The Masnavi, Book Three
Page 36
A hundred hopes are found too in his fear.
I frighten impudent men who have strayed,
But how can I scare one who’s not afraid?
4385
The flame is for the cold pan, not the other
One which is so hot that it’s boiling over.
With knowledge I scare those who don’t fear me,
While calming those who do with clemency.
I’m one who stitches patches where they fit;
I serve men drinks that are appropriate.’
A human’s heart is like the tree’s roots, friend:
Leaves grow from solid branches in the end;
Leaves grow to match the hidden roots of trees,
And souls and minds act just the same as these.
4390
Loyalty’s trees grow wings that reach on high:
Its root is firm, its branches in the sky.*
Wings that can take you up to heaven grew
From love, so love can fill the sadr’s heart too.
Forgiveness’s wave surged inside his heart;
A window joins each heart that is apart.
Since there’s a window that links hearts together,
They aren’t, like bodies, separate from each other.
Though two parts of a lamp aren’t joined, you’ve seen
How still their light will mix there in between.
4395
There is no lover seeking union who
Is not being sought by his beloved too.
The lover’s love will waste away his body,
But the Beloved’s love makes Him so lovely.
When love for Him makes lightning enter in,
It’s clear that heart contains His love within.
When love for truth is doubled in there too,
You’ll know without doubt God has love for you:
One hand can’t make a clapping sound, can it?
It needs another hand that it can hit.
4400
The thirsty man yearns, ‘Wholesome water, help me!’
The same time water yearns, ‘Those thirsty, drink me!’
Thirst in our souls is water’s strong attraction;
As we belong to it, it’s our possession:
God’s wisdom has in destiny and fate
Made us each other’s lover and true mate.
And all the world’s parts due to destiny
Are paired with mates whom they love equally.
Each particle in this world seeks its partner
Exactly the same way as straw and amber.
4405
The heavens tell the ground, ‘Greetings to you!
I can attract you just as magnets do.’
The earth is female, heavens male—the latter
Casts down things which the former then will nurture.
When earth lacks heat, they send some down below;
When it lacks moisture, this too they’ll bestow.
The zodiac’s earth signs help all dry ground,
While water signs spread moisture all around.
The air signs will dispatch some clouds earth’s way,
So they can drag unhealthy fumes away.
4410
The fire signs heat the sun up to the limit,
The way one makes red hot a cooking skillet.
Time makes the heavens turn round dizzily
Like men who for their wives’ sake busily
Seek wages, while the greatest housewife’s earth,
For it will nurture after it gives birth.
Heavens and earth are both intelligent:
They act like those who are—that’s what I meant.
And if they aren’t in truth a pair of lovers,
Why do they move in harmony like partners?
4415
Without the earth how could a flower grow?
What then would heat and water raise below?
The female is inclined towards the male,
So each one’s work is finished without fail.
God put this inclination deep inside,
So, through this union, our world would abide.
He put it in each particle pair too,
So something’s born from union of the two:
Night is thus in embrace with day—they’re different
In looks, but really they’re in full agreement.
4420
Night and day look like opposites and foes,
But they attest to one truth, and it shows.
Just like itself each one desires the other
In order to make its own actions better.
Men would lack God’s infusions without night,
So what could they accomplish when it’s light?
How each element attracts its own kind that has been trapped in human form by a different element
Clay tells the body’s clay, ‘Return and be
Quit of the soul. Just like dust, rush to me!
You’re my kind, so to be with me is better—
It’s best to flee that body and its moisture.’
4425
‘Yes, but my feet are bound,’ says body’s clay.
‘I’m sick though of being kept apart this way.’
The waters seek the body’s moisture too:
‘Come back from exile that you’ve been put through!’
The ether calls the body’s heat, ‘You are
Of fire—come back to your source from afar!’
Seventy-two pains keep the body full
Of pain, due to the elements’ strong pull.
Shattering the body is the ailment’s aim,
So elements can leave the way they came.
