The Masnavi, Book One: Bk. 1 (Oxford World's Classics)
Page 28
The gilt of false gold has ten coats, but turns
Pitch black when it is brought near flames, and burns.
My body follows Him, my heart as well,
One moment I’m the kernel, then the shell:
He tells me ‘Be a field!’ and I turn green,
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‘Be ugly!’—I turn paler than you’ve seen,
A moon that’s bright then black, deprived of light:
This is the way God works—am I not right?
Before ‘Be! And it was’* brings His decree
We run in place and placelessness, so free,
Once colour has hemmed colourlessness in
Two Moseses their warring then begin,
When colourlessness is acquired again
Moses and Pharaoh even make peace then.
If doubts come to you still about this state,
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How can this point be free from all debate?
Colourlessness to colour—that’s the wonder,
And how they should begin to fight each other:
Oil is made up of water, isn’t it?
So why then is oil water’s opposite?
If you should try to mix them, you will see
That they will keep apart so stubbornly.
Since rose and thorn belong together too,
Why then is constant fighting all they do?
Is it real war, or wisdom in disguise
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Like donkey-sellers’ fights*—just for our eyes?
Or neither—just confusion for our mind:
The treasure in this ruin one might find.
Your treasure with real treasure you confuse,
Such thoughts mean that real treasure you will lose,
Such fancies are like populated land—
Treasure is not found there, you understand;
Such settlements are filled with life and war—
Non-being felt such shame at what it saw!
Being did not try fleeing Non-existence
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But It sent being home despite resistance:
‘I’m fleeing Non-existence’ don’t you claim!
It runs away from you, but you’ve no shame!
It calls you to itself just outwardly,
But drives you off with cudgels inwardly,
Like changing footprints so you can’t be tracked:*
Pharaoh’s distaste is Moses’s in fact.
The reason for the disappointment of the wretched with
both worlds, for ‘He has lost this world and the hereafter’ *
Once a philosopher claimed this, I’ve heard:
‘The sky’s an egg, its yolk earth’—how absurd!
So someone asked, ‘How does the earth then stay
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Surrounded totally by sky this way,
Just like a lantern hanging in the air,
Not moving even slightly while it’s there?’
Then the logician said, ‘It’s the sky’s pull
From all the six directions to the full,
Like a magnetic vault, continually,
It holds it like some iron centrally.’
He then said, ‘You are claiming it’s the sky
Which draws this dark earth, but I can’t see why:
Perhaps it just repels from every side
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With heavy winds that keep the earth inside.’
The perfect with their minds repel this way
So Pharaoh’s wayward soul is kept at bay—
Due to repulsion from both worlds, my friend,
The lost are left with neither in the end.
Even if you should shun God’s slaves today,
They’re sick of your existence anyway;
They’ve amber which affects you just like straw,
Inducing frenzy in you and sheer awe,
But when they hide their amber, your submission
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You quickly change again to fierce sedition:
Your rank becomes mere animality—
This is bound by and needs humanity,
While this humanity the saints control—
Like animals we need them in this role:
The Prophet called ‘my servants’ all mankind,
Recite then, ‘O my servants!’* for the blind.
Your brain’s the camel-driver driving you!
It drags you everywhere and whips you too!
The saint rules all your intellects, so they
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Are just like camels in their driver’s sway—
Look carefully, and keep this fact in mind:
There’s one guide with a thousand souls behind.
You ask me, ‘Who’s the driver? Who’s the guide?’
Find eyes which see the sun and then decide!
The world has been nailed down throughout the night,
Waiting just for the sun to spread its light:
Here in an atom is a hidden sun,
A lion in a lamb’s skin—he’s the one!
A sea that’s hidden under straw—take care
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Not to step by mistake now over there!
Doubts and mistakes about guides may be part
Of grace, though this may seem strange at the start.
Each prophet came alone down here below,
His sole guide was unseen, so none could know:
He charmed the world in its entirety
And hid in a small form, so none could see:
The stupid thought him weak and all alone—
How can the king’s companion be so prone!
They said ‘He’s just a man and nothing more,’
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But sadly didn’t know what lay in store.
The senses’ eyes see Saleh and his she-camel as wretched and without a friend. When God wishes to destroy an army, he makes their foes seem wretched and few, even though that foe may be superior: ‘He belittled you in their eyes so that God could bring to pass something that needed to be done’ *
Saleh’s she-camel seemed no different,
So wretches maimed her who were ignorant:
With water these vile wretches were so mean,
For God’s bestowal of water they’d not seen;
God’s camel then drank from some distant pools,
God’s water they’d refused to God—what fools!
