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این سبو را پنج سوراخست ژرف ** اندرو نه آب ماند خود نه برف 2100
- This jug has five deep holes: neither water will stay in it nor even snow.
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امر غضوا غضة ابصارکم ** هم شنیدی راست ننهادی تو سم
- You have heard, too, the command (of God), “Close ye your eyes tightly”; (yet) you have not walked aright.
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از دهانت نطق فهمت را برد ** گوش چون ریگست فهمت را خورد
- Your speech bears away your understanding by (way of) the mouth; your ear is like sand: it drinks (sucks up) your understanding.
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همچنین سوراخهای دیگرت ** می‌کشاند آب فهم مضمرت
- Similarly, your other holes (avenues of sense-perception) are drawing (off) the hidden water of your understanding.
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گر ز دریا آب را بیرون کنی ** بی عوض آن بحر را هامون کنی
- If you expel the water from the sea without (admitting) compensation, you will make the sea a desert.
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بیگهست ار نه بگویم حال را ** مدخل اعواض را و ابدال را 2105
- ’Tis late; otherwise, I would declare the (true) state of the case (as to) the entrance of compensations and substitutes,
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کان عوضها و آن بدلها بحر را ** از کجا آید ز بعد خرجها
- (And tell) whence come to the sea those compensations and substitutes after (such) expenditures.
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صد هزاران جانور زو می‌خورند ** ابرها هم از برونش می‌برند
- Hundreds of thousands of animals drink of it; from outside also the clouds take it (its water) away;
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باز دریا آن عوضها می‌کشد ** از کجا دانند اصحاب رشد
- (But) again the sea draws (into itself) those compensations— whence (they come) is known to the righteous.
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قصه‌ها آغاز کردیم از شتاب ** ماند بی مخلص درون این کتاب
- We began the stories in haste; in this Book (the Mathnawí) they are left without (being brought to) the (final) issue.