The Masnavi, Book One: Bk. 1 (Oxford World's Classics)
Page 30
We were received so well by God’s decree:
He said, “Feel free to say with liberty
Whatever’s on your mind without a fear
Just like an only child whose words are dear,
No matter if they’re inappropriate—
Much more than wrathful I’m compassionate.*
Angels, in order to spell this truth out
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I’ll fill you with uncertainty and doubt,
And still not take offence when you should speak—
Deniers of My mercy wouldn’t squeak!
So many fathers in My clemency
Are drowned, effaced like drops inside the sea;
Their clemency’s the foam from My sea’s tides—
It passes but its ocean source abides.”’
Before that pearl this shell you see is dumb,
It’s nothing but a worthless piece of scum,
By both the foam and that pure sea, it’s plain
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This speech is not a trial and not in vain—
It comes from love, humility, and grace,
I swear by Him to whom I turn my face!
If this desire seems like a trial to you
Then test the trial now for a moment too!
Don’t hide your secret, so mine you might view,
Command then anything that I can do—
Don’t hide your heart, so mine might be disclosed
And then accept whatever is imposed.
What shall I do, and where may I begin?
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Look what a mess my troubled soul is in!
The wife specifies to her husband the way to seek daily sustenance, and he accepts
The wife replied, ‘A sun has shone its light
From which a universe has now turned bright:
The Maker’s caliph, God’s own deputy,
Through him Baghdad’s like spring eternally—
Join with this king then you’ll be one as well,
Why keep on heading to misfortune’s hell?
It’s alchemy, these great kings’ company,
Compared with their glance what’s mere alchemy!
Mohammad glanced on Abu Bakr’s face
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He then became veracious* through his grace.’
The husband said, ‘How can I meet a king
Without a pretext for my visiting?
I have to have a link or stratagem:
Things can’t be made without the tools for them.
Majnun when he heard somebody once say
That Layli had been slightly ill that day,
Said, “How can I go there without excuse?
If I can’t visit her bring me a noose!
If I were a physician I could go,
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I would have visited a while ago.”
For God said, “Say, come!”* freeing us from stress,
To signal we should end our bashfulness;
If bats had vision and ability
By day they’d fly around so happily.’
The wife said, ‘When the king should join the fray
Impotence turns to power straight away,
So when your means is vile pretentiousness
You must choose impotence and helplessness.’
He said, ‘How can I trade without the tools
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Unless I show I’m helpless and he rules?
I must have evidence I’m penniless
For any king to pity my distress.
Other than words and looks show evidence
To gain the pity of his eminence,
For this proof based on talk and how you look
Is immaterial in the judge’s book—
To prove your worth he wants sincerity
Free from words, then his light shines perfectly.’
The bedouin takes a jug of rainwater from the middle of the desert to Baghdad as a present for the Commander of the Faithful,* imagining that water is scarce there as well
She said, ‘Sincerity’s to strive hard, love,
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Cleansed of existence then to rise above—
We’ve stored rain in this jug and now it’s full:
It’s your possession, means and capital,
So take this jug and journey to the king
To give it to him as an offering;
Tell him we’ve nothing more, he’ll understand
There’s nothing finer in our desert land;
His storehouses may have the finest fare
But they won’t have such water that’s so rare.’
This jug’s our body so it must contain
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All of our outward senses’ bitter rain:
O Lord, accept this water that we’ve brought
By the grace of their lives the Lord has bought!*
This jug has five spouts, for each sense, you see,
Preserve its water from impurity,
So to the sea the jug might find a way
And thus take on its nature too one day,
So to the sultan when you carry it
He’ll see it’s pure and we might benefit,
Then it will be a limitless fresh store—
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Our jug will fill a hundred worlds and more!
Now block the spouts and fill it to the brim,
Lower your lustful gaze!* Stay close to him!
‘What a great gift!’ he thought, so satisfied,
‘This water would give any king such pride!’
The bedouin’s wife then was not aware
The Tigris, sweet as syrup, flows past there
Towards Baghdad just like an ocean’s tide,
With countless boats and fishing nets inside.
Head for the sultan, see this action—go!
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Perceive this way beneath them rivers flow;*
Our sense perceptions are a drop, that’s all,
Compared with that pure river, they’re so small.
The bedouin’s wife sews a felt cover around the jug of rainwater and puts a seal on it because of the strength of her husband’s conviction
The man said, ‘Yes, let’s cork the jug with care,
This offering will bring wealth beyond compare;
Sew felt around it, so the sultan might
Decide to break his fast with it at night,
For nowhere else is water found so fine,
Which tastes delicious like a vintage wine;
From drinking salty water you will find
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That people there fall sick and end up blind.’
