Ṭarafah: Three Pleasures of Life and the Certainty of Death (Verses 55–67)

1. From blame to the inevitability of death

The earlier verses described company, expenditure, and estrangement from the tribe. Ṭarafah now directly challenges a critic and defends his choices about how to live. The opening links war, enjoyment, and death, after which he names three pursuits that, to him, make life worthwhile.

Verses 55–61 present the speaker’s personal outlook and selected pleasures. Verses 62–67 meditate on mortality through wealth, graves, the diminishing span of life, and a tether. This is a poet’s argument in a particular literary setting, not a religious or moral ruling.

2. Verse 55: challenging the critic

أَلَا أَيُّهَذَا اللَّائِمِي أَحْضُرَ الْوَغَى
وَأَنْ أَشْهَدَ اللَّذَّاتِ هَلْ أَنْتَ مُخْلِدِي
Meaning: Listen, you who rebuke me for attending battle and taking part in pleasures—can you make me live forever?

Al-lāʾimī is the reprover; al-waghā means warfare; and mukhlidī refers to one who would grant permanence of life. The closing question is rhetorical rather than a request for information. The speaker exposes the critic’s inability to prevent death and uses that inability to argue against the critic’s control over his way of life.

3. Verse 56: mortality cannot be turned away

فَإِنْ كُنْتَ لَا تَسْتَطِيعُ دَفْعَ مَنِيَّتِي
فَدَعْنِي أُبَادِرْهَا بِمَا مَلَكَتْ يَدِي
Meaning: If you cannot ward off my death, leave me to take advantage of what I possess before death arrives.

Maniyyatī is the death allotted to the speaker, dafʿ denotes turning something away, and ubādirhā conveys acting first or hastening to meet a coming moment. The logic is conditional: the addressee cannot prevent death, so the speaker claims freedom to use his means now. He is expressing his own priorities, not claiming an actual escape from mortality.

4. Verse 57: introducing three pursuits

وَلَوْلَا ثَلَاثٌ هُنَّ مِنْ عِيشَةِ الْفَتَى
وَجَدِّكَ لَمْ أَحْفِلْ مَتَى قَامَ عُوَّدِي
Meaning: Were it not for three things in a young man’s life, by your fortune, I would not care when those visiting me in illness got up to leave.

Lawlā thalāth introduces the three pursuits developed in the following verses; wa-jaddika strengthens the claim with an oath. ʿUwwādī are visitors to a sick person, so their departure evokes sickness and the nearness of death. The counting structure makes the following three examples a single argument rather than disconnected anecdotes.

5. Verse 58: the first pleasure—being first to drink

فَمِنْهُنَّ سَبْقِي الْعَاذِلَاتِ بِشَرْبَةٍ
كُمَيْتٍ مَتَى مَا تُعَلَّ بِالْمَاءِ تَزْبُدِ
Meaning: The first is to drink a reddish beverage before the women who rebuke me, a drink that froths when water is added to it.

Sabqī al-ʿādhilāt means preceding the reprovers; kumayt indicates a reddish hue, and tazbud describes the formation of foam. The poet names drinking as one of his preferred pleasures in his historical setting. The lesson examines the vocabulary and characterization without recommending the practice.

6. Verse 59: the second pursuit—rushing to aid

وَكَرِّي إِذَا نَادَى الْمُضَافُ مُحَنَّبًا
كَسِيدِ الْغَضَا نَبَّهْتَهُ الْمُتَوَرِّدِ
Meaning: The second is to turn swiftly when a distressed person calls for aid, on a fast horse like a desert wolf alert to its need for water.

Karrī suggests a quick return or charge. Al-muḍāf here is an anxious person seeking assistance; sīd al-ghaḍā evokes a wolf associated with the desert shrub called ghaḍā. The image gives the horse speed, alertness, and forceful movement, while the act of answering a plea provides the speaker’s claim to courage and helpfulness.

7. Verse 60: the third pleasure—a cloudy day in company

وَتَقْصِيرِ يَوْمِ الدَّجْنِ وَالدَّجْنُ مُعْجِبٌ
بِبَهْكَنَةٍ تَحْتَ الْخِبَاءِ الْمُعَمَّدِ
Meaning: The third is to make a pleasantly overcast day seem short while enjoying the company of a soft, full-figured woman beneath a tent supported by poles.

Dajn denotes cloudy or gloomy weather; bahkanah describes a woman of soft, full bodily form. Taqṣīr yawm does not literally shorten daylight. It describes the subjective experience of time passing quickly in pleasant company. This distinction between literal time and felt duration is central to the verse’s imagery.

8. Verse 61: ornaments compared with branches

كَأَنَّ الْبُرَيْنِ وَالدَّمَالِيجَ عُلِّقَتْ
عَلَى عُشَرٍ أَوْ خَرْوَعٍ لَمْ يُخَضَّدِ
Meaning: It is as though the two bracelets and armlets hang upon branches of ʿushar or kharwaʿ trees that have not been pruned.

