"Lion’s fangs glimmer / You smile in return, but / Here comes the ripper"
Arabic Translation Challenge: If You See His Fangs Bared …
إذا رَأيْتَ نُيُوبَ اللّيْثِ بارِزَةً * فَلا تَظُنّنّ أنّ اللّيْثَ يَبْتَسِمُ
‘Fee for a Feline’
"I see people / getting beautiful / day after day / but just not you. Like a kitten / you only mean anything / when you're young /you know that's true."
Arabic Translation Challenge: ‘You’ve Aged Like a Cat!’
"I saw everyone getting lovelier, day by day, / and you, becoming less so! / Like a cat that fetches a high price in its youth, / and which, when it ages, goes for cheap."
‘No Way But The Way’
"It’s heart-warming to see Sargon’s voice transmogrify in so many ways and across four languages."
Arabic Translation Challenge: ‘An Angel Appears’
"The beginning, we choose. / But the end chooses us. / And there is no road but the road."
‘Avarice and Fury’
spotted lion, tense/ tired of lockdown/ take the cheetah hunting?/ wait and pine/
Arabic Translation Challenge #4: ‘Like a Lion with Spots’
"Abu Nuwas’s answer to The Tiger King."
‘Their Beauty is Absolute’
"’Tis God’s good vines / our world entwines / o’erlapping sunned & / ashen lines / [yet all be wines.]"
Translation Challenge #3: Shades of Black
"العين طامحة واليد سابحة والرجل لافحة والوجه غربيب"
‘Heal Me with Disease’
"I'm wrong? Please. / I'm ill? Heal me with disease."
Arabic Translation Challenge #2: ‘Do Not Scold Me!’
"Cure me rather with the cause of my ill…"