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English translation

Rudaki — may God the Exalted have mercy on him. He was from Transoxiana and was born of a blind mother; yet he was so intelligent and quick of understanding that at the age of eight he memorized the entire Quran and learned its recitation, and took up composing poetry. On account of his beautiful voice he fell to minstrelsy, learned the lute (oud), and became skilled in it, and Nasr ibn Ahmad the Samanid took him under his patronage.

They say that he had two hundred slaves, and four hundred camels went bearing his baggage and belongings. After him no poet has had such wealth. His poems — the responsibility for this resting on the narrator — amounted to a hundred volumes, and in the commentary on the Yamini it is mentioned that his verses numbered one million and three hundred lines. Among his sayings, in describing wine, is this:

That carnelian wine, which whoever beheld it could not tell apart from molten carnelian; Both are of one substance, yet by nature this one congealed and that other melted. Untouched, it turned both hands red; untasted, it rushed to the crown of the head.

In counsel he says: Fate gave me counsel freely; when you look well upon fate, it is all counsel. Of the good days of others it said: beware, do not grieve; many a one longs for a day such as yours.

And in some histories it is recorded that Nasr ibn Ahmad had come down from Bukhara to Marw Shahjan, and his stay there grew prolonged; the pillars of the state were drawn in heart toward Bukhara and its palaces and gardens.

They promised Rudaki a great deal so that he would compose a few lines to encourage and entice the king toward Bukhara, and at a fitting moment chant them to the melody of the lute. At dawn, when the king had taken his morning draught, he set these verses to the tune of the lute and sang:

The breeze of the Muliyan stream comes; the scent of the kind beloved comes. The sands of the Amu and all its roughness feel like silk beneath our feet. The waters of the Jayhun and all its wonders rise to our steed's flank. O Bukhara, live long and be glad; the king comes to you as a guest. The king is the moon and Bukhara the sky; the moon comes toward the sky. The king is the cypress and Bukhara the garden; the cypress comes toward the garden.

It so worked upon his soul that he mounted in his special garment and slippers and rode a full stage of the journey. In some histories this tale is attributed to Sultan Sanjar and Amir Mu'izzi. And God the Exalted knows best.