C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Tarafah ibn al ’Abd: A Rebuke to a Mischief-Maker
By Arabic Literature
Translation of Sir Charles James Lyall
T
the cousins of both thy houses, ’Amr, ’Auf, and Mâlik’s son.
For thou to thy dearest art a wind of the bitter north,
that sweeps from the Syrian hills, and wrinkles our cheeks and brows.
But balmy art thou and mild to strangers, a gracious breeze
that brings from the gulf shore showers and fills with its rain our streams.
And this, of a truth, I know—no fancy it is of mine:
who holds mean his kith and kin, the meanest of men is he!
And surely a foolish tongue, when rules not its idle prate
discretion, but shows men where thou dwellest with none to guard.