4430
The elements are bound birds—injury,
Disease, and death are what can set them free,
Untying their feet from each other, so
Each element’s bird will be free to go.
These sources’ and derivatives’ attractions
Each moment gives our bodies new afflictions,
To tear apart compounded forms by force,
So each part’s bird can fly back to its source.
What stops this quickly happening is God’s power,
Which keeps them joined until the Final Hour.
4435
God says, ‘It’s not time yet, you parts, so wait!
It’s pointless to fly off before your fate.’
Since every part seeks union, how much more
The exiled soul seeks what it had before.
How the soul is attracted, too, to the world of spirits and appeals for its own residence there, and how it is severed from body parts that are a fetter on the spiritual falcon
‘O my base bodily parts,’ the soul will moan,
‘Exile pains me—I should be near the Throne.’
Body loves fields and water as its realm,
Because the body’s origin’s from them;
Soul loves life and the Living One no less—
Its origin’s That Soul in Placelessness.
4440
Soul heads to wisdom, body heads to orchards
And pleasure gardens, not to mention vineyards.
The soul inclines towards ascent and honour,
The body, acquisition and mere fodder.
That honour’s love and passion also leans
To it—that’s what ‘He loves and they love’* means.
The upshot’s that, if one seeks something out,
Its soul desires one also without doubt.
If I try to explain, there’d be no end—
The Masnavi would stretch too long, my friend!
4445
Man, animal, plant, and inanimates
Are loved and love their lovers, as is fit;
The latter join their objects of desire
Which have attracted them and pull them higher.
The lovers’ love makes them thin like a hair,
While the beloved�
��s makes them plump and fair,
Giving their cheeks more colour in this way,
While that of lovers makes them burn away.
Amber’s a lover that appears desireless;
Straw makes the journey to it and is tireless.
4450
Leave this aside! Love for that thirsty one
Shone in the breast of the Sadr-e Jahan:
Smoke from his love and fire-temple of passion
Entered this master and turned to compassion,
But, due to his own pride and dignity,
He was ashamed to seek him openly.
His mercy yearned for that one who was helpless,
But his nobility obstructed kindness.
The intellect is stunned and left to wonder:
Did this one draw that one first or the other?
4455
Don’t be presumptuous! It’s beyond you—close
Your lips, What’s hidden no one but God knows.
I’ll bury this talk now for ever more,
For the Attractor pulls—can I add more?
Who is now drawing you close, anxious one?
He Who won’t let you now tell anyone.
For your trip you make countless preparations,
Then He draws you instead to new locations,
Because in all directions He can turn
The bridle, so the untrained horse might learn
4460
About its rider—even if he’s hidden;
It moves well when it knows that it’s being ridden.
He made you fix your heart on things, just to
Deny you them and break your heart in two.
When He broke your first thought’s wing, in that instance
How could you doubt that Wing-breaker’s existence?
When His decree snapped your control’s cord too,
How could That One’s ordainment not be true?
The ruining of resolutions is in order to inform Man that He is the Ruler and Conqueror, and that His occasional non-annulment of Man’s resolution and His putting it into effect is in order that desire may lead him to make a resolution, so that next time he can ruin it, and thus warnings can be repeated
Sometimes things that you have resolved and willed
Just as you want them all become fulfilled.
4465
This is to make your heart attempt once more,
So He can make that fail unlike before,
For if he always should deny you, then
Your heart would lose hope and not try again;
And, lacking hope’s seed, how would it then see
Its fruitlessness and that it’s His decree—
Through being unsuccessful like this, lovers
Become acquainted with their lords and masters.
Your unfulfilment is the guide you need:
Paradise is surrounded,* so take heed!
4470
Since all your wishes’ legs get broken, there
Must be winners with whom you will compare:
Sincere ones have been broken, but you’ll find
Breaking of lovers is a different kind.
The learned ones are broken by compulsion,
But lovers seek themselves their own destruction.
To Him the scholars are just slaves who’re bound,
Lovers the sweetest candy that is found.
