Balla is a perfect verb meaning “soaked.” Damʿī, “my tears,” is its subject, while miḥmalī, “my sword strap,” is its direct object. The final first-person yāʾ on each noun marks relation to the speaker.
Ḥattā introduces the endpoint or result: the tears continued until they even wet the strap. Reversing subject and object would distort the meaning, as though the strap had soaked the tears.
The strap is a concrete detail, making the grief more vivid than the abstract statement “I wept greatly.”
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Imruʾ al-Qays: Earlier Loves, Fragrance, and Dārat Juljul (Verses 7–12)
Balla is a perfect verb meaning “soaked.” Damʿī, “my tears,” is its subject, while miḥmalī, “my sword strap,” is its direct object. The final first-person yāʾ on each noun marks relation to the speaker.
Ḥattā introduces the endpoint or result: the tears continued until they even wet the strap. Reversing subject and object would distort the meaning, as though the strap had soaked the tears.
The strap is a concrete detail, making the grief more vivid than the abstract statement “I wept greatly.”