And hell is yours till every snake departs –
Work free of each insinuating coil;
lines 3729–47
Your soul’s salvation will reward your toil.
If not, you are the hidden scorpion’s prey,
The quick snake’s quarry till God’s Judgement Day;
And those who will not seek this freedom crawl
Like worms who have no higher life at all…’
Attar! Enough of all this oratory;
Resume your tale, you’d got to ‘Unity’.
‘When once the pilgrim has attained this stage,
He will have passed beyond mere pilgrimage;
He will be lost and dumb – for God will speak,
The God whom all these wandering pilgrims seek –
Beyond all notions of the part, the Whole,
Of qualities and the essential soul.
All four of them will rise up from all four;
A hundred thousand states will rise and more.
In this strange school the inward eye detects
A hundred thousand yearning intellects,
But failure dogs the analytic mind,
Which whimpers like a child born deaf and blind.
To glimpse this secret is to turn aside
From both worlds, from all egocentric pride –
The pilgrim has no being, yet will be
A part of Being for eternity.
A slave’s freedom
Loghman of Sarrakhs cried: “Dear God, behold
Your faithful servant, poor, bewildered, old –
An old slave is permitted to go free;
I’ve spent my life in patient loyalty,
I’m bent with grief, my black hair’s turned to snow;
Grant manumission, Lord, and let me go.”
A voice replied: “When you have gained release
From mind and thought, your slavery will cease;
You will be free when these two disappear.”
He said: “Lord, it is You whom I revere;
What are the mind and all its ways to me?”
lines 3748–65
And left them there and then – in ecstasy
He danced and clapped his hands and boldly cried:
“Who am I now? The slave I was has died;
What’s freedom, servitude, and where are they?
Both happiness and grief have fled away;
I neither own nor lack all qualities;
My blindness looks on secret mysteries –
I know not whether You are I, I You;
I lose myself in You; there is no two.”
The lover who saved his beloved from drowning
A girl fell in a river – in a flash
Her lover dived in with a mighty splash,
And fought the current till he reached her side.
When they were safe again, the poor girl cried:
“By chance I tumbled in, but why should you
Come after me and hazard your life too?”
He said: “1 dived because the difference
Of ‘I’ and ‘you’ to lovers makes no sense –
A long time passed when we were separate,
But now that we have reached this single state
When you are me and I am wholly you,
What use is it to talk of us as two?”
All talk of two implies plurality –
When two has gone there will be Unity.
Mahmoud offers Ayaz the command of his armies
One day Mahmoud’s unconquered armies made
A splendid pageant drawn up on parade;
And on a mountain-side to watch the show
Of elephants and soldiers spread below,
The king and his two favourite courtiers stood,
Hassan, the slave Ayaz, and Shah Mahmoud.
The serried soldiers, jostling elephants,
Seemed like a plague of locusts or of ants;
lines 3466–91
More armies at that moment filled the plain
Than all the world has seen or will again,
And Mahmoud said: “Ayaz, my child, look down –
All this is yours, dear boy; accept the crown.”
The great king spoke – Ayaz seemed quite unmoved,
Lost in his private thoughts; Hassan reproved
The youth and said: “Where are your manners, slave?
Think of the honour that our king just gave!
And yet you stand there like an imbecile,
And do not even murmur thanks or kneel –
How can you justify such gross neglect?
Is this the way you show your king respect?”
Ayaz was silent till this sermon’s end,
Then said: “Two answers come to me, my friend.
First then, a slave could grovel on the ground
Or gabble thanks and have the heavens resound
With some self-advertising, long address –
And climb above the king or say far less;
But who am I to interpose my voice
Between the king and his asserted choice?
The slave is his, and regal dignity
Demands that he decide and act, not me.
If in his praise I see both worlds unite,
It is no more than such a monarch’s right;
Can I – unworthy to be called his slave –
Comment on how he chooses to behave?”
And when Hassan had heard him speak he said:
“Ayaz, a thousand blessings on your head;
Your words convince me and I now believe
That you deserve the favours you receive –
But what’s the second of your answers, pray?”
Ayaz replied: “Hassan, I cannot say
Whilst you are here – you do not share the throne.
This mystery is for the king alone.”
The king dismissed Hassan. “There’s no one here,”
He said; “now make your hidden secret clear.”
Ayaz replied: “When generosity
lines 3792–3811
Persuades my sovereign lord to glance at me,
My being vanishes in that bright light
Which radiates from his refulgent sight;
His splendour shines, and purified I rise,
Dispersed to nothing by his sun-like eyes.
