Sol 6.1

  1. Welcome to Persia’s poet and man of letters,

    its minister, its ambassador, and its orator;

  2. and to one who honors the noble company through what

    he has imparted to it, who exalts it and rewards it;

  3. who counsels kingdoms to magnanimity and bounty,

    their critic, their overseer, and their reckoner.

  4. Alight in a land whose prince favors you;

    it offers you its sweet waters and fertile land.

  5. The love kings bear you is proof of

    the good fortune of rhymes with them and the share they receive.

  6. How many gifted, eminent men hold ministerial office!

    Has any gained what you gained through its conferral of a title?

  7. What steps did you see along the frontiers?

    Were you told of their safe ones, or their fearsome ones?

  8. Calm the hearts of yearning communities;

    the enemies’ false rumors have swept their hearts away.

  9. You hope for your nation’s happiness and greatness,

    through its king, who strives to refine it.

  10. Had what we fear beset the two neighbors, you would not

    have left your country amid its rising troubles.

  11. Will calamities return between them, while you are in the

    world as a messenger of peace among its peoples?

  12. You have gained the right to intercede with every combatant,

    and turned its victors kindly toward its vanquished.

  13. Indeed, he who won the enemies’ friendship for his state,

    after they had united to torment it,

  14. and wins it the love of those dwelling far away, has not

    lost the affection of its neighbor and its kin.

Sol 6.1