The Conference of the Birds (Penguin)

by Farid al-Din Attar

  He heard the Christian’s wishes and obeyed –

  The old wine sidled through the old man’s veins

  And like a twisting compass turned his brains;

  Old wine, young love, a lover far too old,

  Her soft arms welcoming – could he be cold?

  Beside himself with love and drink he cried:

  “Command me now; whatever you decide

  I will perform. I spurned idolatry

  When sober, but your beauty is to me

  An idol for whose sake I’ll gladly burn

  My faith’s Koran.” “Now you begin to learn,

  Now you are mine, dear sheikh,” she said. “Sleep well,

  Sweet dreams; our ripening fruit begins to swell.”

  News spread among the Christians that this sheikh

  Had chosen their religion for love’s sake.

  They took him to a nearby monastery,

  Where he accepted their theology;

  He burnt his dervish cloak and set his face

  Against the faith and Mecca’s holy place –

  After so many years of true belief,

  A young girl brought this learned sheikh to grief.

  He said: “This dervish has been well betrayed;

  The agent was mere passion for a maid.

  I must obey her now – what I have done

  Is worse than any crime beneath the sun.”

  (How many leave the faith through wine! It is

  The mother of such evil vagaries.)

  “Whatever you required is done,” he said.

  “What more remains? I have bowed down my head

  In love’s idolatry, I have drunk wine;

  lines 1396–1416

  May no one pass through wretchedness like mine!

  Love ruins one like me, and black disgrace

  Now stares a once-loved dervish in the face.

  For fifty years I walked an open road

  While in my heart high seas of worship flowed;

  Love ambushed me and at its sudden stroke

  For Christian garments I gave up my cloak;

  The Ka’abah has become love’s secret sign,

  And homeless love interprets the Divine.

  Consider what, for your sake, I have done –

  Then tell me, when shall we two be as one?

  Hope for that moment justifies my pain;

  Have all my troubles been endured in vain?”

  The girl replied: “But you are poor, and I

  Cannot be cheaply won – the price is high;

  Bring gold, and silver too, you innocent –

  Then I might pity your predicament;

  But you have neither, therefore go – and take

  A beggar’s alms from me; be off, old sheikh!

  Be on your travels like the sun – alone;

  Be manly now and patient, do not groan!”

  “A fine interpretation of your vow,”

  The sheikh replied; “my love, look at me now –

  I have no one but you; your cypress gait,

  Your silver form, decide my wretched fate.

  Take back your cruel commands; each moment you

  Confuse me by demanding something new.

  I have endured your absence, promptly done

  All you have asked – what profit have I won?

  I’ve passed beyond loss, profit, Islam, crime,

  For how much longer must I bide my time?

  Is this what we agreed? My friends have gone,

  Despising me, and I am here alone.

  They follow one way, you another – I

  Stand witless here uncertain where to fly;

  I know without you heaven would be hell,

  Hell heaven with you; more I cannot tell.”

  lines 1417–38

  At last his protestations moved her heart.

  “You are too poor to play the bridegroom’s part,”

  She said, “but be my swineherd for a year

  And then we’ll stay together, never fear.”

  The sheikh did not refuse – a fractious way

  Estranges love; he hurried to obey.

  This reverend sheikh kept swine – but who does not

  Keep something swinish in his nature’s plot?

  Do not imagine only he could fall;

  This hidden danger lurks within us all,

  Rearing its bestial head when we begin

  To tread salvation’s path – if you think sin

  Has no place in your nature, you can stay

  Content at home; you are excused the Way.

  But if you start our journey you will find

  That countless swine and idols tease the mind –

  Destroy these hindrances to love or you

  Must suffer that disgrace the sad sheikh knew.

  Despair unmanned his friends; they saw his plight

  And turned in helpless horror from the sight –

  The dust of grief anointed each bowed head;

  But one approached the hapless man and said:

  “We leave for Mecca now, O weak-willed sheikh;

  Is there some message you would have us take?

  Or should we all turn Christians and embrace

  This faith men call a blasphemous disgrace?

  We get no pleasure from the thought of you

  Left here alone – shall we be Christians too?

  Or since we cannot bear your state should we,

  Deserting you, incontinently flee;

  Forget that you exist and live in prayer

  Beside the Ka’abah’s stone without a care?”

  The sheikh replied: “What grief has filled my heart!

  Go where you please – but quickly, now, depart;

  Only the Christian keeps my soul alive,

  And I shall stay with her while I survive.

  lines 1439–64

  Though you are wise your wisdom cannot know

  The wild frustrations through which lovers go.

  If for one moment you could share my pain,

  We could be old companions once again.

  But now go back, dear friends; if anyone

  Asks after me explain what I have done –

  Say that my eyes swim blood, that parched I wait

  Trapped in the gullet of a monstrous fate.

