyelids deprived of vision or the dispossessed sheltering in the soil forget distance, my ardor’s as undiminishing as God’s to we, the undeserving
Translator’s Note:
Ḥafṣa bint al-Ḥājj ar-Rukūniyya was born around the year 530 AH (1135 CE) to a wealthy family in the city of Granada, which underwent substantive sociopolitical changes during her lifetime after the Almohad invasion that occurred when she was still a child. She famously initiated an affair with Abū Ja’far, a court poet also serving as secretary to the Almohad governor who unfortunately also fell in love with Ḥafṣa. According to legend, court politics and jealousies led Abū Ja’far to side with a rebellion that ended with his capture and execution. Before his death, he often sent Ḥafṣa customary love poems, to which she responded in varied tones (sometimes coy, sometimes passionate, sometimes cerebral), showcasing her famed range as a poet. She spent her last years, after leaving her homeland, in Marrakesh where she tutored young noblewomen. Although only around 60 lines of her poetry have survived to the present, Ḥafṣa (along with Wallāda bint al-Mustakfī and Nuzhawn bint al-Qilāʿī al-Ghirnātiyya) has long been acclaimed as one of the three greatest of women poets in the Andalusian tradition. Ḥafṣa’s remarkably enigmatic style not only has drawn scores of readers to her work but also has allowed for vastly different translating interpretations of her work over the centuries.
Translator Will Pewitt teaches global literature at the University of North Florida and publishes in a variety of genres, from poetry and fiction to history and philosophy. More of his work can be found at WPewitt.com.