Sol 6.1

  1. The favor is yours, whether visiting or visited.

    So renew your kindness, remembering and remembered.

  2. And tend the sapling you kept alive

    until it smiled, verdant as hope.

  3. Choosing the choicest years as meeting times,

    heralding their bliss and good fortune.

  4. On the second they met you, as you first met

    Umm al-Qura; the forenoon followed the early morning.

  5. This is the season of peers in glory and in

    wealth; so immortalize my renowned season.

  6. And I knew you in your absence, hoping

    to find no distance to you hard to bridge.

  7. And I waited until you visited me where I was,

    as though I had been able to see the unseen.

  8. You honored me in my village, and I seemed

    a king governing cities and frontier strongholds,

  9. who decrees and wields power, calling on no army

    for what he wishes, nor consulting a minister.

  10. God be praised for the day you met me in fine array,

    beaming, delighted by my greeting.

  11. A day on which you lengthened life, and a gathering

    where I came to possess Khawarnaq and Sadir.

  12. Your gift, for faith and worldly life alike,

    inspires me with poetry and imagery.

  13. You did not give me a carpet; rather,

    you gave me a precious crown and a throne.

  14. I saw the Persians' skill in it with admiration,

    and pondered long on its artistry.

  15. Learning from its patterned weave and embroidery

    to adorn and embellish my letters.

  16. The Caucasus was honored by it, home of my kin

    of old, as it delighted a kinsman in Egypt.

  17. And I asked my Lord that it be my couch

    in eternal paradise, tending the houris upon it.

  18. Cambyses, however terrifying his deeds,

    has his sin forgiven now, for your sake.

  19. Are you not the choicest of the people who

    championed the sciences and civilized the inhabited world?

  20. They had scarcely heard the Qur'an for the first time

    before they excelled in exposition and interpretation.

  21. And they united for the common good when the

    Arab rulers contended, caliph and emir alike.

  22. O sir, eloquence shows the sword and its wielders

    that the pen is greater than it in import.

  23. Its reader could not tell whether he beheld a realm

    conquered, or a flawless text set down in writing.

  24. Your being a poet had scarcely honored the poets

    before kings exalted you as an ambassador.

  25. With Kisra you have what his kinsman has, or

    a higher place; the esteem you see is enough for you.

  26. He hailed you by the title you freed

    from having to find your equal among the noble.

  27. He bestowed on you affection and a trust,

    so tread the victors' path boldly.

  28. And surely threaten his foe with that foe's own enemy,

    until he comes to hold power over them all.

  29. And if you call for peace, beforehand

    establish a wall around your land to serve your vigilance.

  30. Have you seen how the Tsar deceived himself

    and the people when he sent his proclamation flying?

  31. And he softened his speech so his heart might grow cruel,

    then bowed in submission, only to attack and oppress.

  32. Does the Tsar wish to rule, though among

    the Tsar's enemies are mountains and seas,

  33. and to catch whales filling the deep, and

    lions filling the gorge, and eagles filling the sky?

  34. And he tries to triumph on a plain, though he did not

    stand firm when he had taken the mountains as his ally.

  35. And the fortresses' least excuse was their devastation,

    when they gave the besieged over to the besieger.

  36. I grieve for the Muslim troops there,

    harming and being harmed, compelled and subdued.

  37. Would that I were among those who triumphed, so perhaps

    I might heal a wounded man or free a captive!

  38. For poetry surpasses Russian swords in

    its effect on their livers and hearts.

  39. O friend of the Tsar, tell us of him, for

    we find no one like you in knowledge of affairs.

  40. Did you counsel him, despairing of his victory,

    so he might perhaps sheathe his broken sword?

  41. The Russians do not seek conquest so much as

    they seek a constitution for Russia.

  42. I consider counsel to kings, however harsh,

    forbidden and barred to all but you.

  43. Had people chosen peace, so that they might be safe,

    you would have been their arbiter, held in gratitude.

  44. Or had compassion found a place among them,

    their hearts would have absorbed your celebrated poem.

  45. For you described war until I imagined myself

    within it, witnessing slaughter and destruction.

  46. Can a compassionate man seek peace among mankind

    while each is an avenger and one to be avenged?

  47. My lord, your affection suffices me, for it

    has left no swaggering boaster to lord it over me.

  48. I owe you a debt I cannot discharge, even if

    I fill your path with scattered pearls.

  49. You sweetened my mouth with noble tears, just as

    you thoroughly perfumed my breath with them.

  50. Were the Caspian to mingle with a little of my mouth's savor,

    it would flow as a pure drink for mankind.

  51. And this poetry suffices as a procession around me,

    and I alone suffice as a multitude.

  52. So if you have shown friendship, you have befriended a cultivated man;

    and if you have given aid, you have aided a zealous man.

  53. Were poetry's Ferdowsi to return,

    he would gladly judge that I am more delicate in feeling.

Sol 6.1