Famous poet /1000 - 1050

Ibn Jakh

Leavetaking

On the morning they left
we said goodbye
filled with sadness
for the absence to come.

Inside the palanquins
on the camels' backs
I saw their faces beautiful as moons
behind veils of golden cloth.

Beneath the veils
tears crept like scorpions
over the fragrant roses
of their cheeks.

These scorpions do not harm
the cheek they mark.
They save their sting
for the heart of the sorrowful lover.

(translated by Emilio Garcia Gomez & Cola Franzen) © by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes

Analysis (ai): Written during the Islamic Golden Age, the poem aligns with classical Arabic traditions of farewell poetry (hijā’), common in pre-Islamic and early Islamic literature, where separation and romantic longing were frequent themes.

Linguistic Features: The poem employs concise diction and restrained metaphor, consistent with 11th-century Arabic lyricism, which favored symbolic restraint over rhetorical excess, particularly in private or courtly contexts.

Imagery and Symbolism: The moon imagery for faces reflects a well-established trope in Arabic love poetry, yet the comparison of tears to scorpions introduces a subversive twist—transforming a typically harmful creature into an emblem of contained emotional distress.

Emotional Restraint: Unlike overtly lamenting verses typical of the era, the speaker observes rather than wails, suggesting a meditative sorrow more characteristic of later Sufi-influenced works, though without explicit mystical framing.

Contrast with Contemporary Works: While many poems of the period emphasized the lover’s physical decline or obsessive yearning, this piece focuses on the visible yet veiled suffering of the departing women, shifting emotional weight away from the speaker.

Gender and Perspective: Rarely in male-authored Arabic poetry of this period are women’s emotions centered so quietly; their tears are active agents, yet their beauty remains composed, resisting objectification despite the moon simile.

Place in the Author’s Oeuvre: Among Ibn Jakh’s surviving fragments, this poem stands out for its lack of panegyric or religious invocation, focusing instead on a personal moment with psychological nuance uncommon in his otherwise formal, courtly verses.

Form and Structure: The four quatrains follow no strict meter or rhyme, suggesting either a fragmentary transmission or a deliberate move toward conversational simplicity within a highly codified tradition.

Comparative Note: Compared to the elaborate descriptions in Ibn al-‘Arabī or the passionate outbursts in Ibn Zaydūn, this poem’s economy and controlled imagery mark it as an outlier—less flamboyant but more intimate.

Less-Discussed Angle: The scorpion metaphor may allude to astrological symbolism (Scorpio as a sign of transformation and hidden emotion), subtly framing the departure not as loss but as necessary emotional realignment.

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