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زین عذاب جوع باری وا رهم ** گر حیات اینست من مرده بهم
- At any rate I shall be delivered from this torment of hunger: if this is life, I am better dead.”
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گر خر اول توبه و سوگند خورد ** عاقبت هم از خری خبطی بکرد
- If at first the ass repented and swore (to keep his vow), in the end, because of his asininity, he made a (great) lapse.
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حرص کور و احمق و نادان کند ** مرگ را بر احمقان آسان کند
- Greed makes one blind and foolish and ignorant: to fools it makes death (seem) easy;
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نیست آسان مرگ بر جان خران ** که ندارند آب جان جاودان
- (But) death is not (really) easy to the souls of asses who do not possess the splendour of the everlasting soul.
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چون ندارد جان جاوید او شقیست ** جرات او بر اجل از احمقیست 2825
- Since he (the ass) does not possess the everlasting soul, he is damned: his boldness in (facing) death is the result of folly.
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جهد کن تا جان مخلد گردد ** تا به روز مرگ برگی باشدت
- Endeavour that your soul may become immortal, so that on the day of death you will have a (goodly) store.
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اعتمادش نیز بر رازق نبود ** که بر افشاند برو از غیب جود
- Again, he (the ass) had no confidence in the Provider (to assure him) that He would scatter over him largesse from the Unseen.
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تاکنونش فضل بی‌روزی نداشت ** گرچه گه‌گه بر تنش جوعی گماشت
- Until now, the (Divine) Bounty had not kept him without the daily provision, though at times He subjected his body to a (severe) hunger.
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گر نباشد جوع صد رنج دگر ** از پی هیضه بر آرد از تو سر
- Were hunger absent, in consequence of indigestion a hundred other afflictions would raise their heads in you.
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رنج جوع اولی بود خود زان علل ** هم به لطف و هم به خفت هم عمل 2830
- Truly the affliction of hunger is better than those maladies in respect both of its subtilty and its lightness and (its effect on devotional) work.