(This is) like (the case of) the Christian who recounts to his priest a year’s sins––fornication and malice and hypocrisy––
هم‌چو ترسا که شمارد با کشش ** جرم یکساله زنا و غل و غش
In order that the priest may pardon his sins, for he regards his (the priest’s) forgiveness as forgiveness from God.
تا بیامرزد کشش زو آن گناه ** عفو او را عفو داند از اله
The priest has no (real) knowledge of sin and pardon; but love and firm belief are mightily bewitching.
نیست آگه آن کشش از جرم و داد ** لیک بس جادوست عشق و اعتقاد
Love and imagination weave (create) a hundred (forms beautiful as) Joseph: in sooth they are greater sorcerers than Hárút and Márút.3260
دوستی و وهم صد یوسف تند ** اسحر از هاروت و ماروتست خود
They cause a form (of phantasy) to appear in memory of him (your Beloved): the attraction of the form leads you into (conversation with it).
صورتی پیدا کند بر یاد او ** جذب صورت آردت در گفت و گو
You tell a hundred thousand secrets in the form’s presence, just as a friend speaks (intimately) in the presence of a friend.
رازگویی پیش صورت صد هزار ** آن چنان که یار گوید پیش یار
No (material) form or shape is there; (yet) from it proceed a hundred (utterances of the words) “Am not I (thy Beloved)?” and (from you) a hundred “Yeas.”
نه بدانجا صورتی نه هیکلی ** زاده از وی صد الست و صد بلی
(‘Tis) as when a mother, distraught (with grief) beside the grave of a child newly dead,
آن چنان که مادری دل‌برده‌ای ** پیش گور بچه‌ی نومرده‌ای
Utters heart-felt words earnestly and intensely: the inanimate (corpse) seems to her to be alive.3265
رازها گوید به جد و اجتهاد ** می‌نماید زنده او را آن جماد
She regards that dust as living and erect, she regards that rubbish as (having) an eye and an ear.
حی و قایم داند او آن خاک را ** چشم و گوشی داند او خاشاک را