Has Fate, no friend of grief, shockedyou into tears? What’s wrong with your body,despite your riches? Why is every bedyou lie on a bed of stones? askedUmaymah. My sons are dead, I said.Their death has caused me so much pain.Since they bade me farewell, I sighand cry and cannot sleep. I used to thinkweeping was a folly, but loss forces usto tears. In their haste they ignored my advice;now they’re gone forever! True, all must sleepthe sleep of death; yet, though I know I’ll jointhem soon, I’m left behind to livea life of agony. I tried hard to protectthem, but who can stop Death? What useare charms when Death grips you in its claws?I cry myself blind, my eyes burningas if pierced with thorns; I’m a stone weatheredby Time in Musharraq’s shrine. Fatehasn’t humbled me—I put on a brave facefor foes who would rejoice in my pain.Train the soul to be happy with less—the more you indulge it, the more it craves.Who can flee Fate the Hunter?Not the onager with his harem of four mares,braying like a slave attacked by wolves.Well fed on grass, he drinks from the poolson the plains watered by frequent cloudbursts,a jenny, slender as a spear, by his side.As his harem tarried, butting heads,he grew grave, then frisky, but his luck ranout: the pools dried, and he sealedhis fate by driving his mares to water.From Sawā’ to Bathr, he risked the openroad. On the slopes between Nubāyi’and Dhū l-‘Arjā’, the jennies were like a herd of camelsrounded up in a raid or a clutch of arrowsscattered in a gambler’s game, as he drovethem hard, like a smith whetting a blade.When bright Canopus hunkered over Orionlike a gambler, the troop waded leg-deep onto the pebbles of a cold pond.They drank, then heard a noise on the far sideof a hill—like a thud or the rasp of a bowheld by a hunter poised for the kill.The herd shied behind the barrel-chestedjack and a lean jenny. Then the huntershot a mare in foal—the arrowlay on the ground in a pool of blood.As the jack turned and exposed his flank,the hunter groped in his quiver and a swiftṢā’idī shaft struck the beastdeep in his ribs. Death was dealtby the hunter—a few mares bolted,barely alive; others fell to their knees,slipping in the gore, their legs as ifwrapped in striped Tazīdī cloaks.Who can flee Fate the Hunter?Not the scared oryx buck, spookedby the hunting dogs at dawn, shelteredby the roots of the artā from the howling windand rain, peering into the dark to discoverthe source of the sound. As daylight warmshis back, the first dogs appearat the head of the dusky pack and he panics.Darting out, his path blocked by the hounds,he charges, his sharp horns dyedred, while his muscled limbs and stripedflanks keep their jaws at bay.The dogs retreat as he lunges at the yelpingpack, wielding his horns like skewersof bloody meat served at a feast.With his slender-tipped, short-fletchedarrows in his hand, the hunter advancesand fires, allowing his dogs to escape—the dart drives deep into the oryx’sflank as he falls to the ground with a crash,more majestic than a prized bull camel.Who can flee Fate the Hunter?Not the helmeted, ironclad warriorwhose face is covered in rust and sweatfrom the heat of his chain mail, mountedon a sunken-eyed mare grown faton milk into whose flesh his fingers sink.Un-foaled, with empty teats like earrings,she snaps the saddle ring with her pace,but even when whipped, lathered in sweat,thigh veins bulging, she keepsher best speed in reserve. One dayas he feints and parries, Fate bringshim face to face with a champion mountedon a light-framed colt as nimbleas a sure-footed ibex. The heroes dismountand fight for glory’s prize, their warhorsesstaring each other down. Both fightersare proud of their skills—but it’s an evil day!They’re armed with keen, fine-temperedblades that hack off limbs, and Yazanspears whose heads gleam like lamps,clad in full-length, honey-smooth hauberksforged by David or Tubba’—both lie deadfrom wounds like rips in cloth beyond repair.They lived for glory and fame—but why?