Do you know how the cypress and the lily have acquired the name for freedom which they enjoy among men? It is because one has ten tongues but remains mute, and the other possesses a hundred hands and keeps them all empty.
O cupbearer! put into my hand some of that delicious wine, some of that juice attractive as a charming idol, some of that nectar, in short, which like a chain whose links, turning and returning upon each other, hold fools and sages alike in sweet captivity.
O regret! that life should be passed in pure loss! How lawless all our eating and how defiled our bodies! I have the blame, O God! of not having done what Thou hast commanded. What will come to me for having done what Thou hast not commanded?
Fret not thyself on account of the inconstancy of this world; seek wine and draw near to thy caressing mistress, for, thou seest that he whom his mother brought forth to-day to-morrow disappears from the earth--to-morrow returns to annihilation.
I can renounce all else, but wine never; for I have the means of making amends for all else, but of wine, never. O God! could one like me become a Musulman and renounce old wine? Never.
We are all lovers, all drunkards, all adorers of wine. We are all united in the tavern, having banished far from us all that is good, all that is evil, all reflection and revery. Oh! expect not intelligence or reason of us, for we are all overcome with wine.
It is we who have confidence in the divine goodness, who have shaken off the ideas of obedience and sin; for where Thy benevolence exists, O God, he who has done nothing is equal to him who has done something.
Thou hast imprinted on our being, O God, such singular phantasma of inconsequence, and hast made to rise such strange phenomena. Myself cannot be better than I am, for Thou hast taken me as I am from out creation's crucible.
We have violated all the vows that we have made; we have closed upon us the door of what is called good and what is called bad. Then blame me not if you see me committing senseless deeds, for we are drunk with the wine of love, and all are drunk as we.
A mouthful of old wine is of more worth than a new empire. The wise man will reject all that is not wine. A cup of this nectar is a hundred times preferable to the kingdom of Feridoun. The lid which covers the wine-jar is more precious than the diadem of Kai-Khosrou.