Un presagio da Hafez
Ghazal 391
What could be sweeter than the thought of the wine and of the cup,
that I might see at last what fate awaits me in the end?
How long may one devour the heart's grief, when the days will not remain?
say: be neither heart nor days — for what, in the end, will be?
Say to the mean-spirited bird: devour your own grief alone; for on it —
the mercy of the one who lays the snare — what shall there ever be?
Drink wine, devour no grief, and lend no ear to the imitator's counsel;
what worth will ever attach to the word of the common herd?
Better that the fruit of your hand's labour be spent upon desire;
you know at last what shall be wrought against your very will.
The Elder of the tavern was reading out a riddle yesternight
from the lettering on the cup: what the final end shall be.
I led my heart astray with tambourine and harp and ghazal,
to see what recompense shall fall to me, the ill-famed, in the end.