سنگ بر آهن زدی آتش نجست ** این نباشد ور بباشد نادرست
You struck the stone (flint) against the iron (steel): the fire did not flash out! This may not be; or if it be (so), ’tis rare.
آنک روزی نیستش بخت و نجات ** ننگرد عقلش مگر در نادرات
He to whom felicity and salvation are not apportioned (by God)—his mind regards naught but the rarities.
کان فلان کس کشت کرد و بر نداشت ** و آن صدف برد و صدف گوهر نداشت
(He says) that such and such a one sowed seed and had no crop, while that (other) one bore away an oyster-shell (from the sea), and the shell had no pearl (within it).
بلعم باعور و ابلیس لعین ** سود نامدشان عبادتها و دین
(He says that in the cases of) Bal‘am son of Bá‘úr and the accursed Iblís, their acts of worship and their religion availed them not.
صد هزاران انبیا و ره‌روان ** ناید اندر خاطر آن بدگمان4790
The hundreds of thousands of prophets and travellers on the Way do not come into the mind of that evil-thinking man.
این دو را گیرد که تاریکی دهد ** در دلش ادبار جز این کی نهد
He takes these two (examples) which produce (spiritual) darkness: how should (his) ill fate put aught but this in his heart?
بس کسا که نان خورد دلشاد او ** مرگ او گردد بگیرد در گلو
Oh, there is many a one that eats bread with a glad heart, and it becomes the death of him: it sticks in his gullet.
پس تو ای ادبار رو هم نان مخور ** تا نیفتی همچو او در شور و شر
Go, then, O ill-fated man, do not eat bread at all, lest thou fall like him into bale and woe!
صد هزاران خلق نانها می‌خورند ** زور می‌یابند و جان می‌پرورند
Hundreds of thousands of folk are eating loaves of bread and gaining strength and nourishing the (vital) spirit.
تو بدان نادر کجا افتاده‌ای ** گر نه محرومی و ابله زاده‌ای4795
How hast thou fallen into that rare (calamity), unless thou art deprived (of blessedness) and art born a fool?