The Masnavi, Book One: Bk. 1 (Oxford World's Classics)
Page 16
‘I see with accuracy, like my own hand,
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The water lying deep beneath the land:
Its depth, its colour, where to dig a well,
The nature of its source too I can tell—
If on a camping-place you must decide
Keep this perceptive hoopoe by your side!’
Solomon said, ‘We do need such a brain
In vast and empty, waterless terrain,
To lead the men to water in the ground—
So take the job of serving water round!’
The crow’s attack on the claim of the hoopoe
On hearing this, the crow rose jealously
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To claim the hoopoe spoke dishonestly:
‘It’s rude to speak to kings in such false ways,
More so to lie absurdly in self-praise:
If she could see that from beyond the sky
How come that snare had still escaped her eye
In which she was entrapped so easily?
How come she stepped inside unwittingly?’
Solomon asked, ‘Well, hoopoe is this true,
Are dregs in the first glass I’m served by you?
You’ve drunk mere yoghurt, don’t claim that you’re high!
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The boasts you made before me were a lie!’
The hoopoe answers the criticism of the crow
She said, ‘Though I’m a beggar, poor and bare,
Don’t listen to the things my foes declare,
If you consider false the words I’ve said
Here is my neck—feel free to chop my head!
The crow who would deny that God’s will rules
Rejects faith, though she’s studied in great schools:
If you don’t have an ounce of faithfulness
You’re like the crotch of lust and filthiness!
I see all snares, while flying in the skies
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If fate does not deny them to my eyes:
When fate decrees our brain sleeps in its spell,
The sun’s eclipsed, the moon turns black as well;
It’s not so strange that fate should thus decree,
Fate too wills your denial of destiny.’
The story of Adam: destiny blinded his sight, so that he failed to observe the message, and to refrain from interpreting it differently
He taught the Names* to Adam at the start,
Thus knowledge filled our ancestor’s pure heart,
The names of things, which showed how they’d turn out
Were granted to his soul to rid all doubt;
Each name that he’d assign would therefore last,
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What he called ‘slow’ did not then turn out fast,
The faithful at the end of time he knew
And those who’d turn out unbelievers too—
So learn the names of things as He decrees,
He taught the Names holds all the mysteries.
Our names for things convey the way they’re seen,
Their inner natures are what God’s names mean,
For Moses simply called his stick ‘a rod’,*
While ‘snake’ was what had been assigned by God;
‘Omar’ meant polytheist once in the past,
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Although it meant ‘believer’ at Alast;*
Our names are like a seed that’s just been sown,
Before God is the fruit that’s finally grown;
In non-existence seeds are just a form,
Existent with the Lord, they must transform,
And in the end our names from God dictate
How we will truly be and what’s our fate:
He names men thus according to their end
While for their present state a name He’ll lend.
When Adam gained the light of purity
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He then perceived souls and reality,
God’s light in him when angels could observe
They fell prostrate and vowed that they would serve!
If I recount the virtues of this sun
The end of time will come before I’m done,
But though he was so wise, when fate decreed
One prohibition Adam failed to heed:
‘Is this to be forbidden? That seems odd!
Or is interpreting allowed by God?’
Since he tried to interpret on his own
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He couldn’t leave forbidden fruit alone,
Like when a gardener stepped upon a thorn:
A thief snatched all his things and then was gone,
The gardener soon calmed down and found relief,
But saw his tools were stolen by the thief.
‘O Lord, we’ve erred!’* He sighed with heart aflame,
‘We lost the way as soon as darkness came!’
So destiny can block the sun’s bright light,
Turn lions into mice because of fright.
If I don’t see a snare by God’s decree
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I’m not the first who can’t see destiny;
Blest is the one who follows righteousness,
Who gives up all his power for lowliness:
If fate should dress you up in black like night
Still it will help you in your hardest plight;
If destiny should try to murder you
First it makes sure that you’ll be born anew;
If it waylays you, hurls you in a ditch,
A tent for you in heaven it will pitch:
By frightening you, know that He’s being kind,
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In His safe kingdom space for you He’ll find,
This talk remains unfinished, but it’s late,
Now listen to the tale while I narrate:
The hare steps back from the lion when it approaches the well
The lion now approached the well they’d found
But saw the hare retreat and turn around:
‘Why is it you retreat, hare? what is wrong?
Don’t stop like that, come forward and be strong!’
The hare screamed, ‘Oh, my feet have fled from me!
My soul now trembles and desires to flee!
