Those who, through knowledge, are the cream of the world; who, with intelligence scan the heights of the heavens, they also, like the firmament, have their heads turned in their search for divine knowledge, and are taken with vertigo and dimness of sight. 121. God has promised us wine in Paradise. In that case why should He prohibit it in this world? One day an Arab in a state of drunkenness cut the hams of Hamzah's camel with his sword. It is only for him that our Prophet makes wine illicit. 122. Since at this moment there only remains to you the memory of pleasure passed away; since for a perfect friend you have only a cup of wine; finally, since that is all you own, rejoice at least in this possession and let the cup not slip from your hands. 123. Oh! for the time when we shall be no more and the world shall still be here! There will remain no fame or trace of us. The world was not unfinished when we came; naught will be changed when we have gone from it. 124. Those whose feet have trodden the world, who have run over it for the sake of appropriating the riches of the two hemispheres to themselves, they are not the ones, I believe, who have ever been able to explain the true state, the real situation of things here below. 125. O regret! The capital [of life] has slipped from our hands. Alas! many hearts have been through death drowned in blood, and no one returns from the other world that I may ask him news of the travelers who have gone. 126. These numerous great lords, so proud of their titles, are so gnawed by cares and sorrows that existence to them is a burden. And most ridiculous it is that they deign not to call by the name of men those who, unlike to them, are not slaves to their passions. 127. This lofty Wheel, whose trade it is to tyrannize, has never loosed for man the knot of any difficulty. Wherever it has seen an ulcerated heart, there has it come to add wound unto wound. 128. Alas! the period of adolescence reaches home. The springtime of our pleasures slips away! That bird of gaiety which is called _youth_, alas! I know not when it came nor when it flew away! 129. In the midst of this whirlpool of the world, hasten to gather some fruit. Seat thyself upon the throne of gaiety and bring the cup to thy lips. God is indifferent both to creed and sin; enjoy then here below, what pleases thee. 130. Do you see those two or three imbeciles who hold the world in their hands, and who, in their candid ignorance, believe themselves the wisest in the universe? Do not disturb yourself for, in their high content, they deem all heretics who are not asses [like themselves]. 131.