The Masnavi, Book One (Oxford World's Classics)

The Jewish Vizier who Misled Christians
25

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The Christians are taken in by the vizier’s plot
A thousand Christians gradually thus converged
Around his home, where they all 
finally merged,
He’d teach them secretly, the old and youths,
365
About the gospel, prayer, and hidden truths;
Although he seemed to teach mere ordinances
He led to hidden traps his audiences:
That’s why a few Companions
* would enquire
About the self ’s tricks and its true desire,
‘Dear Prophet, tell us what’s its hidden goal
In worship and in purifying one’s soul?’
From the self ’s piety they sought no grace
But errors in its acts they sought to trace,
Its every lie they quickly learned to see,
370
To tell rose stems from sticks of celery!
Companions who knew how to scrutinize
The prophet’s sermons still would mesmerize.
The Christians follow the vizier
So all the Christians gave their hearts to him
Too ready to obey another’s whim!
Submission to him they thought piety,
Imagining he was Christ’s deputy:
He was the one-eyed Antichrist within ––
Please help us God, protector from all sin!
He’s set for us a hundred thousand traps
375
And we’re like hungry birds in search of scraps,
Each moment caught in yet another snare
Though we be phoenixes who rule the air,
You free us, but repeatedly we fall,
Entrapped, ‘O Needless One’, for you we call:
Like bringing wheat inside a farmhouse store
But at the same time losing it once more!
Why can’t we work this out now with our brains?
A mouse keeps sneaking in to steal the grains!
The Jewish Vizier who Misled Christians
26

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This mouse has dug a hole to creep inside,
380
It’s ruined every storehouse far and wide ––
Defend against the mouse 
first, that’s the plan,
Then come and gather all the wheat you can!
Now listen to the Prophet of Mankind:
‘
No prayer’s complete without a present mind.’
Tell me, If there’s none left inside your store
Then where’s the stock of forty years and more?
Why isn’t every grain of daily prayer
Still in the storehouse, since you put them there?
The anvil sent up sparks at rapid pace,
385
Impassioned hearts received them in embrace,
But then a thief crept in when it was dark
And placed his 
finger over every spark:
He put each spark out in this heart of mine
Until the heavens could no longer shine,
But even if such snares encircle me
I feel no fear when you stand next to me:
When constantly your favour gives relief
How can I fear at all that wretched thief !
Out of the human body’s trap each night
390
To serve as tablets for the truths you write:
You free our spirits from con
finement’s cage,
No longer slaves, they reach the highest stage!
Prisoners at night forget about their chains
And sultans think no more of their domains,
No loss or pro
fit, nor a moment’s stress,
About our foes one couldn’t now care less!
The mystic’s in this state while wide awake:
God said, ‘
They’re sleeping’,
* so make no mistake!
Asleep to worldly things all night and day,
395
Just like a pen, God’s hand he must obey ––
Those who don’t see the movement by His hand
Think that the pen moves by its own command.
Some clues about the mystic God’s made plain
Since sleeping also stills the simple brain:
The Jewish Vizier who Misled Christians
27

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Their souls transcend to realms beyond compare
Where souls and bodies rest without a care,
Though with a whistle He will call them home
When they’ll be judged and can no longer roam.
Once dawn’s
first light from heaven should appear
400
The golden sun would overwhelm this sphere,
Like Esra
fil, He who makes each dawn break*
Brings back all human spirits wide awake,
Inside their bodies they are trapped by day
As if the body’s pregnant in this way.
Thus he strips trappings o
ff the spirit’s steed––
‘