Convey to al-Nuʿmān from me a message (malʾakan),
for my imprisonment and my waiting have indeed lasted long. (1)
It may also be recited: maʾlakan, according to the other dialect. So whoever says malʾakan, it is of the pattern mafʿal, from laʾaka ilayhi yalʾaku when he sends a message (malʾaka) to him; (2) and whoever says maʾlakan, it is of the pattern mafʿal from alaktu ilayhi āluku when you send to him a message (maʾlaka) or communication (alūk), (3) as Labīd ibn Rabīʿa said: (4)
And many a young boy whom his mother sent
with a message (alūk), so we granted what he asked. (5)
This is from alaktu, and of this is the saying of al-Nābigha of Banū Dhubyān:
Convey for me, O ʿUyayna, to yourself a statement
that I shall send to you—stay away from me! (6)
Notes
- (1) Al-Aghānī 2: 14, and al-ʿIqd al-Farīd 5: 261. In the printed edition: "and waiting (wa-ntiẓār)", and it is one of the odes of ʿAdī which he used to write to al-Nuʿmān when he imprisoned him in a prison where no one entered upon him. After it is the famous verse, which completes it:
"If my throat were choked with something other than water...
I would be like one choking, pressing out with water."
- (2) In the printed edition and manuscript: "yilʾaku". This triliteral verb "laʾaka yalʾaku" I did not find explicitly stated in language books; rather, what they stated explicitly is the quadriliteral: "alʾiknī to so-and-so: convey from me to him. Its origin is alʾiknī, so the hamza was dropped and its vowel transferred to what precedes it." But they explicitly stated that it is transposed; if that is correct, it is also correct that laʾaka is a transposition of the triliteral alaka, which is among what they explicitly stated.
- (3) Al-Ṭabarī's speech suggests that he intended the weight of mafʿal with a fatḥa on the ʿayn, so it is maʾlak with a fatḥa on the lām. The most famous and eloquent form is al-maʾluk and al-maʾluka (with a fatḥa on the mīm and a ḍamma on the lām in both).
- (4) In the printed edition: "Labīd ibn Abī Rabīʿa", which is an error.
- (5) His Dīwān, poem no. 37, verse 16. His phrase "and a boy (wa-ghulāmin)" is in the genitive case due to the wāw of rubba. The boy's mother sent him seeking kindness from Labīd, so he gave her what she asked for.
- (6) In the printed edition: "The narrators will guide it to you..." We established the text of the manuscript, the Dīwān: 85, and others. They vocalize it "sa-uhdīka" with a ḍamma on the hamza, from gift (hadiyya), meaning "I shall gift it to you," but I do not approve of it, and the meaning of the poetry is disrupted thereby. In my view, it is with a fatḥa on the hamza, from "I guided him to the path (hadaytuhu al-ṭarīq)" when you show him the path and clarify it for him. From it they derived their saying: "So-and-so exchanged satirical poetry with me (hādānī al-shiʿr wa-hādaytuhu)", i.e., he satirized me and I satirized him. And his saying: "To you, to you ()" means: take them, as al-Qaṭāmī said:
"When the muscular, robust man appears, we say:
To you, to you! His ability was constrained."
And his saying: "from me ()" means from me (), as in their saying: "From you this came ()" meaning from you or from your direction. Likewise it is in His statement, Almighty: {And He it is Who accepts repentance from His servants}, meaning from His servants; and His statement, Almighty: {Those are they from whom We accept the best of what they did}, meaning from them. The saying of al-Nābigha is not at all related to their phrase "away from me ()", meaning stop and refrain. The poetry that follows points to that, and the verse following this one contains the word in the accusative case governed by "ilayka ilayka":
"Rhymes like stones () when they continue,
conjecture cannot deflect their path."
Meaning: take them as rhymes like stones (), which are rocks.
And his saying: "ʿUyayna" refers to ʿUyayna ibn Ḥiṣn al-Fazārī, who helped Banū ʿAbs against Banū Asad, the allies of Banū Dhubyān, the clan of al-Nābigha.
This translation was produced with AI assistance and is part of an ongoing human-review process. Found a mistake? Use the feedback option in the reader menu.
