From the Tragedies of Love and the Marvels of Poetry among the Ancients — Do Not Reproach Him

Ibn Zurayq loved a beautiful girl of his cousins' house who lived in Karkh, in Baghdad; she loved him too, and they pledged themselves to marry. But he — out of excess in his love for her, and concern to honor her — refused to marry her before he had gathered money enough to "make her happy."

His fair one, however, being one of the more sensible of girls, pressed upon him that there was no need to strive after gathering money, trying to persuade him that happiness does not lie in money. But the more firmly she held to her position, the more firmly he held to his in turn, certain that she would never have taken that position but for her great love; and in reward for this love he felt all the more his duty to make her happy. And he could see no completing of her happiness except by gathering money!

One morning he told her that he had resolved to travel — where, he did not know — but he meant to gather money... She clung to him and wept, and he wept with her; but all that availed nothing, and Ibn Zurayq set off with God's blessings! But fortune betrayed him and he had no success, so he began to move from place to place, crossing vast distances, "charged with pacing out the wide spaces of God," until he reached al-Andalus. But disappointment did not leave him this time either: he had no success, and turned back to look for some other means, in some other place. By then fatigue and hunger had taken their full toll of him, and he could not go on. Thousands of miles lay between him and his beloved and his homeland, and he had no means of travel but his two feet — and his feet would not carry him, now that hunger had worn him out. So he took shelter in a ruined place far from all men, and knew that he could move no farther. The sun set upon him in that state — loneliness, hunger, cold, weariness, distance from beloved and homeland, despair of ever seeing her, and of life itself. And in the morning, some people happened to pass by that place and found Ibn Zurayq dead, and beside him a poem written in his own hand — the very one we set down here below:

Do not reproach him, for reproach only inflames him;
you have spoken truly — but he does not hear it.

You went beyond the limit in counseling him, and harmed him,
just where you reckoned that counsel would do him good.

Use gentleness in chiding him, instead
of harshness — for he is wasted of heart, and aching.

He was once strong to shoulder calamity and bear it;
now his ribs are bowed beneath the calamities of parting.

Enough for him, of the anguish of scattering, that distance
brings him every day something new to dread.

He never comes home from one journey but a resolve
unsettles him toward another, undertaken against his will.

His wants will not rest until they burden him
with striving after livelihood — yet he never gathers it.

As if he were forever alighting and setting out,
charged with pacing out the wide spaces of God.

If time showed him riches in departing,
though it were to Sind, he would set off to cross the distance.

Man's striving does not bring him
provision, nor does man's ease cut it off.

God has divided among men their provision;
God creates no creature whom He lets go to waste.

But they have been burdened with greed, so you will not see
a seeker of livelihood whom anything short of the utmost contents.

Greed for provision — when provisions have already been divided —
is transgression; and a man's transgression strikes him down.

And fate gives the young man freely from the very quarter where it denied him,
and denies him from the very quarter where it raised his hopes.

***

I have left in God's keeping, in Baghdad, a moon of mine,
rising in Karkh, from the sphere of buttoned collars.

I bade him farewell — and my wish was that the serenity of life
might bid me farewell instead, and that I never take my leave of him.

How often he interceded with me not to part from him —
but necessity has a state that no intercession moves.

How he clung to me on the morning of departure,
my tears pouring down, and his.

I will not lie before God: the garment of my excuse is rent
by my parting from him — yet I keep patching it.

I stretch my excuse wide for the wrong I did him
by going far from him; but my heart will not stretch it.

I was given a kingdom and did not govern it well —
and whoever cannot govern a kingdom is deposed.
Whoever goes about wearing the garment of blessing
without giving thanks for it — God strips it from him.
In place of my dear one's face, since parting from him,
I have taken a cup from which I drain what I drain.
How many say to me, "You have tasted parting!" I tell them:
the fault, by God, is my own fault — I do not deny it.
Would that I had stayed! That would have been wisdom entire —
had I but followed wisdom when it showed itself plain.
Would that my eye had not fallen on a single town
in this journey of mine except to pass it by.
O you for whom I spend out my days and use them up
in grief — and my nights, I do not sleep them:
no resting place gives ease to my side, and likewise
his resting place has known no ease since I went away.
I never reckoned that fate would strike me with the loss
of him, nor that the days would strike him with the loss of me —
until fate ran its course between us with a hand
crabbed and grudging, denying me my right, and denying him.
I used to tremble in dread of my fate's treachery,
yet I was not spared the very thing I dreaded.
By God — O house of merriment whose traces
are worn away, whose courts have crumbled since I left —
will time ever restore our delight in you,
or will the nights that spent it bring it back?
In God's protection be the one whose dwelling you became;
may a rain-cloud pour upon your grounds and make them green.
He keeps for me a pledge that shall not be lost, just as
I keep for him a pledge of faith I shall not lose.
The remembrance of him splits my heart; and when
a memory of me passes over his heart, it splits his.
I will endure a fate that grants me no joy
of him, nor grants him joy of me in any state,
knowing that my patience is followed by relief:
the narrowest of straits, if I but think, I widen.
Perhaps the nights that have wasted my body with our parting
will one day gather me and gather him together.
And if death carry off one of us,
the other, on the second morrow, must follow.
And should this separation last for us forever —
what can we do against the decree of God?