إِذَا مَا الثُّرَيَّا فِي السَّمَاءِ تَعَرَّضَتْ
تَعَرُّضَ أَثْنَاءِ الْوِشَاحِ الْمُفَصَّلِ
“At the time when the Pleiades stretched across the sky like the sections of a richly jeweled sash.”
Al-thurayyā names a recognizable cluster of stars. Taʿarraḍat pictures its visible extension or arrangement; al-wishāḥ al-mufaṣṣal invokes an ornament composed of distinct decorated sections.
The verse combines time-setting with visual simile. The stars and their arrangement give a concrete night sky to the adventure narrated in the surrounding lines.