1. The mat wrote to the bed,

    “The camel calf is the camel’s son.”

  2. At such a thing the emir rejoiced,

    eager for a tabāhaja of beef.

  3. So I shall surely deprive my she-ass

    of barley fodder for two years.

  4. Her only concern will be to fly

    from sheer emaciation alongside the birds.

  5. So let me tell you my story,

    for you have come upon an expert.

  6. Those who traded slaps

    with gourds in the season of rinds

  7. felt sorry for me because

    they attended, while I was not there.

  8. Had I been there—how few! Would anyone

    have taken the blind man by the hand?

  9. Indeed, I went to visit my friend

    at his house on that rainy day,

  10. with sleeves rolled up, swaggering,

    ready to slap with the great bucket.

  11. When they rushed forward, I swung

    my bucket—and the swinger’s blindness took its toll.

  12. O men, trade slaps with one another!

    For slapping is the key to delight.

  13. Do not neglect it, for it

    draws the grudges out of breasts.

  14. In gatherings it is like incense,

    so never grow weary of incense.

  15. And surely, whenever I remember

    my dear ones, I will recall the hour before dawn.

  16. And surely I shall grieve, because

    just as the pots were nearly done,

  17. they departed, though they had baked the flatbread,

    and so they missed eating the flatbread.

  18. No—by him whose excellence the Prophet

    proclaimed on the Day of Ghadir—

  19. Imam Abu Ali has

    no peer anywhere among creation.

Sol 5.6