(But) sweet words will not do for the wicked: ’tis not fitting and suitable, O ye trusty ones!
مر خبیثان را نسازد طیبات ** درخور و لایق نباشد ای ثقات
When from the perfume of the Revelation they (the wicked infidels) became crooked (disordered in mind) and lost (in error), their lament was, “We augur evil from you.
چون زعطر وحی کژ گشتند و گم ** بد فغانشان که تطیرنا بکم
This discourse (of yours) is illness and sickness to us: your exhortation is not of good omen to us.
رنج و بیماریست ما را این مقال ** نیست نیکو وعظتان ما را به فال
If ye once begin to admonish (us) overtly, at that instant we will stone you.285
گر بیاغازید نصحی آشکار ** ما کنیم آن دم شما را سنگسار
We have waxed fat on frivolity and diversion: we have not steeped ourselves in admonition.
ما بلغو و لهو فربه گشته‌ایم ** در نصیحت خویش را نسرشته‌ایم
Our food is falsehood and idle boasts and jests: our stomachs are turned by your delivering this message.
هست قوت ما دروغ و لاف و لاغ ** شورش معده‌ست ما را زین بلاغ
Ye are making the illness hundredfold and more: ye are drugging the intelligence with opium.”
رنج را صدتو و افزون می‌کنید ** عقل را دارو به افیون می‌کنید
How the tanner’s brother sought to cure him secretly with the smell of dung.
معالجه کردن برادر دباغ دباغ را به خفیه به بوی سرگین
The youth kept driving the people away from him (the tanner), in order that those persons might not see his treatment (of the sick man).
خلق را می‌راند از وی آن جوان ** تا علاجش را نبینند آن کسان
He brought his head (close) to his ear, like one telling a secret; then he put the thing (which he had in his hand) to his (the tanner’s) nose;290
سر به گوشش برد هم‌چون رازگو ** پس نهاد آن چیز بر بینی او
For he had rubbed the dog’s dung on his palm: he had deemed it (to be) the remedy for the polluted brain.
کو به کف سرگین سگ ساییده بود ** داروی مغز پلید آن دیده بود