4650
Until both sides of the dispute appear
To judges still the truth remains unclear.
Though plaintiffs raise a hundred cries, still bide
Your time till you have heard the other side.”
I dare not disobey the Lord’s command—
Bring your adversary here! Understand?’
The flea said, ‘What you say is very true
And my adversary is here with you.’
Solomon shouted, ‘East wind, do you hear
The flea’s complaint about your rage? Come here
4655
To see the plaintiff face to face—that moment
You can give your response to your opponent.’
On hearing this, the wind rushed straight away
And that flea tried to fly the other way.
Then Solomon said, ‘Flea, now where are you?
Stay here, so I may judge between you two.’
‘O king, its being here will leave me dead.
Its smoke has blackened my whole day,’ it said.
‘When it arrives I’ve no security;
It squeezes out all of the breath in me.’
4660
In the same way the seeker of God’s court,
Once God arrives, becomes reduced to naught.
Although that union’s an abiding station,
It first appears through self-annihilation.
When shadows seek the light, they disappear
As soon as that sought-out light should appear;
Once the head’s given up, mind has no place,
For everything will perish but His face.*
Before His face, both Being and Non-being die;
Being in Non-being! This fact can stupefy;
4665
Inside this presence minds leave your control—
The pen breaks when it nears this lofty goal.
The beloved caresses the stupefied lover, so he returns to consciousness
The sadr then drew him out at gentle pace
From his unconscious state with generous grace.
‘O beggar!’ he screamed in his ear, ‘I’ve brought
Some gold to throw—you can keep what you’ve caught.
Your soul would tremble when in separation—
How come it fled once I brought it protection?
In exile from me you’ve experienced all
Nature of things, but wake up now I call!’
4670
A hen brings home a camel stupidly
As guest to show its hospitality,
But once the camel takes one step within
The hen-house falls down and its roof caves in.
The hen-house is our intellect and sense;
God’s camel’s sought by sound intelligence,
And when that camel enters into clay
That clay can’t stay; the soul too fades away.
Man has turned greedy. Once pre-eminent,
Seeking excess he’s cruel and ignorant.
4675
He’s ignorant while on an arduous chase
Like hares that drag lions—they don’t know their place:
How would it drag a lion otherwise
If it could see the lion’s actual size?
Man is unjust as well to his soul—witness
Injustice that surpasses all injustice.
His ignorance can teach all of the sciences
And his injustice guides all kinds of justice.
The sadr, taking his hand, said, ‘This man’s death
Requires me to bestow life through my breath.
4680
When this corpse is brought back to life through me,
It will be my own soul that faces me.
I will be honouring him then with this soul
That I’ll give, which will witness my bestowal.
Outsiders can’t see the Beloved’s face;
That’s for those who come from no other place.
I’ll breathe on him like butchers—in my mind
I’ll hope his marrow leaves his skin behind.
O soul that has fled agony, don’t fear!
We’ve opened up our union’s door—come here!
4685
O you whose selflessness and drunkenness
And being constantly emerge from us,
Without lips I’ll convey to you today
Ancient mysteries—listen to what I say!
Beware that this breath makes lips run away,
So banks of hidden streams tell it their way.
Open up now, pure earlessness’s ear!
“God does what He should will”* you’ll clearly hear.’
This invitation to a union then
Induced his corpse to slowly stir again.
4690
He isn’t less than soil that you have seen
Rising due to the breeze, and turning green,
Nor semen, through which due to God’s Speech one
Brings forth a Joseph radiant as the sun,
Nor wind, which, when God’s word ‘Be!’* has been heard,
Brings forth a peacock or a sweet-voiced bird;
He’s not less than that rocky mountain either
That bore a camel that then bore another.*
Leave this behind! Did not what’s non-existent
Bring forth a whole world and more every instant.
4695
The man sprang up, trembled, then happily
Whirled round and fell prostrate for all to see.
