Munir Mezyed
02/07/2007, 03:34 PM
Nizar Qabbani’s Masterpieces in English
Translated by Munir Mezyed
Book of Love
As long as my green sparrow is still
My beloved,
Then god is in the heaven...
My beloved asks me:
What is the difference between heaven and I?
The difference between both of you is that:
When you smile, my beloved,
I forget the heaven...
Oh my beloved,
Love is a beautiful poem written on the Moon.
Love is drawn on all the leaves of the trees.
Love is inscribed on
The sparrows’ feathers and the rain drops,
But any woman in my country,
If she falls in love with a man,
She will be stoned with fifty stones...
When I fell in love,
I have changed;
The realm of god has changed...
The night starts to sleep in my coat,
And the sun rises from the west...
You still ask me about the date my of birthday,
So record what you are not aware of:
The day you loved me is my birthday....
If the jinni came out from his hideout
Telling me:
“You have one minute
To choose what you desire
From corals and gems”
I would choose your eyes
Without any hesitation.
==================================================
Letter from under the Water
If you were my friend,
Help me to leave you...
Or if you were my beloved,
Help me to be healed of you...
If I had known
that the sea was so deep,
I would not have dove in...
If I had known
That Love was so perilous,
I would not have fallen in love.
If I had known my end,
I would not have begun.
I longed for you,
So teach me not to crave...
Teach me
how to pull up the roots of your love
From the depths.
Teach me
how tears may die in the eyes,
And love may pass away,
And yearnings commit suicide.
Teach me
How to rebel against you,
And to be saved from the sword of yearning.
I remained after you
A book with torn papers...!
You are all my past and present
And all the days of my living...
My love for you is poetic love
So why do you kill poetry in me?
My love for you is watery
So why do you push me to the rock?
Oh you whom I bestowed the sun’s light,
So why did you give me darkness in return...
I presented you the forests,
So why did you give me the desert?
You tour in the land
While you let the tempest chew my flesh...
I am in the water
While your voice is coming to me
From under the water,
And the resemblances of your face
Coming out for me like a giant,
Coming from the depth of water...
The lines of your hand chase me
Even in water…
Ah, if my memory would drown,
If your face and history would drown
If thousands of things would drown...
Ah how worn out I feel…!
If you were a prophet,
Cleanse me from this spell,
Deliver me from this atheism...
Your love is atheism,
So purify me from this atheism.
O you who depicted life unto me a poem,
And planted your wounds in my bosom,
And took patience away...
If I were so dear unto you,
then take my hand...!
for lo! I am enthralled from my
head to my toe...
If you were strong,
Rescue me from this sea...
For I don't know the art of swimming
The blue waves in your eyes
Dragging me to the depths
nothing remains but the blue color
Blue...
Blue...
I do not have experience in love
Nor do I have a boat...
I am breathing under water!
I am drowning...
drowning...
drowning...
================================================== ===============
The Fortune Teller
She sat down with fear in her eyes,
Contemplating my upturned cup.
She said: don’t grieve, my son,
You are destined to fall in love;
My son, the one who sacrifices himself for his beloved
Is a martyr.
Your cup is horrific world,
And your life books and wars.
You will fall in love so many times, so many times,
And you will die so many times, so many times.
You will fall in love with all the women in this world,
And you will return back as a defeated king.
For so long I have scrutinized fortune-telling,
But never have I read a cup similar to yours.
For so long I have scrutinized fortune-telling
But never have I seen sorrows similar to yours.
You are predestined to sail forever
Sail-less, on the sea of love.
Your life is forever destined
To be a book of tears,
And be imprisoned
Between water and fire.
Regardless of its fires
Regardless of its past records
Regardless of the grief that abides within us day and night
Regardless of the wind,
The rainy weather,
And the cyclone,
It is love, my son,
Will always be the best of all fates
There is a woman in your life, my son,
Her eyes are so beautiful,
Glory be to God,
Her mouth is drawn like a petal,
And her laughs
Roses and melodies,
And the mad gypsy’s hair
Traveling all around the world.
The woman you love,
May be she is your whole world.
But your sky is raining,
And your rout is blocked, blocked, my son.
Your beloved, my son, is asleep
In a guarded palace.
The palace is big and huge,
Guarded by dogs and soldiers,
And the princess of your heart is asleep.
He who asks for her hand
Or approaches her garden’s wall
Will get lost....
He who tries to loosen her tresses
Will get lost, my son, will get lost.
You will seek her everywhere, my son,
Asking the waves of the sea about her,
Asking the shores’ turquoise.
You will roam seas and seas,
And your tears will flow like a river,
And you grief will grow till it becomes trees.
At the close of your life,
You will realize that
You have been pursuing only a trace of smoke.
You will find that since your beloved,
Has no land, no home, and no address.
How difficult it is, my son,
To love a woman
Who has neither land, nor home.
================================================
The School of Love
Your love taught me how to grieve,
While I have been in need, for centuries,
For a woman to make me grieve,
And to cry upon her arms
Like a sparrow...
For a woman to gather my pieces
Like clusters of broken crystal..
Your love taught me, my lady, my worst habits.
