Step-by-Step Arabic Literature Translation #13

اِستِسلام

root: س-ل-م / form X verbal noun / definition: surrender

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I was torn this week between: writing about Arabic-Akkadian case endings; adding to the Uncommon Arabic Words for… series; and dedicating my time to a step-by-step literature translation.

As you can see from the title, I settled on the third option. It only seemed logical as I’ve officially enrolled for my PhD as of Thursday and, with that, I’ve accepted that I’m to fully surrender to Arabic literature for the next three-and-a-half years.

But dramatics aside… I mentioned writing this step-by-step translation in last week’s post and I couldn’t shake the idea. I’ll get round to writing the other two posts in the next few weeks.

We encountered the poem أنشودة المطر (“Rain Song” or “Hymn of the Rain”) by Badr Shakir al-Sayyab in Step-by-Step Arabic Literature Translation #3, where we went through some lines from the middle of the poem.

أنشودة المطر is the Iraqi poet’s most well-known piece of work and, because it was one of the poems I analysed in my undergraduate dissertation, I memorised its first few lines:

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عيناكِ غابتا نخيلٍ ساعةَ السحَر

أو شُرفتان راحَ ينأى عنهما القمر

عيناكِ حين تَبسمانِ تورقُ الكروم

وترقص الأضواء… كالأقمار في نهر

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Time to break things down for the word-by-word translation:

عيناكِ غابتا نخيلٍ ساعةَ السحَر

عيناكِ

components: عَينان + ـكِ

root: ع-ي-ن

dual noun

عَين = “eye” (this word is feminine in Arabic, by the way)

عَينانِ = “two eyes”—here we see the dual ending ـانِ

ـانِ is the مرفوع (nominative) dual suffix—the word is nominative here as it’s the subject (اسم) of this nominal sentence (جملة اسمية)

ـكِ = the possessive suffix meaning “your (f)”

…but wait, why do we have “عيناك” rather than “عينانك”? Where has the ن from the dual ending gone?

when the dual noun is the non-final word in an إضافة (possessive construction)—and this includes when it is followed by an attached possessive suffix like ـكِ—the ن of the dual suffix is dropped

so عينان + ـكِ gives us عيناك, “your (f) two eyes”

note that we wouldn’t usually translate عينان as “two eyes” in English, we’d simply put “eyes” as the dual nature of the word is understood

غابتا

root: غ-ي-ب

dual noun

غابة = “forest”

غابتانِ = “two forests”

(note the root of غابة: it’s غ-ي-ب which is related to the unseen—think of a dense forest, it conceals what’s inside)

غابتان is مرفوع because it’s the خبر (predicate) of the sentence—the subject and predicate of the جملة اسمية are both مرفوع

this noun is the start of a two-word إضافة, hence the loss of the final ن of the dual suffix

نخيلٍ

root: ن-خ-ل

noun

نَخيل = “palm (trees)”

نخيل is the second and final word of the indefinite إضافة, which is why it’s مجرور (genitive) and carries the kasratayn case ending

ساعةَ

root: س-و-ع

adverb

ساعة = “time” or “hour”

ساعة is a noun, but it’s acting as an adverb of time here to tell us about when this sentence is true—that’s why it’s منصوب

ساعة is in an إضافة with the following noun

we’d translate ساعةَ here as something along the lines of “at the time of….”

السحَر

components: الـ + سَحَر

root: س-ح-ر

noun

سَحَر = “dawn”

الـ = definite prefix

السحر would be مجرور as the second word in the إضافة and, as it’s definite, it’d end in a kasra

…but seeing as this is the last word of the line, we wouldn’t usually pronounce the case ending

ساعةَ السَّحَر = “at the time of dawn”

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Putting this together:

عيناكِ غابتا نخيلٍ ساعةَ السحَر

your eyes are two palm forests at the time of dawn

(with these posts, we leave these intermediate translations untouched—clunky and unpoetic as they may be—until the end)

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Next line:

أو شُرفتان راحَ ينأى عنهما القمر

أو

أَو = “or”

أو here is introducing a second predicate for the subject عيناك

شُرفتان

root: ش-ر-ف

dual noun

شُرفة = “balcony”

شُرفتانِ = “two balconies”

again, this dual noun has the مرفوع ending because it’s the خبر of the جملة اسمية

راحَ

root: ر-و-ح

form I past tense verb, masculine, third person, singular

راحَ / يَروحُ (+ present tense verb) = to begin to (see Four Synonyms for “to Begin to” in Arabic)

the subject of the verb is القمر, which comes at the end of the line

this verb marks the start of the relative clause giving us more information about شرفتان

there’s no relative pronoun (like الذي) to introduce the relative clause in Arabic because شرفتان is indefinite—we’d only see a relative pronoun if the noun preceding the clause was definite

in English, we can expect the relative pronoun “which” or “that” to be used here

ينأى

root: ن-ء-ي

form I present tense verb, masculine, third person, singular

نَأى / يَنأى = “to move away” or “to depart”

راحَ يَنأى = “it began to move away”

again, the subject of this verb is القمر

عنهما

components: عَن +ـهُما

following the verb ينأى, the preposition عَن means “from”

