1. This is my book for the witty and refined
With eloquent tongue and silly talk for the foolish

2. I filled it with elegant words and phrases
And peppered it with dots, decoration, and letters

3. With obviousness, humor, and integrity
And elegance, contentment, and aloofness

4. Like a body filled with members you love
The hidden and praise the revealed

5. I articulated it using my intellect though
Your intellect's scale wasn't known to me

6. I hollowed it out with the chisels of ideas
To contain the words and called it a cavity

7. I patched it and trimmed it with my hands so say
What a fine patched and trimmed book!

8. I poured into it every pleasing ink
And plucked for it thousands of feathers

9. As if with my hands I softened it
Until it came out polished and arranged

10. I composed it while the night was dark
So for that it came out fermented and baked

11. I kneaded it for you unlike other kneaders
With kneadings that remove your discontent

12. And chew up the heaviness and coarseness in you
Then feed you the softness after that

13. It entertains you from the toil of the doctor and his dragging
What his company brings you of scratches

14. I planted green meadows in the land of its lines
A garden and orchards pleasing and pastoral

15. So you smell from it the fragrance of every ewe
Alluring in beauty and tempting to the lamb

16. And you see the brilliant plowshare on its forehead
And the parchment and the parchment holder

17. With mares behind and before it
Gazelles that do not cease to be shy

18. And if its letters show you
A pasture and mountain, then address it flirtatiously

19. So if you cannot afford its provisions and feel
Independent, you will find the humps easy after them

20. So choose what you desire, God guide you, and do not
Delay attaining the ewes

21. Others have classified in this genre
But they did not excel in classification

22. Since their words were handed out and no describer
Inquired into them nor described the described

23. But my book or I, unlike that
We suffice the limit and description

24. There is no fault in us but you do not see for us
A niche in our arts and craft

25. It is the impossible orphan to brother
And the unique so be gentle toward it

26. The credit is mine and the lexicon's, for
From its springs, words will flow tomorrow

27. I racked my brains unlike women
A year, and the whole year was autumn

28. But it was born in three months
And loved hastily and grew up gentle

29. I don't know if I aided its conception, designed it,
Spat it out, discarded it, then picked it up

30. I suffered from dyspnea in it, may God protect you
From an affliction that cannot be matched

31. And I cut its umbilical cord to the people of vanity
And in their name it will remain suspended

32. It had no wet nurse with me but my mind
And despite that I neglected it

33. I burdened myself with it and my longing for it
Was not diverted from it in any way

34. And I aspired to its essence before its birth
Until when I engaged with it, I became vigilant

35. I begot two children, not for you, then this one
For you, not for me, so coddle it

36. I entrust my two children to care for
Its style and with my ink stand guard it

37. To protect it from fires ... take shelter
Beside it, for it is flammable

38. I am innocent of them deviating from it
And taking others as allies against it

39. Whoever desires it is granted success
Or not, so he has strayed from the path, wandering

40. At night, you hear from it a rustling that charms
Its sleep with its incessance and cooing

41. How often bright light becomes eclipsed when
You encounter it one day with it obscured

42. A heavy stomach was too narrow for it
That glutton was too weak to cover it

43. Elusive like mercury - you look at it but cannot
Grasp a handful of its mane

44. It dives like the wind in the valley when
It rages then the brambles sleep

45. It is the best entertainer for one who does not accept
The play and vanity of fate but finds it revolting

46. If you read it, its rhythmic beauty will delight you
Or if you study it, it will chant to you

47. In it, you will find coolness in the cold then when
The fiery souls of arrows flare up, a summer resort

48. And if overeating and other things weigh you down
You will find in it relief from heaviness

49. And if you plant a garden, plant in it
Some of its words which will increase your harvest

50. They will entertain you without taxing the imagination with them
For if it becomes fragmented, its parts will still be healthy

51. I guaranteed you the eggs, so whatever you see after it
Is mightless and hollow

52. No, neither burdensome, nor sleepless, nor restless
You will not complain of pounding and bleating

53. Do not attempt the difficult road unless
You take it as a companion and friend

54. Until when you stagger, it will protect you
From slipping and crossing the steep road

55. I have no knowledge, and piety guides me
That the honorable one sees the camel as frightening

56. So you hide it behind each explicit and cutting
Letter that suffices to blind it

57. It is a fortress against whoever envies it
Who keeps mentioning its name belligerently

58. And it is the cutting iron, determined and piercing
That cuts through bone and severs the vertebrae

59. If you wish, wear it despite its flaws
And rejoice in it or not, so leave it clean

60. I have permitted you to mock it or lick it
Or if you fear vomiting, take it chewed

61. But beware excess with it or
Trying to use it with omissions

62. Since there is no appropriate place in it
For omission or additions to refine it

63. If it loved an inanimate thing for its beauty
The world would fly madly enamored with it

64. And if you moved away from people, it would
Walk to them wherever they were, stooping

65. And if two liars argued, the whiskers of
The wretch would leave his cheeks plucked

66. Until it was as if the whiskers of them both
Were the soft cotton of sieves, combed

67. And by your life, if my life knows
That with it I will not gain a loaf

68. No, neither a fragment, nor a crumb, nor
A defect on my peg, nor a vertebra

69. But with my skull an itch arose in me
To compose at times as treatment

70. Whoever is hired to compose a sermon
Is worthy of being called a kneader

71. Let whatever flows from my words take it, and whatever
you find false, leave it to me, wrapped up

72. You will inevitably find the monies sometimes
Among the dirhams, a defective dirham

73. How often a dinar draws you by
Its beard, yet it is not seen

74. Do not hang on your mind's glass what you see in it
Of old rust, however dense

75. Whoever's nature is gentle in a gentle town
Will find the lover's roughness gentle

76. Do not kick what pleased you because of what
Upset you, rather, do not make it a habit

77. The author cannot be an author
Unless he makes the words varied

78. Or isn't beating an example like classification in
Meaning and tapping a staff was an addition

79. Far from you to rule against me hastily
Before verifying the codification

80. Then say the author has blasphemed grossly
So rally, my people, your friend has spoken sacrilegiously

81. Then churchmen will angrily stir up
A dire commotion and wield swords against him

82. Between you and I are ties of affection
That cut discord and accusation

83. Do not roar for battle or complain
And do not be a projectile between us

84. If I brought good, then gratitude is due me
Or not, so do not hurl projectiles

85. Do not insult my father or mother
Or my honor or be to me in that intimate

86. My sin rests on my own self, dragging
Without afflicting people's noses

87. How often a loose tongue slanders
And corrupts the chaste as chaste

88. And a pure soul may gaze at another's wife
And she may laugh at him flirtatiously

89. The dog of coquettes only desires others
And the cure is a kick followed by tail pulling

90. What is sweeter for a baby on its bed
Than wine's intoxication and trifling

91. Staying up nights composed fully
While they sleep judging delusion

92. Have you seen one so ungrateful he returns
A gift and reprimands its giver harshly?

93. Or isn't it that time ... joking
Babbles and comes up with crazy talk

94. So it derived from the old vines' senility ... and from
Plucking the claws become plucked

95. Leave the scowling of lions and be a brother
To Abul Hussein, slippery and dodging

96. Whoever made the ruler laugh with his comic voice
Is the one among people considered witty

97. This completes my opening, and I made it
The roof for its structure and framing

98. Read nothing after it, even if
You are tasked with one extra letter

99. For you will have overstepped, then your
Left foot will exceed it, stomping

100. I see that my advice is like the wind in your ears
It left fruitlessly and died out