His name is Shápúr. He is a good man, but is in bad circumstances. If he is diligent, he may become a good poet.
1. I go and heat my brain with the love of a certain sweetheart; I sit in the midst of the flame, and breathe a hot sigh.
2. It is not my intention to be in ardours for myself, Shápúr; my object is to bring a certain sweetheart before the world.
I am the thorny shrub without leaves in the desert; no bird takes shelter with me from fear of accidents.
1. If the martyr of thy love-grief is to have a tomb, let it be the gullets of crows and kites, or the stomachs of wild animals.
2. Until I pass along the torrent of restlessness [love], I cannot plunge into the shoreless ocean.
His name is Mahmúd Beg. He is an excellent accountant, and knows also astronomy well.
When the eye has once learned to see [to love], it loses its peaceful sleep; when the heart has once learned to throb, it loses its rest.
The passion which I feel for other lovely ones, has made my heart like a bud which has been forced open by blowing upon it.
When I wish to kiss his foot, I first wipe it with my wet eye; for the eye feels, more than lip, the sweet sorrow of kissing his foot.
Woe me, if my blood is not shed for the crime of my love! To pardon my faults were worse than to take revenge on me.
Sole friend of my chamber! I feel jealous of those who stand outside disappointed. Sweet companion of my feast! I feel jealous of the spectators.
1. If I flee from thy cruelties, tell me what dust I am to scatter on my head when far from thee.
2. If I sit in the dust of the earth on which I wander, whose victim shall I be when I arise?*
I am as if blind and err about seeking for something. I pant after this mirage [love], though I hold a cooling drink in my hand.
Nádirí, I complain of no one: I have myself set fire to this heap of thorns.
He is a poet of talent; if sharply spoken to, he writes very well.
I am dead, and yet the blisters of my wandering foot do not dry up: neither death nor the life to come can bring the journey towards this stage [love] to a close.
No eye is fit to behold my glory; my figure in the looking-glass even appears veiled.
If that be Mançúr's love, do not grieve, O heart. Not every weakminded man is fit to love.*
Intrinsic beauty cannot be seen; and he who looks into the looking-glass sees, indeed, his figure, but forms no part of the glass itself.*
Make thyself a heart as large as the orb of heavens, and then ask for an atom. Do not be satisfied, Nau'í, with a ray of the sun; cherish the lofty aspirations of the little mote.*
He is a thoughtful poet, and is experienced in political matters.
I would not exchange my lonely corner for a whole world, and I am glad that my intercourse with the people of the world has left me this impression.
It is no wonder that my little heart expands into a wide plain, when it is filled with thy love.
I cannot raise, from weakness, my hands to my collar, and I am sorry that the rent in my collar reaches so late the hem of my garment.*
1. In being separated from me thou givest me poison to taste and yet askest ‘what does it matter?’ Thou sheddest my blood, thou drivest me away, and yet askest ‘What does it matter?’
2. Thou dost not care for the havoc which the sword of separation has made; sift the dust of my grave and thou wilt know what it matters.*
His name is Sharíf. He possesses some knowledge, is upright, and zealous in the performance of his duties. His rhyme is excellent. He understands arithmetic.
Fortune has been faithful in my time; I am the memorial tablet of Fate's faithfulfulness.
I was at home, and thou camest to me with drunken eyes and with roses under the arm; the very dust of this house of grief budded forth to see the sight of thy arrival.
1. What have I not done to myself in the heat of transgression! What crimes have I not committed whilst trusting to Providence!
2. I and my heart have soared up to a rose bed, and we are jealous of the zephyr's going and coming.
3. A lover has hundreds of wishes besides union with him [the beautiful boy]; I still want thee, Fortune, for many things.
I have in contempt set my foot upon both worlds; neither joy nor sorrow have overpowered my heart.
1. I cherish a love which will be talked of on the day of resurrection; I cherish a grief which no tale can relate.
2. A grief which can coquet with the grief of others, which no thought can comprehend and no pen can describe.
He is a man without selfishness, and of reserved character. Though he says but little, he is a man of worth.
1. I have burnt the furniture of my strong and wise heart; I have set fire to the house of my aspirations and burnt it.
2. I have given up heresy and faith, and, half way between the Ka'bah and the idol temple, I have burnt the sacred thread and the rosary.
1. I know of no plaint that has made impression; I know of no evening that was followed by a cheerful morn.
2. They say that grief is followed by joy, but this is an error: I know but of sorrows being followed by sorrows.
He possesses some talent. He works hard in order to collect wealth, and spends it in a genial way.
I am intoxicated with the pleasures of the society of wits: for there the subtleties of expression vanish at a hint.
Word and thought weep over my circumstances, when without thee I look into the book (of my poems).
My life is half gone—what am I worth now when a single look from thee is valued a hundred lives?
Thou hast the brilliancy of the rose and the colour of wine. How wonderful, what a freshness!
Manliness shines on his forehead, and simplicity is the ornament of his life.
When longing directs its way to that door [love], it overthrows all possibility of returning.
1. The door of Sháh Akbar, the victorious, is a paradise of rest;
2. And if I shave my beard, I do so not to beautify myself,
3. But because beards, like crimes, are of a deep black dye, and can therefore, have no place in a paradise.*
He lives as a Faqír and wanders bare-footed and bare-headed through the world.
I do not compare thee in beauty with Yúsuf; Yusuf was not so, I do not flatter.
1. My sickness has increased to-night in consequence of the pain of separation, and my wretched condition arises from the hundred excesses of yesterday.
2. The wine of desire flows every night freer. What shall I to-night do with my unsteady heart?
He belongs to a Panjábí family of Shaikhs. Under the patronage of his Majesty he has become a good poet.
The beloved [boy] came, and blotted out my name; nay, he made me quite beside myself.
The beloved has so closely surrounded himself with an array of coquetry, that even Desire found access impossible in this dense crowd.
O Zephyr, the beloved has entirely filled the mould of my desire. I am thy devoted servant, but thou art rather too devoted to his street.
1. My heart has polluted itself with revealing its condition. Though I am silent, the language of my looks has betrayed me.
2. A little thing [love] offers thousands of difficulties; an object apparently within reach offers hundreds of impossibilities.
His name is Khwájah Ján. He is a good man.
1. O Rahí, do no longer cunningly twist this thread [thy religious belief]; give up ideas of future life, beginning, and the purgatory.
2. Put the thread into the fire of love, so that the offensive smell of the water of the corpse may not go to hell (?).
The above (59) poets were presented at Court. There are, however, many others who were not presented, but who sent from distant places to his Majesty encomiums composed by them, as for example, Qásim of Gúnábád; Zamír of Içfahán; Wahshí of Báfah; Muhtashim of Káshán; Malik of Qum; Zuhúrí of Shíráz; Walí Dasht Bayází; Nekí; Çabrí; Figárí; Huzúrí; Qází Núrí of Içfahán; Çáfí of Bam; Ṭaufí of Tabríz; and Rashkí of Hamadán.