‘Against your will come!’ speaks to just the former.
‘Come willingly!’* gives lover’s hearts spring’s ardour.
4475
How the Prophet looked at captives and smiled, saying: ‘I marvel at people who have to be dragged to paradise with chains and shackles!’
The Prophet saw a group of captives being
Taken somewhere while all of them were screaming.
That lion who perceived their situation
Saw them glance furtively in his direction,
Each angry with him to such an extent
They’d gnash their teeth and bite as they would vent.
Despite being angry they did not dare say
A word, since they were bound in chains that day.
Then their custodians brought these captives down
With force from infidel realms to their town.
4480
‘He won’t accept a ransom,’ they’d protest,
‘And none will intercede at our behest.
Thy call him “Mercy to the World”, yet he
Chops off the necks of people mercilessly.’
They went along with thousands of objections,
Railing beneath their breath at this king’s actions:
‘We’ve solved so many problems on our own,
But not this one—his heart’s as hard as stone.
We’re thousands of brave men and yet we dread
These few weak, naked men who look half-dead—
4485
Why are we helpless? Due to straying far
Or magic, or an inauspicious star?
His fortune tore up ours, and then his throne
Overturned our throne; Now we’re so alone.
If he prevailed through sorcery, then why
Did it not work when we gave it a try?’
Exegesis of the Qur’anic verse ‘If you ask for a decision, the decision has come:* O railers, you were saying, “Give the decision and victory to us or Mohammad whoever is correct.”’ You were saying that in order that it might be thought that you were seeking the truth without personal interest; now that we have given Mohammad the victory, you can see who is correct
‘We’d told God and the idols, “Tear us up
If we are not correct, as we’ll give up.
Grant victory to him or us, the side
Who’s in the right and who has never lied.”
4490
We said the prayer and bowed our heads to Lat
And fellow idols Ozza and Manat,*
And said, “If he’s correct, then make it clear,
And if not make him subject to us here.”
When we saw clearly that he’d been victorious,
That he’s the light while we are drowned in darkness,
We heard this: “What you asked for all day long
Has been made manifest—you’re in the wrong.”’
They hid the truth then from themselves again,
And banished that thought’s memory from the brain,
4495
Saying: ‘It was our own unlucky plight
That made our hearts believe that he was right.
So what if he prevails now and again:
Success eventually comes to all men,
And it has made us fortunate previously,
When over him we’d tasted victory.
When we defeated him a while ago
It wasn’t like this: now we’re being dragged low.’
This is because good fortune secretly
Gave him much joy from losing—can’t you see
4500
He didn’t look at all like one just vanquished?
No stress or misery could be distinguished.
Defeat is not a truth-revealing sign,
But only the believers still feel fine:
If you crush musk or ambergris, you’ll send
Sweet perfume through the whole world, end to end,
But if you crush a donkey’s turd, you’ll fill
Houses with its vile stench and make men ill.
He came from Hodaybiyya, and all the same
Drums rolled ‘We gave you victory!’ to his name.*
4505
The secret reason why God called the Prophet’s return unfulfilled from Hodaybiyya a ‘victory’, saying: ‘We have opened to you a victory.’* In form it was being locked in defeat, but in reality it was an opening up to victory, just as crushing musk appears to be a defeat, but is in fact causing its musky scent to emerge and perfecting its virtues
Good fortune told him, ‘Go forth
and do not
Be saddened. We withheld what you had sought,
For, through abasement, you’ll earn victory—
That fort and town will be your property.
Remember well when you retreat from here
What happened with Qurayza and Nadir:*
The forts at those two towns fell to your hands
And you gained booty from their conquered lands.
Look at this group! If this is not the case
Why do they smile despite the grief they face?
4510
They eat debasement’s poison up as though
It’s sweet: like camels they chew thorns of woe.
That’s all for grief’s sake and not for relief:
Defeat’s a ladder up in their belief.
They’re happy at the bottom of the pit
And dread the crown and thrones on which kings sit.