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17 “Our fire was never snuffed out to a sojourner, and no traveller stopping over has found us wanting.
18 “Our days are well known to our enemy. They have marked blazes and pasterns.
19 “Our swords in all the west and east are notched from bashing armored men.
20 “Their blades aren’t customarily drawn, then sheathed, until a tribe has been exterminated.
21 “If you are in the dark, make inquiry regarding us and them; the clueless and the well informed are not a match.
22 “Truly the Banu Dayyān are an axis to their people round which their mill-stone turns and spins.”

Notes
(Unless otherwise noted, quotations are from Arberry.)
17 “The poet refers to the Bedouin practice of lighting a fire on the top of the nearest hill to guide night-travellers to the encampment and as a sign that hospitality was to be found there.”
18 “Our ‘days’: i.e. the famous battles in which the tribe has engaged. The white parts of the noble horse describe the ‘outstanding’ achievements.”
22 “This verse is assigned by al-Tibrīzī not to al-Samau’al, who was not of the Banu ‘l-Daiyān, but to a certain ‘Abd al-Malik b. ‘Abd al-Raḥīm al-Hārithī…”

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