Nizar Qabbani
Nizar Tawfiq Qabbani, born on March 21, 1923, in the historical district of Midan al-Shahham in Damascus, graduated from the Faculty of Law in Syria in 1944. He pursued a career in the Syrian diplomatic service, where he traveled extensively to various cities, including Madrid, Cairo, Beirut, Beijing, Ankara, and London. Qabbani remained devoted to his diplomatic career until his resignation in 1966. His complete works have been published in a collection known as “The Complete Works of Nizar Qabbani.”
Nizar Qabbani’s Poetry on Love
My Beloved
In his poem “My Beloved,” Nizar Qabbani writes:
My beloved: If they ask you about me
One day, do not think too long.
Tell them with all pride
(…he loves me… he loves me a lot.)
My little one: If they reproach you one day
About how you cut your silky hair
And how you shattered a nice vase
After I nurtured it for months
And it was like summer in my country,
Distributing shadows and fragrance.
Tell them: “I cut my hair
(…because the one I love prefers it short.)
My princess: If we danced together
To our favorite tune amidst the candles,
And our existence for a few moments
Was radiance and light.
And if others thought in my arms
You were a butterfly ready to fly.
Continue your dance in calmness,
And make my ribs your bed,
And proudly murmur:
(…he loves me… he loves me a lot.)
My beloved: If they tell you that I
Do not own slaves or palaces,
And that I do not possess a diamond necklace
To adorn your delicate neck,
Tell them with all vigor:
“Yes, he loves me a lot.”
Oh, my beloved, a thousand times my beloved,
My love for your eyes is immense,
…and will always remain vast.
Boundless Love
Nizar Qabbani addresses his beloved, saying:
O my lady:
You were the most important woman in my history
Before the year departed.
Now, you’re the most significant woman
After the birth of this year.
You are a woman I do not count by hours or days.
You are a woman created from the fruit of poetry,
and from the gold of dreams.
You are a woman who resided in my body
Before millions of years passed.
O my lady:
You, woven from cotton and mist,
You, rains of rubies,
You, rivers of Nahawand,
You, marble forests
Who swims like fish in the water of my heart,
And resides in my eyes like a flock of doves.
Nothing will change in my feelings,
In my senses,
In my soul, in my faith.
For I shall remain on the religion of love.
O my lady:
Do not worry about the pace of time and the names of years.
You are a woman who remains a woman, at all times.
I will love you,
When entering the 21st century,
And when we enter the 25th century,
And when we reach the 29th century.
And I will continue to love you,
Even when the waters of the sea dry up,
And the forests burn away.
O my lady:
You are the essence of all poetry,
And the flower of all freedoms.
Just spelling your name
Makes me the king of poetry,
And the pharaoh of words.
Just being loved by a woman like you
Is enough to etch me into the history books,
And for flags to be raised for me.
O my lady:
Do not tremble like a bird in festive times.
Nothing about me will change.
The river of love will not cease to flow.
The heartbeat will not stop its rhythm.
The song of poetry will not cease to soar,
When love is immense,
And the beloved is a moon.
This love will not transform
Into a bundle of straw consumed by flames…
O my lady:
There is nothing that fills my eyes,
Not lights,
Nor decorations,
Nor the bells of Eid,
Nor the Christmas trees.
Streets mean nothing to me.
Pubs hold no meaning for me.
Words written on greeting cards
are of no interest to me.
O my lady:
I do not remember anything except your voice
When the bells of Sundays toll.
I remember nothing but your fragrance
When I sleep on the paper of herbs.
I recall nothing but your face,
When snow flutters over my garments
And I hear the crack of kindling wood.
What brings me joy, O my lady,
Is to curl up like a frightened sparrow
Among the gardens of eyelashes…
I Ask You for Departure
Nizar Qabbani expresses in his poem “I Ask You for Departure”:
Let us part for a while,
For the good of this love, my dear,
And for our betterment.
Let us part for a while,
For I wish for you to increase your love for me.
I want you to hate me a little,
In the name of our fond memories,
That were precious to both of us,
In the name of a wonderful love,
That is still engraved on our lips,
Still engraved on our hands.
In the name of what you have written to me
And your face planted like a rose within me,
And your love that remains in my hair and on my fingers,
In the name of our memories,
And our beautiful sadness and our smile,
And the love that has become bigger than our words,
Bigger than our lips.
In the name of the most beautiful love story in our lives,
I ask you for departure.
Let us part as loved ones,
For birds in every season part from the hills,
And the sun, my dear,
Is sweetest when it attempts to set.
Be in my life doubt and suffering,
Be once a legend,
Be a mirage,
And be a question on my lips
Without knowing the answer.
For the sake of a wonderful love
That dwells within our hearts and eyelashes,
So I can always remain beautiful
And so that you can be even closer,
I ask you for departure.