  Say Islam’s elder has outsinned the whole

  Of heathen blasphemy, that self-control

  Slipped from him when he saw the Christian’s hair,

  That faith was conquered by insane despair.

  Should anyone reproach my actions, say

  That countless others have pursued this Way,

  This endless Way where no one is secure,

  Where danger waits and issues are unsure.”

  He turned from them; a swineherd sought his swine.

  His friends wept vehemently – their sheikh’s decline

  Seemed death to them. Sadly they journeyed home,

  Resigning their apostate sheikh to Rome.

  They skulked in corners, shameful and afraid.

  A close companion of the sheikh had stayed

  In Mecca while the group had journeyed west –

  A man of wisdom, fit for any test,

  Who, seeing now the vacant oratory

  Where once his friend had worshipped faithfully,

  Asked after their lost sheikh. In tears then they

  Described what had occurred along the way;

  How he had bound his fortunes to her hair,

  And blocked the path of faith with love’s despair;

  How curls usurped belief and how his cloak

  Had been consumed in passion’s blackening smoke;

  How he’d become a swineherd, how the four

  Acts contrary to all Islamic law

  Had been performed by him, how this great sheikh

  Lived like a pagan for his lover’s sake.

  lines 1465–86

  Amazement seized the friend
– his face grew pale,

  He wept and felt the heart within him fail.

  “O criminals!” he cried. “O frailer than

  Weak women in your faith – when does a man

  Need faithful friends but in adversity?

  You should be there, not prattling here to me.

  Is this devoted love? Shame on you all,

  Fair-weather friends who run when great men fall.

  He put on Christian garments – so should you;

  He took their faith – what else had you to do?

  This was no friendship, to forsake your friend,

  To promise your support and at the end

  Abandon him – this was sheer treachery.

  Friend follows friend to hell and blasphemy –

  When sorrows come a man’s true friends are found;

  In times of joy ten thousand gather round.

  Our sheikh is savaged by some shark – you race

  To separate yourselves from his disgrace.

  Love’s built on readiness to share love’s shame;

  Such self-regarding love usurps love’s name.”

  “Repeatedly we told him all you say,”

  They cried. “We were companions of the Way,

  Sworn to a common happiness or grief;

  We should exchange the honours of belief

  For odium and scorn; we should accept

  The Christian cult our sheikh could not reject.

  But he insisted that we leave – our love

  Seemed pointless then; he ordered us to move.

  At his express command we journeyed here

  To tell his story plainly, without fear.”

  He answered them: “However hard the fight,

  You should have fought for what was clearly right.

  Truth struggled there with error; when you went

  You only worsened his predicament.

  You have abandoned him; how could you dare

  lines 1487–1510

  To enter Mecca’s uncorrupted air?”

  They heard his speech; not one would raise his head.

  And then, “There is no point in shame,” he said.

  “What’s done is done; we must act justly now,

  Bury this sin, seek out the sheikh and bow

  Before him once again.” They left their home

  And made their way a second time to Rome;

  They prayed a hundred thousand prayers – at times

  With hope, at times disheartened by their crimes.

  They neither ate nor slept but kept their gaze

  Unswerving throughout forty nights and days.

  Their wailing lamentations filled the sky,

  Moving the green-robed angels ranked on high

  To clothe themselves with black, and in the end

  The leader of the group, the sheikh’s true friend,

  His heart consumed by sympathetic grief,

  Let loose the well-aimed arrows of belief.

  For forty nights he had prayed privately,

  Rapt in devotion’s holy ecstasy –

  At dawn there came a musk-diffusing breeze,

  And in his heart he knew all mysteries.

  He saw the Prophet, lovely as the moon,

  Whose face, Truth’s shadow, was the sun at noon,

  Whose hair in two black heavy braids was curled –

  Each hair, a hundred times, outpriced the world.

  As he approached with his unruffled pace,

  A smile of haunting beauty lit his face.

  The sheikh’s friend rose and said: “God’s Messenger,

  Vouchsafe your help. Our sheikh has wandered far;

  You are our Guide; guide him to Truth again.”

  The Prophet answered: “I have loosed the chain

  Which bound your sheikh – your prayer is answered, go.

  Thick clouds of dust have been allowed to blow

  Between his sight and Truth – those clouds have gone;

  I did not leave him to endure alone.

  I sprinkled on the fortunes of your sheikh

  A cleansing dew for intercession’s sake –

  lines 1511–33

  The dust is laid; sin disappeared before

  His new-made vow. A world of sin, be sure,

  Shall with contrition’s spittle be made pure.

  The sea of righteousness drowns in its waves

  The sins of those sincere repentance saves.”

