The Conference of the Birds (Penguin)

by Farid al-Din Attar

  Till he collapsed in an exhausted trance

  And murmured as he tried in vain to fly:

  “Where is the sun? Perhaps I’ve passed it by?”

  The seer was there and said: “You’ve managed one

  Short step, and yet you think you’ve passed the sun;

  You live in dreams!” Shame crushed the bat; he felt

  The last thin remnants of his courage melt.

  Humble and wretched, he sought out the Way–

  “He understands,” he said, “I will obey”.’

  A bird accepts the hoopoe’s leadership

  Another bird said: ‘Hoopoe, you’re our guide.

  How would it be if I let you decide?

  I’m ignorant of right and wrong – I’ll wait

  lines 2473–89

  For any orders that you stipulate.

  Whatever you command I’ll gladly do,

  Delighted to submit myself to you.’

  ‘Bravo!’ the hoopoe cried. ‘By far the best

  Decision is the one that you suggest;

  Whoever will be guided finds relief

  From Fate’s adversity, from inward grief;

  One hour of guidance benefits you more

  Than all your mortal life, however pure.

  Those who will not submit like lost dogs stray,

  Beset by misery, and lose their way -.

  How much a dog endures! and all in vain;

  Without a guide his pain is simply pain.

  But one who suffers and is guided gives

  His merit to the world; he truly lives.

  Take refuge in the orders of your guide,

  And like a slave subdue your restive pride.

  The king who stopped at the prison gates

  A king returned once to his capital.

  His subjects had prepared a festival,

  And each to show his homage to the crown

  Had helped to decorate the glittering town.

  The prisoners had no wealth but iron gyves,

  Chains, severed heads, racked limbs and ruined lives –

  With such horrific ornaments they made

  A sight to greet their monarch’s cavalcade.

  The king rode through the town and saw the way

  His subjects solemnized the happy day,

  But nothing stopped the progress of his train

  Till he approached the prison and drew rein.

  There he dismounted and had each man told

  That he was free and would be paid in gold.

  A courtier asked the king: “What does this mean?

  lines 2490–2508

  To think of all the pageantry you’ve seen –

  Brocade and satin shining everywhere,

  Musk and sweet ambergris to scent the air,

  Jewels scattered by the handful on the ground –

  And not so much as once did you look round;

  Yet here you stop – before the prison gate!

  Are severed heads a way to celebrate?

  What is there here to give you such delight?

  Torn limbs and carcasses? A grisly sight!

  And why did you dismount? Should you sit down

  With all the thieves and murderers in town?”

  The king replied: “The others make a noise

  Like rowdy children playing with new toys;

  Each takes his part in some festivity,

  Careful to please himself as much as me –

  They do their duty and are quite content,

  But here in prison more than duty’s meant.

  My word is law here, and they’ve plainly shown

  This spectacle was made for me alone.

  I see obedience here; need I explain

  Why it is here I’m happy to draw rein?

  The others celebrate in pompous pride,

  Conceited, giddy and self-satisfied,

  But these poor captives sacrifice their will

  And bow to my commands through good and ill –

  They have no business but to spend each breath

  In expectation of the noose and death,

  Yet they submit – and to my grateful eyes

  Their prison is a flower-strewn paradise.”

  Wisdom accepts authority and waits;

  The king paused only at the prison gates.

  A sufi who surpassed Bayazid and Tarmazi

  A master of the Way once said: “Last night

  I saw a strange, unprecedented sight –

  I dreamt that Bayazid and Tarmazi

  lines 2509–30

  Were walking, and they both gave way to me –

  I was their guide! I sought to understand

  How two such sheikhs were under my command,

  And then remembered that one distant dawn

  A sigh was from my very entrails torn;

  That sigh had cleared the Way – a massive gate

  Swung open, and I entered the debate

  Of sheikhs and dervishes. All questioned me

  But Bayazid, who was content to see

  That I was there; he uttered no request

  But said: ‘I heard the sigh that tore your breast,

  And knew I must accept you as you are,

  Not seek for this or that particular –

  Embrace the soul and disregard the pain,

  Or weigh up what is loss and what is gain;

  Your wish is my command, for who am I

  To question those commands or to reply?

  Your faithful slave cannot demur or tire;

  I will perform whatever you desire.’

  This shows why Bayazid and Tarmazi,

  Though they are great, gave precedence to me.”

  When once a slave accepts his Lord’s control

  And hears Him whisper in his inmost soul

  He does not boast, no outward signs are shown,

  But when life’s crises come – then he is known.

