The Masnavi, Book Four
Page 11
Demons and spirits all get lost inside.
Imaginings and fancies will all end
In that sea, plain, and mountain there, my friend.
Our plain is like a hair inside the sea
Compared with His vast plains beyond, trust me.
Still water that is hidden is much fresher
And sweeter than the obvious flowing river,
Because within itself, like soul and spirit,
It has a hidden path with feet that move it.
The audience has dozed off, so cut this short,1095
Stop sketches on the water of this sort.
Arise, Belqis—this market trade’s rate’s swift,
Shun anyone who is a slow spendthrift.
Arise, Belqis, now that you have free will
Before death takes control, as it soon will.
Death will then pull your ears and give no peace,
So you will run in pain to the police
Although a thief. How long will you steal ass shoes—
If you steal, steal a gem the buyer values.
Your sisters gained the everlasting kind,1100
Your kingdom though is for the dead and blind.
Happy is she who manages to flee
This kingdom which death ruins totally.
Arise, Belqis, and view the true faith’s realm
Ruled by its monarchs—try to be like them.
Sitting inside a garden inwardly,
But one of many comrades outwardly.
The garden goes wherever they should go,
But it’s concealed so most men do not know.
The fruit are pleading: ‘Eat me!’ desperately.1105
Water of Life has come to say: ‘Drink me!’
Without wings, fly around the open heavens
Just like the sun and moon do to your visions.
How will you move? Without feet. You will eat,
Without the need to chew, food that tastes sweet.
Grief won’t attack your boat like a huge whale
And death won’t make you hideously pale.
You are king, throne, and army—you’re all three.
Both fortunate and good fortune similarly.
Though fortunate as a king, that fortune parts1110
From you and one day finally departs.
Then you’ll be empty-handed and alone,
So fortunate one, be fortune on your own!
Mystic, when you are your own fortune, then
How can good fortune ever leave again?
How will you lose yourself, O man of wisdom,
When your identity becomes your kingdom?
Remainder of the story about Solomon building the Furthest Worship-House in Jerusalem* by instruction and divine communication from God, from wisdom which He knows and how angels, demons, sprites, and humans openly helped.
Solomon, build God’s worship-house today
For Belqis’s troops have begun to pray!
Once he had laid that future mosque’s foundation1115
Genies and men helped work on its construction,
One group with love, others unwillingly
Like servants doing duties outwardly.
Men are like demons, chained and dragged as well
By lust to cultivate then buy and sell.
This chain is of bewilderment and fear—
Don’t view men as unchained and in the clear.
It drags them off to earn and hunt, you see,
Then to the mine of gold, then to the sea.
It drags them to both good and bad—recite:1120
‘A cord of palms on her neck ’* —that’s their plight.
Upon their necks we’ve placed the cord ,* and we
Make it from every human quality.
Among the clean and the unclean, there’s none
Whose neck is spared reports on what they’ve done .*
Your lust for bad deeds is fire-like in fervour;
Only live coals admire the fire’s bright colour.
In fire, coal’s blackness seems to be concealed,
But when the fire dies it is soon revealed.
Your greed turns black coal red—when that greed goes,1125
The wicked coal remains and each then knows.
The coal just looked red briefly due to greed
And not because it did a righteous deed.
Greed made your act appear so beautiful;
When greed left your act stayed dark, miserable.
Only fools think a fruit is ripe when it
Has been embellished by the ghouls a bit.
When their souls try it, in embarrassment
Their teeth will fail in this experiment.
Lust made that trap look so good men would drool1130
Over unripe fruit—it’s due to greed’s ghoul.
Direct your greed to godly deeds, my friend;
Once greed has gone they’ll stay here till the end.
Good things don’t need reflections of some rays
From others—though they pass, true goodness stays.
When greed’s glow leaves the world’s affairs, instead
What’s left is black coal for what once was red.
Greed can make children play-act, so they will
Ride make-believe steeds just to feel a thrill,
But when that feeling gets away from one1135
He’ll look back and then laugh at what they’d done:
‘What was I doing? Why pretend? What need?’
Vinegar can seem honey-like with greed.
What Prophets built had no greed whatsoever—
That’s why it keeps increasing in its splendour.
Many build worship-houses and yet none
Of them was ever called ‘The Furthest One’.
The Kaaba’s grandeur constantly grows more
Due to what Abraham did long before.*
Its bricks are not what make it so superior;1140
It’s due to lack of greed within its builder.
