Basatin al-uns 78.134

78.134

علیک بالعلم لانبغی به بدلا والناس موتی وأهل العلم أحیاء ما الفخر إلا لأهل العلم انهم علی الهدی لمن استهدی اولاء متبحران کاس غربت را از لطافت و خوبی خود چنان مست و مدهوش می گردانید که نام مولد و منشا بر جریدهآ نسیان مثبت می کردند و آتیه «فروح ورتحان وجنت نعیم (3)» ورد زبان خویش می ساختند، و در آن شهر معظم یادشاهی بود جوان بخت و جوان کامیاب و کامران، کرم مانند فطوط دست ملازم کف بحر نوال او، کمال دانش چون نور در آفتاب مقارن ذات بیهمان او، اوصاف مرضیهاش بیش از آن که مهندس عقل را عدد احصاء عشر عشیر آن دست دهد و خصال یسندیدهٔ‌ او چندانکه فکر دوراندیش از تصور شمار سرجملهآ آن عاجز و قاصر ماند:

Hold fast to knowledge, seek no substitute for it, / for men are dead and the people of knowledge are alive.
Glory belongs only to the people of knowledge, for they / are upon guidance for whoever seeks to be guided.
It rendered the connoisseurs of the cup of exile so intoxicated and stunned by its charm and beauty that the name
registered the names of their birthplace and origin upon the roll of oblivion, and made the verse "Then for him is rest and satisfaction and a Garden of Delights" the recurring litany of their tongues. And in that great city there was a king, fortunate in youth, young, successful, and prosperous,
generosity being like the lines of the hand inseparable from the palm of his sea of bounty, perfection of wisdom being, like light in the sun, joined to his peerless essence; his pleasing qualities were more than the geometer of reason could manage to count even a tenth of a tenth of,
and his praiseworthy traits were so numerous that far-reaching thought was left powerless and deficient in conceiving an enumeration of their sum:
A king as though his tongue and his spearhead were vying with each other, flowing with blood and sweat.
Like the full moon: wherever you turn to look at him, he guides a piercing light to your eye.
Like the sea: he casts jewels and aloeswood to him who is near, and sends forth rainclouds to him who is far.