«فَقَدِ اسْتَطَارَتْ صُدُوعُ كَبِدِي مِنَ الْحَنِينِ إِلَى وَلَدِي»
My liver feels torn apart by longing for my son.
Al-ḥanīn means yearning or intense longing. Kabidī, “my liver,” represents the seat of grief in this literary image, while the widening fissures intensify the emotion.
A critical reading separates a character’s assertion from something the story has independently established. Abū Zayd repeats his paternal grief, but the narrator has not verified his claim. That distinction will become decisive in the closing poem.