It taught me how to foresee my coffee- cup
Thousands of times every night,
To experience the medicine of herbalists,
And knock on the doors of the fortune tellers.
It taught me to come out of my house,
In order to comb the sidewalks,
And chase your face in the raindrops,
In the lights of cars,
In the unknown apparels,
And even to run after your spectrum
In the posters of advertisements,
And gather millions of stars from your eyes.
Your love taught me
To wander around, for hours,
Searching for a gypsy hair
Envied by all the gypsies,
Searching for a face, for a voice,
Which are all the faces and all the voices...
Your love made me enter, my lady,
Into the cities of grief
while I have never entered
The cities of grief before.
I never know
That tears are a person,
and a person without grief
Is only a reminiscence of a person...
Your love taught me
How to behave like teenagers,
To draw your face with chalk
Upon the walls,
Upon the sails of fishermen's boats,
On the Church’s bells, on the crucifixes.
Your love taught me how love could
Change the map of time...
Your love taught me, that when I fall in love
The earth will stop revolving...
Your love taught me things
That were never occurred unto me..
Thus I read children's fairytales,
Entered the palaces of the Jennies kings,
And dreamt to be wedded with the Sultan's daughter...
Those eyes are more apparent
Than the water of a lagoon
Those lips more luscious
Than the flower of pomegranates.
And I dreamt that I kidnapped her like a knight
And dreamt I gave
Her the garlands of pearl and coral stones.
Your love taught me, my lady,
What hallucination might bring....
It taught me how life may surpass
Without the coming of the Sultan's daughter...
Your love taught me
How to love you in all the things,
In the naked trees, in the yellow dry leaves,
In a rainy day, in the tempest,
In a smallest café where we drink in the evening
Our black coffee..
Your love taught me...to seek refuge,
to seek refuge in hotels without names,
In churches without names...
In cafes without names...
Your love taught me how night
Could proliferate the Strangers’ grief .
It taught me how to behold Beirut
A woman, tyrant of temptation,
A woman, wearing every evening
the most beautiful clothing she possesses,
and sprinkling perfume upon her breasts,
For the fisherman, and the princes.
Your love taught me how to cry without account.
It taught me how grief slumbers
Like a boy with his feet cut off
In the streets of Rouche and Hamra.
Your love taught me how to grieve,
And I have been in need, for centuries,
For a woman to make me grieve,
For a woman, to cry upon her arms
Like a sparrow
For a woman to gather my pieces
Like clusters of broken crystal...
Translated by Munir Mezyed
All rights reserved, © Munir Mezyed.2006
Copying without permission for non-personal use is forbidden.
Translated by Munir Mezyed
Book of Love
As long as my green sparrow is still
My beloved,
Then god is in the heaven...
My beloved asks me:
What is the difference between heaven and I?
The difference between both of you is that:
When you smile, my beloved,
I forget the heaven...
Oh my beloved,
Love is a beautiful poem written on the Moon.
Love is drawn on all the leaves of the trees.
Love is inscribed on
The sparrows’ feathers and the rain drops,
But any woman in my country,
If she falls in love with a man,
She will be stoned with fifty stones...
When I fell in love,
I have changed;
The realm of god has changed...
The night starts to sleep in my coat,
And the sun rises from the west...
You still ask me about the date my of birthday,
So record what you are not aware of:
The day you loved me is my birthday....
If the jinni came out from his hideout
Telling me:
“You have one minute
To choose what you desire
From corals and gems”
I would choose your eyes
Without any hesitation.
==================================================
Letter from under the Water
If you were my friend,
Help me to leave you...
Or if you were my beloved,
Help me to be healed of you...
If I had known
that the sea was so deep,
I would not have dove in...
If I had known
That Love was so perilous,
I would not have fallen in love.
If I had known my end,
I would not have begun.
I longed for you,
So teach me not to crave...
Teach me
how to pull up the roots of your love
From the depths.
Teach me
how tears may die in the eyes,
And love may pass away,
And yearnings commit suicide.
Teach me
How to rebel against you,
And to be saved from the sword of yearning.
I remained after you
A book with torn papers...!
You are all my past and present
And all the days of my living...
My love for you is poetic love
So why do you kill poetry in me?
My love for you is watery
So why do you push me to the rock?
Oh you whom I bestowed the sun’s light,
So why did you give me darkness in return...
I presented you the forests,
So why did you give me the desert?
You tour in the land
While you let the tempest chew my flesh...
I am in the water
While your voice is coming to me
From under the water,
And the resemblances of your face
Coming out for me like a giant,
Coming from the depth of water...
The lines of your hand chase me
Even in water…
Ah, if my memory would drown,
If your face and history would drown
If thousands of things would drown...
Ah how worn out I feel…!
If you were a prophet,
Cleanse me from this spell,
Deliver me from this atheism...
Your love is atheism,
So purify me from this atheism.
O you who depicted life unto me a poem,
And planted your wounds in my bosom,
And took patience away...
If I were so dear unto you,
then take my hand...!
for lo! I am enthralled from my
head to my toe...
If you were strong,
Rescue me from this sea...
