In celebration of Valentine’s Day, the archaeological site Barrio Andalusí (former Mesón Gitano) in Almería witnessed poetry readings

Almeria Correspondent

In celebration of Valentine’s Day, the archaeological site Barrio Andalusí (former Mesón Gitano) in Almería witnessed poetry readings followed by a romantic guided tour entitled “Falling in Love with History.”

The archaeological site of the Barrio, or “Andalusian Neighborhood”, witnessed a presentation organized by the poet Jorge Lirola Delgado, professor of Arabic language at the University of Almeria, and Foundation Ibn Tufayl of Arabic Studies.

The event had a bilingual reading of poems by the poets Juan José Cepa, Virginia Fernández Collado , and Antonio Martínez Castro and students from the Official Language School accompanied on the lute by Paco Fernande.

After an introduction to love in Andalusian literature and reciting selected poems in Arabic and Spanish, the order of intervention is as follows: Virginia: Amor udri (Ibn Farach);  The other two poems of Ibn Hazm; Prince amnestied; Hafsa; Wallada Juan José: Amor ibahi (Ibn Jafaya); Ibn Hazm’s prose text with a poem; Fragments of the Algarve anthology; Ibn Zaydun.

Poetry reading began with Arabic recitations. This was done verse after verse: first in Arabic, then translated, then another verse in Arabic, followed by its translation, and so on, the musician Paco Fernandez’s accompanied recitations with lute improvisations.

In the poem by Ibn Khafaja Al-Andalusi, “One night we drank incense and we had a conversation like the breeze blowing on the roses” | We return it while the cup is fragrant, and it is better than it which we do not repeat and what we do not show. And we say the jasmine of the mouth, or the irises of the meadow, and the lily of the eyelids, or the rose of the cheek | Until the cup and ball moved through body, and he leaned with his arms and leaned on my upper arm | So I began to seek guidance from the heat between my ribs and the cold between my ribs. And I saw him unsheathed by his cloak, and I saw his sword unsheathed. The liana of the tentacle, the uprightness of his stature, the trembling of the inflections, and the splendor of Efrend | I will draw from it the branch in the plantings of the weeds, and the thorns in the face of the sun at the rising of the moon | If he or she is not her, then he is her brother, just as the snare was made of leather | Both my palms travel along his body, now to the waist and now to the breast | Then it descends from his cheeks, the palms of Tihamah, and ascends from his other breasts to Najd…

Paraphrasing the poem of Ibn Faraj Al-Jiyani we read: And the obedience of connection turned away from it, and the obedience of connection turned away from it, and the devil is not obedient to it | She appeared as a whistler at night, so she became the night’s voice wearing a mask There is not a moment in which the temptations of hearts do not have reasons So Al-Naha took over the reins of my longing, and there was no running in chastity in my nature And he spread her thirsty nest in the desert, and the rain prevents her from breastfeeding Like this kindergarten, there is nothing for someone like me other than sight and smell I am not one of the wanderers and neglected people, so I seek refuge in the pastures.

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Published under International Cooperation with "Sindh Courier"