سَئِمْتُ تَكَالِيفَ الْحَيَاةِ وَمَنْ يَعِشْ ۞ ثَمَانِينَ حَوْلًا لَا أَبَا لَكَ يَسْأَمِ
I have grown weary of life’s burdens; whoever lives eighty years will, as I tell you, become weary.
Saʾimtu denotes weariness; takālīf are burdens and difficulties. The phrase lā abā laka is a conventional expression of emphatic address rather than a literal statement about the listener’s father. The man–yaʿish–yasʾam construction generalizes the experience of advanced age.
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Zuhayr ibn Abī Sulmā: Age, Mortality, Honor, and Keeping Promises (Verses 43–52)
سَئِمْتُ تَكَالِيفَ الْحَيَاةِ وَمَنْ يَعِشْ ۞ ثَمَانِينَ حَوْلًا لَا أَبَا لَكَ يَسْأَمِ
I have grown weary of life’s burdens; whoever lives eighty years will, as I tell you, become weary.
Saʾimtu denotes weariness; takālīf are burdens and difficulties. The phrase lā abā laka is a conventional expression of emphatic address rather than a literal statement about the listener’s father. The man–yaʿish–yasʾam construction generalizes the experience of advanced age.