  The death of Sheikh Kherghan

  When Sheikh Kherghan lay near to death he cried:

  “If men could split my heart and see inside,

  They’d tell the world my misery and pain,

  A wise man’s secret doctrine would be plain:

  Forsake idolatry; if you do this

  You are His slave, and cannot go amiss;

  All else is pride. If you are neither slave

  Nor God you’re substanceless, however brave –

  I call you ‘No-one’; turn now, no-one, seek

  lines 2531–44

  Devotion’s path, be humbled, lowly, meek.

  But when you bow the head in slavery,

  Be resolute, bow down with dignity:

  The king who sees a cringing, stupid slave

  Who has no notion how he should behave

  Expels him from his court, and Mecca’s shrine

  Is closed to louts and fools. If you combine

  True servitude with dignity your Lord

  Will not deny you your desired reward.”

  The slave who was given a splendid robe

  A slave was given, from his sovereign’s hand,

  A splendid robe – and feeling very grand

  He put it on to wander through the town.

  By chance, as he paraded up and down,

  Some mud splashed in his face, and with his sleeve

  He quickly wiped it off: who should perceive

  His action but a sneaking sycophant –

  The king was told and hanged the miscreant.

  From this unhappy story you can see

  How kings treat those who have no dignity.’

  A bird questions the hoopoe about purity

  Another bird spoke next: ‘Dear hoopoe, say

  What purity consists of on this Way,

  It seems a settled heart’s forbidden me –

  All that I gain I lose immediately.

  It’s either scattered to the winds or turns

  To scorpions in my hands; my being year
ns

  For this great quest, I’m bound to nothing here –

  I smashed all worldly chains and knew no fear;

  With purity of heart, who knows, I might

  Behold His face with my unaided sight.’

  lines 2545–61

  The hoopoe answers him

  The hoopoe said: ‘Our Way does not belong

  To anyone, but to the pure and strong –

  To those who let go every interest

  And give themselves entirely to our quest;

  All your possessions are not worth a hair.

  (Don’t mend what’s torn, what’s sewn together tear!)

  Consign them to the fire, and when its flash

  Has burnt them, rake together all the ash

  And sit on it – then you will know their worth.

  But you will curse the day that gave you birth

  If you ignore my words. Until your heart

  Is free of ownership you cannot start –

  Since we must leave this prison and its pains,

  Detach yourself from all that it contains;

  Will what you own bribe death? Will death delay?

  If you would enter on the pilgrim’s Way,

  Tie up your grasping hands: all you endure

  Is valueless if you set out impure.

  A sheikh of Turkestan once said: “Above

  All other things there are just two I love.

  My swiftly trotting piebald horse is one –

  The second is none other than my son

  If death should take my son I’d sacrifice

  My horse in thanks – I know these two entice,

  As idols would, my spirit from the Way.”

  Don’t brag of purity until the day

  You flare as candles do whose substance turns

  To nothing as the flame leaps up and burns;

  Whoever boasts a pure, unsullied name

  Will find his actions contradict his claim,

  When purity gives way to greed, the power

  Of retribution strikes within the hour.

  lines 2562–80

  Sheikh Kherghani and the aubergine

  One day Sheikh Kherghani’s devout routine

  Was spoilt by cravings for an aubergine.

  His mother was unsure what should be done

  But hesitantly gave him half a one –

  The moment that he bit its flesh a crew

  Of ruffians seized his son and ran him through.

  That night, outside the sheikh’s front door they laid

  His boy’s head hacked off by a cutlass blade.

  The sheikh cried out: “How often I’d foreseen

  Disaster if I tasted aubergine!”

  The man who has been chosen by this Guide

  Must follow Him and never swerve aside –

  His service is more terrible than war,

  Than shame that cringes to a conqueror.

  It is not knowledge keeps a man secure –

  With all his understanding, fate is sure;

  Each moment we receive a different guest,

  And each that comes presents another test,

  Although a hundred sorrows wring your soul,

  The future will not bow to your control.

  But one who breaks illusion’s hold will find

  Misfortune will not always cloud his mind.

  A hundred thousand of His lovers sigh

  To sacrifice themselves for Him and die;

  How many waste their idle lives until

  They bleed and groan, subservient to His will.

  A voice speaks to Zulnoon

  Zulnoon said: “I was in the desert once.

  Trusting in God, I’d brought no sustenance –

  I came on forty men ahead of me,

  Dressed all in rags, a closed community.

  My heart was moved. ‘O God,’ I cried, ‘take heed,

  What wretched lives you make your pilgrims lead!’

  lines 2581–98

  ‘We know their life and death,’ a voice replied;

  ‘We kill these pilgrims first; when they have died

  We compensate them for the blood we shed.’

