In the Bazaar of Love: The Selected Poetry of Amir Khusrau (Penguin Hardback Classics)
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look at your face in the mirror.’
Following the king’s command
she took a mirror and gazed in it.
The king put his face next to hers
so that she would look at him.[105]
When the damsel saw the king’s face
she saw another person looking at her.
She hid her face in wonder:
who desired to see one like her?
Her face, which only the mirror was allowed to see,
was not one bit inferior to the moon.
Then the wise doll began to laugh
and the king was plunged into doubt.
He didn’t share his suspicions with the beauty;
instead he fulfilled his desire and slept until day. [110]
When the moon donned a sable mantle
and the regal sun was dressed in ermine,
he gestured to the elegant beauty
to go off to her secluded chamber.
He commanded a chamber for her,
located by the path of camel drivers.
That day it chanced that the king
wiled away his time in feasting.
Then he summoned the third damsel
and tenderly seated her before him. [115]
There was a garden in a special landscape,
where nightingales danced around every rose.
A brick pond was in the middle,
eight-sided, like the pool of paradise.
Fish flitted around in it, each one
wearing the earring of servitude.
A boat made of white aloe floated in it,
like the new moon on a dark night.
In the boat several dolls were seated
who looked like hajj travellers at sea. [120]
Jasmine-scented spring was busy
strolling through the garden, enjoying the view.
When the damsel saw the garden and pond
and the wide-eyed, luminous fish,
covering her face with a sleeve
she remarked coyly to the king,
‘With all these fishes,
who will even look at me?
I, who avoid the eyes of women,
how could a man even glance at me?’ [125]
When the contraption heard her words
it burst into laughter at the non-truths.
The king understood what was the matter
but carried the mannequin away from her.
He recovered from the bewitchment
of that fairy-faced Solomon.
He renewed his pleasure with her,
and was full of play and laughter.
The blushing beauty went off again
to view the pond in the garden. [130]
A sudden gust of wind hit the ship
and threw all the dolls into the water.
When she watched them drown
and sink under the water,
such a shiver went through her being
that she fell to the ground in a faint.
At laughter from the magical doll
the king seemed to lose all control.
He sprinkled rosewater on her face
until the beauty opened her eyes. [135]
On the last day of that month,
he had an apartment set up for her,
a path from which led downward
right to the portico above the river.
Then with sweets and sparkling wine
he spent the night in her company.
In heaven when the moon pitched its tent
and the night was veiled within,
the king sat with the fourth damsel
at his service in pleasure’s pavilion. [140]
With a host of pretty ornaments
her movements drove him wild.
When she approached the royal throne,
she kissed the ground in adoration.
She stood still in quiet obeisance,
not moving until she was summoned.
She kept her head bowed demurely,
ready to submit to slavery.
She strove to please, unlike the others
who in truth were mere performers. [145]
Until the dark world was again illumined,
she served the king at his bedside.
When dawn took up a rosy goblet,
finishing the dregs of the dark night,
at the king’s command, the young woman
went to the tower of the drinking room.
The presence of those beautiful houris
made the palace into an octagonal paradise.
The king was cheered in his mind
and properly made a firm resolution: [150]
that at all times from then on—once a month,
each would entertain him for a week by turn.
He enjoyed sleeping with three,
but the fourth made him uneasy.
He said, ‘In a precious casket they are pearls
that have been pampered by kingly thrones.
The fourth one is not fit for a throne,
for she has suffered among beggars.
A person raised in comforts
is coddled and coquettish. [155]
Since she had no one to care for her
she is as subservient as a slave.’
In this misjudgement he found peace of mind—
it was like crossing out a correct word.
For three weeks he made merry with three,
and never gave a thought to number four.
One night, drunk and wasted from wine
he was asleep in his bedroom,
next to the fresh spring with sparkling eyes
who on that first day was upset by a flower. [160]
When he awoke he found an empty bed
and the tall cypress not at his side.
He looked to the left and right:
not seeing her, he rose from the bed.
He rushed to every pavilion and corner
but found no sign of her anywhere.
He saw that the door of every building
he went to was locked.
When he reached the staircase door,
he found the lock open and door ajar. [165]
He pulled out a sword from his side
and raced straight down the stairs.
Standing back he glanced inside
to see what was happening there.
He saw a Zangi muleteer all worked up
who angrily brandished his whip
over that so sensitive body;
as he whipped her repeatedly
he roared like a lion over a fawn,
‘Why were you not on time?’ [170]
She said softly, ‘Until the king was asleep
how could I have given him the slip?’
When the king heard the bride’s words
he reddened with fury like a cock’s eye.
