351. The hoopoo is here likened to the capitalist, since, like him, it has transitory possessions which are coveted. Those who have such possessions find them exposed to peril, and they are consequently stimulated to great exertions to preserve them.

352. Because they have something of which others are envious.

353. i.e., the bird is stimulated by its cleverness to try to gratify its greed, and so it falls into the net. The Author is pursuing the same idea, but he now dwells more particularly upon the element of greed which leads people to covet transitory possessions.

354. i.e., with all his gluttony he can get from the earth only a stomachful.

355. “This store” is the world. i.e., all transitory possessions are lost in the end.

356. “The crown of the candle” is of course the flame, which makes it weep, as it were, tears of wax or tallow.

357. Another illustration of the same idea. I have translated from a supposed reading, kūh-u daryā, “the hills and the sea,” but the I.O. MSS. and printed editions alternate between āb-i daryā, and ān mufarraḥ, “the water of the sea,” and “that exhilarated person”. The former seems nonsensical, since the sea has no rubies. The latter is pointless and involves an inconsistency. Kūh, “hill, mountain,” seems a plausible conjecture, since the hill or mountain has rubies, and may be said to weep in the streams which flow from it. The sea has pearls, and the water of it may poetically be called tears.

358. See the next distich.

359. i.e., those who are entitled men are as angels if they have the wisdom which constitutes them “men” and distinguishes them from the lower animals. If, in fine, they have the rūḥ-i insānī, “the human spirit,” and have under their control the rūḥ-i ḥaivānī, the animal spirit.

360. “Did they prepare.” I read with I.O. MS. 1491, karda, which is an indefinite way of saying “he or they prepared”, the sense being here “God prepared”.

I.O. MS. 1168 has kard, which I should render “God prepared”.

361. i.e., work is good in itself, though it avails not against the preordinances of God, which are from past eternity.

362. i.e., if his work is only for himself and he does not care for others’ interests.

363. Khvīshī at the end of the first hemistich seems used in an adjectival sense.

364. i.e., so govern your life that you make not enemies, but friends.

365. i.e., weeping hypocritically.

366. “Take your hand”; i.e., actively help you.

367. Yād has two principal meanings, “memory” and “heart, or mind”. In this distich the meaning seems to be “heart”.

368. Concealed or buried treasure was supposed to be guarded by a snake or dragon.

369. The Author seems to imply that by exposing advantages the possessor will suffer, although those who may see them be good.

It should be remembered that New Year’s Day in Persia is the 21st of March.

370. The ass is considered a type of sensuality.

371. i.e., happiness depends upon a good, happy nature.

372. An assertion of the Muhammadan idea that the nature never changes. The pre-existent soul in the spiritual world has a certain nature, and when incarnate in this world it keeps the same nature.

373. Lit., with ugliness of aspect.

374. Advice apparently given to princes and governors against ill-treating the peasant.

375. i.e., he does not require an additional burden of oppression.

376. Muhra, a stone found in the head of a snake and supposed to be an antidote against the poison of its bite. The full name is mār-muhra, “snake-stone.”

377. I translate from the reading, du‘ā na-zanī. If daghā na-zanī be correct we should render, “Strive that you strike not false coin (in partnership) with the world,” or, “employ not deception (in company) with the world.”

378. By “dragon” is meant “the world”.

379. i.e., the world is not really friendly to men, and ultimately it consumes them.

380. Lit., “his dog-heartedness.” The allusion is to the wicked, malignant hypocrites of the world.

381 The Author means presumably that they increase the disagreement by misrepresentation, making black seem white and white black.

The literal sense as regards the fly is that it gets into different foods and trails one over another where it walks, mixing them up together.

382. “These highwaymen” are wicked enemies who rob people of good and set them astray. Cf. the definitions of rāh zadan (lit., to strike the road): “to plunder travellers,” and also “to set astray”, tārāj namūdan-i amvāl-u asbāb-i musāfirān; va-gumrāh kardan.