Al-burayn are two bracelets, al-damālīj arm ornaments, and ʿushar and kharwaʿ refer to trees. Lam yukhaḍḍad means that the branches have not been trimmed. The ornaments suggest the woman’s arms, while the uncut branches supply an image of their fullness and shape. The simile imports a natural scene into the human portrait.

9. Verse 62: fulfillment contrasted with thirst

كَرِيمٌ يُرَوِّي نَفْسَهُ فِي حَيَاتِهِ
سَتَعْلَمُ إِنْ مِتْنَا غَدًا أَيُّنَا الصَّدِي
Meaning: A generous person quenches his thirst during life; when we die tomorrow, it will become clear which of us remained thirsty.

Yurawwī nafsahu pictures being quenched, but the imagery extends beyond drinking water to the speaker’s claim of fulfillment. Al-ṣadī means someone thirsty. The contrast between being satisfied in life and thirsty after death carries the argument into an image of generosity versus withholding wealth—presented as the poet sees it.

10. Verse 63: graves of the miser and the squanderer

أَرَى قَبْرَ نَحَّامٍ بَخِيلٍ بِمَالِهِ
كَقَبْرِ غَوِيٍّ فِي الْبَطَالَةِ مُفْسِدِ
Meaning: I observe that the grave of a man extremely miserly with his property resembles the grave of one who was wayward and wasteful in his conduct.

Naḥḥām depicts extreme miserliness, ghawiyy someone astray, and baṭālah idleness or unproductive indulgence. The simile ka-qabr sets unlike lives against a shared outward end. It does not show that the two people’s deeds are of equal moral worth; it compares the visible condition of their graves.

11. Verse 64: two mounds of earth

أَرَى جَثْوَتَيْنِ مِنْ تُرَابٍ عَلَيْهِمَا
صَفَائِحُ صُمٌّ مِنْ صَفِيحٍ مُنَضَّدِ
Meaning: I see two mounds of earth, each covered by hard slabs placed in orderly layers.

Jathwatayn means two heaps or mounds; ṣafāʾiḥ are slabs, ṣumm implies solid, unyielding material, and munaḍḍad means stacked in layers. The previous verse’s comparison now becomes a tangible image: similar earth and stone over the graves of people who lived very differently.

12. Verse 65: death chooses whom it takes

أَرَى الْمَوْتَ يَعْتَامُ الْكِرَامَ وَيَصْطَفِي
عَقِيلَةَ مَالِ الْفَاحِشِ الْمُتَشَدِّدِ
Meaning: I see death choose noble people and take what is most precious from the wealth of the harsh, grasping miser.

Yaʿtāmu and yaṣṭafī both suggest selecting; ʿaqīlat māl is the choicest part of one’s property. Death is portrayed as though it could deliberately select its targets, a form of personification rather than a literal claim about a human decision-maker. Prestige and accumulated property are both shown as unable to secure permanence.

13. Verse 66: life as a dwindling treasure

أَرَى الْعَيْشَ كَنْزًا نَاقِصًا كُلَّ لَيْلَةٍ
وَمَا تَنْقُصِ الْأَيَّامُ وَالدَّهْرُ يَنْفَدِ
Meaning: I view life as a treasure diminished every night; what days and passing time continue to reduce must eventually run out.

Al-ʿaysha kanzan turns lifespan into a metaphorical treasury. Nāqiṣan kulla laylah emphasizes ongoing loss, and yanfad means to come to an end. Time resembles a capital reserve that cannot be preserved indefinitely. The poetic argument shifts from contrasting other people’s graves to recognizing the steady depletion of one’s own remaining life.

14. Verse 67: the loose tether and certain end

لَعَمْرُكَ إِنَّ الْمَوْتَ مَا أَخْطَأَ الْفَتَى
لَكَالطَّوْلِ الْمُرْخَى وَثِنْيَاهُ بِالْيَدِ
Meaning: By your life, for a young man whom death has not yet overtaken, death is like a long tether loosened for an animal, while the end of the rope remains held in a hand.

Al-ṭawl al-murkhā is a length of rope that permits some freedom of movement. Thinyāhu bi-l-yad pictures its controlling end still held. The simile is powerful because apparent freedom and ultimate restraint coexist. The speaker may still move and act, yet the final limit lies outside his control.

15. Vocabulary: from reproach to the three pursuits

Several expressions in the first seven verses illuminate one another. Waghā means battle, while ʿādhilāt and lāʾim both evoke reproach. The speaker moves from an opponent’s criticism to the pursuits for which he rejects the criticism.

TermMeaning in context
الْوَغَىWar or battle
مَنِيَّةDeath or appointed end
عُوَّدVisitors to the ill
كُمَيْتReddish or tawny
الدَّجْنOvercast weather

A dictionary meaning is only the starting point; the value of each term depends on its poetic context and the feeling it creates.

16. Address, question, and condition in the opening argument

Alā ayyuhādhā al-lāʾimī combines attention-getting address with a direct vocative challenge. Hal anta mukhlidī is formally interrogative but functions as a denial: you cannot give me eternal life. The following verse makes in kunta lā tastaṭīʿu the conditional premise and fa-daʿnī the consequent command.

