English    Türkçe    فارسی   

2
996-1020

  • یک زمان بی‏کار نتوانی نشست ** تا بدی یا نیکیی از تو نجست‏
  • You cannot sit inactive for one moment: (you cannot rest) till some badness or goodness has issued from you.

  • این تقاضاهای کار از بهر آن ** شد موکل تا شود سرت عیان‏
  • These demands (cravings) for action were appointed in order that your inward consciousness should come clearly into (outward) view.

  • پس کلابه‏ی تن کجا ساکن شود ** چون سر رشته‏ی ضمیرش می‏کشد
  • How, then, should the reel, which is the body, become still, when the thread's end, which is the mind, is pulling it?

  • تاسه‏ی تو شد نشان آن کشش ** بر تو بی‏کاری بود چون جان کنش‏
  • The sign of that pulling is your anguish: to be inactive is to you like the death-agony.

  • این جهان و آن جهان زاید ابد ** هر سبب مادر اثر از وی ولد 1000
  • This world and that world are for ever giving birth: every cause is a mother, the effect is the child (born) from it.

  • چون اثر زایید آن هم شد سبب ** تا بزاید او اثرهای عجب‏
  • When the effect was born, that too became a cause, so that it might give birth to wondrous effects.

  • این سببها نسل بر نسل است لیک ** دیده‏ای باید منور نیک نیک‏
  • These causes are generation on generation, but it needs a very well illumined eye (to see all the links in their chain).”

  • شاه با او در سخن اینجا رسید ** یا بدید از وی نشانی یا ندید
  • The King, in conversation with him, arrived at this point: he either saw or did not see a sign.

  • گر بدید آن شاه جویا دور نیست ** لیک ما را ذکر آن دستور نیست‏
  • If that searching King saw (such a sign), ’tis not strange; but we are not permitted to mention it.

  • چون ز گرمابه بیامد آن غلام ** سوی خویشش خواند آن شاه و همام‏ 1005
  • When that (other) slave came from the warm bath, that King and lofty personage called him to his presence,

  • گفت صحا لک نعیم دایم ** بس لطیفی و ظریف و خوب رو
  • (And) said, “Health (to you)! Lasting happiness be yours! You are very fine and elegant and good-looking.

  • ای دریغا گر نبودی در تو آن ** که همی‏گوید برای تو فلان‏
  • Oh, alas! If there were not in you that which so-and-so says about you,

  • شاد گشتی هر که رویت دیده‏یی ** دیدنت ملک جهان ارزیدیی‏
  • Whoever beheld your face would become glad; the sight of you would be worth the empire of the world.”

  • گفت رمزی ز آن بگو ای پادشاه ** کز برای من بگفت آن دین تباه‏
  • He said, “O King, utter some hint of what that miscreant said about me.”

  • گفت اول وصف دو روییت کرد ** کاشکارا تو دوایی خفیه درد 1010
  • The King said, “In the first place he described you as double-faced, saying that you are ostensibly a remedy (but) secretly a disease.”

  • خبث یارش را چو از شه گوش کرد ** در زمان دریای خشمش جوش کرد
  • When he heard from the King the malice of his companion, at once the sea of his anger surged up.

  • کف بر آورد آن غلام و سرخ گشت ** تا که موج هجو او از حد گذشت‏
  • That slave foamed and reddened, so that the billows of his vituperation exceeded (all) bounds.

  • کاو ز اول دم که با من یار بود ** همچو سگ در قحط بس گه خوار بود
  • He said, “From the first moment that he was associated with me, he was a great eater of dung, like a dog in (time of) famine.”

  • چون دمادم کرد هجوش چون جرس ** دست بر لب زد شهنشاهش که بس‏
  • As he satirised him in succession (without intermission), like a bell, the King put his hand on his (the slave's) lips, saying, “Enough!”

  • گفت دانستم ترا از وی بدان ** از تو جان گنده ست و از یارت دهان‏ 1015
  • He said, “I know you from him by that (which you have spoken): in you the spirit is foul, and in your companion (only) the mouth.

  • پس نشین ای گنده جان از دور تو ** تا امیر او باشد و مأمور تو
  • Therefore do you sit far off, O foul-spirited one, that he may be the commander and you under his command.”

  • در حدیث آمد که تسبیح از ریا ** همچو سبزه‏ی گولخن دان ای کیا
  • It is (said) in the Hadíth (Traditions of the Prophet): “Know, sire, that glorification (of God) from hypocrisy is like the verdure on a midden.”

  • پس بدان که صورت خوب و نکو ** با خصال بد نیرزد یک تسو
  • Know, then, that a fair and goodly form with bad qualities (within) is not worth a farthing;

  • ور بود صورت حقیر و ناپذیر ** چون بود خلقش نکو در پاش میر
  • And though the form be despicable and unpleasing, (yet) when his (that person's) disposition is good, die at his feet!

  • صورت ظاهر فنا گردد بدان ** عالم معنی بماند جاودان‏ 1020
  • Know that the outward form passes away, (but) the world of reality remains for ever.