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1 SAND AND SNOW   He is a warrior prince He hunts in the deserts of central Arabia He drinks and carouses with his companions, and pursues scandalous love affairs When his father banishes him for his bad behaviour, he becomes even more reckless, an outlaw At the news of his father’s death, he shrugs, he goes on playing backgammon Afterwards, however, he gets riotously drunk and embarks on a campaign of vengeance that will absorb the remainder of his short life He is the greatest poet of his age According to legend, he is slain by a treacherous gift from the Emperor Justinian: a poisoned robe   He is Imru al-Qays, the Man of Misfortune, the Wandering King He composes a stunning poem, known as his Muallaqa, or ‘Hanging Ode’, one of a handful of pre-Islamic poems so precious they were said to have been inscribed in gold and hung on the walls of the Kaaba Luminous language, imperishable lines The poem’s opening phrase, Qifa nabki – ‘Stop, let us weep’ – signals a traditional scene, in which the poet surveys the ruins of his beloved’s campsite This trope was already conventional in the poet’s time, produced by a nomadic Bedouin culture: the common experience of coming across the traces of an abandoned camp became, for poets, an occasion for mourning the loss of a real or imagined woman With Imru al-Qays, the old theme finds its most powerful and lasting expression, so that his Muallaqa becomes its exemplar Qifa nabki Stop, let us weep A call to pause, to dismount, to come down to earth, to face the signs of destruction and loss, and to weep in torrents In Arabic poetics, this classical motif is known as al-waqf ala al-atlal: ‘standing at the ruins’   Stop, let us weep for the memory of a lover and a home, at the edge of the twisting sands between al-Dakhul and Hawmal, between Tudih and al-Miqrat The traces have not yet been erased by the weaving of the north and south winds   In the courtyards and enclosures you can see the dung of gazelles scattered like peppercorns   On the day