“What Sea is that whereof the shore is speech?
What pearl from out its depths our hands can reach?”Answer X.“The Sea is Being; speech its shore; the shell
Words, and its pearls Heart's Wisdom, wot thee well.
Each wave a thousand royal pearls doth pour
Of text, tradition and prophetic lore.
Each moment thence a thousand waves are tossed,
Yet ne'er a drop therefrom is ever lost.
Knowledge is gathered from that Sea profound:
Its pearls enveloped are in words and sound.
Ideas and mysteries descending here
Need some similitude to make them clear.”Illustration.“In April's month, thus was it told to me,
The oysters upwards float in 'Ummán's sea.
Up from the depths unto the Ocean's brim
Ascending open-mouthed they shorewards swim.Mists from the sea arise and veil the land,
And then in rain dissolve by God's command.
Into each oyster-mouth a rain-drop creeps:
The shell doth close, and sinketh to the deeps.
With heart fulfilled it sinketh down again;
A pearl is formed from every drop of rain.
Into the depths himself the Diver hurls,
And to the shore brings back the lustrous pearls.
Being's the sea: the shore our human frames:
God's Grace the mist: the rain God's Holy Names:
Wisdom's the diver in this mighty deep,
Who 'neath his cloak a hundred pearls doth keep.
The Heart's the vase wherein is Wisdom found:
Heart's wisdom's shell the letters, words and sound.
The moving breath like lightning doth appear,
And thence words fall upon the hearer's ear.
Break, then, the shell: bring forth the royal pearl:
The kernel keep: the husk on ash-heap hurl.
Lexicon, grammar and philology
All these mere accidents of letters be.
Whoe'er on things like these his life doth spend
Doth waste his life without an aim or end.”
Shaykh Maḥmúd Shabistarí cannot, like so many Persian
poets, be charged with writing too much, for the Gulshan-i-
(1) The Manifestation of the Divine Essence.
(2) The Manifestation of the Divine Attributes, and the Station of Knowledge.
(3) The Manifestation of the Degrees thereof, and the explanation of the Origin.
(4) On the Necessity of the Divine Unity.
(5) On Contingent Being and Plurality.
(6) On Differentiation of movement, and the continual renovation of Differentiations.
(7) On the Philosophy of obligation, compulsion, predestination and conduct.
(8) Explaining the Return and the Resurrection, and Annihilation and Permanence.
The poet Rabí'í of Búshanj, the panegyrist of Fakhru'd-
<text in Arabic script omitted>
“When I wax cheerful with the green-hued seed *
I'm ready to bestride the heaven's green steed;
With verdant youths on lawns the green * I eat
Ere like the grass the earth on me shall feed.”<text in Arabic script omitted>
“The toper, e'en if rich, is harshly blamed,
While by his rioting the world's inflamed.In ruby casket emeralds I pour, *
And blinding snake-eyed sorrow, grieve no more.”
While in prison Rabí'í composed a poem called the Kárnáma (“Book of Deeds”) and other poems, wherein he sought but failed to move the King's pity. Of these some seventy couplets are cited in the Mujmal of Faṣíḥí, of which the following may serve as specimens:
<text in Arabic script omitted>
“The Empire's Lord, King of these realms so fair,
Prince Fakhru'd-Dín the Kurt, great Jamshíd's heir,
Had fetters fashioned for the eulprit's heel
Most strongly wrought of iron and of steel.
Therewith my feet they bound by his command:
Bow to the will of him who rules the land!
The other captives all he did set free:
Of Heaven's wheel behold the tyranny!Thus I myself in grievous fetters found,
As Ká'ús in Mázandarán was bound.
With feet in fetters, heart weighed down with care,
How long shall I in every sorrow share?
Nor men nor demons are my comrades here:
My soul cries out at such companions drear.
No heart on earth through them doth gladness feel:
Hard as their hearts no iron is, nor steel.
The Devil's but a joke when they are there;
Their pupil, only fit for blows, the bear.
Their custom is to hang, torment and bind;
Bloodshed and slaughter occupy their mind.
Their life-long work is outrage, curse and blow:
To Khaysár * and to Ghúr each year they go.
They're highland robbers all, in battle proved,
Themselves like mountains which God's power hath moved.
Ten of these wretches now control my fate:
Alas for my condition desolate!”
In another qaṣída, composed during his imprisonment, the poet says that he was thirty-one years of age at the time of writing, and that of this period he had spent seventeen years in the King's service and fourteen in the Holy Sanctuaries (Mecca and Medína):
<text in Arabic script omitted>
A third poem in the same strain and composed under the same conditions (a mathnawí in this case) is also recorded in the Mujmal, but all appeals were unavailing, and the unfortunate poet died in prison, none knows in what manner.
Humámu'd-Dín of Tabríz is another poet of this period Humám of Tabríz who merits a brief mention. According to the Mujmal he died in 714/1314, at the age of 116, while a well-known anecdote * brings him into contact with the great Sa'dí (died 690/1291), with whom he engaged in a wordy duel, not conspicuous for refinement, in which he was signally worsted. No other particulars of his life are known to me, except that he also was one of the panegyrists of the Ṣáḥib Ḍíwán. * The following specimens of his verse (which is said to have been greatly influenced by that of Sa'dí) are taken from the Haft Iqlím.
<text in Arabic script omitted>
“On the day of life's surrender I shall die desiring Thee:
I shall yield my Spirit craving of thy street the dust to be.
On the Resurrection Morning, when I raise my head from sleep,
I shall rise desiring Thee, and forth to seek for Thee shall creep.
I will smell not blooms of Eden, nor of Heavenly Gardens speak,
Nor, desiring Thee alone, shall I Celestial Houris seek.”<text in Arabic script omitted>
“When the parting from country and friends to my vision appears
The stages I tread are fulfilled with the flood of my tears.
In parting one moment, one breath like ten centuries seems:
How weary the days and the weeks and the months and the years!”<text in Arabic script omitted>
“That day of parting seemed the Day of Doom:
How were it if our friendship had been less?
Make much, then, of your friends while they are here,
For this false sphere is fraught with faithlessness.”<text in Arabic script omitted>
“Last night to tell my tale I did prepare
Unto my Friend, and forth from every hair
Flowed speech. Night passed, unended was my song;
Blame not the night; the tale was over-long!”
A good many other poets of this period, such as Afḍal-