There will be fire and heat, both without cease.
Where will you turn on that last day, when flames
Rage within your spleen, and from your scalp
The skin is singed – where will you flee for help?
Tell me your refuge, for I would share it too.
Never forget that Day, when multitudes
Will assemble for every deed to be revealed;
That Day when the oppressed will kneel before
Their God and cry, “Decide between him and me!
Judge us, O Lord God! See how I was wronged
By this man – judge us in Thy rectitude!”
And God, by Whom all things shall be disposed,
Shall judge, repaying each his wrongs as due.
Nor can the injured ever be paid back
With golden nuggets, nor with coin of gold.
Money, even were it offered as recompense.
Is not accepted. Compensation must
Be rendered in good deeds performed in life.
And he whose record shows neither good deeds
Nor wrongs incurred from others – he, like a horse,
Is bridled, with bit pressed to his mouth,
And forced to bear the sins of those he wronged –
Ordered to carry their burden and begone.
Al-Inkishafi: Catechism of a Soul Sayyid Abdulla bin Ali bin Nasir
Swahili love poems range from the utendi to the lyric, of which these literal translations are examples.
BIRD OF THE NIGHTS
O you bird of the nights,
receive my greetings,
I do not eat at all
you have penetrated me, proud one,
like an anchor into a rock.
I, your slave, am conquered.
Accept my letter,
read its contents,
so that it may be clear to you,
and enter your mind entirely,
forgive me many things again,
while reading my greetings.
I came to you, my friend,
it was your friendship I needed,
you embraced me round the waist,
love has enveloped me
like a fish by the ocean,
and has covered me all over.
Nor do I see any change,
in this getting entangled in one another,
I grazed everywhere in the fruit,
and I have seen no other one
except you; in the belly,
my lover, you embraced me.
In the belly you embraced me,
you hurt me, my lover,
you held me with great strength,
it shone like ivory.
Come, come, my girl,
let your lips enfold me.
THE SCALES
I am looking for a pair of scales,
to weigh my love for you;
let us put it on the weighing scale,
let us compare it, precious one,
your love is invisible,
mine can be clearly seen.
O pair of scales, judge the truth,
you are the umpire,
do not be biased,
clearly show the truth.
Weigh, O scales of truth,
without withholding.
I have shown you my love,
I do not see yours, precious one,
I am giving you my secret,
act discreetly with it.
I love alone,
and you know it, beloved.
Give me your love
let it equal mine;
permit me to come to you,
or come to me,
lest you remain alone,
lest I love alone.
A Choice of Flowers Jan Knappert.
THE GRAPE
I passed along a fruit garden,
where there were many flowers,
and Paradisiac fruits,
the finest one could wish to choose from.
Grapes and pomegranates,
all neglectful of themselves.
O my heart, calm down,
you do not know the grape yet,
we do not know who owns it,
or how we shall carry it away.
The best thing is to exclaim: “Go away, Satan!”
Taking it would be equal to adultery.
My heart is full of zeal
to choose the grape,
even if the owner is Satan,
I will lure it away
so as to take it home with me,
to enjoy it and press it out.
The grape is already in my hands,
then the owner discovers me,
and at once it is in my mouth,
but I have not yet enjoyed it completely.
He put me in jail,
and took the grape away.
Refrain
The grape is in the heart
to eat it gives me trouble.
A Choice of Flowers Jan Knappert.
The grape and the pomegranate are erotic symbols in Islamic literature.
TO HIS FIRST WIFE
MUYAKA BIN HAIJI
I would rather have the small boat,1
My first little vessel,
Although it was unsteady and shaky
The waves never rose above her head,
But she drowned near Ngoaoa
On a dark night.
That is what I am thinking about today.
It makes me confused and numb.
My little boat, my seaworthy boat:
When I first made it float on the water
It was full of playfulness
And I was pleased and charmed by it.
In it I crossed over to the other shore
And the waves did not rise above it.
That is why I am thinking of her
And feel confused and numb.