  I asked, ‘When will this killing stop?’ He said:

  ‘When my exchequer has no love* to give,

  While I can pay for death they shall not live,

  I drink my servant’s blood and he is hurled

  In frenzied turbulence about the world –

  Then when he is destroyed and cannot find

  His head, his feet, his passions or his mind,

  I clothe him in the splendour he has won

  And grace enfolds him, radiant as the sun:

  Though I will have his face bedaubed by blood,

  A starved ascetic smeared with dust and mud,

  A denizen of shadows and the night –

  Yet I will rise before him robed in light,

  And when that sun, My countenance, is here

  What can these shadows do but disappear?’”

  Shadows are swallowed by the sun, and he

  Who’s lost in God is from himself set free;

  Don’t chatter about loss – be lost Repent,

  And give up vain, self-centred argument;

  If one can lose the Self, in all the earth

  No other being can approach his worth.

  I know of no one in the world profound

  As Pharaoh’s sorcerers: the wealth they found

  Was faith’s true Way, which is to sift apart

  The grosser Self from the aspiring heart.

  The world’s known nothing of them since that day

  They took this first short step along the Way –

  And in the world no wisdom could provide

  A surer path than this, a better guide!’

  lines 2599–2612

  A bird who burns with aspiration

  ‘O hoopoe,’ cried another of the birds,

  ‘What lofty ardour blazes from your words!

  Although I seem despondent, weak and lame,

  I burn with aspiration’s noble flame –

  And though I’m not obedient I feel

  My soul devoured by an insatiate zeal.’

  The hoopoe answers him

  The hoopoe said: ‘This strange, magnetic force

  That holds God’s ancient lovers to their course

  Still shows the Truth: if you will but aspire

  You will attain to all that you desire.

  Before an atom of such need the sun

  Seems dim and murky by comparison –

  It is life’s strength, the wings by which we fly

  Beyond the further reaches of the sky.

  The old woman who wanted to buy Joseph

  When Joseph was for sale, the marketplace

  Teemed with Egyptians wild to see his face;

  So many gathered there from dawn to dusk

  The asking price was five whole tubs of musk.

  An ancient crone pushed forward in her hand

  She held a few threads twisted strand by strand;

  She brandished them and yelled with all her might:

  “Hey, you, the seller of the Canaanite!

  I’m mad with longing for this lovely child –

  I’ve spun these threads for him, he drives me wild!

  You take the threads and I’ll take him away –

  Don’t argue now, I haven’t got all day!”

  The merchant laughed and said: “Come on, old girl,

  It’s not for you to purchase such a pearl

  lines 2613–29

  His value’s reckoned up in gold and jewels;

  He can’t be sold for threads to ancient fools!”

  “O, I knew that before,” the old crone said;

  “1 knew you wouldn’t sell him for my thread

  But it’s enough that everyone will ay

  ‘She bid for Joseph on that splendid day’.”

  The heart that
does not strive can never gain

  The endless kingdom’s gates and lives in vain;

  It was pure aspiration made a king

  Set fire to all he owned to everything

  And when his goods had vanished without trace

  A thousand kingdoms sprang up in their place.

  When noble aspiration seized his mind,

  He left the world’s corrupted wealth behind –

  Can one who craves the sun be satisfied

  With petty ignorance? Is this his guide?

  The poverty of Ibrahim Adham

  I know of one who whined unceasingly,

  Complaining of his abject poverty,

  Till Ibrahim Adham said: “Do you weep

  Because you bought your poverty too cheap?”

  The man replied: “What's that supposed to mean?

  To purchase poverty would be obscene.”

  He said: “I gave a kingdom up for mine,

  But for the earthly realm which I resign

  I still receive, each moment that I live,

  A hundred worlds: my realm was fugitive –

  I said farewell to it, to all the earth,

  And put my trust in goods of proven worth.

  I know what value is; I praise His name –

  And you know neither, to your lasting shame.”

  Those who aspire renounce both heart and soul,

  Content through years to suffer for their goal;

  The bird of aspiration seeks His throne,

  Outsoaring faith and all the world, alone:

  lines 2630–46

  But if you lack this zeal, be off with you –

  You’re quite unfit for all we have to do.

  Sheikh Ghouri and Prince Sanjar

  When Sheikh Ghouri, an adept of the Way,

  Took refuge underneath a bridge one day

  Together with a group of crazy fools,

  Sanjar rode by, resplendent in his jewels,

  And said: “Who’s huddled over there?” “O king,”

  The sheikh replied, “we haven’t got a thing,

  But we’ve decided on a choice for you –

  Be good to us, and bid the world adieu,

  Or be our enemy, and you will find

  It is your faith that you must leave behind.

  If you will join us for a moment here,

  Your pride and gorgeous pomp will disappear –

  Look at our friendship and our enmity

  And make your mind up; which is it to be?”

  Sanjar replied: “I’m not the man for you.

  It’s not your kind my hate and love pursue;

  You’re not my enemy, you’re not my friend;

  My heart’s directed to a different end.

  In front of you I’ve neither pride nor shame