Stop, you two: let us weep at the memory of…
Quote
Stop, you two: let us weep at the memory of a beloved and a campsite at Siqt al-Liwa, between al-Dakhul and Hawmal.
Arabic original
قفا نبك من ذكرى حبيب ومنزل بسقط اللوى بين الدخول فحومل.
What it means
The poet asks two companions to pause at a former dwelling place. The landscape holds memory: places remain after the people and cherished moments associated with them have gone.
The story behind this quote
This line opens Imru’ al-Qays’s Mu‘allaqa. Pausing at the traces of a campsite belongs to the older Arabic poetic tradition; the names locate those memories.
The command addresses two people, which the translations make explicit. Place names retain their function as landmarks within memory. Their precision contrasts with the beloved’s absence: the landscape can be named exactly, while the past itself cannot be recovered by returning there.
The source
معلقة امرئ القيس, مطلع المعلقة
The text appears in the indicated source. A traditional attribution remains distinct from proof of authorship: see the context.