Existence has deserted me, so how
Could I prostrate myself before you now?
If you see anyone or anything,
It is not me you see – it is the king!
The honours you continually renew
Are offered, given and received by you;
And from a shadow lost within the sun
What kind of service could you hope for? None!
That shadow called Ayaz must disappear –
Do what you wish; you know he is not here.”
The Valley of Bewilderment
Next comes the Valley of Bewilderment,
A place of pain and gnawing discontent –
Each second you will sigh, and every breath
Will be a sword to make you long for death;
Blinded by grief, you will not recognize
The days and nights that pass before your eyes.
Blood drips from every hair and writes “Alas”
Beside the highway where the pilgrims pass;
In ice you fry, in fire you freeze – the Way
Is lost, with indecisive steps you stray –
The Unity you knew has gone; your soul
Is scattered and knows nothing of the Whole.
If someone asks: “What is your present state;
Is drunkenness or sober sense your fate,
And do you flourish now or fade away?”
The pilgrim will confess: “I cannot say;
I have no certain knowledge any more;
I doubt my doubt, doubt itself is unsure;
lines 3811–29
I love, but
who is it for whom I sigh?
Not Moslem, yet not heathen; who am I?
My heart is empty, yet with love is full;
My own love is to me incredible.”
The story of the princess who loved a slave
A great king had a daughter whose fair face
Was like the full moon in its radiant grace,
She seemed a Joseph, and her dimpled chin
The well that lovely youth was hidden in –
Her face was like a paradise; her hair
Reduced a hundred hearts to love’s despair;
Her eyebrows were two bows bent back to shoot
The arrows of love’s passionate dispute;
The pointed lashes of her humid eyes
Were thorns strewn in the pathway of the wise;
The beauty of this sun deceived the train
Of stars attendant on the moon’s pale reign;
The rubies of her mouth were like a spell
To fascinate the angel Gabriel –
Beside her smile, her sweet, reviving breath,
The waters of eternal life seemed death;
Whoever saw her chin was lost and fell
Lamenting into love’s unfathomed well;
And those she glanced at sank without a sound –
What rope could reach the depths in which they drowned?
It happened that a handsome slave was brought
To join the retinue that served at court,
A slave, but what a slave! Compared with him
The sun and moon looked overcast and dim.
He was uniquely beautiful – and when
He left the palace, women, children, men
Would crowd into the streets and market-place,
A hundred thousand wild to see his face.
One day the princess, by some fateful chance,
Caught sight of this surpassing elegante”,
lines 3830–49
And as she glimpsed his face she felt her heart,
Her intellect, her self-control depart –
Now reason fled and love usurped its reign;
Her sweet soul trembled in love’s bitter pain.
For days she meditated, struggled, strove,
But bowed at last before the force of love
And gave herself to longing, to the fire
Of passionate, insatiable desire.
Attendant on the daughter of the king
Were ten musicians, slave girls who could sing
Like nightingales – whose captivating charms
Would rival David’s when he sang the psalms.
The princess set aside her noble name
And whispered to these girls her secret shame
(When love has first appeared who can expect
The frenzied lover to be circumspect?),
Then said: “If I am honest with this slave
And tell my love, who knows how he’ll behave?
My honour’s lost if he should once discover
His princess wishes that she were his lover!
But if I can’t make my affection plain
I’ll die, I’ll waste away in secret pain;
I’ve read a hundred books on chastity
And still I burn – what good are they to me?
No, I must have him; this seductive youth
Must sleep with me and never know the truth –
If I can secretly achieve my goal
Love’s bliss will satisfy my thirsting soul.”
Her girls said: “Don’t despair; tonight we’ll bring
Your lover here and he won’t know a thing.”
One of them went to him – she simpered, smiled,
And O! how easily he was beguiled;
He took the drugged wine she’d prepared – he drank,
Then swooned – unconscious in her arms he sank,
And in that instant all her work was done;
He slept until the setting of the sun.
lines 3850–72
Night came and all was quiet as the grave;
Now, stealthily, the maidens brought this slave,
Wrapped in a blanket, to their mistress’ bed
And laid him down with jewels about his head.
Midnight: he opened his dazed, lovely eyes
And stared about him with a mute surprise –
The bed was massy gold; the chamber seemed
An earthly paradise that he had dreamed;
Two candles made of ambergris burnt there
And with their fainting fragrance filled the air;
The slave girls made such music that his soul
Seemed beckoned onward to some distant goal;
Wine passed from hand to hand; the candles’ light
Flared like a sun to drive away the night.