Four Centuries of Swahili Verse
Jan Knappert.
Under Islamic law, a man may divorce his wife by abjuring her three times before a magistrate; the children of the marriage then belong to him. This is the song of a woman of Mombasa.
Should a mother be prevented from seeing her child?
Forgive me gentlemen, from the Coast and from up-country too,
To withhold a child from her mother, is it custom or law?
Give me a meaningful answer, so that the mind can retain it:
To withhold a child from her mother, is that custom or law?
My husband and I were married, and God granted us,
That we had a child, a gift in this world.
In features we looked alike, her name was Rukia.
To withhold a child from her mother, is that custom or law?
In the end we quarrelled, as discord entered (our house),
And we were divorced, my husband wrote a divorce note for me,
I no longer live with him now, I have gone back to my parents’ home.
To withhold a child from her mother, is that custom or law?
My husband took the child away, and lectured me as well:
“She is no longer your child, you are now divorced, I tell you,
Even when you are ill, she may not go to see you.”
To withhold a child from her mother, is that custom or law?
So I was without (help from) the law, as my husband had told me,
While we were divorced, and he kept the child away from me.
Yet, even though the child is her father’s, he did not get it alone.
To withhold a child from her mother, is that custom or law?
I felt so much pain, when I was with child,
At night and in daytime, I had no rest on earth.
And now I have no child, and this is then the law.
To withhold a child from her mother, is that custom or law?
From “Songs of the Swahili Women”, Afrika und Übersee Jan Knappert.
A Swahili sailor’s song.
Praise
be to God
let us thank the Giver,
Oh victorious Giver,
What sort of thing is the world?
Those who once owned palaces
are now sleeping under the sky
Those who once owned dhows
are now collecting firewood;
Those who once owned palm trees
are now craving for palm wine!
The world is treacherous
it deceives like the winds
suddenly they blow from below,
but the ones from above are the most
dangerous,
stripping off the sails
nothing lasts here.
Travel by the seasons,
the sea is king!
He that does not know the world,
let him watch the coastal waters:
at ebb it goes out,
at rising tide it goes in.
If the winds do not blow,
we make no progress at sea.
Be careful, fellow men!
do not fall down the cliffs
Life will not last.
That which floats is a dry leaf.
From “Swahili Sailors’ Songs”, Africa and Übersee
Jan Knappert.
A modern Swahili poet is Ahmad Nassir of Malindi, who wrote this poem in or about 1960.
THE FIRE
The forest has caught fire.
The great forest is blazing;
Shut your eyes
You will still see it burning.
It burns, friends, it burns.
Be careful with fire!
The shrubs are already consumed.
Tall trees are on fire.
Tiny gazelles flee.
Elephants are confused,
They walk without seeing their way
For the fire surrounds them.
It burns, friends, it burns.
Be careful with fire!
Fire has scorched all the grass
And young shoots are on fire,
And big lions, all of them
Have moved out of the bushes:
They are running – catch him! catch him!
But they know no place to hold on to.
It burns, friends, it burns.
Be careful with fire!
The fire has put even buffaloes to flight
Who are praised for their valour;
Rhinoceroses are caught in the middle,
Fire has surrounded them too.
Birds up in the trees
Have flown from their nests.
It burns, friends, it burns.
Be careful with fire!
Four Centuries of Swahili Verse Jan Knappert.
“Guests and fish stink after three days” – Chinese proverb.
The guest on the first day,
Give him rice and coconut heart
Served in the shell,
To welcome the guest.
The guest on the second day,
Give him milk and butter.
As affection grows,
Show more to the guest.
The guest on the third day,
There is nothing in the house
But three kibaba,
Cook them and eat with the guest.
The guest on the fourth day,
Give him a hoe to use,
On his return, take leave of him,
And let him go home.
The guest on the fifth day
Pricks like a needle.
The house is full of whispering,
All against the guest.
The guest on the sixth day –
Go into the corners
To hide when you eat,
From that guest.
The guest on the seventh day
Is no guest but a pest.
