Original content

English translation

When Rashid arrived in Kufa, his vizier went into the slave market. They presented to him a slave of whom it was said that when he struck up a song he would bring the birds down out of the air. The news of him was brought to Rashid, who ordered that he be bought. When they resolved to depart from Kufa, they heard that on the first day he was weeping and, singing a camel-driver's song (hudi), was saying:

He who guiltlessly sheds my blood with the sword of the beloved's parting— better that than that he should pass over the blood of one distraught in heart like me. I, who from a single day of separation have thus slipped from my own hands— alas for my soul, if a month or a year should pass!

This news reached Rashid; he summoned him and inquired into his condition. He learned that in Kufa the slave was held captive by love for someone; he took pity and set him free. The vizier said: It is a waste that such a sweet-voiced one should be freed. Rashid said: It would be a shame that such a high-flyer should be held as a slave.

O you for whom the fortune of kingship is the object of desire, and for whom the freeing of slaves lies within reach— set him free, for he was a slave of love; for that heart-lost one, the bondage of love is enough.