But all the joys of this celestial place
Could not compare with her bewitching face,
At which he stared as if struck senseless, dumb,
Lost both to this world and the world to come –
His heart acknowledged love’s supremacy;
His soul submitted to love’s ecstasy;
His eyes were fixed on hers, while to his ears
The girls’ song seemed the music of the spheres;
He smelt the burning candles’ ambergris;
His mouth burnt with the wine, then with her kiss;
He could not look away, he could not speak,
But tears of eloquence coursed down his cheek –
And she too wept, so that each kiss was graced
With salty sweetness mingled in one taste,
Or he would push aside her stubborn hair
And on her lovely eyes in wonder stare.
Thus, in each other’s arms, they passed the night
Until, worn out by sensual delight,
By passion, by the vigil they had kept,
As dawn’s cool breeze awoke, the young man slept.
Then, as he slept, they carried him once more
And laid him gently on his own hard floor.
lines 3873–93
He woke, he slowly knew himself again –
Astonishment, regret, grief’s aching pain
Swept over him (though what could grief achieve?
The scene had fled and it was vain to grieve).
He bared his body, ripped his tattered shirt,
Tore out his hair, besmeared his head with dirt –
And when his friends asked what assailed his heart,
He cried: “How can I say? Where could I start?
No dreamer, no, no seer could ever see
What I saw in that drunken ecstasy;
No one in all the world has ever known
The bliss vouchsafed to me, to me alone –
I cannot tell you what I saw; I saw
A stranger sight than any seen before.”
They said: “Try to remember what you’ve done,
And of a hundred joys describe just one.”
He answered: “Was it me who saw that face?
Or did some other stand there in my place?
I neither saw nor heard a thing, and yet
I saw and heard what no man could forget.”
A fool suggested: “It’s some dream you had;
Some sleepy fantasy has sent you mad.”
He asked: “Was it a dream, or was it true?
Was I drunk or sober? I wish I knew –
The world has never known a state like this,
This paradox beyond analysis,
Which haunts my soul with what I cannot find,
Which makes me speechless speak and seeing blind.
I saw perfection’s image, beauty’s queen,
A vision that no man has ever seen
(What is the sun before that face? – God knows
It is a mote, a speck that comes and goes!).
But did I see her? What more can I say?
Between this ‘yes’ and ‘no’ I’ve lost my way!”
lines 3894–3914
The grieving mother and the sufi
Beside her daughter’s grave a mother grieved.
A sufi said: “This woman has perceived
The nature of her loss; her heart knows why
She comes to mourn, for whom-she has to cry –
She grieves, but knowledge makes her fortunate:
Consider now the sufi’s wretched state!
What daily, nightly vigils I must keep
And never know for whom it is I weep;
I mourn in lonely darkness, unaware
Whose absence is the cause of my despair.
Since she knows what has caused her agony,
She is a thousand times more blest than me –
I have no notion of what makes me weep,
What prompts the painful vigils I must keep.
My heart is lost, and here I cannot find
That rope by which men live, the rational mind –
The key to thought is lost; to reach this far
Means to despair of who and what you are.
And yet it is to see within the soul –
And at a stroke – the meaning of the Whole.”
The man who had lost his key
A sufi heard a cry: “I’ve lost my key;
If it’s been found, please give it back to me –
My door’s locked fast; I wish to God I knew
How I could get back in. What can I do?”
The sufi said: “And why should you complain?
You know where this door is; if you remain
Outside it – even if it is shut fast –
Someone no doubt will open it at last.
You make this fuss for nothing; how much more
Should I complain, who’ve lost both key and door!”
But if this sufi presses on, he’ll find
The closed or open door which haunts his mind.
lines 3915–30
Men cannot understand the suns’ state,
That deep Bewilderment which is their fate.
To those who ask: “What can I do?” reply:
“Bid all that you have done till now goodbye!”
Once in the Valley of Bewilderment
The pilgrim suffers endless discontent,
Crying: “How long must I endure delay,
Uncertainty? When shall I see the Way?
When shall I know? O, when?” But knowledge here
Is turned again to indecisive fear;
Complaints become a grateful eulogy
And blasphemy is faith, faith blasphemy.
The old age of Sheikh Nasrabad
The Conference of the Birds (Penguin) Page 20