*
1. My every hair’s a tongue standing to order.
In verse I now describe a certain barber.
*
2. Off royal pomp he knocked the crown, and booed.
Beneath his hand lay every head subdued.
*
3. Because the mirror looked to him with hope
By it he was the sun’s equal in scope.
*
4. An instance of the sun, that radiant man
Took for his blade a lancing ray to hand.
*
5. When far away his blade reveals its trace
In honor does the vein give up its place.
*
6. A hair’s worth won’t he yield to sorrow’s vein.
His blade is lighter than a hair–it’s plain.
*
7. By shearing heads now he’s the head honcho.
His laws like water over people’s heads do flow.
*
8. He never moistens heads. It’s all the same.
Seeing his waist, do hairs all melt in shame.
*
9. So ravishingly are his scissors molded
Of idols’ eyes and brows are you reminded.
*
10. So hair-besotted are his scissors now
They’re competition for the eyebrow.
*
11. When from his hand the blade’s thorn flails
It cups the rose to bleed the nightingale.
*
12. Excelling at phlebotomy, he struck
A figure incomparable at work.
*
13. When with my blood he decked my forehead
From envy did the flowering branch turn red.
*
14. What spells does he breathe, what powers,
That flowering branches readily shed their flowers?
*
15. Is he drunk on the wine of its fervor
That he knocks back goblets to the mirror?
*
16. So crazed is he with fire of its ardor
Each night he drinks umpteen cups of water.
*
17. Collecting ash in furnaces, that moon
Contrives to burnish mirrors bright as noon.
*
18. My murder’s all he wants, his only care
And yet he tests his scalpel on my hair.
*
19. To draw my blood like wine, that crazy man,
Stands always, I see, with gourd in hand.
*
20. By him was I immersed in seas of blood.
How strange! Look–I drown by a buoying gourd.
*
21. Awaiting that rose-bodied one’s coming
The pauper from the steam-bath comes, hoping.
*
22. In madness, that moon-like man tips over
On heads, like wine, tubfuls of water.
*
23. This desire’s deprived my eyes of sleep;
They stand before him like cups of water and weep.
*
24. O come, world-warming sun, come here, I say!
Our night without you turns to blackest day.
*
25. Before me then he placed a mirror, that moon,
But only when I fell into a swoon.
*
26. And then from each finger my nails he wrenched
So that on nothing could my hands stay clenched.
*
27. That radiant sun then raised me from below.
You might say he’d shorn me of all shadow.
*
28. For as long as the moon’s a lamp unto the world
May I walk safeguarded under his shade unfurled.