XLI: Though thou mayst speak with warmth or anger

Though thou mayst speak with warmth or anger;
Or, though thou mayst, to staff, or to bludgeon take;

With all this useless absurdity, O blockhead!
Thou wilt not be able to effect aught against fate.

That which was to happen to thee, hath come to pass,
Whether the matter of a straw, or of a hundred thousand.

Save resignation, there is no remedy soever,
For this pain and trouble, beyond all doubt.

Whoever sayeth aught about that which hath occurred,
Nonsense talketh--he striketh at a fly, the water upon.

Do not, O fool! become, from a trifling of success,
Like unto the drum, for announcement inflated.

There will not be grief and sorrow upon man for ever,
Nor will there be mirth and gladness every moment.

A person may, sometimes, be gay and cheerful;
At others, from care, he may be melancholy and distressed.

At times, starving, with intestines doubled up;
At others, gorged with food, even up to the throat.

At times, he becometh a lion, appropriating the plain;
At others again, he becometh the mere rat of a burrow.

Where is lamentation? where is the song of gladness?
Where the plundered? where the Uzbak that harried him?

Were the actions of fate, ever of one uniform colour,
The firmament would not be thus spotted with stars.

The tyranny and injustice are not upon thee alone,
Of fortune's ever changing, inconstant revolutions.

In these troubles and vicissitudes, many other folks
Are thy companions, and are, hand in hand, with thee.

Ever unto distance remote, direct thou thy sight:
Even from the heavens, the earth-supporting-fish unto.

There is a dart embedded in the heart of every one,
Discharged therein by the ruthless hand of fate.

This fearful pestilence, indeed, hath reached
Every house, and every dwelling-place, unto.

It, however, behoveth, that in this net of calamity,
The prudent bird should be careful not to flutter.

Hamid's resignation hath to songs of gladness turned,
Through the tyranny and oppression of every dastard.