If I'm drunk on forbidden wine, so I am!
And if I'm an unbeliever, a pagan or idolater, so I am!
Every sect has its own suspicions of me,
I myself am just what I am.

My rule of life is to drink and be merry,
To be free from belief and unbelief is my religion:
I asked the Bride of Destiny her bride-price,
'Your joyous heart,' she said.

I cannot live without the sparkling vintage,
Cannot bear the body's burden without wine:
I am a slave to that last gasp when the wine-server says,
'Have another,' and I can't.

Tonight I will make a tun of wine,
Set myself up with two bowls of it;
First I will divorce absolutely reason and religion;
Then take to wife the daughter of the vine.

When I am dead, scatter my dust
And make my condition an example to men:
Moisten my dust with wine,
To make the seal on a vat out of my corpse.

Wash me in wine when I go,
For my burial service use a text concerning wine;
Would you find me on the Day of Doom,
Look for me in the dust at the wine-shop's door.

I drink so much wine, its aroma
Will rise from the dust when I'm under it;
Should a toper come upon my dust,
The fragrance from my corpse will make him roaring drunk.

The day when my life's branch is uprooted
And my members are dispersed,
Should my clay be used to make a cup
It would come to life as soon as it was filled with wine.

When I am prostrate at the feet of doom,
My hope of life torn up by the root,
Take care to use my clay only for a goblet -
The smell of wine might restore me life for a moment.

When you are in convivial company,
You must remember ardently your friend:
When you are drinking mellow wine together
And my turn comes, invert the glass.

The captives of intellect and of the nice distinction,
Worrying about Being and Non-Being themselves become nothing;
You with the news, go and seek out the juice of the vine,
Those without it wither before they're ripe.

Oh Canon Jurist, we work better than you,
With all this drunkenness, we're more sober:
You drink men's blood, we, the vine's,
Be honest - which of us is the more bloodthirsty?

A religious man said to a whore, 'You're drunk,
Caught every moment in a different snare.'
She replied, 'Oh Shaikh, I am what you say,
Are you what you seem?'

They say lovers and drunkards go to hell,
A controversial dictum not easy to accept:
If the lover and drunkard are for hell,
Tomorrow Paradise will be empty.

They promise there will be Paradise and the houri-eyed,
Where clear wine and honey will flow:
Should we prefer wine and a lover, what's the harm?
Are not these the final recompense?