Can you not see my face has turned so pale?
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About my inner state it tells the tale.’
Since God has called the face ‘a tell-tale clue’
On this the mystic focuses his view,
Colour and scent like bells make you aware,
The horse’s neigh informs you that it’s there:
The sound of each thing thus gives it away,
A door’s creak differs from a donkey’s bray;
The Prophet said, in judging people’s souls,
‘A man stays hidden till his tongue unrolls.’
Complexion also shows what’s in your heart—
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Have mercy on me, plant love that won’t part!
A bright complexion is your thanks’ applause,
A sickly one denies love and withdraws.
I’ve faced the one who pulls limbs out of place
And saps all trace of life out of your face,
The one who breaks all things He goes inside,
Uprooting ancient trees, however wide,
That one who traps you, then declares it’s mate,
Man, beasts, and plants must follow His dictate;
Though these are small things, big things fall as well,
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Becoming pale, filled with a rotten smell.
The world now holds back, then shows thankfulness:
The blooming orchard once knew nakedness;
The sun which rises up with flames of fire
Then sinks head-first when it can’t go up higher;
The stars shine while the lofty heavens turn
Each single moment they are caused to burn;
The beauty of the moon is cheri
shed most,
But when it’s sick it looks more like a ghost;
The earth, as if through manners, keeps so still,
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But tremors make it shake as if it’s ill;
So many mountains through sheer agony
Were crushed to piles of dust so easily;
The air which was the soul’s associate,
Turned stale and sick when fate commanded it;
Water, the spirit’s kin, was sweet to taste,
But turned so bitter, left in pools of waste;
The fire puffed up with pride its flaming head,
But soon the wind pronounced that ‘it is dead’.
From turbulence that strikes the ocean tide
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You can detect the torment that’s inside;
The wheel of heaven in its search rotates
And thus acquires its children’s changing states:
First low, next in the middle, then up high,
Armies of bright stars decorate the sky.
Of elements like these you all consist,
To try to know their state you must persist,
Since all of these are filled with pain and grief
Of course you’re pale and thinner than a leaf,
Because of all these opposites in you
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Like earth and fire, the wind and water too.
That sheep should flee the wolf should not seem strange
But when with wolves kind greetings they exchange,
Living is reconciling opposites
While death is when war starts because of splits;
Wild-ass and lion feel close through God’s grace
Although each seems a very different case,
The world is trapped and suffers otherwise,
That it must die should come as no surprise.
The hare recited wisdom of this kind:
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‘It was because of this I lagged behind.’
The lion asks why the hare has stepped back
The lion asked, ‘What makes you sick? Tell me
The primary reason that you want to flee.’
The hare replied, ‘The other lion’s there,
Out of harm’s way in this well-hidden lair.’
The well’s where every wise man wants his seat:
To purify their hearts they choose retreat;
It’s better than the darkness that’s outside—
The world outside can’t keep men satisfied.
The lion said, ‘I’ll knock him to the floor!
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Check whether he’s inside just as before!’
‘But I’m consumed by fear and want to hide!
Would you perhaps protect me by your side,
So, generous lion, safe within your shade,
I then can look down and not be afraid?’
The lion peers down the well and sees his own reflection and that of the hare
The lion came and held the hare so near
That he proceeded, purged of all his fear,
They both peered down to find the enemy—
Their own reflection was all they could see:
The lion saw cast on the water there
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His own reflection next to a plump hare—
Thinking he’d found his foe, he then leapt in,
Which meant the hare could go back to his kin!
His foe fell in the pit of his own crime—
His sins came back to haunt him one last time!
Oppressors’ crimes are wells devoid of light,
All scholars have confirmed that this is right—
The worst oppressors dig a deeper well,
Justice requires a fate far worse than hell!
For personal profit wickedly behave
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And you’ll be simply digging your own grave!
Don’t spin webs round yourself like silkworms do,
Nor dig your own grave now without a clue!
And don’t imagine weak men have no friend,
Recite: When God’s help comes* until the end!
The elephant whose enemy had fled
Then earned the wrath of birds in flocks* instead:
A weak man who requests security
Will hear war cries from heaven’s cavalry!
If you should bite and make him bleed, you’ll earn
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A painful toothache! Then where will you turn?
Being too keen when looking down the well,
His rival from himself he could not tell,
The lion thought his image was his foe
And swung with force to deal himself a blow!
The things you see in others which offend
Are just your own faults shown through them, my friend:
Your being’s mirror-image lets you see