Seat, Peter Armenti confirmed with the assistance of Catbird blog readers that the poem spoken at the end of The Shape of Water is del Toro's adaptation of Priya Hemenway's translation of an original poem by Hakim Sanai. Hemenway's translation appears in The Book of Everything: Journey of the Heart’s Desire : Hakim Sanai’s Walled Garden of Truth (2002). Quotations Sanai's poetry stresses the possibility of an "awakening"; While mankind remains mere baggage in the world It will be swept along, as in a boat, asleep. What can they see in sleep? What real merit or punishment can there be? He who knows not his own soul, how shall he know the soul of another? and he who only knows hand and foot, how shall he know the Godhead? The prophets are unequal to understanding this matter; why dost thou foolishly claim to do so? When thou hast brought forward a demonstration of this subject, then thou wilt know the pure essence of the faith; otherwise what have faith and thou in common? thou hadst best be silent, and speak not folly. The learned talk nonsense all; for true religion is not woven about the feet of everyone. His means for this awakening is surrender to God, his poetry has been called "the essential fragrance of the path of love". He hits out at human hypocrisy and folly; Others are heedless,—do thou be wise, and on this path keep thy tongue silent. The condition laid on such a one is that he should receive all food and drink from the Causer, not from the causes. Go, suffer hardship, if thou wouldst be cherished; and if not, be content with the road to Hell. None ever attained his object without enduring hardship. See also List of Persian poets and authors Persian literature Rumi Nizami Ganjavi Attar of Nishapur Notable Sanai researchers: Mohammad-Reza Shafiei Kadkani Mohammad Taghi Modarres Razavi Mohammad Jafar Yahaghi Notes References "Hadiqat al-Haqiqa wa Shari'at al-Tariqa" In Encyclopædia Iranica by J.T.P. De Bruijn E.G. Browne. Literary History of Persia. (Four volumes, 2,256 pages, and twenty-five years in the writing). 1998. Jan Rypka, History of Iranian Literature. Reidel Publishing Company. 1968 . Bo Utas, A Persian Sufi Poem: Vocabulary and terminology. Scandinavian Institute of Asian Studies Monograph Series, Curzon Press, 1977. Further reading Sanai in original Persian A Thousand Years of Persian Rubaiyat: An Anthology of Quatrains from the Tenth