Jahiliyya Poetry

I finished classes last Friday. My final exam in Pre-Islamic poetry consisted of memorizing 25vv. We've done this twice before, once in our Mutnabbi seminar, and again in our Khutba seminar. This is one of my favorite exercises. I always gravitate towards elegy (ritha'); perhaps because death was such a prominent part of my formative years. This time around I memorized parts of Khansa''s (a mukhadrama poetess) elegy on the death of her brother, Sakhr. The elegiac production of the Jahiliyya period, as that which probes the deepest strata of the psyche, can be seen as the repository in which Arab history, self-image, ritual function, and moral values are preserved. In this respect, I feel like I learned quite a bit about the cultural dialectic of this period. Khansa' is especially interesting in that the commentaries/explications of her work are rather limited and unhelpful. I have attempted to translate specimens of her elegies with the help of the commentary of Louis Cheiko, in Anis al-julasa’ fi sharh diwan al-Khansa’, (Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1896). Feel free to mail me corrections. I also used Lane quite a bit. Verse six was quite difficult, and I am not sure that I've translated this correctly.


يا عَينِ جودي بالدّموع
على الفَتى القَرْمِ الأغَرْ
أبيضُ أبلجُ وجههُ
كالشَمس في خيرِ البَشرْ
و الشمسُ كاسفَةً لِمَهْلكِه
ِ وما اتّسَقَ القمرْ
والإنسُ تبكي وُلهاً
والجنّ تسعد من سمرْ
والوحشُ تبكي شجوها
لمّا أتى عنه الخبرْ
المِدْرَه الفيّاضُ يحمِلُ
عنْ عَشيرَتِهِ الكِبَرْ
يُعطي الجزيلَ ولا يمُنّ
وليسَ شِيمتهُ العسرْ
ويْلي عليهِ ويلةً
أصبحتُ حصني منكسر



1. Be generous with tears
for the virile man, the chief, noble of deeds.
Alternative translation: For the virile man,
the handsome chief.

2. His face luminous;
like the sun [beaming] on the best of mankind.

3. And upon his death, the sun was eclipsed, and the moon ceased to shine.

4. And mankind wailed [while] lamenting
and the Jinn partake [in grieving] with the sleepless ones.

5. Beasts of the wild cry [cried] in distress
when the news reached them.

6. Noble tribal chiefs cultivate
glory in their tribesmen. ?

7. His gives without bounds and [in his giving] is indefatigable;
and there isn’t in his disposition any avarice.

8. Great Woe unto me (for him),
I became a depleted decrepit fortress!