The unconscious lover comes to his wits again and starts to praise and give thanks to the beloved
He said, ‘Phoenix of God, each soul will turn
Around you—thanks for making a return
From Qaf.* Esrafil of love’s resurrection,
You who are love’s love and love’s yearning passion!
As the first gift of honour you give me,
Please bring your ear to hear what none can see.
Although, through purity, you know my state,
My nurturer, please hear what I relate!
4700
Unique sadr, countless times I fell aswoon,
Yearning for your ear—it can’t come too soon.
That hearing of yours with your understanding
And smiles from your lips which are soul-expanding,
That bearing of my big and small affairs
As well as my soul’s flirting with such airs—
My false coins by which you weren’t taken in,
Yet you accepted them as genuine:
You saw my haughty mischief, but could spare
Clemency next to which ours can’t compare.
4705
When I had strayed far from the net you cast
I lost it all from first until the last.
The next thing, loving sadr, which you must hear
Is how I searched because you have no peer.
Thirdly, since leaving you, it feels like I
Have been a Trinitarian. Who knows why?
Fourth, since my field has been burned, though I strive
I cannot tell apart still four from five.
Wherever you find blood drops, realize
By looking closely that they’re from my eyes.
4710
My speech is thunder, and its booming sound
Wants all the clouds to rain down on the ground.
Speaking or weeping—I’m torn by these two:
Should I now speak or weep? Which should I do?
If I speak now, I can’t keep weeping too;
If I don’t speak then how can I praise you?
My eyes weep blood from my heart, king—behold
What has poured out of my eyes; don’t be cold.’
He said this then began to weep with dread,
While all and sundry wept at what he’d said.
4715
His heart let out such screams that at their sound
&n
bsp; The People of Bukhara gathered round.
As he spoke, wept, and laughed there, mesmerized,
All of those watching him felt paralysed:
The whole town now shed tears in the same way,
As if assembled there for Judgment Day.
The sky that moment told the earth, ‘If you
Have not seen Resurrection, there’s a view.’
‘What love, what stupor!’ intellect then said,
‘Is union stranger or being far instead?’
4720
The heavens read out words for Judgment Day,
Then tore their clothes up to the Milky Way.
Love is a stranger to both worlds; in it
Are diverse madnesses and more can fit.
It’s hidden with a dazed manifestation;
The King of Souls seeks it in separation.
Beyond all of the sects one finds love’s school;
It sees no worth in thrones of men who rule.
During sama’* love’s minstrel’s new refrain
Is ‘Slavery chains; lordship gives your head pain.’
4725
What is our love then for Non-being’s sea,
When reason’s foot breaks in proximity?
Slavery and lordship are both known—behind
These two veils love is what you’re going to find.
If only Being had a tongue, it then
Could lift the veil that hangs before all men.
Breath of existence, anything you tell
Places another veil in front. Heed well!
Your speaking is itself perception’s bane:
Washing blood up with more blood is in vain.
4730
Since I’m familiar with the drunkard’s way,
I murmur in this cage both night and day.
You’re drunken, witless, with a frenzied head—
Did you get out the wrong side of the bed?
Take heed, don’t breathe a single word—beware!
Catch up with one who’s close enough to share.
You are a drunken lover with loose lips—
By God, you’re near the brink—avoid more slips!
My tongue tells of his mystery and his flirting,
Then heaven recites: ‘You who are good at hiding!’
4735
How can one hide it? Flames are spreading here;
The more you try, the more he will appear.
If I conceal his secrets, then he’ll raise
His head flag-like—‘I am right here,’ he says.
Try as I might, he grabs me by the ear,
Saying, ‘Fool, you can’t make him disappear!’
‘Begone, you have boiled over!’ I protest,
‘You’re like the soul: hidden yet manifest.’
He says, ‘My body’s trapped inside the vat
Like at wine banquets—I rejoice at that.’
4740
I answer, ‘Go away before you’re pawned
And drunkenness’s bane has finally dawned.’
He says, ‘With my fine wine-cup I’ll rest there
Throughout the day until the evening prayer.