The camel, like the bodies of good men,
Brought the destruction of the evil then,
God’s she-camel, her share* thus you can see
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Caused death and pain to this community.
The officer of God’s wrath then laid down
Her blood-price as the people of that town.
Spirit is Saleh, body his maimed steed,
Spirit’s in union, body’s filled with need,
Saleh’s pure soul can’t be a sufferer,
The essence wasn’t maimed, they harmed just her,
And Saleh’s spirit doesn’t suffer grief—
God’s light is not harmed by men’s unbelief.
God joined it with the body in one place
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So grief and trials Man would have to face,
Not knowing they are God’s essentially,
That his own jarful comes from the deep sea.
God joined the body with an aim in mind:
To serve as a safe refuge for mankind—
So serve the bodies of the saints who save,
With Saleh’s spirit be a fellow slave.
Saleh said, ‘You have shown your jealous ways
So punishment will come down in three days;
After three days, the One who can take life
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Will send these signs of your impending strife:
Your face will change its hue repeatedly,
A range of colours which all men will see:
Your skin will turn to saffron straig
ht away,
Then red just like a rose on the next day;
The third day every face will turn pitch black
And after that God’s wrath will soon attack.
You want a sign of this threat? Can’t you see
Her foal run to the mountains desperately?
There’s hope still if you stop him reaching there,
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If not, the bird of hope will flee its snare.’
No one could catch that foal as it raced on;
It reached the mountains, and then it was gone:
Spirits flee bodies, their main source of shame,
The Lord of Mercy being their sole aim.
Saleh said, ‘His decree has not been read,
Hope was pinned down, and now they’ve chopped its head!’
What is the camel’s foal? One’s lofty mind
Which you can bring back home by being kind:
If it returns, you’ve then escaped all harm,
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If not, in sheer despair you’ll bite your arm.
They thus heard all about their gloomy fate,
And stared down, for all they could do was wait;
On the first day, they saw that they’d turned pale
And in despair they all began to wail.
Then on the second day, they turned bright red—
All hope they’d had was now replaced with dread;
The third day, they all turned black in the face,
Saleh’s claims all proved true—they had no case.
When they became filled with the worst despair,
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They knelt like birds just landed from the air;
In revelation Gabriel would dictate
With ‘jathemin’* that men must fall prostrate—
Prostrate when you’re taught how to fall this way
And when you’re told to on that dreaded day!
They waited for his wrath’s blows to descend;
It came and wiped them out—that was their end.
Saleh left his seclusion for that place,
A smoke cloud was the last remaining trace.
He could hear body parts scream mournfully
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Though when he looked no mourners could he see:
He heard some moaning from their scattered bones—
Their souls, instead of tears, shed solid stones;
Saleh screamed, this was more than he could take,
He started mourning for these mourners’ sake:
‘You’ve made me weep for you, community,
You wasted all your lives on vanity!
God told me, “Suffer their abuse and give
Advice to them—they haven’t long to live.”
I said, “Advice gets blocked by cruelty,
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Its milk flows out with love and purity—
They’ve forced me to endure such awful pains
Advice’s milk has clotted in my veins!”
God said, “My grace and kindness I will send
And place a plaster on your wounds, my friend.”
He made my heart clear as a sunny day,
From my thoughts sweeping your abuse away,
I then returned to counselling again,
Shared parables like sugar with all men:
Fresh milk from sugar in this way I made,
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Mixed milk with honey in what I conveyed—
Those words became like poison in your heart
Since you were filled with poison from the start!
Why should I grieve that grief has now been slain?
You stubborn people were my grief and pain!
Who mourns that grief through dying has been stopped,
Or that a painful boil has finally popped?’
‘You mourner,’ to himself he turned and said,
‘That corpse does not deserve the prayers you’ve read.
Reciter, don’t you now make a mistake:
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Why should I feel bad for the wicked’s sake.’*
To weeping with his heart he now returned;
An undeserved compassion in him burned.
He shed tears in distress increasingly,
Drops from the sea of generosity.
His intellect asked him, ‘Why weep, you fool?
Or mourn those who preferred to ridicule?
What are you crying for? Their deeds? Tell me!
For that malicious, wicked company?
For their dark, rusty hearts, your heart now breaks?
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Their tongues were venomous just like a snake’s!
Or for their dog-breath do you breathe such sighs,
Or for their scorpion’s nest of mouths and eyes?
Or for their squabbling, sneering and abuse?
Give thanks that God will never let them loose!