Her eyes are bleary with sleeplessness. She “watches over” stars all night as if she were a shepherd and they her flock. She hardly bothers to dress herself other than in tatters. Arabian poet Al-Khansā’ (d. 645 AD) starts to reveal in the third line of her famous elegy why she’s distraught and unkempt.
For I had heard — and it was not news to rejoice me — one making report, who had come repeating intelligence, […] (1)
Recently something came clear to me about the line. Here’s my transliteration of the Arabic text:
3 wa-qad sami^tu wa-lam ‘abjaḥ bi-hi ẖabar(an) | muḥaddiṯ(an) jā’a yanmī raj^(a) ‘aẖbār(i)
I had read ẖabar(an), an undefined Form 1 verbal noun in accusative case, and muḥaddiṯ(an), an undefined Form 2 active participle in accusative case, as being in a noun-adjective relationship to one another. The structure didn’t cohere, though.
It dawned on me lately that ẖabar(an) is an adverb affiliated with the verbal phrase preceding it — lam ‘abjaḥ bi-hi (lit. “not I found joy with it”). Muḥaddiṯ(an) is the sole direct object of the verb sami^tu, as well as subject of the 3rd-person-masculine-singular verbs jā’a (“he came”) and yanmī (2).
Here’s my translation:
For I had heard — and got no joy in it as tiding — a speaker (who) came yielding increase (of) the coming back of reports, […]
It’s clumsy but suits my present mode of study, which is to render texts as closely to the Arabic as I can while preserving legible English.
Notes
(1) Arabic Poetry: A Primer for Students, Cambridge University, 1965, p. 39.
(2) Verb yanmī (root n-m-y) has a wide range of modern meanings in Wehr. I will go with Lane’s “yielding increase,” which can suggest repetition. The gist is clear enough: A report being carried by someone is propagated through repetition.
(c) 2026 JMN — EthicalDative. All rights reserved
EthicalDative 
Confession
An early attempt of mine to reflect distress in the face of a young Yazidi refugee in Syria’s civil war under Assad. Unskilled though it is, it showed me the fine line that can exist between mirth and anguish in the human visage.
I confess to a proclivity (morbid?) for depicting faces in various states of contortion. A face at rest, unless it’s grizzled or reflective of a corrupt soul, has bland contours. States of agitation are what lay bare the deserts, mountains and swamps of the human physiognomy.
I cruise journalism and clip photos (jpegs) of mass rallies.
Often they’re filled with the faces of men who exhibit rage in their demeanors. All my life, Iran has chanted, Death to America, the great Satan!
Persian uses the Arabic alphabet. I’ve studied only Arabic.
Trump’s useless rejoinder referencing Iran has been, They’re scum.
From image of reporting on a demonstration against removing Confederate statuary. It illustrates contempt.
The two extremes, Satan and scum, do violence to the lived reality, complexity and vitality of two worthy populations duped into senseless contention by bad leaders. Most citizens of both countries deserve a better life than they’ve got.
As I zoom the photos and study the men’s expressions, I often imagine sitting with one in his living room, taking tea and conversing. Maybe arguing, maybe disagreeing, but not with violence. Parting with a handshake, or, better, a fraternal embrace.
(c) 2026 JMN — EthicalDative. All rights reserved