383. “This wallet of four ties” means “the world”. The wallet referred to is one in which travellers carry their food. It has four flaps which fold over and are tied together. It is used opened and spread out as a tray or cloth. This wallet is likened to the world on account of its having four sides as the earth has the four cardinal points; of its forming an expanse; and of its containing provisions.

384. i.e., when even the pious and good are led away by the wickedness of the age.

Past, rendered “base”, seems to have here the Ṣūfī sense, Ānki na-tuvānad ba-bāl-i himmat parvāz-i ‘urūj ba-madārij-i kamālāt-i ḥaqqānī yā martaba-ī az marātib-i dīgar kunad “He who cannot on the wings of resolution fly up to the stages of spiritual perfections, or to any other grade.”

“Josephs, (fierce) wolves.” An allusion to the wolf which was reported to have devoured Joseph. (See the Qur’ān, xii., 17, 18.)

385. The fire of hell is supposed to be made of men’s evil deeds.

386. “Pour talc away,” talq-rā rīzand. Talc being an allayer or quencher of fire, the sense of rīzand here must be “pour away”, not “pour on”.

387. “Subjection”; i.e., subjection to God.

388. Lit., “How long is seven-lockedness and four-tiedness to last?” The “seven locks” are the seven skies; the “four-tie (thing)” is the earth. (See Note 383.)

389. By the “false blood-stained gold” are meant the stamens of the anemone.

The Author is again warning people against seeking riches.

390. i.e., the stamens of the wormwood do not resemble money in colour.

Note the Persian word for “wormwood”, diramna, which, divided as diram-na, means “not money”.

391. “The white cloud” is apparently taken as an emblem of purity and renunciation, in contradistinction to the black cloud, which has, as it were, a treasure on its head in its bright lining. If the Author means that one is not to be like the white cloud, the “treasure” must be the golden appearance which the sun often gives to the white cloud, but this is not necessarily on its head.

392. This may mean that the earth, which becomes only mud through the wetting of the rain from the cloud (see the next distich), becomes golden when the sun shines upon it thus wetted, and this golden reflection is the treasure alluded to. Or, since it is believed that the sun makes gold grow and develop in the stone of the mine, as it is supposed to do rubies, the reference would probably be to such gold. I have not seen, it is true, any explicit assertion in Persian writers of such a belief as regards the gold, but passages occur which seem to allude to it, and in Le Trésor de l´univers, attributed to Raymond Lulle, we read:

“Chaque étoile du ciel a son influence particulière: l’étoile du Pole sur l´aimant et sur le fer; . . . . le Soleil, sur l´or; la Lune, sur l´argent; les images des hommes du ciel, sur les corps humains; la similitude du Bélier céleste, sur les béliers terrestres.”

393. Tar shudan, “to become moistened or wet,” means also metaphorically “to be vexed or troubled”.

394. See Note 392.

The meaning is that by contemning treasure, behaving with wisdom, and practising self-denial and beneficence people become a blessing to the earth.

395. i.e., show your contempt for the gold and rubies which the sun is supposed to develop.

396. The word zar, “gold,” is formed by two consonants which are disconnected from each other in Persian writing. I have been obliged to render parāganda by two words, “worthless, scattered,” since there is no single word in English that conveys these senses of parāganda, which is equivalent here to bī-rābiṭa. Cf. the Turkish rābiṭa-syz.

397. In this second hemistich parāganda means “scattered” in connection with the gold, and “disturbed” with reference to the possessor of it.

398. i.e., on account of their wearing gold they are put into mourning, blue being a mourning colour. This is in allusion to the commonly used gold and blue ornamentation of Persian MSS.

399. i.e., if gold is put into one scale, stone weights are put into the other to weigh it. This the Author calls “stoning”. “At a thousand doors”; i.e., at the doors of the bankers.

400. A dāng was the sixth part of a diram, and weighed about six grains. A diram was a silver coin worth, by various accounts, sixpence, or from three-halfpence to twopence.