Al-Khansa — The First Poetess of the Arabs

Al-Khansa — what is al-Khansa?... She is nothing but a lark upon the branches, weeping for the loss of her mate. If the moaning of the turtledove stirs you, then the poetry of al-Khansa cannot fail to stir you. For it is the very distillation of suffering feeling, of the bleeding soul, of a sister's bereaved fidelity.

Her poetry is a model of tenderness without weakness, and the very banner, uncontested, of the elegy of feeling.

...Her elegy is pure feeling, unalloyed by any artifice: she is a mourner who will not be consoled, a weak woman who cannot bring herself to preach patience to her own soul... And perhaps hyperbole is the most evident characteristic of her poetry.

She lived in the seventh century, and was surnamed al-Khansa for the beauty of her eyes; and in the first part of her life she was among the most beautiful women of her age.

...She is the greatest poetess among women, and surpasses many of the master poets among men.
(From "The Men of Letters of the Arabs" by al-Bustani.)

O my eye, be lavish with streaming tears,
and with weeping in floods, after loud lament

Do not weary of pouring forth, unfailing,
a flood like the flooding of brimming buckets, trickling over

And weep for Sakhr the whole length of time, and lament
until you come to rest at a tomb among the mountains.

★

A bearer of banners, a descender of valleys,
a witness of assemblies, a leader who draws great armies behind him

No neighbor's wife ever saw him walking in her courtyard
on a suspect errand, when the neighbor had left his house empty

Nor is he ever seen eating in secret what is in the house;
rather he is out in the open court, lavish of hand

A passer-on of glory, blessed in his nature,
great in bounty, daring in the hour of hardship

Let the destitute man weep for him — the man whose substance
time has consumed, upon whom misery and want have sworn their pact,
and the band of travelers whose guide is bewildered in a deadly waste,
whose darkness in the starless murk is like pitch.

*

O my two eyes, be generous and do not run dry —
will you not weep for Sakhr of the bounty!
Will you not weep for the bold one, the beautiful,
will you not weep for the young lord!

*

The rising of the sun reminds me of Sakhr,
and I remember him at every setting of the sun,
and were it not for the multitude of those weeping around me
over their brothers, I would have killed myself.
But still I see a woman frantic with grief,
and a weeping woman wailing over a day of doom;
I see her distracted, crying for her brother
on the evening of her loss, or on the morrow after.
They do not weep for one like my brother — and yet
I console my soul for him with the solace of shared sorrow.
No, by God, I shall not forget you until
I part from my life's blood, and my grave is cloven open.
On the day of parting from Sakhr,
Abu Hassan, I bade farewell to my pleasures and my delight.
O my grief for him, and my mother's grief —
he wakes in the tomb, and in it he passes into night!