Original content

English translation

Farazdaq praised Khalid, the ruler of Basra. He did not receive the reward for his praise as he had wished, so he satirized him with these two couplets:

Indeed the gateway of Khalid's house deceived me, and I did not know that his hide was stuffed full of blame. And I am not—even though I erred in praising Khalid— the first man to have soiled himself in his own clothes.

He says: I saw a house adorned on the outside, and I busied myself with praising the master of the house. The garment of my pure poetry was defiled with the filth of excrement when I set my mind to praising him.

When these two couplets reached Khalid, he sent ten thousand dirhams to him and gave word: 'With these dirhams, wash away the meaning you have revealed from your inner self and with which you have defiled your outer self.'

Do not marvel if the praised one bestows kindness upon his praiser, even though he speaks both good and ill of him. From the sea of his generosity he lets a droplet flow, so that with it he may wash the words of his own censure from the tablet of his mind.