Sol 5.6

  1. Where is Jamshid, son of Kay Qobad?

    Where is Zal? They all passed away and perished.

  2. The auction was knocked down to Hibr, as it was to them,

    yesterday in Death’s summer resort.

  3. No ducks’ gallbladders burst when

    they laid him away, nor did any livers bolt.

  4. Their drum boomed on, just as it used to boom

    on the day when glories were Hibr’s.

  5. The boon companions went on being served pure wine

    from the nectar of his vineyards in Gilead.

  6. The rababa player went on singing

    his melody, and Suad stepped forth to dance.

  7. Hibr—even your people’s donkeys, when

    they sob, find the meaning of their sobbing in song.

  8. Die however you wish: the boon companions are at play;

    mourning you is none of their concern.

  9. Hibr, the Cupbearer of cupbearers has long

    turned you aside from what the drinkers attained.

  10. Time’s crookedness, O Hibr, has never

    ceased to be a crookedness beneath which rectitude buckles.

  11. Of the white brightness of day,

    our share has always been blackness, poor wretch.

  12. Do not fear the darkness of graves, for there

    the eminent and the base are made equal.

  13. The pauper sleeps side by side

    with the nobles who built high and held sway.

  14. O earth, blessed are you as

    a judge in whose judgments mankind finds rest.

  15. Hibr, this world of yours is no bondslave

    to men deemed, by its own convention, masters.

  16. Every living being shall surely be borne

    one day to your resting place, unwilling, on bier-poles.

  17. The wretched one—the truly wretched—is he who thinks

    life a structure no ending can overtake.

  18. Truly, the rope of death is shared by all; over it

    Hibr has leapt—and Ibn Shaddad has returned.

Sol 5.6