For I don't know the art of swimming
The blue waves in your eyes
Dragging me to the depths
nothing remains but the blue color
Blue...
Blue...
I do not have experience in love
Nor do I have a boat...
I am breathing under water!
I am drowning...
drowning...
drowning...
================================================== ===============
The Fortune Teller
She sat down with fear in her eyes,
Contemplating my upturned cup.
She said: don’t grieve, my son,
You are destined to fall in love;
My son, the one who sacrifices himself for his beloved
Is a martyr.
Your cup is horrific world,
And your life books and wars.
You will fall in love so many times, so many times,
And you will die so many times, so many times.
You will fall in love with all the women in this world,
And you will return back as a defeated king.
For so long I have scrutinized fortune-telling,
But never have I read a cup similar to yours.
For so long I have scrutinized fortune-telling
But never have I seen sorrows similar to yours.
You are predestined to sail forever
Sail-less, on the sea of love.
Your life is forever destined
To be a book of tears,
And be imprisoned
Between water and fire.
Regardless of its fires
Regardless of its past records
Regardless of the grief that abides within us day and night
Regardless of the wind,
The rainy weather,
And the cyclone,
It is love, my son,
Will always be the best of all fates
There is a woman in your life, my son,
Her eyes are so beautiful,
Glory be to God,
Her mouth is drawn like a petal,
And her laughs
Roses and melodies,
And the mad gypsy’s hair
Traveling all around the world.
The woman you love,
May be she is your whole world.
But your sky is raining,
And your rout is blocked, blocked, my son.
Your beloved, my son, is asleep
In a guarded palace.
The palace is big and huge,
Guarded by dogs and soldiers,
And the princess of your heart is asleep.
He who asks for her hand
Or approaches her garden’s wall
Will get lost....
He who tries to loosen her tresses
Will get lost, my son, will get lost.
You will seek her everywhere, my son,
Asking the waves of the sea about her,
Asking the shores’ turquoise.
You will roam seas and seas,
And your tears will flow like a river,
And you grief will grow till it becomes trees.
At the close of your life,
You will realize that
You have been pursuing only a trace of smoke.
You will find that since your beloved,
Has no land, no home, and no address.
How difficult it is, my son,
To love a woman
Who has neither land, nor home.
================================================
The School of Love
Your love taught me how to grieve,
While I have been in need, for centuries,
For a woman to make me grieve,
And to cry upon her arms
Like a sparrow...
For a woman to gather my pieces
Like clusters of broken crystal..
Your love taught me, my lady, my worst habits.
It taught me how to foresee my coffee- cup
Thousands of times every night,
To experience the medicine of herbalists,
And knock on the doors of the fortune tellers.
It taught me to come out of my house,
In order to comb the sidewalks,
And chase your face in the raindrops,
In the lights of cars,
In the unknown apparels,
And even to run after your spectrum
In the posters of advertisements,
And gather millions of stars from your eyes.
Your love taught me
To wander around, for hours,
Searching for a gypsy hair
Envied by all the gypsies,
Searching for a face, for a voice,
Which are all the faces and all the voices...
Your love made me enter, my lady,
Into the cities of grief
while I have never entered
The cities of grief before.
I never know
That tears are a person,
and a person without grief
Is only a reminiscence of a person...
Your love taught me
How to behave like teenagers,
To draw your face with chalk
Upon the walls,
Upon the sails of fishermen's boats,
On the Church’s bells, on the crucifixes.
Your love taught me how love could
Change the map of time...
Your love taught me, that when I fall in love
The earth will stop revolving...
Your love taught me things
That were never occurred unto me..
Thus I read children's fairytales,
Entered the palaces of the Jennies kings,
And dreamt to be wedded with the Sultan's daughter...
Those eyes are more apparent
Than the water of a lagoon
Those lips more luscious
Than the flower of pomegranates.
And I dreamt that I kidnapped her like a knight
And dreamt I gave
Her the garlands of pearl and coral stones.
Your love taught me, my lady,
What hallucination might bring....
It taught me how life may surpass
Without the coming of the Sultan's daughter...
Your love taught me
How to love you in all the things,
In the naked trees, in the yellow dry leaves,
In a rainy day, in the tempest,
In a smallest café where we drink in the evening
Our black coffee..
Your love taught me...to seek refuge,
to seek refuge in hotels without names,
In churches without names...
In cafes without names...
Your love taught me how night
Could proliferate the Strangers’ grief .
It taught me how to behold Beirut
A woman, tyrant of temptation,
A woman, wearing every evening
the most beautiful clothing she possesses,
and sprinkling perfume upon her breasts,
For the fisherman, and the princes.
Your love taught me how to cry without account.
It taught me how grief slumbers
Like a boy with his feet cut off
In the streets of Rouche and Hamra.
Your love taught me how to grieve,
And I have been in need, for centuries,
For a woman to make me grieve,
For a woman, to cry upon her arms
Like a sparrow
For a woman to gather my pieces
Like clusters of broken crystal...
Translated by Munir Mezyed
All rights reserved, © Munir Mezyed.2006
Copying without permission for non-personal use is forbidden.