Original content

English translation

A beautiful one for whom a thousand wise men were maddened by passion, and at every moment, at the head of his lane, a thousand clamors arose from the coming and going of the enraptured—the turn of beauty came to an end, and the calamity of ugliness entered through door and roof. The lovers folded up the carpet of delight and withdrew the foot of mingling. I said to one of them: This is the very same beloved who was here last year; the same eye and eyebrow are in place, the same lip and mouth remain, the stature is taller than before and the body stronger than before. What insolence and shamelessness, what faithlessness and immodesty is this, that you have gathered up the skirt of companionship from him and withdrawn the foot of devotion from him? He said: Alas, what are you saying! That which stole the heart and carried off the senses was a spirit breathed into a form—into the proportion of the limbs, the softness of the body, the delicacy of the skin, and the gentleness of the voice. When that spirit departed from this form, with a dead form what love should I play, and over a withered flower what song should I begin? The rose has gone from the garden—what shall I do with thorn and straw? The king is not in the city—what shall I do with the night-watchman? The beautiful are the cage, and the beauty of goodliness is the parrot; When the parrot has flown away, what shall I do with the cage?