The amiss denunciation 

One day, garlic ridiculed onion with disdain 
“Oh, how fowl-smelling you are, you pitiful one,” it did claim.

Onion retorted, knowing their own defects and all,
“Why do you seek others’ flaws in such a call?”

Speaking of the other’s ugliness 
Won’t make you fair and prepossess

As if you are a flower so rare?
Growing amongst the tulips or junipers?

Do you possess the scent of Tatar’s musk[1] divine?
Or are you a bloom from the garden of paradise, so fine?

Don’t be haughty, my friend, in your own regard
For we travel the same path by fate’s card. 

If my path is uneven and full of bends
How can you, with ease, tread where it wends?

Reflect upon yourself with introspection deep
Address your own faults ere you care for others’ weep.

I may seem ordinary, ugly, and unkempt
But why not cleanse yourself from the chaos you’ve kept?

[1] Tatar’s musk : It has a pleasant scent. “The term müşk-i tatar (“Tatar musk”), often used in classical Persian, Chagatay, Ottoman Turkish, and Kurdish poetry. It first appeared in Persian  in  the  10th century A.D. to designate  the various kinds of musk and continued to be used until the beginning of the 20th century as a poetical trope.” [Zaytsev, I. V. (2020, August 10). “Tatar musk.” De Gruyter.]

***

Parvin Etesami’s Book of Poems was first published by the National Council of Iran in 1935, and Malek-o-shoara-y-Bahar (1886-1951), a prominent Iranian writer and poet prefaced the book at that time.  

نکوهش بیجا

که تو مسکین چقدر بدبویی
سیر یک روز طعنه زد به پیاز

زان ره از خلق، عیب می‌جویی
گفت از عیب خویش بی‌خبری

نشود باعث نکورویی
گفتن از زشترویی دگران

به صف سرو و لاله می‌رویی
تو گمان می‌کنی که شاخ گلی

یا ز ازهار باغ مینویی
یا که همبوی مشک تاتاری

تو هم از ساکنان این کویی
خویشتن بی‌سبب بزرگ مکن

تو خود این ره چگونه می‌پویی
ره ما گر کج است و ناهموار

اول آن به که عیب خود گویی
در خود آن به که نیکتر نگری

ما زبونیم و شوخ‌جامه و پست

تو چرا شوخ تن نمی‌شویی