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کی درین عالم بت و بتگر بدی ** چون کسی را زهرهی تسخر بدی
- How would there be idol and idolater in this world? How would any one have the stomach to mock (at holy things)?
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پس قیامت بودی این دنیای ما ** در قیامت کی کند جرم و خطا
- Then this world of ours would be (like) the Resurrection: who commits sin and wrong at the Resurrection?”
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گفت شه پوشید حق پاداش بد ** لیک از عامه نه از خاصان خود
- The King said, “God has veiled the retribution of evil, but (only) from the vulgar, not from His own elect.
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گر به دامی افکنم من یک امیر ** از امیران خفیه دارم نه از وزیر 990
- If I entrap one Amír, I keep it hidden from the (other) Amírs, (but) not from the Vizier.
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حق به من بنمود پس پاداش کار ** وز صورهای عملها صد هزار
- God, then, has shown to me the retribution of work and myriads of the (substantial) forms of actions.
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تو نشانی ده که من دانم تمام ** ماه را بر من نمیپوشد غمام
- Give a sign (outwardly), for I know all: the cloud does not veil the moon from me.”
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گفت پس از گفت من مقصود چیست ** چون تو میدانی که آن چه بود چیست
- The slave said, “Then what is the object of my speaking, since thou knowest what is (the real nature of) that which has been?”
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گفت شه حکمت در اظهار جهان ** آن که دانسته برون آید عیان
- The King said, “The wisdom (of God) in making the world manifest (was) that the (thing) known should come forth (to be seen) plainly.
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آن چه میدانست تا پیدا نکرد ** بر جهان ننهاد رنج طلق و درد 995
- Until He made visible that which He knew, He did not lay upon the world the pain of parturition and the throes (thereof).
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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).”
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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.
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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.
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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,
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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.
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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,
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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.”
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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.”
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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.”
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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.