1. The ardour of love, though its firebrands are quenched,
If we abandon it or yearn for it,

2. Returns in passion to rend its vitals,
If it rends passion in constant rending.

3. When it settles in an abode, clinging
To intimacy, till it seems its own country,

4. By God, neither its joy nor its sorrow
Consoles us for this love-sick enslavement.

5. When love is lost, your glance restores
The image of the beloved to unsettle you.

6. In it desire melts away, if the loved one's
Embrace grows heavy and her bosom's shelter fails.

7. Leave in the heart some token of its orphanhood,
Though every close-shuttered one denies it lodging.

8. How often a wearied spirit peaceful rest
Renounces, choosing to endure its own unrest.

9. The wretch is duped by fortune though
Fortune's a foe, perfidious her intimacy.

10. In a time when its calamities cause necks to crack,
A thing most like it is its time.

11. Of evil times I consent to accept
Only the lesser part of their goodness.

12. Gifts are bestowed on governors from our gratitude,
A monarch whose favors encircle our necks.

13. His workmen fashion for him a nobility
The like of which Adan's once glorious dwellings never matched.

14. A hand is raised up high for eminence
As loftily raised as the bough of a waving pine.

15. If panegyrists shake it, it freely pardons them,
A rivulet from the spring, compliant its branches.

16. Its injuries, when you appoint them,
Are confined by a barrier kept from its right hand.

17. Whether we regard his present deputies
Or judge by those of old, his good judgment,

18. Who managed the Sultan's affairs, guiding them
In the path of probity, clear his precedents.

19. Some men are oblivious of them, yet there is struck around them
A circle of intelligence, behind them his insight.

20. If, concealed from his eyes, they are absent from him,
His hearing attentive to him is their fidelity.

21. If the great ensnare him over wine,
His intimate counsellor is his secret, not his declaration.

22. The sword in its scabbard retains its sharpness;
It does not borrow what arms his ships.

23. We blame the impotence of minds to gauge a grave concern,
Weighing it with minds or evaluating its consequence.

24. He craves it avidly until stores from the heights amass,
Hoarded riches he treasures and garners.

25. No enemy does he indulge with delays;
No friend does he drive away by suspicion.

26. I remember, O God, that guidance which cannot
Be washed away though plunged in a swollen sea.

27. A son of some wretched Jew, when allowed to speak,
Nothing of worth comes from his tongue.

28. He was nurtured in the villages of the Sa'd; no cities arose
On their mother-sites or were founded by his hands.

29. Secluded in the boorishness of provinces, if
Speech is wanted from him, only babbled nonsense emerges.

30. Neither Maramma his uncle's clan nor the Harmuzan struck roots in him
Or Khattab his paternal uncle or Circumcision.

31. He conveyed to us a repulsive pig from the garbage heap;
It would shame his idols if I recounted its abominations.

32. When the rules of decency prevailed, he proceeded
Prone to the ground until his beard swept the soil.

33. I look to that misshaped, humpbacked invalid
Among his supporters, and in him find my lament.

34. His coddling went too far, and against your wrath
His banner's blazon and his age overreached.

35. How oft the arrogant provoked your enmity
Then wasted away in their saddles, their fat melting!

36. Tomorrow he counts favors bestowed and is vexed by them,
He seethes with spite against the generous.

37. He who shows no gratitude for a boon
Cannot value glorious favors or know their price.

38. He steals away your thanks, while you trust that long-tailed
Vile one, the mouse, and rely on him.

39. Before him I found no one so deficient in merit
Who gained possession of Ahvaz' wealth and clutched it.

40. No opinion differs but I have made you the measure,
Testing it against your wisdom and discretion.

41. None but you is my choice of an intimate, apart from
Incapacity whose madness my reason has harvested.

42. The Master is bound to you, his spirit
Among you an indissoluble pledge and hostage.

43. To you his soul inclines,
Though his body departs estranged.

44. If longing travels its distance,
Lucrative the bargain, its profit manifest.