The water's scarce enough
To drink, with none left for the bath. The ground
Serves you as bed, and millet is your food,
Or rotten wheat and barley."
Then took up
The word, and spoke the Arab woman dark:
"Who are thy ancestors? Which is thy tribe
Among all those that fill the mighty world?
You're only Beny Leqyt, and the scum
Of people of all sorts. Thou call'st thyself
A city woman. What are city men?
Thy lords don't slander folk. 'Tis only those
Who come whence no one knows who have so rude
A tongue. Thou wouldst insult me, thou, of stock
Like thine, with such a name abroad! And thou
Wouldst taunt a Qorechyte, a Hachemite
Of glorious ancestors who earned their fame.
Tis proper for a woman born of such
A stock illustrious to vaunt herself
Upon her origin. But thou, a vile
Descendant of a conquered race!
"Thou call'st
Thyself a Sunnite, yet thou knowest not
The three great things their Author gave to us:
(He knows all secrets.) First is Paradise,
Then the Koran, and then our Prophet great,
Destroyer of false faiths and for all men
The interceder.
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