  With grateful happiness the friend cried out;

  The heavens echoed his triumphant shout.

  He told the good news to the group; again

  They set out eagerly across the plain.

  Weeping they ran to where the swineherd-sheikh,

  Now cured of his unnatural mistake,

  Had cast aside his Christian clothes, the bell,

  The belt, the cap, freed from the strange faith’s spell.

  Seeing his friends approach his hiding-place,

  He saw how he had forfeited God’s grace;

  He ripped his clothes in frenzies of distress;

  He grovelled in the dust with wretchedness.

  Tears flowed like rain; he longed for death; his sighs’

  Great heat consumed the curtain of the skies;

  Grief dried the blood within him when he saw

  How he had lost all knowledge of God’s law;

  All he had once abandoned now returned

  And he escaped the hell in which he’d burned.

  He came back to himself, and on his knees

  Wept bitterly for past iniquities.

  When his disciples saw him weeping there,

  Bathed in shame’s sweat, they reeled between despair

  And joy – bewildered they drew near and sighed;

  From gratitude they gladly would have died.

  They said: “The mist has fled that hid your sun;

  Faith has returned and blasphemy is gone;

  Truth has defeated Rome’s idolatry;

  Grace has surged onward like a mighty sea.

  The Prophet interceded for your soul;

  The world sends up its thanks from pole to pole.

  Why should you mourn? You should thank God instead

  lines 1534–53

  That out of darkness you’ve been safely led;

  God who can turn the day to darkest night

  Can turn black sin to pure repentant light –

  He kindles a repentant spark, the flame

  Burns all our sins and all sin’s burning shame.”

  I will be brief: the sheikh was purified

  According to the faith; his old self died –

  He put the dervish cloak on as before.

  The group set out for Mecca’s gates once more.

  And then the Christian girl whom he had loved

  Dreamed in her sleep; a shaft of sunlight moved

  Before her eyes, and from the dazzling ray

  A voice said: ‘’Rise, follow your lost sheikh’s way;

  Accept his faith, beneath his feet be dust;

  You tricked him once, be pure to him and just,

  And, as he took your path without pretence,

  Take his path now in truth and innocence.

  Follow his lead; you once led him astray –

  Be his companion as he points the Way;

  You were a robber preying on the road

  Where you should seek to share the traveller’s load.

  Wake now, emerge from superstition’s night.”

  She woke, and in her heart a steady light

  Beat like the sun, and an unwonted pain

  Throbbed there, a longing she could not restrain;

  Desire flared up in her; she felt her soul

  Slip gently from the intellect’s control.

  As yet she did not know what seed was sown –

  She had no friend and found herself alone

  In an uncharted world; no tongue can tell

  What then she saw �
�� her pride and triumph fell

  Like rain from her; with an unearthly shout

  She tore the garments from her back, ran out

  And heaped the dust of mourning on her head.

  Her frame was weak, the heart within her bled,

  But she began the journey to her sheikh,

  lines 1554–76

  And like a cloud that seems about to break

  And shed its downpour of torrential rain

  (The heart’s rich blood) she ran across the plain.

  But soon the desert’s endless vacancy

  Bewildered her; wild with uncertainty,

  She wept and pressed her face against the sand.

  “O God,” she cried, “extend your saving hand

  To one who is an outcast of the earth,

  To one who tricked a saint of unmatched worth –

  Do not abandon me; my evil crime

  Was perpetrated in a thoughtless time;

  I did not know what I know now – accept

  The prayers of one who ignorantly slept.”

  The sheikh’s heart spoke: “The Christian is no more;

  The girl you loved knocks at religion’s door –

  It is our way she follows now; go back

  And be the comforter her sorrows lack.”

  Like wind he ran, and his disciples cried:

  “Has your repentant vow so quickly died?

  Will you slip back, a shameless reprobate?”

  But when the sheikh explained the girl’s sad state,

  Compassion moved their hearts and they agreed

  To search for her and serve her every need.

  They found her with hair draggled in the dirt,

  Prone on the earth as if a corpse, her skirt

  Torn from her limbs, barefoot, her face death-pale.

  She saw the sheikh and felt her last strength fail;

  She fainted at his feet, and as she slept

  The sheikh hung over her dear face and wept.

  She woke, and seeing tears like rain in spring

  Knew he’d kept faith with her through everything.

  She knelt before him, took his hands and said

  “The shame I brought on your respected head

  Burns me with shame; how long must I remain

  Behind this veil of ignorance? Make plain

  lines 1577–95

  The mysteries of Islam to me here,

  And I shall tread its highway without fear.”

  The sheikh spelt out the faith to her; the crowd

  Of gratified disciples cried aloud,

  Weeping to see the lovely child embrace

  The search for Truth. Then, as her comely face