Al-Fāriʿah bint Shaddād al-Murriyah | |
|---|---|
| Native name | الفارعة بنت شداد |
| Language | Arabic |
| Period | Pre-Islamic Arabia |
| Genre | Rithā' |
Al-Fāriʿah bint Shaddād al-Murriyah (Arabic: الفارعة بنت شداد) was a pre-Islamic Arabic poet, noteworthy both for being one of a relatively small number of known Medieval Arabic female poets, and for the famous short marthiyah she composed for her brother Mas‘ūd ibn Shaddād.[1]
Works
Al-Murriyah's marthiyah runs as follows:
- O my eye, be generous to Masʿūd son of Shaddād
- with every teary gland
- whose grief is manifest.
- O whoever sees a lightning-flashing cloud
- that I have gazed for through the night
- pouring profuse rain upon the riverbed‘s
- black basalt track.
- With it would I water the grave of him I intend,
- him whose grave is dear to me
- though he were unredeemed.
- Attester at councils, erector of edifices,
- bracer of banners, burner of dams,
- Slitter of camel throats, slayer of tyrants,
- alighter on hilltops, breaker of bonds,
- Orator of the eloquent, revolter of the ratified,
- obstructor of water holes, dispeller of doubt,
- Alighter at pasturelands, endurer of hardships,
- dispeller of horrors, scaler of heights,
- Gatherer of all virtues--as all who knew him knew--
- his comrades’ ornament, the tyrant‘s scourge.
- O Abū Zurārah, do not be distant!
- For every youth will one day be hostage
- to stone slab and wooden bier.
- O Banū Jarm. did you give your prisoner no drink?
- May my soul be your ransom, O Masʿūd,
- from a burning thirst!
- The thruster of the wide-gashing thrust
- that is followed by a profuse gush
- after a boiling froth.
- Who leaves his opponent with fingertips jaundiced.
- and his clothes as if
- mulberry-spattered.
- The buyer of wineskins for guests
- that alight in his courtyard.
- to the destitute,
- abundant morning rain.[2]
References
- ^ Samer M. Ali, 'Medieval Court Poetry', in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Women, ed. by Natana J. Delong-Bas, 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), I 651-54 (at p. 653). https://www.academia.edu/5023780.
- ^ Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych, The Mute Immortals Speak: Pre-Islamic Poetry and the Poetics of Ritual (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), pp. 176-77.
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This page was last edited on 12 September 2023, at 06:38