Original content

English translation

The Amir said to him: These things are true, but your portion in them falls short. You have waylaid hundreds of thousands like me; you dug a breach and entered the treasury. There is no remedy: I cannot but be burned by a fire from you; who is there whose garment has not been torn by your hand? Your nature, O fire, is to burn; until you burn something, there is no remedy. This is the curse: that it makes you a burner; it makes you master of all thieves. You spoke with God and heard Him face to face; what am I before your cunning, O enemy? Your kinds of knowledge are like the whistle-call: it is the sound of birds, but it is a bird-catcher. That call has waylaid hundreds of thousands of birds; the deluded bird thinks a familiar one has come. When it hears the whistle in the air, it comes down from the air and becomes captive here. The people of Noah are wailing because of your trickery; hearts are roasted and breasts are torn piece by piece. You gave the people of Aad to the wind in the world; you cast them into torment and sorrows. The stoning of the people of Lot was from you; because of you they plunged into the black water. Nimrod’s brain came to be scattered because of you, O you who have stirred up thousands of seditions. Pharaoh’s keen, philosophizing intellect was blinded by you; he found no awareness. Abu Lahab too became unworthy through you; Abu al-Hakam too became Abu Jahl through you. O you who, on this chessboard, for mere play, have checkmated a hundred thousand masters. O you by whose difficult queen-traps hearts have burned and your own heart has blackened. You are an ocean of cunning; creatures are a drop. You are like a mountain, and this Solomon is a mote. Who can escape your cunning, O adversary? We are drowned in the flood except the one whom He protects. Many a fortunate star has been burned up by you; many an army and company has been scattered by you.