O my king among poets!

You who were driven onward to destruction

By your sorrows, by your helpless anger

And by the harshness meted out to you –

O Cilmi, you who died from passion’s griefs,

You are the very paragon of love!

The perfection of the poet’s art is in your lamentations –

Accept my greetings, praise and homage

I know full well you are requited now

For all the pains you suffered in this world,

But there are some questions I would ask you

Do you lodge in paradise? Do you lie in fresh, cool shade?

Do you pick ripe fruit, and do the houris sing for you?

Do they grant you whatever you want of them?

Have you and Hodan beheld each other in the court of God?

Have you spoken to her and she to you?

But why should I be concerned with any of womankind?

How can I ever be at peace with them

Or exert myself unstintingly on their behalf?

For it was they, was it not, who tempted you away

Beguiling you with a cloud that brought no rain

And a deceitful vision on the far horizon?

They who lured you to a dry and empty pool

To a place that was swept by hot an noxious winds?

When you were thirsty it was they, was it not,

Who filled you with vain longings

From their hands came suffering

And a robe of mourning.

They planted anguish in your flesh,

They stole away your sleep,

They enveloped you in darkness,

They cast you into a pit and covered you close,

They harried you to the top of a cliff

Only to hurl you headlong down.

Wounding you, they severed an artery,

And they struck you down on sandy ground

Throwing you into the dust.

You were abandoned in the wilderness

And there the hyenas and ravening beasts of prey

Gnawed at the flesh that clung to your bones

While scavenger crows and cultures

Pecked at the scraps that were left.

But my reflections on women must be tempered

Since it is of women, after all, that our mothers are born,

And the maternal breast will come to their aid,

Defending them against me, against my contentions

And against my manly pride.

If they had no such strong protection

Who would ever trouble about them?

Who would ever hunger after them?

Who would offer riches in exchange for them?

Who would bring them to their homesteads?

Who would ever bother to talk to them?

* * * * *

But I was telling how I was inspired to visit Cilmi’s grave,

To offer my homage, my salutations and my song.

It was my purpose to find out for sure his dwelling-place

And to know what wealth had been bestowed on him

When he arrived at last in the presence of God.

Then I asked him concerning Hodon, did I not?

To be sure, he has left for his eternal home,

But some links with this world he still must keep

That stretch, like telegraph wires, from here to there –

And I got my answer – was that not so?

For yesterday, as dusk began, I spied a hoopoe –

He who bears messages from the Other World –

And from afar, with nods and becks,

He signalled me to join him.

I was walking in the company of men,

So falling back, I sought him in his hidden haunt

And there I gathered all his news,

Prompting him now and again

With “Go on, then” and “Yes?”

The message that the hero sent me,

Entrusting it to the hoopoe’s care, was this:

“Listen, you who sought me out

So zealously and questioned me,

I know it was your sympathy with my fate

That brought you to my grave in this wild land of scrub.

You offered me homage and called me from my resting-place,

You who yourself excel in the poetic art –

Here, then are my tidings!

“It is only on earth that troubles dwell,

Only there that folk suffer from thirst,

Only there that men of true mettle

Are treated disdainfully when they have no wealth.

It is there that fortune favours women,

It is there that women hold men in poor esteem!

“But now I live in Paradise,

Where full contentment is assured

To those who showed forbearance when on earth –

No disappointments await them in their graves!

In the past, my life held hardship and misfortune

But recompense is granted in this Other World

I live here in a cool and shady homestead,

Sheltered by a cloud above my head,

Screened by thunder and lightning from the sun.

“I fill my water-pail from a pool that is ever full,

I linger beside clusters of ripe fruit

That gladden my eyes as I pick and eat

Like a child, whose mother is feeding him

Now from her right breast, now from her left –

Or like a suckling camel nourished by his dam.

No thought I give to Hodon or to love of her

For others have come to take her place.

Now there are houris to engage in amiable talk,

Houris who are commanded to sing for me

And who encompass me with the inner borders of their robes.

“But a herd of sturdy camels is thronging towards me now!

The water-pail is filled and ready – my task awaits me –

Farewell, my brother, farewell to you!”