Sol 5.6

  1. All humankind was honored by the sovereign

    With prizes, ranks, and court appointments—

  2. All but me: in his ignorance, there assailed me

    An adversary rash and flighty in judgment.

  3. Yet I had indeed translated mathematics

    And explained the lessons with marginal notes.

  4. I was promoted in the days of illustrious Muhammad

    From lieutenant to the rank of yuzbashi.

  5. And under Abbas I served my homeland

    For six years, without interruption or decline.

  6. Before that, I remained at the House of Learning

    Six years, while goodwill greeted me with a smiling face.

  7. And there my monthly salary indeed became

    My only wealth—a mere letter rāʾ—through outrageous fraud.

  8. From the abundance of royal favor I hoped for a rank

    And an increase in standing and salary.

  9. But a tongue-tied man put himself forward for the directorship

    And struck my heart with calamities and overwhelming woes.

  10. He sought his own advancement and my abasement among mankind

    Through a fool of errant opinions and a deranged mind.

  11. Fortune opposed me, yet made peace with a mute man

    Until he surpassed even the rank of bikbashi.

  12. So to you, my king, I submit my grievance:

    For I was afflicted by the clipping of some of my plumage.

  13. Perhaps you will look upon my case justly, for once,

    So the oppression of a base bribe-giver may leave me;

  14. And afterward I may live beneath the shade of high office,

    My gratitude increasing, the fragrance of my praise spreading far.

  15. Were it not for modesty, I would utter a truthful statement,

    Telling you that in this I am no slanderer.

  16. At blazing noon, the mirage is thought by the—

    Thirsting man—to be water, from the torment of fierce thirst.

  17. Anyone but you would misconstrue its meaning—

    A blind man bearing the very guise of the rabble.

  18. By God, you would never permit the House of Learning

    To suffer humiliation at the hands of a superintendent.

  19. So inquire into the truth of his conduct:

    For a hanger-on has indeed stuffed him full of ignorance.

  20. Some of us in education have already gone gray,

    While others among us are still novices in learning.

  21. Yet everyone rides upon the back of the House of Learning,

    And ignorance there is the twin of my salary.

  22. His ignorance upon his tongue is proof enough,

    And his speech, in its inarticulacy, is like the Abyssinians’.

  23. So pardon me—may I be your ransom, O just king—

    For my unreserved complaint against a man.

  24. Look upon my weakness and the might of his oppression,

    And with your justice quench the blaze of engulfing wrong.

  25. Or else, my king, my affair is entrusted

    To God against my adversary, and I am unafraid.

  26. For He knows well the anguish I have endured,

    And the breaking of a pounding heart—and of my very innards.

Sol 5.6