بر سنگ زدم دوش سبوی کاشی
سرمست بدم که کردم این اوباشی
با من به زبان حال میگفت سبوی
من چون تو بدم تو نیز چون من باشی
Dashti, quatrain 40 p. 251
bar sang zadam dush sabuy-e kaashi
sarmast bodam ke kardam in owbaashi
baa man be zabaan-e haal migoft sabuy
man chon to bodam to niz chon man baashi
A trashy thing I did last night,
I smashed my cup when drunk.
The cup then told me what it felt:
"Like you was I one day,
like me you'll soon be clay."
Against a stone I dashed the jug last night—
(Drunk was I then and made a shameful sight):
In muttered words I heard the jug forewarn:
"Like you was I—like mine shall be your plight!"
Saidi, quatrain 81
Last night I dropped and smashed my porcelain bowl,
A clumsy folly in a bout of drinking,
The shattered bowl in dumb appeal cried out,
'I was like you, you too will be like me!'
Elwell-Sutton, In Search of Omar Khayyam, quatrain 40, p. 194
Translation & Discussion of the quatrain: 1. Upon a stone last night I smashed the Kashanware cup -- kaashi may mean "made in Kashan" but likely a glazed cup or jug. The city, famous for textiles and pottery, gave its name to glazed pottery and especially to decorative glazed tiles. 2. I was drunk when I did this wasteful thing - drunk, yes, but only a thoughtless drinker would smash his cup (cf. Quatrain 2 on this site); bodam = budam, by poetic license (the shortening of long vowels, frequently seen). 3. The jug* kept expressing its feelings to me - be zabaan-e haal, that is, poetically or symbolically the implied feelings, appropriate to this occasion, put in the "mouth" of the vessel as if it could voice its outrage, plainly and directly; migoft, the verbal construction for repeated past action, suitable here for the relentless complaints of the cup? 4. I was like you and you will also be like me -- clay "like me" but smashed before that (cf. Quatrain 2).
* In line 3, Dashti shows that he had recourse to a MS or collection which read sabuy, سبوی. Forughi (164) and Hedaayat (67) have sabu, سبو -- there is no advantage to Dashti's reading.