Ḥamda bint Ziyād

Ḥamda bint Ziyād al-Muʾaddib was a twelfth-century Andalusian poet from Guadix, sister of Zaynab bint Ziyad al-Muʾaddib, and described by the seventeenth-century diplomat Mohammed ibn abd al-Wahab al-Ghassani as 'one of the poetesses of the Andalus. She is famous in that region and among all the poets and poetesses of the country.' Her father was a teacher (mu'addib), and she is described as being one of 'the brotherless only daughters of well-off and cultured fathers who gave them the education that they would have given to their male children, if they had had any'. She is one of relatively few named Moorish women poets.

Example One example of Hamda's work is the poem referred to by A. J. Arberry as 'Beside a Stream', given here in his translation:

I sat beside a stream Of loveliness supreme, And with my tears expressed The secrets of my breast.

A mead of emerald About each river rolled, And every meadow round A silver river wound.

Among the shy gazelles Ran lovely fawns, whose spells Enslaved my mind, whose art Bewitching stole my heart.

They lulled their eyes asleep But for a purpose deep Which (as true lover knows) Denies me all repose.

They let their tresses fall And there, as I recall, Into the jet-black skies I saw a moon arise.

The dawn, methinks, bereaved Of so dear brother, grieved For so sad loss, and so Put on the garb of woe.

This can be compared with Nabil Matar's translation of the same poem:

Tears have betrayed my secrets in a wadi [valley] whose beauty is striking; A river surrounds every meadow; and every meadow borders every wadi; Among the gazelle, a black fawn stole my mind, after stealing my heart; She desires to lie down for a reason, and that reason prevents my sleep; When she loosens her tufts, I see the full moon in the black clouds, As if the dawn had lost a brother, and in sorrow, clothed itself in mourning.