ABSTRACT

Wallādah, who lived in Córdoba in the eleventh century, was the daughter of Caliph Muḥammad al-Mustakfi. Her house was a meeting place for writers. She had a tempestuous relationship with the famous poet Ibn Zaydūn, who dedicated many of his poems to her. Wallādah accused him of sleeping both with her slave and his own secretary, a man by the name of ʿAli. In turn, she had affairs with Muhya, a woman poet, and with the vizir. Her relationship with Ibn Zaydūn ended badly. Most of her nine extant poems are about him. Some are delicate love poems, such as: “Expect my visit at dusk, for I find that night is the best time to hide secrets. What I feel for you is such that by its side the sun would not shine, the moon would not rise and the stars would not begin their nocturnal journey.” Some are obscene satirical poems: “You are called the hexagonous, a name that will endure beyond your life: faggot, buggerer, philanderer, fucker, cuckold, thief.”