I am a mine of candy, I am a plantation of sugar-canes: it is growing from me, and at the same time I am eating (of it).
کان قندم نیستان شکرم ** هم ز من میروید و من میخورم
Knowledge is conventional and acquired (not real), when he (its owner) laments because the hearer is averse to (hearing) it.
علم تقلیدی و تعلیمی است آن ** کز نفورش مستمع دارد فغان
Since it is (learned) as a bait (for popularity), not for the sake of (spiritual) enlightenment, he (the seeker of religious knowledge) is just as (bad) as the seeker of vile worldly knowledge;2430
چون پی دانه نه بهر روشنی است ** همچو طالب علم دنیای دنی است
(For) he is seeking knowledge on account of the vulgar and the noble, not in order that he may win release from this world.
طالب علم است بهر عام و خاص ** نی که تا یابد از این عالم خلاص
Like a mouse, he has burrowed in every direction, since the light drove him (back) from the door (the entrance to the hole) and said, ‘Away!’
همچو موشی هر طرف سوراخ کرد ** چون که نورش راند از در گشت سرد
Inasmuch as he had no way (of getting out) to the open country and the light, he continued to make (such) an exertion even in that darkness.
چون که سوی دشت و نورش ره نبود ** هم در آن ظلمات جهدی مینمود
If God give him wings, the wings of Wisdom, he will escape from mousiness and will fly like the birds;
گر خدایش پر دهد پر خرد ** برهد از موشی و چون مرغان پرد
But if he seek not wings, he will remain underground with no hope of traversing the path to Simák.2435
ور نجوید پر بماند زیر خاک ** ناامید از رفتن راه سماک
Dialectic knowledge, which is soulless, is in love with (eager for) the countenance of customers;
علم گفتاری که آن بیجان بود ** عاشق روی خریداران بود
(But) though it is robust at the time of disputation, it is dead and gone when it has no customer.
گر چه باشد وقت بحث علم زفت ** چون خریدارش نباشد مرد و رفت