ضرعيها : فصيرها في حوزة خشناء ، يغلظ كلمها ويخشن مسها ، ويكثر العثار فيها ، والاعتذار منها ، فصاحبها كراكب الصعبة إن أشنق لها خرم ، وإن أسلس لها تقحم ، فمني الناس لعمر الله بخبط وشماس ، وتلون واعتراض ، فصبرت على طول المدة ، وشدة المحنة .

its udders! So he set it in a rough enclosure, whose wounding is harsh and whose touch is rough, in which stumbling is frequent and the excusing of it frequent. Its companion is as the rider of a difficult mount: if he pulls her rein tight he tears her nose, and if he slackens it she plunges headlong. So the people were afflicted, by the life of God, with blundering and with restiveness, with fickleness and with turning aside. Yet I was patient through the length of the period and the severity of the trial,

حتى إذا مضى لسبيله ، جعلها في جماعة زعم أني أحدهم ، فيا لله وللشورى متى اعترض الريب في مع الأول منهم ، حتى صرت أقرن إلى هذه النظائر ، لكني أسففت إذ أسفوا ، وطرت إذ طاروا ، فصغى رجل منهم لضغنه ، وما الآخر لصهره ، مع هن وهن .

until, when he had gone his way, he set it in a company, claiming that I was one of them. God! and what a council! When did doubt ever fall upon me concerning the first of them, that I should come to be reckoned among these peers? But I sank low when they sank low and flew when they flew. One of them inclined aside for his rancour, and the other bent for his kinship by marriage, together with this and that.

إلى أن قام ثالث القوم نافجا حضنيه ، بين نثيله ومعتلفه ، وقام معه بنو أبيه يخضمون مال الله خضم الإبل نبتة الربيع ، إلى أن انتكث عليه فتله ، وأجهز عليه عمله ، وكبت به بطنته .

— until the third of the people rose, puffing out his two flanks between his dung-heap and his fodder; and the sons of his father rose with him, devouring the wealth of God as camels devour the herbage of spring, until his rope unravelled upon him, and his own deeds finished him, and his gluttony brought him down.

فما راعني إلا والناس كعرف الضبع إلي ، ينثالون علي من كل جانب حتى لقد وطئ الحسنان ، وشق عطفاي ، مجتمعين حولي كربيضة الغنم ، فلما نهضت بالأمر نكثت طائفة ومرقت أخرى وقسط آخرون ، كأنهم لم يسمعوا كلام الله سبحانه حيث يقول : * ( تلك الدار الآخرة نجعلها للذين لا يريدون علوا في الأرض ولا فسادا ، والعاقبة للمتقين ) * بلى والله لقد سمعوها ووعوها ، ولكنهم حليت الدنيا في أعينهم ، وراقهم زبرجها .

Then nothing startled me but the people, like the hyena's mane, pressing in upon me, pouring upon me from every side, until al-Hasan and al-Husayn were trodden underfoot and my two flanks were torn, gathered about me like a flock of sheep. Then when I rose with the affair, one party broke faith, another went out of it, and others deviated — as though they had not heard the word of God, glory be to Him, where He says: “That is the abode of the hereafter; We appoint it for those who desire neither exaltation in the earth nor corruption; and the outcome is for the God-fearing.” Nay, by God, they had heard it and grasped it; but the world was made sweet in their eyes and its ornament dazzled them.

أما والذي فلق الحبة ، وبرء النسمة ، لولا حضور الحاضر ، وقيام الحجة بوجود الناصر ، وما أخذ الله على العلماء أن لا يقاروا على كظة ظالم ولا سغب مظلوم ، لألقيت حبلها على غاربها ، ولسقيت آخرها بكأس أولها ، ولألفيتم دنياكم هذه أزهد عندي من عفطة عنز .

But by Him who split the seed and created the soul, were it not for the presence of the one present, and the establishing of the proof by the existence of a helper, and what God has taken upon the scholars — that they should not acquiesce in the gluttony of a wrongdoer nor in the hunger of the wronged — I would have cast its rope upon its own withers, and watered its last with the cup of its first; and you would have found this world of yours of less worth to me than the sneeze of a goat.

قالوا : وقام إليه رجل من أهل السواد عند بلوغه إلى هذا الموضع من خطبته فناوله كتابا ، فأقبل بنظر فيه ، فلما فرغ من قرائته ، قال له ابن عباس " رحمه الله " : يا

They said: And a man of the people of the Sawad rose to him when he had reached this point in his sermon, and handed him a letter; and he began to look into it. When he had finished reading it, Ibn 'Abbas, may God have mercy on him, said to him: O