The high-souled minstrel, who instructeth me,
What said he of time's mutability?
“No prudent sage will set his mind and heart
Upon this Hostel whence we must depart,
For we arise and fall from day to day,
And alternate our joyance with dismay.
Dark earth will be our final resting-place,
This with high honour, that with deep disgrace,
And after they depart they tell us not
If wakeful joy or slumber be their lot;
Still if they flourish not that pass our ken
At least they will not strive with death again.
In contemplation of that day of awe
What are five years and twenty or five score,
Passed by one man in pleasure and delight,
Passed by another in penurious plight?
None have I seen that had a wish to die
Among the upright or the waywardly,
But all are shocked at death—the pious one,
Just as the idol-serving Áhriman.”
Old man! when three score years and one have past,
Wine, cup, and rest grow savourless at last,
Yet wine for one that readieth to die
Is as a wool-coat when 'tis winterly,
* When body freezeth in the midst of vice,
And soul hath lost its way to Paradise.
Full many a friend hath lagged or passed away,
But in the waste the cup with thee will stay.

Unless thy life's endeavour thou forecast
Sure retribution will be thine at last.
Ill-doing endeth in calamity;
If thou dost ill the world will sadden thee.
Joy not in evil that thou hast achieved,
Who, grieving others, shalt thyself be grieved.
Know that, however great may be the sum
Of these thine earthly years, thine end will come;
So multiply thy good deeds here below
That thou mayst gladden when thou hast to go.
The deeds accomplished and the words let fall
In life will serve as our memorial.
I ask of God from time, its Maker He,
For such a respite, such felicity,
That all these many tales and stories told,
Now over-passed by years and waxen old,
From Gaiúmart to Yazdagird, which be
In disarray, may be arrayed by me;
That I may range them, weed that garth, and tell
Anew what hap the kings of kings befell,
Then verily I shall not grieve when I
Shall have to quit this Wayside Hostelry.
And now what saith the man of ardent soul
Of Núshírwán, the world-lord's, purposes?
The monarch at the age of seventy-four
Became possessed by thoughts of death and sought
A master for the world whose chiefest aim
Should be to clothe him in the robe of justice,
Display compassion to the mendicants,
Be great, untroubled, and of ardent soul.
He had six sons of noble birth who all
Were great, shrewd-hearted, and of kingly mien,
With valour, learning, self-control and counsel,
Young with a love of knowledge, and of these
The wisest and the eldest was Hurmuzd,
The nobly born, a man unparalleled,
Exalted, knowing, fair of countenance,
And well affected to the noble race.
* The Sháh gave orders to his officers
To test the disposition of his son,
By day and night to mark his utterances,
And to inform the monarch of the world
Of his proceedings whether good or bad.
At that time said the Sháh to Búzurjmihr:—
“I have a secret purpose in my mind.
When I exceeded three score years and ten
My musky tresses took a camphor-hue,
And when I quit this Wayside Hostelry
A master will be needed for the world,
Who will give largess to the mendicant,
The stranger, and the man of his own kindred,
Be bounteous, will refrain from love of treasure,
And set his heart not on this Wayside Inn—
One whose whole purpose ever is toward good,
Whose place is on the Sháh's throne. I thank God
That I have sons wise, learned, who worship Him,
And none esteem I dearer than Hurmuzd,
Or more pre-eminent for rede and sense.
Of mercy, generosity, and right
I see naught lacking in his heart at all.
So summon now the archmages and the chiefs,
All that observe the way of understanding,
Prove ye his knowledge and thereby present
Accomplishment upon accomplishment.”