In his intelligent mind he recalled
the laughter of the magical doll.
He wanted to rush inside
and knock heads to the ground.
But he thought to himself,
‘If I lop their heads off,[175]
the other beauties will find out—
and I won’t uncover their secret.’
With this plan he turned around
and went back to sleep on his bed.
When freed from his rival’s embrace
she too returned to the royal bed.
The houri escaped from the dark demon
as the world was lit up by the bright sun.
The king removed himself to another room
that was brightened by another moon. [180]
This one sipped wine with her sweet lips
but within them her secrets were sealed.
She waited for night’s hour to come
so that she could attain her desire.
When the sun sank into the earth’s howdah
the moon r
ose on the sky’s board on high.
The king feigned drunkenness
before his dutiful spouse.
Senseless, he laid his head on a pillow
as sleep padlocked his drowsy eyes. [185]
When two watches of the night passed,
the damsel, who was no longer afraid,
rose quickly from the king’s side
and raced off like moonlight.
She held the door of carnal sedition,
pushed it open and stepped within.
The camel driver in those stables
sought to penetrate the stall of pearls.
Elated and in anticipation of his prey
he had thrown a camel sackcloth on the floor. [190]
When she entered, he leapt up, eager, and
pulling her hair, threw her to the ground.
Violently he forced himself upon her,
upon that sword-like and thorny cover.
Since her back was prickly from the ermine,
she felt as if she was up against a back-scratcher.
The king was in hot pursuit of her,
like a shadow chasing after the sun.
When he saw her delicate body that way,
the hair on his body bristled in fury. [195]
Though it was hard to control his jealousy
he did not draw the curtain back wantonly.
Downcast by his spouse’s infidelity
he went back and lay on his bed.
She who had abandoned his side
also returned when she was finished.
At dawn when the bright-faced bride
upon the heavens appeared as a friend,
the king escaped from the beauty
and sought intimacy with another. [200]
He set off for the riverside tower
and like the moon in Aquarius sat there.
The serving lady of bright face
poured fiery wine into his glass.
The king sat down to a drinking bout
while his enemies ate their hearts out.
Happy is he who on this arid path of life
drinks sweet water from this old waterwheel,
for no one finds water from a pitcher
that is made of turquoise-blue glass. [205]
He feasted late into the night
with the slant-eyed Turkish moon.
Object of desire in his arms, wine in glass—
could there be better fortune than this?
When the beauty filled his goblet
from the pitcher’s sparkling stream,
once again before the hypocritical moon,
like the previous night, the king got drunk.
As if senseless he put down his head;
his eyes were closed but vision alert. [210]
When half the night had passed
and everyone was in deep slumber,
the lady arose and went down,
and removed her clothes at the riverbank.
She had gone there earlier in the day,
to hide a clay pitcher in the bushes.
Taking it she turned it upside down
like a flower floating on water.
When she was carried far from the shore,
the king could not control himself any more. [215]
He undressed and dove in,
in hot pursuit of his woman.
When the fair one reached the far shore
she submitted herself to her desire.
A Hindu like a deer-hunting hound
was waiting to pounce on his prey.
Finding his wish fulfilled—he got
such a lovely creature without effort.
He clung to her like a fly to a sweet,
pouncing on her like a dragon. [220]
When the king saw this sight,
grieved, he returned to his castle.
The fairy herself soon left the demon
and turned back to her Solomon.
When the sun like an early rising Sufi,
appeared over light’s fortress in the sky,
the king set off to test by comparison
the mettle of the fourth coin.
He went to the fourth sun’s abode
and held a feast fit for Jamshid. [225]
Seeing the place in broad daylight
he noticed all the signs of piety.
He was not rejoicing but anxious inside
from the fresh wounds he had received.
In her usual manner, the lady
stood before him submissively ready.
In affection, she displayed signs
of care-giving and companionship.
Like a red rose she remained bright,
until the camphor day grew dark. [230]
At night when the sun hid in a corner
and the world was free from all care,
the seal of wisdom was on the king’s lips,
unlike all the other nights.
As usual, he got himself drunk
and was inattentive to his friend.
Since he did not have affection for her,
he did not hide his bad feelings from her.
When about half the night had passed
and the beauty had finished her sleep, [235]
she woke up and, going to a corner
covered herself as a pearl in a casket.
She removed all her finery and jewels
and put on white-coloured garments.
She bowed her head in supplication
and stood in a pose of obedience.
She cried in the manner of the abject,
and pressed her eyes to the ground.
When the king, observing her stealthily,
saw that she possessed a sound quality, [240]
his dark suspicions increased somehow
with respect to how she prayed to God.
