I desire of my days to reunite me with that
Urīdu min zamanī ḏā anna yuballiġanī
ﻧﻮﻉ ﺍﻟﺸﻌﺮ: مأخوذا من شعر "بِمَ التَعَلُّلُ لا أَهلٌ وَلا وَطَنُ" على بحر البسيط
ﺍﻟﺸﺎﻋﺮ: أَبُو اَلطَّيِّبْ أَحْمَدْ بْنْ اَلْحُسَيْنْ اَلْجَعْفِي اَلْكَنَدِيَّ اَلْكُوفِيِّ المعروف بِالْمُتَنَبِّي
منطقته: حلب
ﻋﺼﺮ: الدولة الحمدانبة
أُريدُ مِن زَمَني ذا أَن يُبَلِّغَني
ما لَيسَ يَبلُغُهُ مِن نَفسِهِ الزَمَنُ
لا تَلقَ دَهرَكَ إِلّا غَيرَ مُكتَرِثٍ
مادامَ يَصحَبُ فيهِ روحَكَ البَدَنُ
فَما يَدومُ سُرورٌ ما سُرِرتَ بِهِ
وَلا يَرُدُّ عَلَيكَ الفائِتَ الحَزَنُ
Type of poem: taken from the poem "Bima t-Taʕallulu lā ahlun wa-lā waṭanu" in metre al-Basīṭ
Name of poet: Abū ṭ-Ṭayyib Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn al-Jaʕfarī al-Kindī al-Kūfī, known as al-Mutanabbī[1]
Region of poet: Aleppo
Era: Ḥamdanid dynasty
I desire of my days[2] to reunite me with that
which time of itself can never obtain[3]
Do not meet your fate except with indifference
as long as your soul still accompanies your body
For what has pleased you in the past has not lasted
nor may sorrow return what has passed
[1] viz. the wannabe or would-be prophet - on one hand, as a Laqab goes, e.g. nickname, honorific, title, etc. by which a person was primarily known, defining them at their most essential, his Laqab indeed defines the poet at his most essential: arrogant, daring, and quite adept at getting himself into trouble. On the other, said Laqab derives from a specific event in the poet's life where he literally declared himself to a prophet (Nabī) whilst living with the nomadic tribe b. Kalb, among others - to then lead a Qārmaṭian revolt in Syria in 932, which led to his imprisonment for 2 years, after which he recanted, became a wandering poet, and eventually ended up in the Ḥamdanid court of Sayfu d-Dawlah, his primary patron and object of numerous panegyric poems.
[2] viz. the days, one's days, time, fate, destiny - the pre-Islāmic Arabs did not truly believe in anything except for time - time ruins all - and this sentiment carried forth into Islām and Arab perspectives on life and death and everything in between.
[3] Even time cannot defy itself, nothing can. Fate, destiny, time is the only thing that is truly absolute and irrevocable.
