Sixty Times Nowruz
Naser Khosrowناصرخسرو
این چنین بیهده‌ای نیز مگو با من
Do not tell me such idle things any more,
که مرا از سخن بیهده عار آید
for I am ashamed of idle words.
شست بار آمد نوروز مرا مهمان
Nowruz has come to me sixty times as a guest;
جز همان نیست اگر ششصد بار آید
it is only the same, though it come six hundred times.
هر که را شست ستمگر فلک آرایش
When the cruel heavens have dressed a man in sixty years,
باغ آراسته او را به چه کار آید؟
what use to him is a garden in its finery?
سوی من خواب و خیال است جمال او
To me its beauty is a dream and a fancy,
گر به چشم توهمی نقش و نگار آید
though to your eye it may look like painting and design.
A note for readers
The poem opens with nine couplets of the spring images beloved of court poets, put in the mouth of 'you': roses, almond blossom, the nightingale greeting the pomegranate flower. In these lines Naser Khosrow turns on them: he has seen sixty New Years (Nowruz), and the beauty of spring is only a dream to a man the cruel heavens have aged. The excerpt gives couplets 10 to 13.
More poemsشعرهای دیگر
مرغی دیدم نشسته بر باره طوس
در پیش نهاده کله کیکاووس
I saw a bird perched on the ramparts of Tus,
with the skull of Kay Kavus set down before it.
A Bird on the Walls of Tus
یکی قطره باران ز ابری چکید
خجل شد چو پهنای دریا بدید
A drop of rain fell from a cloud;
it was ashamed when it saw the breadth of the sea.
A Drop of Rain
ابتدای کار سیمرغ ای عجب
جلوه‌گر بگذشت بر چین نیم‌شب
The beginning of the Simorgh’s story, how wonderful:
in all his splendour he passed over China at midnight.