If your love should cost me dearly then take me and my wealth
In kān wiṣālak ʕalayya ġāli ḫuḏnī wa-mālī
ﻧﻮﻉ ﺍﻟﺸﻌﺮ: صنعة توشيح مع برولة تخليلة
ﺍﻟﺸﺎﻋﺮ: ﻣﺠﻬﻮﻝ؛ ﻣﻮﺟﻮﺩ ﻓﻲ ﻣﻴﺰﺍﻥ ابطايحي ﻧﻮﺑﺔ رصد الذيبل
منطقته: ﺍﻷﻧﺪﻟﺲ
ﻋﺼﺮ: ﻗﺮﻥ ﺍﻟﺜﺎﻣﻦ-ﺍﻟﺨﺎﻣﺲ ﻋﺸﺮ
| إنْ كَانْ وِصَالَكْ عَلَيَّ غَالِ |
خُذْنِي وَمَالِي |
| وَاعْطِفْ عَلَيَّ حِين التقِي |
بِاللَّه عَليكْ |
| صُورَةْ جَمَالَكْ شَطْنَتْ لِي بَالِي |
بِلا مُحَالِ |
| رَغْمًا عَلَيَّ أنْتَ المَلِيح |
زَادْ حُبِّي فِيكْ |
| اُنشُرْ عَلامَكْ فأنْتَ وَالِ |
حُزْتَ الجَمَالِ |
| بُشْرَى هَنِيَّا أنت المَلِيكْ |
لا شَكَّ فِيكْ |
|
| (برولة تخليلة) |
|
| الهَوَى مكني وأنا صغير في ذاتي |
يَا سَايَلْ عن حالي لا تسال كيف أنا |
| صرت ساعة ثم ساعة تزيد لوعاتي |
هكذا كتاب عليَّ كيف راد مولانا |
|
| (الرجوع إلى بقية التوشيح) |
|
| حُبَّك فَتَنِّي نومي أفَلْ |
وَدَمْعُ عَيْنِي مِثْل الوبيلْ |
|
| ارْحَمْ غَرِيمَكْ جُدْ بِالوِصَال |
وَلا تُبَالِ |
| وَمَا كَذَا يَفْعَل الكِرَامْ |
مَنْعُ السَّلامْ |
Type of poem: piece of a Muwaššaḥah[1] with interposed Barwalah[2]
Name of poet: unknown; found in Mīzān Abṭāyḥī of Nawbatu raṣdi ḏ-Ḏīl
Region of poet: al-Andalus
Era: 8th-15th century
| If your love should cost me dearly then |
take me and my wealth |
| And favour me with kindness when I'm met |
by God, with you |
| The impression of your beauty makes me lose my mind |
and I have no recourse |
| I cannot help it, O my handsome |
my love for you but grows |
| Inundate me in your beauty for |
in allure you have no equal |
| Glad tidings to you, my sovereign |
without a shred of doubt |
|
| (interposed Barwalah) |
|
| May my longing strengthen me, for I myself have none |
| you that asks me of my state: don't even ask me how I am! |
|
| As hour passes hour, my yearning only grows |
| and hence what's written on me: how shall our lord return? |
|
| (returning to the rest of the Muwaššaḥah) |
|
| Your love condemns my dreams to darkness |
while my eye's tears pour down in pain |
|
| Have mercy on your passion, be generous in your love |
and do not mind to |
| For the generous do not |
hinder harmony and ease |
[1] Muwaššaḥah or Tawšīḥ, Moaxaja in Spanish - "girdled" poetry, named owing to its strophic structure and with
reference to the fashionable girdle, double belt, or scarf worn by women of high status in al-Andalus at the time - is a
form of Classical strophic poetry, e.g. composed in Classical as opposed to vernacular Arabic, that originated in
al-Andalus, specifically attributed to either Muqaddam b. al-Muʕāfah al-Qabrī in the 10th century, el Ciego de Cabra,
the Blind Man of Cabra, near Córdoba, then named Qabrah or b. ʕabd Rabbih in the 9th/10th century, also from near Córdoba,
the famous author of the ʕiqdu l-Farīd, The Unique Necklace.
