Poetry
The Mu'allaqat
المعلقات
Anonymous · 550
Synopsis
Seven long odes from pre-Islamic Arabia, composed by seven poets: Imru' al-Qays, Tarafa, Zuhayr, Labid, Amr ibn Kulthum, Antara and al-Harith ibn Hilliza. Most open with a halt before the traces of an abandoned camp, where the poet weeps for the beloved who has left, then come the journey, the mount, the hunt, the battles and the praise of self or of the tribe. Some lists add three more, to make ten.
Context
The word means “the suspended ones”: according to tradition, these poems were written in letters of gold and hung on the Kaaba in Mecca. Composed and transmitted orally in the sixth century, they were set down in writing only in the eighth and ninth centuries. They are also called the seven long odes. In French, Jacques Berque translated them under the title Les Dix Grandes Odes arabes de l'anté-Islam, and Pierre Larcher under that of Les Mu'allaqât ou les sept poèmes préislamiques, with Fata Morgana in 2000.
Who it is for
Long allusive poems, full of place names and words of the desert; an annotated translation is necessary.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the pinnacle of pre-Islamic poetry, they still serve as a reference for the Arabic language and metre.
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