Their books are not like other people’s pages,
Neither their worship-places, homes, or wages,
Nor their chastisement, manners, nor their anger,
Nor their analogies, speech, nor their slumber.
Each has a different grandeur that he brings;
Their souls’ birds soar up high with different wings.
Thinking about their state makes men’s hearts tremble;
For our own actions theirs serve as example.
Their birds lay golden eggs—make no mistake:1145
Their spirits can see midnight at dawn’s break.
Whatever heartfelt words that I should say
In praising them they’d fall short in some way.
So build the Furthest Worship House anew,
For Solomon has come back. Peace to you!
If sprites and demons try to turn away,
Angels will then enslave them right away.
If out of fraud the demons should act wrongly,
The whip, like lightning, strikes their heads most strongly.
Become like Solomon, so demons too1150
Carry bricks to build palaces for you.
Be Solomon-like, free from false pretence,
So jinn and demons show obedience.
Your heart is like your seal, so take good care
That demons don’t entrap it in their snare,
And then, like Solomon, rule over you
With the seal. Watch out! God’s peace be with you!
Heart, Solomon’s power never did depart;
There’s one with power still in your head and heart.
Satan seeks to control you the same way,1155
But all can’t weave fine satin cloth, can they?
They may well move their hands in the same manner,
But they still are apart and greatly differ.
Story about a poet receiving a gift from the king, which the vizier called Abo ’l-Hasan
multiplied.
A poet gave a poem to the ruler
In hope of a raised rank and robes of honour.
That kind king gave a thousand coins of gold
With other gifts too precious to be sold.
‘This is too small!’ the king’s vizier then said,
‘Give him ten thousand gold coins now instead.
He passed on wisdom—from a king like you1160
Even ten thousand gold coins are too few.’
He talked with his king using sophistry
Until a sum was reached eventually.
The king then gave ten thousand coins instead
And robes—Thanks and praise filled the poet’s head,
And he enquired, ‘Which man deserves the credit
For showing to the king that I have merit?’
‘This kind vizier called Hasan was your helper,
The one with a good heart and fine behaviour.’
He wrote a poem in his praise and then1165
Went on his way back to his home again.
The king’s gifts with no lip nor tongue in ways
That are well hidden sung that ruler’s praise.
After a few years that poet returns in the hope of the same reward, and the king orders a thousand dinars on principle, but his new vizier, who was also called Hasan, tells the king: ‘This is too much and we have other expenses and our treasury is empty, and I can satisfy him with one-tenth of that amount.’
After a few years, just like previously
That poet came in need from poverty.
He thought, ‘In want it’s best to try once more
To go to someone whom I’ve tried before.
I have already tested that court where
A king was generous, so I’ll seek help there.’
‘The meaning of “Allah” ’, Sebawayh said,1170
‘Is that they take their needs to him instead. ’*
Then: ‘We have come to have our needs met and
We’ve found them here with you, as had been planned. ’
Countless wise ones in pain will weep before
That One, Unique God, whom all men adore.
Would any mad buffoon instead attempt this:
Plead his case to a miser who is helpless?
If the intelligent had not before
Found answers why then go to Him once more?
All of the fish that swim inside the ocean1175
And birds up on the peak of the high mountain,
The hunting lion, wolf, and elephant,
The massive dragon, serpent, and the ant,
Even the elements: earth, wind, fire, water,
Find sustenance in Him in spring and winter.
Each moment he’s entreated by the sky:
‘God, do not for a moment pass me by!
My pillar of support, in your protection
Folded inside Your hands * is my position.’
The earth says, ‘You who’ve made me ride this way1180
On water, keep me still so I won’t sway.’
All have sewn closed their purses and have heeded
Words from Him on providing what is needed.
Every Prophet has got this guarantee:
‘Through prayer and patience seek out help from me! ’*
Therefore, ask Him and no one else instead:
The sea gives water, not the dry stream-bed.
And even if you ask another, He
Makes that one’s hand give to you generously.
He who makes Korah, through gold, turn away—1185
Imagine what He gives if you obey!
In search of gifts, that poet once again
Headed towards that kindest king of men.
His own new poem was the poet’s stake
Brought to the king for sustenance’s sake.
Generous ones had already put gold down
Through kindness, waiting for him to reach town.
To them a poem’s valued preciously,
Especially pearls from the deepest sea.
Men covet food at first—that’s their resort,1190
For nourishment is what gives life support.
They risk their lives for hope and greed; we see
Struggles to earn, violence, and trickery.
