The Lāmiyyāt al-‘Arab (the L-song of the Arabs) is the pre-eminent poem in the surviving canon of the pre-Islamic 'brigand-poets' (sa'alik). The poem also gained a foremost position in Western views of the Orient from the 1820s onwards.[1] The poem takes its name from the last letter of each of its 68 lines, L (Arabic ل, lām).
The poem is traditionally attributed to the putatively sixth-century CE outlaw (ṣu‘lūk) Al-Shanfarā, but it has been suspected since medieval times that it was actually composed during the Islamic period. For example, the medieval commentator al-Qālī (d. 969 CE) reported that it was composed by the early anthologist Khalaf al-Aḥmar.[2] The debate has not been resolved; if the poem is a later composition, it figures al-Shanfarā as an archetypal heroic outlaw, an anti-hero nostalgically imagined to expose the corruption of the society that produced him.[1]
Notwithstanding its fame, the poem contains a large number of linguistic obscurities, making it hard to understand in Arabic today, let alone to translate reliably.[1] [3] The major philological study of the work was by Georg Jacob.[4]
In the words of Warren T. Treadgold,
Shanfarā is being abandoned by his tribe, who have apparently become disgusted with his thievery (1-4). He says he would rather live in exile anyway, for he has a more faithful tribe in the wild beasts of the desert (5-9) and his own resources (10-13). Unlike his sedentary tribe, Shanfarā is unmoved by hardship and danger (14-20). He disdains hunger (21-25), like the gray wolf, whom he describes in an extended simile (36-41). As for thirst, he bears it better even than the desert grouse (36-41). After years of bearing the injustices of war, now he has to bear the pains of exile (44-48). But his endurance is limitless (42-43, 49-53). On the stormiest nights, he raids camps single-handed (54-61); on the hottest days, he goes bareheaded (62-64). Finally, he depicts himself standing on a hilltop after a day of walking across the desert, admired even by the wild goats (65-68).[3]
A good example of the poem's style and tone is provided by distichs 5-7 (3-5 in some editions).
The original text:[5]
Redhouse (1881):[6]
3. And I have (other) familiars besides you; — a fierce wolf, and a sleek spotted (leopard), and a long-maned hyæna.
4. They are a family with whom the confided secret is not betrayed; neither is the offender thrust out for that which has happened.
5. And each one (of them) is vehement in resistance, and brave; only, that I, when the first of the chased beasts present themselves, am (still) braver.
Treadgold (1975):[3]
I have some nearer kin than you: swift wolf,
Smooth-coated leopard, jackal with long hair.
With them, entrusted secrets are not told;
Thieves are not shunned, whatever they may dare.
They are all proud and brave, but when we see
The day's first quarry, I am breaver then.
Stetkevych (1986):[1]
5. I have closer kin than you: a wolf, swift and sleek,
a smooth and spotted leopard (smooth speckled snake),
and a long-maned one—a hyena.
6. They are kin among whom a secret, once confided, is not revealed;
nor is the criminal because of his crimes forsaken.
7. Each one is haughty-proud and reckless-brave,
except that I, when the first of the prey appear, am braver.
The following is a poetic translation for the first verses of Lamiyyat al-'Arab[7]