If the thatch catches fire
Blame it on the guest.
The guest on the eighth day –
“Come in, let us part.”
When he goes outside –
“Goodbye, go along, guest.”
The guest on the ninth day –
“Go, man, go,
Do not come back,
Do not return, guest.”
The guest on the tenth day –
With blows and kicks,
Get rid of no one
So long as you are rid of the guest.
The Customs of the Swahili People Mtoro bin Mwinyi Bakari.
Modern Poetry
With the spread of Western education, poems written in English replaced traditional songs chanted in tribal languages. Preeminent among the new poets was Okot p’Bitek (1931–1982) whose Song of Lawino dramatically juxtaposed the tribal customs of the past and the pseudo-European ways of many of the rising Westernized generation. It is a very long poem and only extracts can be given here.
I
MY HUSBAND’S TONGUE IS BITTER
Husband, now you despise me
Now you treat me with spite
And say I have inherited the stupidity of my aunt;
Son of the Chief,
Now you compare me
With the rubbish in the rubbish pit,
You say you no longer want me
Because I am like the things left behind
In the deserted homestead.
You insult me
You laugh at me
You say I do not know the letter A
Because I have not been to school
And I have not been baptized
You compare me with a little dog,
A puppy.
My friend, age-mate of my brother,
Take care,
Take care of your tongue,
Be careful what your lips say.
First take a deep look, brother,
You are now a man
You are not a dead fruit!
To behave like a child does not befit you!
Listen Ocol, you are the son of a Chief,
Leave foolish behaviour to little children,
It is not right that you should be laughed at in a song!
Songs about you should be songs of praise!
Stop despising people
As if you were a little foolish man,
Stop treating me like salt-less ash;
Become barren of insults and stupidity;
Who has ever uprooted the Pumpkin?2
*
My husband treats me roughly.
The insults!
Words cut more painfully than sticks!
He says my mother is a witch,
That my clansmen are fools
Because they eat rats,
He says we are all Kaffirs.
We do not know the ways of God,
We sit in deep darkness
And do not know the Gospel,
He says my mother hides her charms
In her necklace
And that we are all sorcerers.
My husband’s tongue
Is bitter like the roots of lyonno lily,
It is hot like the penis of the bee,
Like the sting of the kalang!
Ocol’s tongue is fierce like the arrow of the scorpion,
Deadly like the spear of the buffalo-hornet.
It is ferocious
Like the poison of a barren woman
And corrosive like the juice of the gourd.
*
My husband pours scorn
On Black People,
He behaves like a hen
That eats its own eggs
A hen that should be imprisoned under a basket.
His eyes grow large
Deep black eyes
Ocol’s eyes resemble those of the Nile perch!
He becomes fierce
Like a lioness with cubs,
He begins to behave like a mad hyena.
He says Black People are primitive
And their ways are utterly harmful,
Their dances are mortal sins
They are ig
norant, poor and diseased!
Ocol says he is a modern man,
A progressive and civilized man.
2
THE WOMAN WITH WHOM I SHARE MY HUSBAND
Ocol rejects the old type.
He is in love with a modern woman,
He is in love with a beautiful girl
Who speaks English.
But only recently
We would sit close together, touching each other!
Only recently I would play
On my bow-harp
Singing praises to my beloved.
Only recently he promised
That he trusted me completely.
I used to admire him speaking in English.
Ocol is no longer in love with the old type;
He is in love with a modern girl.
The name of the beautiful one
Is Clementine.
Brother, when you see Clementine!
The beautiful one aspires
To look like a white woman;
Her lips are red-hot
Like glowing charcoal,
She resembles the wild cat
That has dipped its mouth in blood,
Her mouth is like raw yaws
It looks like an open ulcer,
Like the mouth of a field!
Tina dusts powder on her face
And it looks so pale;
She resembles the wizard
Getting ready for the midnight dance.
She dusts the ash-dirt all over her face
And when little sweat
Begins to appear on her body
Nine Faces Of Kenya Page 61