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ور نه این خواهی نه آن فرمان تراست ** کس چه داند مر ترا مقصد کجاست
- But if Thou willest neither this nor that, ’tis Thine to command: how should any one know what Thou intendest?
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جان ابراهیم باید تا به نور ** بیند اندر نار فردوس و قصور
- One must needs have the spirit of Abraham to see in the fire Paradise and its palaces by the light (of mystic knowledge);
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پایه پایه بر رود بر ماه و خور ** تا نماند همچو حلقه بند در
- And mount step by step above the moon and the sun, lest he remain like the door-ring fastened on the door;
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چون خلیل از آسمان هفتمین ** بگذرد که لا أحب الآفلین
- And, like the Friend, pass beyond the Seventh Heaven, saying, “I love not them that set.”
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این جهان تن غلط انداز شد ** جز مر آن را کاو ز شهوت باز شد 1560
- This bodily world is deceptive, save to him that has escaped from lust.
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تتمهی حسد آن حشم بر آن غلام خاص
- Conclusion of (the story) how the (other) retainers envied the favourite slave.
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قصهی شاه و امیران و حسد ** بر غلام خاص و سلطان خرد
- The story of the King and the amirs and their envy of the favourite slave and lord of wisdom
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دور ماند از جر جرار کلام ** باز باید گشت و کرد آن را تمام
- Has been left far (behind) on account of the powerful attraction of the discourse.(Now) we must turn back and conclude it.
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باغبان ملک با اقبال و بخت ** چون درختی را نداند از درخت
- The happy and fortunate gardener of the (Divine) kingdom — how should not he know one tree from another?
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آن درختی را که تلخ و رد بود ** و آن درختی که یکش هفصد بود
- The tree that is bitter and reprobate, and the tree whose one is (as) seven hundred (of the other)—
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کی برابر دارد اندر تربیت ** چون ببیندشان به چشم عاقبت 1565
- How, in rearing (them), should he deem (them) equal, when he beholds them with the eye (that is conscious) of the end,
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کان درختان را نهایت چیست بر ** گر چه یکسانند این دم در نظر
- (And knows) what (different) fruit those trees will ultimately bear, though at this moment they are alike in appearance'?
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شیخ کاو ینظر بنور الله شد ** از نهایت وز نخست آگاه شد
- The Shaykh who has become seeing by the light of God has become acquainted with the end and the beginning.
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چشم آخر بین ببست از بهر حق ** چشم آخر بین گشاد اندر سبق
- He has shut for God's sake the eye that sees the stable the world); he has opened, in priority, the eye that sees the en .
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آن حسودان بد درختان بودهاند ** تلخ گوهر شور بختان بودهاند
- Those envious ones were bad trees; they were ill-fortuned ones of bitter stock.
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از حسد جوشان و کف میریختند ** در نهانی مکر میانگیختند 1570
- They were boiling and foaming with envy, and were starting plots m secret,
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تا غلام خاص را گردن زنند ** بیخ او را از زمانه بر کنند
- That they might behead the favourite slave and tear up his root from the world;
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چون شود فانی چو جانش شاه بود ** بیخ او در عصمت الله بود
- (But) how should he perish, since the King was his soul, and his root was under the protection of God?
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شاه از آن اسرار واقف آمده ** همچو بو بکر ربابی تن زده
- The King had become aware of those secret thoughts, (but) like Bú Bakr-i Rabábí he kept silence.
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در تماشای دل بد گوهران ** میزدی خنبک بر آن کوزهگران
- In (viewing) the spectacle of the hearts of (those) evil-natured ones he was clapping his hands (derisively) at those potters (schemers).
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مکر میسازند قومی حیلهمند ** تا که شه را در فقاعی در کنند 1575
- Some cunning people devise stratagems to get the King into a beer-jug;
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پادشاهی بس عظیمی بیکران ** در فقاعی کی بگنجد ای خران
- (But) a King (so) exceedingly grand and illimitable—how should He be contained in a beer jug, O asses?
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از برای شاه دامی دوختند ** آخر این تدبیر از او آموختند
- They knitted a net for the King; (yet) after all, they (had) learnt this contrivance from Him.
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نحس شاگردی که با استاد خویش ** همسری آغازد و آید به پیش
- Ill-starred is the pupil that begins rivalry with his master and comes forward (to contend with him).
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با کدام استاد استاد جهان ** پیش او یکسان و هویدا و نهان
- With what master? The master of the world, to whom the manifest and the occult are alike;
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چشم او ینظر بنور الله شده ** پردههای جهل را خارق بده 1580
- Whose eyes have become seeing by the light of God and have rent the veils of ignorance.