When a rare one can do without such food
He loves fame, praising poets who are good,
So they may give fruit to his personal tree,
Build pulpits to proclaim his dignity,
So that through their words news of all his splendour
And generosity may spread like amber;
God made us in His image: His example1195
Is what our qualities take as their model.
Since the Creator wishes thanks and praise,
Man also has a liking for such ways,
Especially mystics with such excellence
That fills old empty sacks like wind at once.
The sack gets torn though, if he isn’t worthy,
By falsehood’s wind—it can’t make things more lovely.
I haven’t just made up this parable—
Don’t deem it nonsense if you’re curable.
The Prophet said this when he heard the question:1200
‘Why does he get pumped up by adoration?’
The poet took his poem to the king,
Deeming his kindness undiminishing—
Kind men die, but their kindness stays the course;
Happy are those who’ve ridden on this horse.
Tyrants died, but their cruelty didn’t go—
Fraudulent, lying souls will suffer woe.
‘Happy the one who left,’ the Prophet said,
‘Whose good works lasted on, though he was dead.’
The kind man died, but not his kindnesses.1205
To God, faith and good works aren’t valueless.
The stray one dies, but not his disobedience;
His soul will not be saved by death’s experience.
Leave this because the poet is now busy;
He is in huge debt and so needs gold greatly.
He took his poem to the king once more
In hope of gifts just like the year before.
The poem, full of perfect pearls, was lovely.
He thought last year’s gifts would be matched exactly.
‘One thousand,’ ordered that king, true to form,1210
Because for him this much had been the norm,
But that most kind vizier of yesteryear
Had passed away—he was no longer here,
And now in charge instead was someone new
Who was a miser and lacked pity too.
That one advised, ‘King, we’ve got costs to count
And for a poet that’s a huge amount.
Great one, I’ll bring contentment to this poet
By giving him a fortieth fraction of it.’
‘But last time he received’, some others said,1215
‘Ten thousand coins from our kind king instead.
How can one eat straw after tasting sugar?
How can a former king become a beggar?’
Then the vizier said, ‘I’ll inflict some pain
That makes him too crushed to expect more gain,
Then if I give him mud from streets he’ll try
To snatch it like a flower men would buy.
Leave it to me—this is my expertise
Even if this requestor’s hard to please.
He might have strength to fly as high as heaven,1220
But when he sees me he is bound to soften.’
The king said, ‘It’s your call, so go ahead,
But make him happy for the praise he said.’
‘Leave him and others with high hopes to me
And I’ll take full responsibility.’
He made the poet wait then for his pay;
Winter passed and then came the spring’s first day—
The poet aged t
hrough waiting still in hope;
The suffering made him feel he couldn’t cope.
‘If there’s no gold, then treat me terribly1225
And I will be your slave once my soul’s free:
Waiting has killed me—make me leave at least,
So that my captive soul can be released.’
Once the vizier gave him the fortieth portion;
That poet just stood there in deep reflection:
‘Then it was more and it came readily—
This one bloomed late and grew thorns tragically.’
People told him, ‘That generous old vizier
Has passed away and now another’s here.
Through him those past gifts were all multiplied;1230
Faulting his gifts was never justified.
He’s gone and taken all his kindnesses;
In truth, he’s not dead but his kindness is.
The generous, upright one has gone away;
The one who flays the poor is here today.
Take this amount he’s given and tonight
Escape before he tries to pick a fight.
We used a hundred tricks so you would get
This much, though you don’t know of our work yet.’
He turned to them and asked, ‘Friends, tell me where1235
This cruel man has come from, if you’re aware,
And what’s the name of this clothes-ripping man?’
They told him, ‘He is also called Hasan.’
He sighed, ‘O Lord, how did these different men
Possess the same name? Lord, I sigh again!
From that old Hasan’s personally signed decrees
Countless viziers tried to be kind and please.
From this Hasan’s vile beard we all can make
A hundred ropes—how much more can one take?
When a king heeds such ministers, then we1240
And his great realm are shamed perpetually.’
The resemblance of this base vizier’s bad recommendation which corrupted the king’s kindness to that of Pharaoh’s vizier, Haman, which corrupted Pharaoh’s receptivity.
Pharaoh turned pliant and at peace when he
Heard God’s words come from Moses powerfully.
The sweetness of those special words alone
Could make milk suddenly gush out of stone.
When he consulted Haman, his vizier,
Whose spiteful nature was so very clear:
‘You’ve been a ruler up till now,’ he’d say,
‘Will fraud make you that old tramp’s slave today?’
These words of his were like a hurtling mass1245
Of rocks flung at a building made of glass.