هَلْ غَادَرَ الشّعَرَاءُ مِنْ مُتَرَدَّمِ
أَمْ هَلْ عَرَفْتَ الدّارَ بَعْدَ تَوَهُّمِ

ردم: الراء والدال والميم أصل واحد يدل على سد ثلمة. ردم حفرة: سدها بالتراب. والثوب المردم هو البالي المرقع (مقاييس اللغة) والمتردم: الموضع الذي يسترقع ويستصلح لما اعتراه من الوهن والوهي. وردمت الشيء، أي أصلحته. يقول عنترة: هل ترك الشعراء معنى إلا وأصلحوه بشعرهم (أي تناولوه بأحسن تناول)؟ وهل أبقوا أي فكرة لمن يأتي بعدهم من الشعراء؟ وهذا الاستفهام الاستنكاري شبيه بما يقوله الكتاب المقدس "فَلَيْسَ تَحْتَ الشَّمْسِ جَدِيدٌ"، والمفارقة أن عنترة في معلقته أتى بما لم يُسبق إليه، وصارت قصيدته من الدرر الخالدة للشعر العربي!
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Hal ghadara as-shu’araau min mutaraddami

‏This is the opening line of the Mu’allaqa ("hanging poem") by the pre-Islamic poet Antara ibn Shaddad. The hanging poems are considered the most important works of early Arabic poetry. These 10 poems were inscribed with gold on parchment and hanged inside the Kaaba (hence the name), which was a great honor for the poets and their tribes

‏This line is a rhetorical question which literally translates to “have the ancient poets left any hole unpatched?” What he means is that poets have exhausted all fresh ideas, that they left no stone unturned. Or as the Old Testament Says "what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun." (Eccelesiastes 1:10). Paradoxically, the poet did write one of the classics of Arabic poetry, still read and enjoyed 15 centuries later, and managed to create a new proverb in the process!

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