Un presagio da Hafez
Ghazal 329
At dawn Gemini laid out his baldric level before me —
meaning: I am the King's own slave, and thereupon I swear it.
Come, cupbearer, for by the aid of fortune that works my purpose,
the wish I begged of God at last is granted, made my own.
Give me a cup, that once again, in gladness at the King's face,
in my grey age the longing for youth rises within my head.
Waylay me not with praise of Khizr's pure spring, for I am one
who from the King's own goblet drains the pool of Kausar's water.
O King, though I should raise my throne of merit to the Empyrean,
I am the bondsman of this court, the pauper of this door.
A thousand years I was a draught-drinker at your feast;
when will a nature bred to habit forsake its wonted spring?
And should this tale of mine not win belief from your poor slave,
from Kamal's own utterance I will bring a proof to bear.
If I should tear my heart from you, and lift my love away,
on whom should I then cast that love, and whither bear that heart?
Mansur ibn Muzaffar the warrior is my amulet;
and by this blessed name I stand victorious over my foes.
My covenant of Alast was all one bond with the King's love,
and by this bond I journey down the highroad of my life.
Since heaven set the Pleiades in order in the King's name,
why should I not string pearls of verse? Whose lesser am I then?
Falcon-like, once I tasted my quarry from the King's own hand,
when should I deign to glance upon the hunting of a dove?
O lion-seizing King, what loss to you, if in your shade
the realm of tranquil ease should fall at last within my reach?
My verse, by the good fortune of your praise, unlocked a hundred hearts —
you'd say the tongue of my eloquence is a blade drawn from your own.
If, like the morning breeze, I passed above some flowering close,
it was no love of cypress there, no yearning for the pine.
Your fragrance I would breathe, and in remembrance of your face
the cupbearers of joy would grant me a goblet or two.
Drunk on the juice of a grape or two is not this servant's way:
I am the aged one, the veteran nursed by the tavern's arms.
With the wheeling of the stars I have a long dispute to press;
let the King's justice be my champion in this quarrel's cause.
Thanks be to God that once again, at this height of the royal hall,
the peacock of the Throne now hears the fame of my king-feather.
Let my name be blotted from the workshop of the lovers,
if any labour but your love should ever be my trade.
The lion's whelp made onslaught on the quarry of my heart, and I —
lean though I be, and if not lean, I am the lion's prey.
O you whose lovers outnumber the motes that fill the air,
how should I reach your union, I, who am less than a single mote?
Show me who dares deny the beauty of your face,
that I may draw my dagger of zeal across his very eye.
Upon me fell the shadow of the sun of sovereignty,
and now I have no need at all of the eastern rising sun.
The aim of all this traffic is a briskness in the market:
I neither sell my show of splendour, nor buy the coy device.