Let us part… while we are lovers…
Let us separate despite all the love and tenderness.
For through your tears, my dear,
I want you to see me,
And through fire and smoke,
I want you to see me.
Let us burn… let us weep, my dear,
For we have forgotten,
The blessing of weeping for a long time.
Let us part,
So that our love does not become a routine,
And our longing does not turn to ashes,
And the flowers wither in their vases.
Be assured, my love,
For your love fills my eyes and my conscience,
And I am still captivated by your great love,
And I still dream of you being mine…
You are my knight, you are my prince.
The Poem of Sadness
Nizar Qabbani reflects in his poem of sadness:
Your love has taught me… to grieve
And I have needed for centuries
A woman who makes me sad.
A woman I can weep in her arms
Like a little bird…
A woman who collects my fragments
Like shards of broken glass.
Your love has taught me, my lady,
The worst habits.
You taught me to open my cup
A thousand times in the night
And to try the remedies of herb doctors
And to knock on the doors of fortune tellers.
Your love has taught me to leave my home
To walk along the sidewalks
And to chase your face
In the rain, and in the lights of cars.
And to pursue your shadow
Even in … even in
Advertisements’ papers…
Your love has taught me
How to wander aimlessly for hours
Searching for a gypsy’s hair
That all the gypsies envy,
Searching for a face… for a voice…
That is all faces and all voices.
Enter my heart, your love, my lady,
Into the cities of sorrow,
For before you, I had never entered
The cities of sorrow.
I never knew that tears are humanity
That without sorrow, one is just a memory of a person.
Your love has taught me
To behave like a child,
To draw your face with chalk on the walls,
On the sails of fishermen
On the bells,
On the crosses.
Your love has taught me
How love alters the map of time.
It has taught me that when I love,
The earth stops spinning.
Your love has taught me things never anticipated,
So I read children’s stories,
Entered the mansions of fairy kings
And dreamed to marry the sultan’s daughter.
Her eyes shine clearer than the waters of bays,
Her lips sweeter than pomegranate flowers.
And I dreamed of abducting her
Like the knights,
And I dreamed of gifting her
Necklaces of pearls and corals.
Your love taught me, my lady, what delirium is,
And taught me how time passes
And the sultan’s daughter never comes.
Your love has taught me
How to love you in every little thing,
In bare trees,
In yellow, withered leaves,
In rainy weather, in storms,
In the smallest café
Where we drink our black coffee in the evening.
Your love has taught me to seek
Hotels without names,
And churches without names,
And cafés without names.
Your love has taught me
How the night amplifies the sorrows of strangers.
Your love has taught me
How to see Beirut
As a woman, captivating and charming,
A woman who wears each evening
The finest of her dresses
And sprays perfume on her bosom
For sailors and princes.
Your love has taught me
To weep without tears,
Has taught me how sorrow sleeps
Like a boy with two severed legs
In the streets of (Roucheh) and (Hamra).
Your love has taught me to grieve
And I have needed for centuries
A woman who allows me to grieve,
A woman in whose arms
I can weep like a bird,
A woman who can gather my pieces
Like shards of broken glass.
The Damascene Poem
Nizar Qabbani proclaims in his poem:
Here is Damascus, and here is the cup and the wine,
I love, and some love can be lethal.
I am the Damascene; if you were to dissect my body,
You would find clusters of grapes and apples flowing out.
If you were to open my veins with your blade,
You would hear the voices of those who have departed within my blood.
The cultivation of the heart heals some of those in love,
And when I love, my heart has no surgeon.
Here, the wine is fragrant fire,
So are the eyes of the women of Damascus like cups?
The minarets of Sham weep when they embrace me,
Just as trees possess souls.
The jasmine fields are found in our homes,
And the cat of the house dozes where it finds peace.
The coffee grinder is part of our childhood,
So how can I forget? The scent of cardamom fills the air.
This is the place where “Abu al-Mu’taz” waits,
And the face of “Faiza” is sweet and shining.
Here are my roots; here is my heart; here is my language.
How can I explain? Is there clarity in love?
How many Damascenes have sold their bracelets
So that I may flirt with her while poetry is the key?
I have come, O willow tree, asking for forgiveness;
Can Hayfa and Waddah forgive me?
Fifty years and my parts have scattered
Across the seas, and in the horizon there is no lamp.
Raging seas have swept me with no shores in sight,
And demons and phantoms have chased me.
I fight against ugliness in my poetry and in my literature,
Until a flower may bloom and a match be struck.
What is it with Arabism appearing like a widow?
Isn’t there happiness in the pages of history?
And what will remain of poetry’s purity?
If it is taken over by swindlers and flatterers?
And how shall we write when the locks bind our lips?
Every moment a butcher arrives at you?
I carried my poetry on my back, and it exhausted me;
What remains of poetry when it rests?