Qasmuna

[5] Three poems by Qasmūna survive, due to being recorded by two later anthologists: Al-Suyuti, in his fifteenth-century Nuzhat al-julasāʼ fī ashʻār al-nisā, an anthology of women's verse, and Ahmed Mohammed al-Maqqari, in his seventeenth-century Nafḥ al-ṭīb.

Lī ṣāḥibun dhū [lacuna] qad qābalat nafʿan bi-ḍurrin wa-staḥallat ḥarāma-ha.

[6] The most famous of Qasmūna's poems, widely anthologised, is introduced by the comment that she looked in the mirror one day and saw that she was beautiful and had reached the time of marriage.

[6] She then utters this verse: Ayā rawḍatan qad ḥāna min-ha qaṭāfu-ha wa-laisa yurâ ḥānin yamudda la-ha yadā; fa-wā asafī yamdī-shshabābu mudayyaʿan wa-yabqâ-lladhī mā lanʾusammī-hi mufradā.

[7] The last of Qasmūna's known poems runs: Yā ẓabyatan tarʿa bi-rawdin dāʾiman innī ḥakaitu-ki fi-ttawaḥḥushi wa-l-ḥawari.