Daʿnī contains an imperative with the protective nūn and a first-person object pronoun. Ubādirhā is first-person present; its suffix refers to death. The syntax builds pressure in stages: address, rhetorical question, conditional premise, and demand to cease rebuking.

17. The three pursuits and the logic of enumeration

Lawlā thalāth anticipates three distinct pursuits that should be read as a structured list: drinking, racing to aid someone on horseback, and enjoying intimate company on an overcast day. They reveal the speaker’s chosen self-image and his reasons for valuing life.

OrderPoetic actionMain feature
1سَبْقِي ... بِشَرْبَةIndulgence and urgency
2كَرِّي إِذَا نَادَى الْمُضَافHorsemanship and assistance
3تَقْصِير يَوْم الدَّجْنRomantic companionship

The three are not morally or narratively identical. Their contrast enriches the portrait and explains why the counting structure matters.

18. Imagery of the wolf, branches, and personal experience

Ka-sīd al-ghaḍā associates the horse’s urgent speed with an alert desert wolf. Ka-anna al-burayn wa-l-damālīj ʿulliqat uses bracelets hanging on branches to describe adorned arms. Both similes borrow from nature, but they do different work.

The first conveys speed and energy; the second suggests physical form and ornament. The “shortening” of an overcast day is an additional figure: not a real change in time, but a depiction of felt duration. The speaker moves among action, bodily portraiture, and psychological experience.

19. Key vocabulary in the meditation on death

Verses 62–67 link images of being quenched, earth on a grave, death choosing, a diminishing treasure, and a rope under control. Keeping the images distinct reveals the logic of the sequence more clearly than reducing them to a single statement about mortality.

TermContextual sense
الصَّدِيOne who is thirsty
جَثْوَةMound of earth
صَفِيح مُنَضَّدLayered stone slabs
يَعْتَامSelects or chooses
يَنْفَدRuns out
الطَّوْلLong tethering rope

Each item belongs to a larger figure of speech, not merely a dictionary list.

20. Grammatical structure of the mortality verses

In arā qabra naḥḥām ... ka-qabri ghawiyy, the verb of perception introduces the graves and the comparative phrase completes the contrast. In arā al-ʿaysha kanzan, the verb is used in the sense of judging or regarding: al-ʿaysh is its first object and kanzan the second.

Inna al-mawta ... la-ka-l-ṭawl combines inna with an emphatic lām, while ka- introduces comparison and takes a genitive. Grammar mirrors the thought: visible graves are compared, a judgment about life follows, and the certain grasp of death is finally affirmed.

21. The repeated arā and the progression of the argument

Verses 63, 64, 65, and 66 all begin with arā, “I see.” The repetition does more than create a sound pattern; each occurrence advances the argument. First come comparable graves, then their similar materials, then death’s reach, and finally a life-span imagined as dwindling wealth.

The movement is from particular sight to general judgment. The first two lines offer tangible objects, while the latter two draw broad conclusions about death and duration. Recognizing this progression explains why the repeated verb has a rhetorical function rather than merely providing rhythmic decoration.

22. Simile and personification in images of death

The poet does not rely on one figure of speech. Qabr ... ka-qabr supplies an explicit comparison; al-ʿaysh kanzan makes lifespan into a diminishing treasure; al-mawt yaʿtām gives death the behavior of a selector; the final verse likens mortality to a loose but controlled tether.

ImageRhetorical function
Grave ... like a graveShared outward end
Life as treasureDiminishing time capital
Death selectingPersonification
The slackened tetherFreedom within a limit

Several distinct figures thus explore the same governing idea: an unavoidable end.

23. Extravagance, generosity, and the speaker’s perspective

Ṭarafah argues that storing wealth cannot make life permanent; he therefore favors spending and enjoying what he possesses. The contrast between karīm and bakhīl invokes generosity, but the speaker also uses his mortality argument to justify drinking and indulgence as personal choices.

A distinction is essential. Death eventually reaches everyone is a broadly intelligible claim; it does not by itself establish the moral permissibility of every expenditure or pleasure. Literary study should explain how the speaker constructs his argument and where it does not amount to a universal ethical rule, without changing the text’s sense.

24. Artistic unity: from scenes to reflection

The passage begins with an immediate social challenge: someone reproves the poet for battle and pleasure. He then counts three valued pursuits, sketching his world of companionship, horsemanship, and indulgence. The ensuing meditation on death is not an unrelated digression; mortality was the premise of the opening challenge and now unfolds through graves, dwindling time, and the tether.

The design is reproach → personal choice → visible graves → the law of diminishing life → the rope image. The final simile gathers the issue into a concrete scene: a person can still act, yet cannot command the final boundary of life. The following passage turns to the poet’s strained relationship with his cousin Mālik.

25. Two graves: the scope of the comparison

The poet likens the grave of a miser to that of a profligate man. A crucial interpretive question is what exactly is shared: the surface appearance, with mounds and stone slabs covering both. Their visible burial condition fails to distinguish their former wealth or behavior.

The poem does not therefore establish equality in their intentions, actions, or moral accountability. The common property of the simile is the grave as a worldly endpoint. Keeping its scope precise makes the force of the poet’s claim clearer: hoarded property offers no visible guarantee against death.