A Muwaššaḥah is always composed of half-verse pairs - as in Arabic poetry in general - in the form of strophes of three or
more Bayt ("verse" (etymologically related to "tent, house") pl. Abyāt,) or Ġuṣn ("branch, twig", pl. Aġṣān,) and, at the
end, a Qufl ("lock, bolt", pl. Aqfāl) or Simṭ ("string, thread" (particularly of a necklace,) pl. Sumūṭ.) The first -
optional - Qufl is named the Maṭlah ("overlook, vantage"; "remainder of water in a basin", pl. Maṭlāt.) The last - obligatory
- Qufl is named the Ḫarjah ("departure, exit", pl. Ḫarajāt - Jarcha in Spanish) - the latter being the most important,
refined, and renowned part of a Muwaššaḥah, establishing the ultimate intention and premise of the poet; some Ḫarjah were
composed in Romance or Mozarabic - Hispanic Vulgar Latin of the day and age - or Hebrew. Often, a Ḫarjah is composed from the
perspective of a beloved person, often women but not always, or even an abstract object or interceding person, etc. pp.
In contrast to Classical poetry, a Muwaššaḥah may be composed in a much larger ranges of metres than those documented - and
thereby arguably fixed - by al-Ḥalīl b. Aḥmad al-Farāhīdī in the 8th century. The Classical range of genres - Faḫr, Madīḥ, Hijāʔ,
and Riṯāʔ (exaltation, panegyric, satire, and lamentation,) Waṣf (description,) Ġazal (love,) etc. - is more limited in that
the genres of Ḥamriyyah, Rabīʕiyyah, Rawḍiyyah, and Nawriyyah (poetry on wine, spring, gardens, and the blossoming of
flowers) as well as love predominate; homoerotic poetry is also just as strongly present as it was in Classical poetry where often
it is unclear whether the beloved person being referred to is female or male. Stylistically speaking, a Muwaššaḥah tends to have
very spontaneous, concise, and direct yet witty qualities.
Andalusian language, culture, identity, and also, of course, poetry - arguably the genesis of the first, true autochthonous
and quite pluralistic (yet certainly tumultously so) Hispanic identity with all it entailed - across the centuries decidely
set itself apart from that of the - comparatively miniscule in number anyway - Yemenites, Syrians, and Umayyads present in
the peninsula beginning in the 8th century, whilst maintaining very strong ties to and influence from the ʕabbasid era
heartlands of the Islamic World at the time, viz. Mesopotamia, where, among others, Persian influence was much stronger than
peninsular Arabian. This also affected poetry: Arabic or Arabian poetry, Classical poetry, was - eventually - viewed as
little but poetry on "towering camels" - there were, of course, no camels and no desert culture in al-Andalus and while
Andalusian language identity was of course primarily Arabic - and Romance or Mozarabic and then Hebrew - it was not Arabian -
and hence, a more uniquely Andalusian form of poetry was born: the Muwaššaḥah, the counterpart to Classical poetry and,
later, the Zajal ("shout",) the counterpart to vernacular poetry.
Much of what has been preserved is due to the 11th/12th century Ayyūbid-era Egyptian poet b. Sanāʔ al-Mulk, known also as
al-Qāḍī as-Saʕīd, of Cairo, in his Dār aṭ-Ṭirāz, The House of Brocade, containing the vast majority of the body of old
Andalusian Muwaššaḥah along with a great deal of history and analysis thereof.
In addition to this, the repertoire of Classical Andalusian Music (Ṭarabu l-Ālah) in the Maġrib encompasses a large number
of Muwaššaḥāt, though only fragments thereof.
Both the Muwaššaḥah and the Zajal, in altered form, have continued to enjoy a great deal of popularity, including in
modernity and post-modernity, in the Arab world, such as in Lebanon in the form of extemporaneous poetic duels and have
exerted considerable influence on the poetry of Western Europe from France to England, possibly including the poem of Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight, as well as Hispanic poetry and song to this day and age.
[2] Moroccan dialectal poetry.
