Ribaldries

A mount is meant to bring you comfort, yet my own horse only brings me misery. There isn't a scrap of flesh left on its bones; it's just like a chess knight.

The amber curls at your neck are enough already; a musk scented darling has no need for perfume. Tonight is not the time for a lover's scent and the colors of romance; it's the hour for pleasure, laughter, play, and lovemaking. Set aside the tale of the turning fortunes of the age, my kind moon; now is the time to lie down together. Won't you finally pay the tithe on the harvest of your youth? I'm a needy beggar deserving it, and it's your time to give. You, temptation of the age, come lie with me a while; and you, sleeping loins, now is the time to rise.

That one whose figure no cypress can match: he is straight with everyone, but not with me. His wide, silver-lined saddlebag has room for all, but none for me. What a strange devotion I keep, that I get no share from the feast. My luck is like a fish so bitter that its only longing lives in the sea. You who are unmatched in the world for beauty: don't be faithless, for faithlessness is not beautiful. Even if you can bear to be away from your friends, your friends' hearts cannot bear to be without you. No night passes without you where my body is not stiff as flint. You whose backside can hold as much as a bowl of buttermilk, more than any water-carrier's skin can hold. Why won't you come sit on my horn? Have you no taste for the show? What sin have I committed, my darling, that you have no desire for my company? To steal a kiss from your mouth: the longing burns on my lips, but I lack the nerve. Take me by the hand for one coupling, for I want nothing more than this.

From your intoxicating eyes I hope for sleep, but you sleep well; there is no rest for me. Just seeing you is not enough for me. I have another thing to say, but this is no place to say it.

Only a man who knows nothing of Zoroaster's ways would throw away his gold on a pretty boy. Wherever you see a tall, cypress-like figure, keep your eyes on the face and spit into your fist. Since there is no gate to his backside and no trousers, no one will kill you for an innocent thing. And if it is coupling you crave, at most you'll push a finger in up to the ring. In the end the whole gain of it is this: that the hard and the soft in you go slack. If you think it over, it comes down to one donkey mounting the back of another.

Yesterday a fellow was spilling his seed out onto the field, muttering to himself, and this thought kept turning in his mind: Since sin is bound to happen anyway, better to spend it in a clean hand than in a filthy backside.

If a Tatar kills a coward, no one should turn around and kill the Tatar. How long must he be like the bridge of Baghdad, water flowing beneath him and people trampling his back?

As long as the pimp keeps a wife, he'll speak well of her only for the profit she brings.

A fellow whose wife had divorced him, and she happened to find another husband. The first one held his head in his hands over her cruelty, while the other one's manhood swung idle in the archway.

When that infatuated fool got a gust of wind in his horn, he threw that silver-colored dome to the wind. For the sake of a minaret he gave away the whole desert as endowment; may God spare no one such a bad neighbor.

Do you remember those days, that good fortune and grace, when you wouldn't spare a thought for your helpless lover? Back then you fled, when there was no one like you; and today you've returned, when let there be no one like you.

I said, 'Come here to me, you of angelic beauty.' She said, 'Bring something first, what will you give me?' I said, 'My mother will pray for you.' She said, 'You think you'll bed me with your mother's prayers?'

I fear the violet will steal the freshness of your face, that it will take away the marketplace of your charming beauty. Do not scrawl that ugly line of hair on the margin of the ledger of your beauty, for it will ruin the splendor of your inscription.

Galen's cure is to plant his cock in your ass; your temperament runs to bile, so squeeze a lemon in there.

Wine brings joy and stirs up courage, while by nature the green herb brings only dryness and cold. Stick to the red wine, and steer clear of the white; for eating the green plant only turns your face pale and yellow.

Whoever fails to reach the exalted court, it comes from black luck and an unlucky tongue. A man who has never once prayed in his whole life, no doubt, will never rise to lead the prayer.

What need is there for a wall to be painted and adorned, or for aloe wood and sugar to burn on the fire? Do you know what our happiness really needs? If this musician would stop playing, it would be a delight.

Don't hand gold to a rotten fool; his temperament is out of balance. Friendship is good only up to a point; beyond that it brings nothing but worry and heartache.

I have never seen a thirty-year-old still passing for a smooth-faced boy like you. Such a freak can only belong to the end of days. If they tied both your hands behind your back for a week, by the next week your beard would grow down to your waist.

Last night I swore I'd give up love, since the time to leave this world had come. Then I took back that vow, because the memory of that heart stealing lover came to me. The moment his name and his backside crossed my tongue, my cock's mouth began to water.

A man who spent his life in sin and debauchery, at the hour of death swears his regret again and again. 'I've repented and will sin no more,' he says; but you can't do anything anymore, so stop fooling yourself.

No wonder that with these David-like melodies the birds hang spellbound in the air. You are surely forgiven, and God knows best, for a whole land speaks well of you and blesses you.

When he saw my hair had turned white with age, he turned away and showed me no more devotion. I said: if my hair has gone white so soon, at least be grateful, for my heart is as dark as it always was.

People suffer because of you, and God is displeased; curses rain down on you, worse than on any infidel or non-believer. No wonder the wound cries out, 'Why did you give birth?' when the seed that carried you was pregnant nine months in shame.

Your beard is taking far too long to come in; the hair on your chin is only just sprouting. Even so, whenever I call your backside to mind, my mouth waters and my cock stirs.