When evening should attempt to steal my cup,
I’ll say, “Return it, for my time’s not up.”’
The Arabs have named wine ‘continual’*
Because the drinker never feels he’s full.
Love boils the wine of realization, so
Love is God’s saqi for His Friends below.
4745
When you seek properly, then wine transforms
To your souls’ water in your jar-like forms.
When He increases wine of guidance, that
Extra force makes it burst right through the vat;
Water becomes the saqi, and it too
Becomes so drunk! God knows best what is true.
The saqi’s glow shines on the wine’s must and
That must boils, starts to dance and then expand.
Ask that bewildered one, ‘Where have you seen
Wine must behaving as this must has been?’
4750
Those in the know need not think hard then later
Explain each stirred thing needs an agitator.
Story about being in love, lengthy separation, and substantial trial
A young man was love-crazed due to a woman,
But stayed deprived of the good fate of union;
Love gave him so much torture while apart—
Why does love act with spite right from the start?
Why does love shed blood so relentlessly?
To make outsiders to love’s truths all flee.
When he dispatched to her a messenger,
That man, through envy, would try stealing her.
4755
And what was written by his secretary,
On his behalf, was read out differently.
If he made wind his messenger to trust,
That would become polluted by the dust.
If he sewed on a bird’s wing his love note,
It would get burned by heat from what he wrote.
God’s jealous guarding blocked paths to solution
And snapped the flags of troops of his cognition.
Expectation was his consoling friend
At first, but this destroyed him in the end.
4760
‘This anguish has no cure,’ at times he’d say,
‘No, it’s life for my soul,’ another day.
Sometimes he’d re-emerge in self-existence;
He’d then eat of the fruit of non-existence.
Once he’d grown cold towards his constitution,
He’d then see boil the hot springs of his union.
Once he got used to exile’s state of lack,
Provisions from Non-being then hurried back.
Chaff from the wheat-ears of his thought was shed;
Just like the moon, night travellers he led.
4765
Many a parrot talks though it stays mute;
Many a kind soul looks a bitter brute.
In silence sit inside the graveyard, then
You’ll clearly witness talking silent men.
Their soil has the same colour, but inside
Their state is not the same once they’ve all died.
Though living flesh is uniform, within
Some sadly frown while others happily grin—
Until you hear their words what can you tell,
Seeing as their state’s veiled from you as well?
4770
You might perceive them holler, yell, and shout,
But what about their state can you find out?
Our forms are one, but made of differing parts;
Their clay is one, with vastly different hearts.
Voices are likewise uniform, but pain
Fills one, while other voices sound so vain.
On battlefields you’ll hear a horse’s sound,
And squawks of birds when you should walk around.
One comes from hate, the other comes from friendship;
One comes from joy, the other comes from hardship.
4775
Whoever doesn’t know his state at all
Hears all their voices as identical.
An axe’s blow can cause the sway of trees;
Others sway simply due to dawn’s soft breeze.
The worthless pot caused me a serious error,
Because its contents boiled beneath its cover.
‘Come here!’ a stranger’s fervour now might yell—
He could be true, he could be false as well;
If you’ve no clue from that higher soul that knows,
Acquire a proper, clue-detecting nose!
4780
The rose in the rose garden’s company
Can even, through its scent, make Jacob see.*
Tell more about that sad love-stricken one,
For we have strayed fr
om that Bukharan, son!
How the lover found his beloved, and the explanation of how the seeker becomes a finder, for ‘Whoever does an atom’s weight of good work will see it’*
For seven years that youth searched ceaselessly,
Becoming ghost-like for his fantasy;
God’s shade was over this devotee’s head;
Seekers transform to finders up ahead.
The Prophet said, ‘When you knock on a door
Someone will come out if you wait some more’;
4785
If you wait at a man’s address, you’ll see
That person’s face appear eventually;
Dig deeper each day in a muddy pit
And you’ll find water there by doing it.
Even if you do not believe, please know
The Masnavi, Book Three Page 38