- When leadership has become a bosom-friend to your brain, any one who breaks (thwarts) you becomes (as) an ancient adversary.
- سروری چون شد دماغت را ندیم ** هر که بشکستت شود خصم قدیم
- When any one contradicts your disposition (habit of mind), many feelings of hatred against him arise in you.
- چون خلاف خوی تو گوید کسی ** کینهها خیزد ترا با او بسی
- “He is tearing me (you say) from my (engrained) disposition, he is making himself like a captain over me.”
- که مرا از خوی من بر میکند ** خویش را بر من چو سرور میکند
- Unless the evil disposition has become headstrong in him, how should the fire (of passion) blaze up in him through being opposed?
- چون نباشد خوی بد سرکش در او ** کی فروزد آن خلاف آتش در او
- He may show some feigned courtesy to the opponent, he may make a place for himself in his heart, 3470
- با مخالف او مدارایی کند ** در دل او خویش را جایی کند
- (But he really hates him), because the evil disposition has waxed strong: the ant of (worldly) lust has through habit become as a snake.
- ز انکه خوی بد بگشته ست استوار ** مور شهوت شد ز عادت همچو مار
- Kill the snake of lust in tribulation; else, look you, your snake is become a dragon.
- مار شهوت را بکش در ابتدا ** ور نه اینک گشت مارت اژدها
- But every one deems his own snake an ant: do you (then) seek the explanation of yourself (your real state) from him that is lord of the heart.
- لیک هر کس مور بیند مار خویش ** تو ز صاحب دل کن استفسار خویش
- Until copper becomes gold, it does not know itself to be copper: until the heart becomes a king, it does not know itself to be an insolvent.
- تا نشد زر مس نداند من مسم ** تا نشد شه دل نداند مفلسم
- Do service to the elixir, like copper: endure oppression, O heart, from him that holds the heart in fee. 3475
- خدمت اکسیر کن مسوار تو ** جور میکش ای دل از دل دار تو