1. I was drawn to revelry and flowers,
And drinking wine in large vessels.

2. I cast off the garb of piety,
And plunged into oceans of sin.

3. I began to let my skirt trail behind me,
And walked with my ankles showing.

4. At night I mounted a bay horse,
At dawn a gray one.

5. Horses whose manes were never braided
For a race day or parade.

6. Their blankets were made of fragrant musk,
Of jasmine and lilac.

7. The treasures of Chosroes for his sons,
And a plantation for the noble yellow-skins.

8. The next day the buyers came to their owners
And said: “We’ve come to buy

9. Horses whose prime is past.”
Among the twisted ones I inclined to the crooked one.

10. They said to them: “Our horses
Are the heritage of Caesar’s nobility.

11. They bear no packs, rather they are horses
For every blossoming youth.

12. Especially when you first break them in
They are like blood gushing from a slaughtered beast.

13. Gleaming, the daughters of wild mares
Whose streams flow freely, unmilked.

14. The she-camel of an aged pagan
Came to us from Paradise.

15. She has one coat colored golden
And another like crushed saffron.

16. If the Father of Ma’shar had tasted her
The Father of Ma’shar would have collapsed.

17. For a while her scent made him exalt
And say of it, then he could bear no more.

18. The people had scarcely left when they bought her,
He who buys spirit loses nothing."