He suspected that all this piety
was a mere show and trickery.
He tested her at every chance he got
but found not a single thorn in her path.
He had a good feeling about her character
but didn’t reveal his feelings to her.
When he was done with testing the ladies,
he knew each to be what she was. [245]
He determined that veiled in secrecy
each should receive her just due.
He told a servant to go off
and fetch an unfired pitcher.
Quietly he hastened to the garden
and replaced the fired with the unfired one.
When the young cypress had the time
to slip off to the riverbank like a stream,
she turned the pitcher on its head
and placed it securely beneath her. [250]
She set off, when she was secure,
on the road that led to her lover.
In the middle of the river, she received
her summons from the next world.
Her unfired vehicle disintegrated
as she submitted to the agent of death.
The fair beauty drowned in that river,
so like a rare pearl in the deep sea.
The star of her fate turned dark
as the moon went into Pisces. [255]
Who does not have a similar fate,
decreed by the good and evil stars?
He who emerges like lightning
is drowned by proximity to this earthen pitcher.
When the king had taken care of one,
he turned his attention to the other damsels.
With the flower petal who had hurt him
he was severe, like using a stick on a plant.
He whipped her body so
that the petals fell off that jasmine.[260]
Her lover the muleteer too
received his fit punishment.
The memory of luxury would torture her
as long as she swept scraps from the stalls.
Wh
en restricted to a diet of barley
every moment is a new death.
And the one who was allergic to fur
and had lost her heart to a camel driver—
he thrashed all over with thorns
like a lancet breaking over each hair. [265]
The blue welts caused by the sharp thorns
were just like the marks left by needle stings.
He turned her away in disgrace
into the camel driver’s embrace,
so that when she collected camel dung
she would recall the scent of ambergris and musk.
Finally, the damsel who was chaste
and not touched by an ounce of lust—
he embraced her with full propriety
and appointed her as his first lady. [270]
He made a pact that as long as they lived
no other moon would shine in her heaven.
That virtuous and luminous creature
had so many white garments like camphor
that the king was agreeable in all of this
and became camphor-like just like his mate.
Thereafter, they always dressed in white,
like the pages in the book of their lives.
Bibliography
PERSIAN WORKS BY AMĪR KHUSRAU USED FOR THE TRANSLATIONS:
Dībācha-yi Dīvān-i Ghurrat al-kamāl. Ed. Sayyid Vazīr al-Hasan ‘Abidī. Islamabad, 1975.
Dīvān-i kāmil-i Amīr Khusrau. Ed. Said Nafisi, Mahmud Darvish. Tehran, 1982.
Duval Rānī Khizr Khān. Ed. Khaliq Ahmad Nizami. Delhi, 1988.
Hasht bihisht. Ed. J. Iftikhar. Moscow, 1972.
Khamsa. Tehran, 1983.
Kullīyāt-i ghazalīyāt-i Khusrau. Ed. Iqbal Salahuddin. Lahore, 1972.
Kullīyāt-i qasā’id-i Khusrau. Ed. Iqbal Salahuddin. Lahore, 1977.
Majnūn va Lailā. Ed. T A. Muharramov. Moscow, 1964.
Qirān al-sa‘dain. Ed. Ahmad Hasan Qari. Aligarh, 1918.
Shīrīn va Khusrau. Ed. Gh. Aliev. Moscow, 1961.
BOOKS ABOUT AMĪR KHUSRAU:
Abdurrahman, Sabahuddin. Amir Khusrau as a Genius. Delhi: Idārah-i Adabiyāt-i Dillī, 1982.
Ansari, Zoe. Ed. Life, Times & Works of Amīr Khusrau Dehlavī. New Delhi: National Amir Khusrau Society, 1975.
Brend, Barbara. Perspectives of Persian Painting: Illustrations to Amir Khusraw’s Khamsah. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003.
Ernst, Carl. W. and Bruce B. Lawrence. Sufi Martyrs of Love: The Chishti Order in South Asia and Beyond. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
Gabbay, Alyssa. Islamic Tolerance: Amir Khusraw and Pluralism. London: Routledge, 2010.
Habib, Mohammad. Hazrat Amir Khusrau of Delhi. Bombay: Taraporevala Sons and Co., 1927. (Reprint; Lahore, 1979).
Hasan Nizāmī. Taj ul ma‘athir (The crown of glorious deeds). Tr. Bhagwat Saroop. Delhi: Saud Ahmad Dehlavi, 1998.
Hasan Sijzi. Nizam Ad-Din Auliya: Morals for the Heart. Tr. Bruce B. Lawrence. New York: Paulist Press, 1992.