مر خبیثان را نسازد طیبات ** درخور و لایق نباشد ای ثقات
(But) sweet words will not do for the wicked: ’tis not fitting and suitable, O ye trusty ones!
چون زعطر وحی کژ گشتند و گم ** بد فغانشان که تطیرنا بکم
When from the perfume of the Revelation they (the wicked infidels) became crooked (disordered in mind) and lost (in error), their lament was, “We augur evil from you.
رنج و بیماریست ما را این مقال ** نیست نیکو وعظتان ما را به فال
This discourse (of yours) is illness and sickness to us: your exhortation is not of good omen to us.
گر بیاغازید نصحی آشکار ** ما کنیم آن دم شما را سنگسار285
If ye once begin to admonish (us) overtly, at that instant we will stone you.
ما بلغو و لهو فربه گشته‌ایم ** در نصیحت خویش را نسرشته‌ایم
We have waxed fat on frivolity and diversion: we have not steeped ourselves in admonition.
هست قوت ما دروغ و لاف و لاغ ** شورش معده‌ست ما را زین بلاغ
Our food is falsehood and idle boasts and jests: our stomachs are turned by your delivering this message.
رنج را صدتو و افزون می‌کنید ** عقل را دارو به افیون می‌کنید
Ye are making the illness hundredfold and more: ye are drugging the intelligence with opium.”
معالجه کردن برادر دباغ دباغ را به خفیه به بوی سرگین
How the tanner’s brother sought to cure him secretly with the smell of dung.
خلق را می‌راند از وی آن جوان ** تا علاجش را نبینند آن کسان
The youth kept driving the people away from him (the tanner), in order that those persons might not see his treatment (of the sick man).
سر به گوشش برد هم‌چون رازگو ** پس نهاد آن چیز بر بینی او290
He brought his head (close) to his ear, like one telling a secret; then he put the thing (which he had in his hand) to his (the tanner’s) nose;
کو به کف سرگین سگ ساییده بود ** داروی مغز پلید آن دیده بود
For he had rubbed the dog’s dung on his palm: he had deemed it (to be) the remedy for the polluted brain.