پست و بالا پیش چشمش تیزرو ** از کلوخ و خشت او نکته شنو
To his eye, vale and hill are moving swiftly: he hears subtle discourse from clod and brick.
با عوام این جمله بسته و مرده‌ای ** زین عجب‌تر من ندیدم پرده‌ای3535
To the vulgar, all this (world) is a bound and dead (thing): I have not seen a veil (of blindness) more wonderful than this.
گورها یکسان به پیش چشم ما ** روضه و حفره به چشم اولیا
To our eye, (all) the graves are alike; to the eyes of the saints, (one is) a garden (in Paradise), and (another is) a pit (in Hell).
عامه گفتندی که پیغامبر ترش ** از چه گشتست و شدست او ذوق‌کش
The vulgar would say, “Wherefore has the Prophet become sour (of visage) and why has he become pleasure-killing?”
خاص گفتندی که سوی چشمتان ** می‌نماید او ترش ای امتان
The elect would say, “To your eyes, O peoples, he appears to be sour;
یک زمان درچشم ما آیید تا ** خنده‌ها بینید اندر هل اتی
(But) come for once into our eyes, that ye may behold the laughs (of delight described) in (the Súra beginning with the words) Hal atá (Did not there come?).”
از سر امرود بن بنماید آن ** منعکس صورت بزیر آ ای جوان3540
That appears (to thee) in the form of inversion (illusion) from the top of the pear-tree: come down, O youth!
آن درخت هستی است امرودبن ** تا بر آنجایی نماید نو کهن
The pear-tree is the tree of (phenomenal) existence: whilst thou art there, the new appears old.
تا بر آنجایی ببینی خارزار ** پر ز کزدمهای خشم و پر ز مار
Whilst thou art there, thou wilt see (only) a thorn-brake full of the scorpions of wrath and full of snakes.
چون فرود آیی ببینی رایگان ** یک جهان پر گل‌رخان و دایگان
When thou comest down, thou wilt behold, free of cost, a world filled with rose-cheeked (beauties) and (their) nurses.
حکایت آن زن پلیدکار کی شوهر را گفت کی آن خیالات از سر امرودبن می‌نماید ترا کی چنینها نماید چشم آدمی را سر آن امرودبن از سر امرودبن فرود آی تا آن خیالها برود و اگر کسی گوید کی آنچ آن مرد می‌دید خیال نبود و جواب این مثالیست نه مثل در مثال همین قدر بس بود کی اگر بر سر امرودبن نرفتی هرگز آنها ندیدی خواه خیال خواه حقیقت
Story of the lewd woman who said to her husband, "Those illusions appear to thee from the top of the pear-tree, for the top of that pear-tree causes the human eye to see such things: come down from the top of the pear-tree, that those illusions may vanish." And if any one should say that what that man saw was not an illusion, the answer is that this (story) is a parable, not a (precise) similitude. In the (story regarded as a) parable this amount (of resemblance) is sufficient, for if he had not gone to the top of the peartree, he would never have seen those things, whether illusory or real.