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  • If our days are gone, let them go!—’tis no matter. Do Thou remain, for none is holy as Thou art!
  • Except the fish, everyone becomes sated with water; whoever is without daily bread finds the day long.
  • None that is raw understands the state of the ripe: therefore my words must be brief. Farewell!
  • O son, burst thy chains and be free! How long wilt thou be a bondsman to silver and gold?
  • If thou pour the sea into a pitcher, how much will it hold? One day's store. 20
  • The pitcher, the eye of the covetous, never becomes full: the oyster-shell is not filled with pearls until it is contented.
  • He (alone) whose garment is rent by a (mighty) love is purged entirely of covetousness and defect.
  • Hail, our sweet-thoughted Love —thou that art the physician of all our ills,
  • The remedy of our pride and vainglory, our Plato and our Galen!
  • Through Love the earthly body soared to the skies: the mountain began to dance and became nimble. 25
  • Love inspired Mount Sinai, O lover, (so that) Sinai (was made) drunken and Moses fell in a swoon.
  • Were I joined to the lip of one in accord with me, I too, like the reed, would tell all that may be told;
  • (But) whoever is parted from one who speaks his language becomes dumb, though he have a hundred songs.
  • When the rose is gone and the garden faded, thou wilt hear no more the nightingale's story.
  • The Beloved is all and the lover (but) a veil; the Beloved is living and the lover a dead thing. 30
  • When Love hath no care for him, he is left as a bird without wings. Alas for him then!
  • How should I have consciousness (of aught) before or behind when the light of my Beloved is not before me and behind?
  • Love wills that this Word should be shown forth: if the mirror does not reflect, how is that?
  • Dost thou know why the mirror (of thy soul) reflects nothing? Because the rust is not cleared from its face.
  • How the king fell in love with the sick handmaiden and made plans to restore her health.
  • O my friends, hearken to this tale: in truth it is the very marrow of our inward state. 35
  • In olden time there was a king to whom belonged the power temporal and also the power spiritual.
  • It chanced that one day he rode with his courtiers to the chase.
  • On the king's highway the king espied a handmaiden: the king was enthralled by her.
  • Forasmuch as the bird, his soul, was fluttering in its cage, he gave money and bought the handmaiden.
  • After he had bought her and won to his desire, by Divine destiny she sickened. 40
  • A certain man had an ass but no pack-saddle: (as soon as) he got a saddle, the wolf carried away his ass.
  • He had a pitcher, but no water could be obtained: when he found water, the pitcher broke.
  • The king gathered the physicians together from left and right and said to them, “The life of us both is in your hands.
  • My life is of no account, (but) she is the life of my life. I am in pain and wounded: she is my remedy.
  • Whoever heals her that is my life will bear away with him my treasure and pearls, large and small.” 45
  • They all answered him, saying, “We will hazard our lives and summon all our intelligence and put it into the common stock.
  • Each of us is a Messiah of a world (of people): in our hands is a medicine for every pain."
  • In their arrogance they did not say, “If God will”; therefore God showed unto them the weakness of Man.
  • I mean (a case in which) omission of the saving clause is (due to) a hardness of heart; not the mere saying of these words, for that is a superficial circumstance.
  • How many a one has not pronounced the saving clause, and yet his soul is in harmony with the soul of it! 50
  • The more cures and remedies they applied, the more did the illness increase, and the need was not fulfilled.
  • The sick girl became (thin) as a hair, (while) the eyes of the king flowed with tears of blood, like a river.
  • By Divine destiny, oxymel increased the bile, and oil of almonds was producing dryness.
  • From (giving) myrobalan constipation resulted, relaxation ceased; and water fed the flames, like naphtha.
  • How it became manifest that the physicians were unable to cure the handmaiden, and how the king turned his face towards God and dreamed of a holy man.
  • When the king saw the powerlessness of those physicians, he ran bare-footed to the mosque. 55
  • He entered the mosque and advanced to the mihráb (to pray): the prayer-carpet was bathed in the king's tears.
  • On coming to himself out of the flood of ecstasy (faná) he opened his lips in goodly praise and prayer,
  • Saying, “O Thou whose least gift is the empire of the world, what shall I say, in as much as Thou knowest the hidden thing?
  • O Thou with whom we always take refuge in our need, once again we have missed the way.
  • But Thou hast said, ‘Albeit I know thy secret, nevertheless declare it forthwith in thine outward act.’” 60
  • When from the depths of his soul he raised a cry (of supplication), the sea of Bounty began to surge.
  • Slumber overtook him in the midst of weeping: he dreamed that an old man appeared
  • And said, “Good tidings, O king! Thy prayers are granted. If to-morrow a stranger come for thee, he is from me.
  • When he comes, he is a skilled physician: deem him veracious, for he is trusty and true.
  • In his remedy behold absolute magic, in his temperament behold the might of God!” 65