2. The simoom of the field of love possesses so inebriating a power, that the lame wanderer thinks it sublime transport to travel on such a road.
3. The ship of love alone is a true resting place; step out of it, and thou art surrounded by the stormy sea and its monsters.
4. Tell me which song makes the greatest impression on thy heart, so that I may utter my plaint in the same melody.
He is of Turkish extraction and belongs to the Bayát tribe. The prophet Khizr appeared to him, and a divine light filled him. He renounced the world and became a water-carrier.
1. I have broken the foundation of austerity, to see what would come of it; I have been sitting in the bazar of ignominy [love], to see what would come of it.
2. I have wickedly spent a lifetime in the street of the hermits; now I am a profligate, a wine-bibber, a drunkard, to see what will come of it.
3. People have sometimes counted me among the pious, sometimes among the licentious; whatever they call me I am, to see what will come of it.
His name is Shaikh Ya'qúb. He is well acquainted with all branches of poetry and with various sciences. He knows well the excellent writings of Ibn 'Arab, has travelled a good deal, and has thus become acquainted with many saints. He obtained higher knowledge under Shaikh Husain of Khwárazm, and received from him permission to guide others.
He stole from my heart all patience, and then took the whole mad heart itself; my thief stole the house with its whole furniture.
The weakness of the body has brought the love-sick man into a strange position: from weakness he can no longer bear the weight of recovery.
He was born in Kábul. Once he slept in the bedroom of Amír Khusrau, when the shining figure of an old man with a staff in his hand awoke him and ordered him to compose a poem. As he had no power of doing so, he took the whole for a vision, and lay down in another place; but the same figure woke him up, and repeated the order. The first verse that he uttered is the following—
When I am far from thee, my tears turn gradually into an ocean. Come and see, enter the ship of my eye and make a trip on the ocean.*
My sweetheart saw the scroll of my faith, and burnt my sad heart, so that no one afterwards might read its contents.*
1. I have no need to explain him my condition; for my heart, if really burning, will leave a trace behind.
2. Weakness has overpowered me, and my heart has sunk under its sorrow. Who shall now inform him of my wretched state?
I went to his street, and whilst I was there, a thorn entered deep into the foot of my heart. Thanks be to God that I have now a reason for staying in it!
1. Hindústán is a field of sugar-cane, its parrots are sugar-sellers.
2. Its flies are like the darlings of the country, wearing the chírah and the ṭakauchiah.*
His name is Muhammad Mírak. He traces his descent from Nizám ulmulk of Ṭús.
Men without feeling tell me to use my hand and catch hold of his garment. If I had a hand [i. e. if I had the opportunity], I would tear my collar to pieces.
There are many reasons why I should be dead, and yet I am alive. O grief! thy forbearance has made me quite ashamed of myself.
I told him [the beautiful boy] my grief, he paid no heed. Oh, did you ever see such misery! I wept, he laughed—Oh, did you ever see such contempt!
My life is in his hand. It is quite clear, Çálih, that even the falcon Death sits tame on his hand.
He made poems from his early youth, and lived long in 'Iráq. From living ṭogether with good people, he acquired excellent habits.
1. I cannot understand the secret of Salmá's beauty; for the more you behold it, the greater becomes your desire.
2. What friendly look lay in Lailí's eyes, that Majnún shut his eyes to friends and strangers?
I admire the looking-glass which reflects my sweetheart standing on a flower-bed,* although he is inside his house.
The good fortune of thy beauty has caused thy affairs to prosper; else thou wouldst not have known how to manage matters successfully.
1. Like a tail I follow my own selfish heart. Though the road is not bad, I make myself footsore.
2. Though I break through a hundred screens, I cannot step out of myself; I wander over a hundred stages, and am still at the old place.
I am a tulip of Sinai, and not like the stem-born flower. I cast flames over the slit of my collar instead of hemming it.*
He of whom my eye makes light, appears to heaven dull and heavy.
His name is Mughís. He tries to change the four mud walls of this worldly life into stone walls, and is intoxicated with the scent of freedom.
1. Once I did not know burning sorrow, I did not know the sighs of a sad heart.
2. Love has now left neither name nor trace of me—I never thought, Love, that thou art so.
1. You said that my condition was low from love-grief. A cup! bring me a cup! for my heart is stagnant.
2. Be ashamed of thyself, be ashamed! Which is the cup and which is the wine that has inebriated the nightingale?
1. O Mahwí, beckon to a friend, and ring the bell of the carawan.
2. The stage is yet far and the night is near. O thou who hast fettered thy own foot, lift up thy foot and proceed!
1. A single lover requires hundreds of experiences, hundreds of wisdoms, and hundreds of understandings.
2. Thy luck is excellent, go away: love is a place where misery is required.
1. O Mahwí, do not sing a song of the passion of thy heart, do not knock at the door of a single house in the street.
2. Thou hast seen this strange world, beware of speaking of a friend.
He is poor and has few wants, and lives content with his indigence.
My dealer in roses wishes to take his roses to the bazar, but he ought first to learn to bear the noisy crowd of the buyers.
I am shut out from the road that leads to the Ka'bah, else I would gladly wound the sole of my feet with the thorns of its acacias.*
I have no eye for the world, should it even lie before my feet; he who takes care of the end, looks behind himself.
That which I desire* is too high to be obtained by stooping down. O that I could find myself lying before my own feet!
His name is Núruddín. He is a man of keen understanding and of lofty thoughts. A curious monomania seized him: he looked upon his elder brother, the doctor Abulfath, as the personification of the world, and the doctor Humám as the man who represents the life to come, for which reason he kept aloof from them.
The longer the grief of separation lasts, the gladder I am; for like a stranger I can again and again make his acquaintance.
I doubt Death's power; but an arrow from thy eye has pierced me, and it is this arrow alone that will kill me, even if I were to live another hundred years.
He [the beautiful boy] must have been last night away from home; for I looked at his door and the walls of his house, but had no pleasure from looking.
If in that hour, when I tear the hood of my life, I should get hold, what God forbid, of Thy collar, I would tear it to pieces.
I envy the fate of those who, on the last day, enter hell; for they sit patiently within the fire.*
My madness and ecstacy do not arise from nightly wine; the burning of divine love is to be found in no house.
1. O heart! when I am in love, do not vex me with the jealousy of the watchman; thou hast made me lose my faith [Islám], do not speak ill of my Brahmanical thread.*
2. To be far from the bliss of non-existence seems death to him who has experienced the troubles of existence. O Lord! do not wake me up on the day of resurrection from the sleep of non-existence.