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2
1572-1621

  • (But) how should he perish, since the King was his soul, and his root was under the protection of God?
  • The King had become aware of those secret thoughts, (but) like Bú Bakr-i Rabábí he kept silence.
  • In (viewing) the spectacle of the hearts of (those) evil-natured ones he was clapping his hands (derisively) at those potters (schemers).
  • Some cunning people devise stratagems to get the King into a beer-jug; 1575
  • (But) a King (so) exceedingly grand and illimitable—how should He be contained in a beer jug, O asses?
  • They knitted a net for the King; (yet) after all, they (had) learnt this contrivance from Him.
  • Ill-starred is the pupil that begins rivalry with his master and comes forward (to contend with him).
  • With what master? The master of the world, to whom the manifest and the occult are alike;
  • Whose eyes have become seeing by the light of God and have rent the veils of ignorance. 1580
  • (Making) a veil of (his) heart, (which is as) full of holes as an old blanket, he (the disciple) puts it on in the presence of that Sage.
  • The veil laughs at him with a hundred mouths, every mouth having become a slit (open) to that (master). [The veil laughs at him with a hundred mouths, every mouth having become (like) a slit (vulva) in the thighs (of a woman).]
  • The master says to the disciple, "O you who are less than a dog, have you no faithfulness to me?
  • Even suppose I am not a master and an iron-breaker, suppose I am a disciple like yourself and blind of heart,
  • Have not you help in spirit and mind from me? Without me no water is set flowing for you. 1585
  • Therefore my heart is the factory of your fortune: why would you break this factory, O unrighteous one?"
  • You may say that you kindle the flame (of rivalry) against him in secret (not openly); but is there not a window between heart and heart?
  • After all, he sees your thought through the window: your heart gives testimony as to what you are meditating.
  • Suppose that, from kindness, he does not rebuke you to your face, (and that) whatever you say, he smiles and says "Yes"
  • He does not smile from pleasure at your stroking (flattering him); he smiles at that (concealed) thought of yours. 1590
  • So a deceit is paid with a deceit: strike with a cup, (and you) get struck with a jug—serve you right!
  • Were his smile at you one of approval, hundreds of thousands of flowers would blossom for you.
  • When his heart works (for you) in approval, deem it (to be) a sun entering Aries,
  • Because of whom both the day and the spring smile, and blossoms and green fields are mingled together,
  • And myriads of nightingales and ringdoves pour their song into the unplenished world. 1595
  • When you see the leaves of your spirit yellow and black; how know you not the anger of the King?
  • The King's sun, in the (zodiacal) sign of reproach, makes faces black as a piece of roasted meat.
  • Our souls are leaves for that Mercury (to write on): that white and black (writing) is our standard (criterion).
  • Again, he writes a patent in red and green, that (our) spirits may be delivered from melancholy and despair.
  • Red and green are Spring's cancellation (of winter); in regard (to their significance they are) like the (coloured) lines of the rainbow. 1600
  • How reverence for the message of Solomon, on whom be peace, was reflected in the heart of Bilqís from the despicable form of the hoopoe.
  • Hundredfold mercy be on that Bilqís to whom God gave the intellect of a hundred men!
  • A hoopoe brought the letter with the (royal) sign-manual from Solomon—a few eloquent words.
  • (When) she read those pregnant sayings, she did not look with contempt on the messenger.
  • Her body saw him as a hoopoe, (but) her spirit saw him as the ‘Anqá; her senses saw him as a fleck of foam, (but) her heart saw him as the sea.
  • Because of these two-coloured (diverse) talismans (appearance and reality) the intellect is at war with the senses, as Mohammed with the likes of Abú Jahl. 1605
  • The infidels regarded Ahmad (Mohammed) as (only) a man, since they did not see in him (the Prophetic nature which was manifested by the miracle) the moon was cleft asunder.
  • Throw dust on your sense-perceiving eye: the sensuous eye is the enemy of intellect and religion.
  • God has called the sensuous eye blind; He has said that it is an idolater and our foe,
  • Because it saw the foam and not the sea, because it saw the present and not to-morrow.
  • The master of to-morrow and of the present (is) before it; (yet) of a (whole) treasure it sees only a groat. 1610
  • (If) a mote bring a message from yonder Sun, the sun would become a slave to that mote.
  • The drop that has become an envoy from the Sea of Unity— the seven seas would be captive to that drop.
  • If a handful of earth become His courier, His heavens will lay their heads (in homage) before His earth.
  • Since the earth of Adam became God's courier, God's angels lay their heads (in worship) before His earth.
  • Wherefore (was it), pray, that heaven was rent asunder? Because of one (spiritual) eye that an earthly creature opened. 1615
  • Earth, from its grossness, settles beneath water; (but) see how earth has sped beyond the empyrean!
  • Know, then, that the subtlety (of water) is not (derived) from the water: ’tis only the gift of the Bounteous Originator.
  • If He make air and fire low (in place), and if He let the thorn surpass the rose,
  • He is the Ruler and (the One who said) God doeth what He willeth: from the very self of pain He raises the remedy.
  • If He make air and fire low (in place), and make (them assume the qualities of) darkness and grossness and heaviness, 1620
  • And if He make earth and water high (in place), and make the path of heaven (to be) traversed by foot—