گر ز یک تلخی کنم فریاد و داد ** خاک صد ره بر سر اجزام باد
If I make outcry and complaint because of one bitter thing, may the dust of a hundred roads be on (all) parts of me!
لذت دست شکر بخشت بداشت ** اندر این بطیخ تلخی کی گذاشت
It (the melon) had the enjoyment of thy sugar-bestowing hand: how could it (such enjoyment) leave any bitterness in this melon?”
از محبت تلخها شیرین شود ** از محبت مسها زرین شود
By love bitter things become sweet; by love pieces of copper become golden;
از محبت دردها صافی شود ** از محبت دردها شافی شود1530
By love dregs become clear; by love pains become healing;
از محبت مرده زنده میکنند ** از محبت شاه بنده میکنند
By love the dead is made living; by love the king is made a slave.
این محبت هم نتیجهی دانش است ** کی گزافه بر چنین تختی نشست
This love, moreover, is the result of knowledge: who (ever) sat in foolishness on such a throne?
دانش ناقص کجا این عشق زاد ** عشق زاید ناقص اما بر جماد
On what occasion did deficient knowledge give birth to this love? Deficient (knowledge) gives birth to love, but (only love) for that which is (really) lifeless.
بر جمادی رنگ مطلوبی چو دید ** از صفیری بانگ محبوبی شنید
When it sees in a lifeless being the colour (appearance) of a desired one, (’tis as though) it heard the voice of a beloved in a whistle.
دانش ناقص نداند فرق را ** لاجرم خورشید داند برق را1535
Deficient knowledge cannot discriminate: of necessity it deems the lightning to be the sun.
چون که ملعون خواند ناقص را رسول ** بود در تاویل نقصان عقول
When the Prophet called the “deficient” (man) accursed, (his meaning) as interpreted was “deficiency of mind,”
ز انکه ناقص تن بود مرحوم رحم ** نیست بر مرحوم لایق لعن و زخم
Because one whose body is deficient is the object of (Divine) mercy: cursing and repulse (directed) against the object of (Divine) mercy are improper.
نقص عقل است آن که بد رنجوری است ** موجب لعنت سزای دوری است
’Tis deficiency of mind that is the bad disease: it is the cause of (God's) curse and merits banishment (from His presence),
ز انکه تکمیل خردها دور نیست ** لیک تکمیل بدن مقدور نیست
Forasmuch as the perfecting of minds is not remote (impossible), but the perfecting of the body is not within our power.
کفر و فرعونی هر گبر بعید ** جمله از نقصان عقل آمد پدید1540
The miscreance and Pharaoh-like pride of every infidel who is far (from God) have all been produced by deficiency of mind.
بهر نقصان بدن آمد فرج ** در نبی که ما علی الاعمی حرج
Relief for bodily deficiency has come in the (words of the) Qur’án—it is no crime in the blind man.
برق آفل باشد و بس بیوفا ** آفل از باقی ندانی بیصفا
Lightning is transient and very faithless: without clearness (of mind) you will not know the transient from the permanent.
برق خندد بر که میخندد بگو ** بر کسی که دل نهد بر نور او
The lightning laughs: say, at whom is it laughing? At him that sets his heart upon its light.
نورهای چرخ ببریده پی است ** آن چو لا شرقی و لا غربی کی است
The lights of the sky are hamstrung (feeble and imperfect): how are they like (that Light which is) neither of the east nor of the west?
برق را چون یخطف الأبصار دان ** نور باقی را همه انصار دان1545
Know that the nature of lightning is that it taketh away the sight; regard the everlasting Light as entirely Helpers (to the attainment of vision).
بر کف دریا فرس را راندن ** نامهای در نور برقی خواندن
To ride (your) horse upon the foam of the sea, to read a letter in a flash of lightning,
از حریصی عاقبت نادیدن است ** بر دل و بر عقل خود خندیدن است
Is, to fail, because of covetousness, to see the end; it is, to laugh at your own mind and intellect.
عاقبت بین است عقل از خاصیت ** نفس باشد کاو نبیند عاقبت
Intellect, by its proper nature, is a seer of the end (consequence); ’tis the fleshly soul that does not see the end.
عقل کاو مغلوب نفس او نفس شد ** مشتری مات زحل شد نحس شد
The intellect that is vanquished by the flesh becomes the flesh: Jupiter is checkmated by Saturn and becomes inauspicious.
هم درین نحسی بگردان این نظر ** در کسی که کرد نحست درنگر1550
Still, turn this gaze (of yours) upon this inauspiciousness, look on that One who made you ill-starred.
آن نظر که بنگرد این جر و مد ** او ز نحسی سوی سعدی نقب زد
The gaze (of him) that surveys this ebb and flow pierces from the inauspicious influence to the auspicious.
ز آن همیگرداندت حالی به حال ** ضد به ضد پیدا کنان در انتقال
He (God) continually turns you from one state (of feeling) to another, manifesting opposite by means of opposite in the change,
تا که خوفت زاید از ذات الشمال ** لذت ذات الیمین یرجی الرجال
For the purpose that fear of the left hand side may bring to birth in you the delight of “He causes the (blessed) men to hope for the right hand side,”
تا دو پر باشی که مرغ یک پره ** عاجز آید از پریدن ای سره
So that you may have two wings (fear and hope); for the bird that has (only) one wing is unable to fly, O excellent (reader).
یا رها کن تا نیایم در کلام ** یا بده دستور تا گویم تمام1555
(O God), either let me not come to speech (at all), or give me leave to tell (the whole) to the end.
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?
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);
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;
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.”
این جهان تن غلط انداز شد ** جز مر آن را کاو ز شهوت باز شد1560
This bodily world is deceptive, save to him that has escaped from lust.
تتمهی حسد آن حشم بر آن غلام خاص
Conclusion of (the story) how the (other) retainers envied the favourite slave.
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
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.
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?
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)—
کی برابر دارد اندر تربیت ** چون ببیندشان به چشم عاقبت1565
How, in rearing (them), should he deem (them) equal, when he beholds them with the eye (that is conscious) of the end,
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'?
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.
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 .
آن حسودان بد درختان بودهاند ** تلخ گوهر شور بختان بودهاند
Those envious ones were bad trees; they were ill-fortuned ones of bitter stock.
از حسد جوشان و کف میریختند ** در نهانی مکر میانگیختند1570
They were boiling and foaming with envy, and were starting plots m secret,
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;
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?
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.
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).
مکر میسازند قومی حیلهمند ** تا که شه را در فقاعی در کنند1575
Some cunning people devise stratagems to get the King into a beer-jug;
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?