شاد می‌شد او کز آن گفت دریغ ** پیش رفت این بازیم رستم ز تیغ
He (the fish) was made glad by their saying “Alas”: (he said to himself), “This trick of mine has come off, I am delivered from the sword.”
پس گرفتش یک صیاد ارجمند ** پس برو تف کرد و بر خاکش فکند
Then a worthy fisherman seized him and spat on him and flung him on the ground.
غلط غلطان رفت پنهان اندر آب ** ماند آن احمق همی‌کرد اضطراب
He (the half-intelligent fish), rolling over and over, went secretly into the water; the (entirely) foolish one remained (where he was), moving to and fro in agitation.
از چپ و از راست می‌جست آن سلیم ** تا بجهد خویش برهاند گلیم
That simpleton kept leaping about, right and left, in order that he might save his skin by his own efforts.
دام افکندند و اندر دام ماند ** احمقی او را در آن آتش نشاند2280
They cast the net, and he (at last) remained in the net: foolish ness ensconced him in that fire (of perdition).
بر سر آتش به پشت تابه‌ای ** با حماقت گشت او همخوابه‌ایی
On the top of the fire, on the surface of a frying-pan, he be came the bedfellow of Folly.
او همی جوشید از تف سعیر ** عقل می‌گفتش الم یاتک نذیر
(There) he was seething from the heat of the flames Reason was saving to him, “Did not a warner come to thee?”
او همی‌گفت از شکنجه وز بلا ** هم‌چو جان کافران قالوا بلی
He, from the rack of torture and tribulation, was replying like the souls of the unbelievers: they said, “Yea.”
باز می‌گفت او که گر این بار من ** وا رهم زین محنت گردن‌شکن
Then again he was saying, “If this time I escape from this neck-breaking affliction,
من نسازم جز به دریایی وطن ** آبگیری را نسازم من سکن2285
I will not make my home except in a sea: I will not make a lake my dwelling-place.