A bird that lives in briny brooks can’t know
The places where the cleanest waters flow:
Those whose abode is in the briny spring
About the Tigris don’t know anything.
You who have not escaped your transiency
Can’t know effacement, bliss and ecstasy—
Such things are passed from father down to son
For whom they’re like the alphabet to learn:
It’s clear for every child and not so arduous
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Although the meaning may not be so obvious.
He picked the jug up and went on his way,
Holding it next to him all night and day,
Shaking with fear it might be harmed by fate
As he walked on towards the city’s gate.
Meanwhile, his wife unrolled a rug for prayer,
‘Lord help us!’ she appealed as she knelt there,
‘Protect our water from calamity,
Please let that pearl reach the majestic sea!
Although my husband has much sense and skill,
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The pearl has enemies that wish it ill.’
Pearls were all Kawsar’s waters to begin,
A drop of that is each pearl’s origin.
Through his wife’s supplications during p
rayer
And his determination to take care,
Safe from both theft and damage on the way
He took it to the court without delay.
A court filled with the best of things he found
Where needy men had spread their nets around:
Their needs are met each moment in that place,
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Through gifts, and robes of honour they find grace,
The Muslims, infidels, the fair, the hideous,
Like sun and rain, for all not just the virtuous.
He saw some being honoured, standing straight,
And then the next in line who had to wait,
From Solomon to ants, the first and last,
Revived as though they’d heard the final blast,*
Those who seek form bedecked with jewellery,
Truth-seekers in Reality’s pure sea,
Those previously deficient gained endeavour
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While those who had it now received much favour.
In explanation of the fact that, just as the beggar loves the wealth of the donor, the wealth of the donor also loves the beggar; if the beggar had more patience the donor would come to him. However, whereas patience is perfection for the beggar, for the donor it is a defect
The shout ‘Come, seeker!’ startled like a bell
‘Munificence needs to be begged as well.’
It seeks itself the beggars and the weak
Just as clear mirrors are what fair girls seek:
A fair face by a mirror can be shown,
As beggars make beneficence well known,
And so in By the morning* God decrees
‘Don’t shout, Mohammad, when the beggar pleas!’
Since beggars mirror your own generous grace
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Don’t speak too close—you’ll blur the mirror’s face.
Beggars reveal men’s generosity,
And which one has bestowed abundantly;
Thus beggars mirror God’s munificence,
With God they turn to pure beneficence,
While all the rest are corpses, nothing more,
And they can’t enter through the king’s court door.
The difference between one who is needy of God with thirst for Him and one who is destitute of God and thirsts for other things
He looks a dervish but the truth is known—
Don’t throw this image of a dog a bone!
It isn’t God he seeks but food instead,
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Don’t serve a plateful to a man who’s dead!
The dervish who seeks food is like a newt,
He flees the sea which he appears to suit—
A housebird not the phoenix in the sky,
She eats sweet treats not food sent from on high,
She loves God simply for what He bestows,
Her soul does not love beauty, heaven knows!
She may think that she truly loves the essence
But for His attributes she dreams up nonsense;
Imaginings are formed and they were born
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But He was not begotten,* so read on:
The one who loves his own conception’s face
Can’t love the Generous One who has such grace,
But if that kind of lover is sincere
Through metaphor to him truth might appear;
An explanation of this is required
But I fear worn-out minds are much too tired:
Worn-out, short-sighted minds continually
Feed fancies to end our tranquillity,
And not by everyone is fine speech heard:
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Figs are not suitable for every bird,
Especially the dead and putrid kind,
Heads full of fancies, eyes completely blind,
Since for a fish’s portrait sea and land
Are one, like soap and coal for a black hand:
Though you should paint a portrait that looks sad,
Feelings of grief and joy it’s never had!
Its form is sad but it is unaware;
When its form smiles it also has no share.
This grief and joy etched in your heart are naught
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But a mere image next to what He’s brought,
The image’s form smiles still for your sake
So through it truth’s expressed with no mistake;
The pictures painted on a bathhouse wall
Are just like clothes outside the changing hall:
You see just clothes so long as you’re outside,
Take off your clothes, my friend, and step inside!
With clothes on you can never enter there
As body is from soul veiled, unaware.
The caliph’s chamberlains and guards step forward to honour the bedouin and accept his gift
Thus from the furthest desert this man came