As sesame is heated and pressed, or cotton carded by means of a thong, so shall sinners be punished.

Like paper they shall be beaten with mallets, and put into presses;

They shall be heated like iron; they shall burn and cry aloud;

The wretched beings' heads shall be taken up with tongs and placed on anvils,

[1. The introductory prayer of the Quran. Its secondary meaning is prayers offered up for a deceased person.

2. The Indian oil-press is a primitive machine. A beam is made to revolve in a socket in which the seeds to be pressed are placed. The meaning here is, that the cars shall be tortured as if the beams of oil-presses revolved in them as sockets.]

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On which they shall be beaten with hammers in time according to the smith's[1] lead.

Nanak, without the true Name they shall have no rest either in this world or the next.

Iron spikes shall be driven into their feet, and the sun shall burn their heads.

They who are captivated with the strange woman's flesh, shall lose their manhood and their honour;

They shall be bound to a heated pillar, and no one will go near them;

They shall be unloosed and again tied to it; they shall repent and implore pity--

Everybody, Nanak, is an enemy of the sinner--

They shall be put into a furnace and bodkins of fire thrust into their eyes;

They shall be burnt by sand under which fire hath been kindled;

They shall be roasted in a caldron like rice, and shall then crackle and make a report.

God Himself pardoneth, O Nanak; whom else shall we address?

As the juice of sugar-cane is expressed by putting great weight on it,

So man is weighed down by eating, drinking, dressing, and pleasures which degrade his mind.

An account shall be demanded from the soul which hath dealt in such things.

Feet and legs perform the duties the soul ordereth them.

The tongue which tasted sinful savours shall stand up in court and cry out against the soul;

The ears shall also depose that it is the soul which is false and deceitful.

The nose and eyes shall also plead not guilty, and it is the poor soul which shall suffer.

The soul under arrest in Death's court pleadeth, 'It is the senses which have led the whole world astray:

'The senses united have thrown man into misery as the smith putteth iron on the anvil.'

[1. Dharmrâj, the Pluto of Greek mythology.]

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Nanak, he who meeteth not the true Guru and obtaineth not divine knowledge, shall find no rest in this world or the next.

The soul shall be filed seventy times like an arrow;

It shall be melted like gold in a mould; O soul, thou shalt suffer for what thou hast done.

The soul shall have to bear a prodigious saddle and be driven like a steed.