هُما = the object pronoun suffix meaning “them (two)”

هما is a reference back to the dual noun شرفتان which this relative clause is giving us information about

the clause has to refer back to شرفتان with this object pronoun suffix because شرفتان is not the subject of the verb(s) (راح ينأى) within the relative clause

note that هما here does not need to be translated into English

القمر

components: الـ + قَمَر

root: ق-م-ر

noun

قَمَر = “moon”

الـ = the definite prefix

القمر is مرفوع as it’s the subject of the verbs راح ينأى, so it’ll end in Damma: القمرُ

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That gives us:

أو شُرفتان راحَ ينأى عنهما القمر

or two balconies which the moon began/begins to move away from

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Third line:

عيناكِ حين تَبسمانِ تورقُ الكروم

عيناكِ

exactly the same as in the first line, عيناكِ = “your eyes”

حين

حينَ = “when”

تَبسمانِ

root: ب-س-م

form I present tense verb, feminine, dual, third person

بَسَمَ / يَبسِمُ = “to smile”

the subject of this verb is عيناك, hence the feminine dual conjugation

عيناك حين تبسمان = “your eyes, when they smile”

تورقُ

root: و-ر-ق

form IV present tense verb, feminine, singular, third person

أَورَقَ / يورِقُ = “to burst into leaf”

the subject of this verb is the following plural noun

الكروم

components: الـ + كُروم

root: ك-ر-م

plural noun

كَرمة = a (grape)vine

كُروم = “(grape)vines”

الـ = definite prefix

الكروم is a non-human plural, so it’s treated grammatically as the feminine singular—hence the conjugation of the verb تورق

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Together:

عيناكِ حين تَبسمانِ تورقُ الكروم

your eyes, when they smile, grapevines burst into leaf

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Last line we’re looking at today:

وترقص الأضواء… كالأقمار في نهر

وترقص

components: وَ + تَرقُصُ

وَ = “and”

root: ر-ق-ص

form I present tense verb, feminine, singular, third person

رَقَصَ / يَرقُصُ = “to dance”

the subject of this verb is the following plural noun

الأضواء

components: الـ + أَضواء

root: ض-و-ء

plural noun

ضَوء = “light”

أَضواء = “lights”

الـ = definite prefix

again, as الأضواء is a non-human plural, it’s treated as the feminine singular—hence the conjugation of ترقص

وترقص الأضواء = “and lights dance”

(note that even though الأضواء is definite, we don’t necessarily translate it with “the” in English—we’ve discussed how the definite in Arabic often translates to the “zero article” in previous step-by-step posts!

كالأقمار

components: كَـ + الـ + أَقمار

كَـ = “like” or “as”

الـ = definite prefix

أَقمار = the plural of the noun قَمَر which we saw above, so أقمار means “moons”

الأقمار is مجرور because it follows كَـ (see Comparing the Grammar of Arabic Comparison Particles)

كالأقمارِ = “like moons”

في

في is a preposition meaning “in”

نهر

root: ن-ه-ر

noun

نَهر = “a river”

نهر is مجرور as it immediately follows a preposition: نهرٍ

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So out last line looks like this:

وترقص الأضواء… كالأقمار في نهر

and lights dance… like moons in a river

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Okay! Time to put all of our translations so far together:

عيناكِ غابتا نخيلٍ ساعةَ السحَر

your eyes are two palm forests at the time of dawn

أو شُرفتان راحَ ينأى عنهما القمر

or two balconies which the moon begins to move away from

عيناكِ حين تَبسمانِ تورقُ الكروم

your eyes, when they smile, grapevines burst into leaf

وترقص الأضواء… كالأقمار في نهر

and lights dance… like moons in a river

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Honestly, the words are so beautiful that these lines sound poetic even with a rough translation. I’ll just tidy things up a bit:

عيناكِ غابتا نخيلٍ ساعةَ السحَر

أو شُرفتان راحَ ينأى عنهما القمر

عيناكِ حين تَبسمانِ تورقُ الكروم

وترقص الأضواء… كالأقمار في نهر

Your eyes are two palm forests at dawn

or two balconies from which the moonlight edges away

your eyes, when they smile, grapevines burst into leaf

and lights dance… like moons in a river

Translation notes:

• The interesting thing about راح ينأى, which we first translated as “began to move away”, is that راح as a standalone verb also means “to move away”—I thought “edges away” (or “recedes”, as I’ve seen in other translations) captures its meaning of “to begin to” plus the emphasis on “moving away”
• I was going to change the structure of the third line to something like “when your eyes smile…”, but I really like that it begins with “your eyes”, mirroring the first line
• I’ve still left this as very much a rough translation, and I don’t think I’ve made the English translation sound anywhere as near as poetic as the Arabic (and I honestly don’t think I have the brainpower to attempt to now, after the few hours it’s taken to write this post). But I’d love to hear any translation suggestions you have!

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Speaking of this Iraqi poet, I’m reminded of the post Root Exploration: ع-ر-ق that I wrote back in the summer of 2021. And if, like me, you’re a little obsessed with Iraqi culture, you might like the range of تبغدد products on my Etsy store!

See you on my next post, مع السلامة!

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