بخش 4 - بازگشتن به حکایت پیل

Said the sincere adviser, “Hearken to this counsel of mine, so that your hearts and souls may not be afflicted.

Be content with herbage and leaves, do not go in chase of the young elephants.

I have put off from my neck (I have discharged) the debt of admonition: how should the end (final result) of admonition be aught but felicity?

I came to deliver the message, that I may save you from (fruitless) repentance.

Beware! Let not greed waylay you, let not greed for victual tear you up by the roots!”

This he said, and gave a farewell and departed; their famine and hunger waxed great on the way.

Suddenly, in the direction of a highroad, they espied a fat young elephant, newly born.

They fell upon it like furious wolves, ate it clean up, and washed their hands.

One of the fellow-travellers did not eat (of it) and exhorted (the others to abstain), for the sayings of that dervish were remembered by him.

Those words hindered him from (eating) its roasted flesh: old intelligence bestows on thee a new fortune.

Then they all fell down and slept, but the hungry one (was awake) like the shepherd in the flock.

He saw a frightful elephant approaching: first she came and ran towards him who was keeping guard.

She smelt his mouth thrice: no disagreeable smell came from it.

She paced round him several times and went off: the huge queen-elephant did him no hurt.

She smelt the lips of every sleeper, and the smell (of her young one's flesh) was coming to her from each of those slumbering men.

He (each man) had eaten of the roasted flesh of the young elephant: the (mother) elephant quickly tore him to pieces and killed him.

At once she set about rending the people of that company one by one, and she had no awe of (doing) it.

She tossed each one in the air recklessly, so that he dashed on the earth and was cloven asunder.

O drinker of the people's blood, begone from the way, lest their blood wage war against thee.

Know for sure that their property is (as) their blood, because property comes into one's hand (is acquired) by strength (of body).

The mother of those young elephants will exact vengeance: (her) retribution will slay him that eats the young elephant.

O eater of bribes, thou eatest the young elephant: from thee too the Master of the elephant will wring the breath.

The smell put to shame the deviser of fraud: the elephant knows the smell of her child.

He that perceives the smell of God from (distant) Yemen, how should not he perceive the smell of falsehood from me?

Inasmuch as Mustafá (Mohammed) smelt (this) from far away, how should not he smell the odour from our mouths?

He does smell it, but he conceals (the fact) from us: the good and bad smells go up to Heaven.

Thou art sleeping, and (meanwhile) the smell of that unlawful deed (of thine) is beating on the azure sky.

It accompanies thy foul breaths, it ascends to the smellers (examiners) in the celestial sphere.

The smell of pride and the smell of greed and the smell of concupiscence will become, in speaking, like (the smell of) onions.

If thou take oath, saying, “When have I eaten them? I have abstained from onions and garlic,”

The breath of thy oath will inform (against thee) and will strike upon the noses of those who sit beside thee.

Many prayers are rejected because of the smell thereof: the corrupt heart shows in the tongue.

The answer to such a prayer is “Get ye gone”: the requital for every knave is the cudgel of repulse.

(But) if thy words be wrong and thy meaning right, that wrongness of expression is acceptable to God.