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

How a Hare Killed the Tyrannical Lion
68

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You haven’t any broken bones –– we know!
1080
So who’re you fooling with your bandaged toe?
One su
ffered so much striving on this course
And so Boraq was sent down as his horse;
He was now borne, for faith’s demands he’d faced,
He followed orders 
first, then was embraced,
Before he’d have to meet the king’s demands
But now the army follows his commands,
Stars also used to in
fluence him then
But now he rules the stars just like his men,
If you have problems in perceiving it
1085
You’ll also doubt the fact 
the moon was split,
*
Revive your faith, but not just with your tongue,
Secretly to your lusts why have you clung?
When lusts are fresh, faith can’t be any more,
Lust is the very key that locks the door!
Now you are judging God’s inviolate word ––
Examine your own soul, not truths you’ve heard!
Since you read through desire the Holy Verse
You make its meaning wretched and perverse!
On the shallow interpretation of the 
fly
A
fly in donkey’s urine, perched on straw,
1090
Just like a boatman gazing at the shore,
Said, ‘Straw and urine are my boat and sea,
I’ve contemplated this fact recently:
I’m in the sea, the captain of my boat,
Following maps and methods learned by rote.’
In urine it would steer its straw-made raft
As if in boundless seas, for it was daft:
It thought a single drop could stretch so far
Unable to observe things as they are,
Its world stretched out as far it could view,
1095
Small eyes count as a sea a drop or two!
Narrow interpreters are like this 
fly,
With straw and urine they all falsify,
How a Hare Killed the Tyrannical Lion
69

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If you stop reading from your own small view,
The phoenix will grant kingdoms then to you!
Still, those who’ve worked this out aren’t really 
flies,
Spirits don’t correspond to body-size:
The lion roars loudly because the hare arrives late
Like that brave hare the lion had thought tame
Whose soul was not restricted by his frame.
The lion roared, ‘Through my own ears my foes
1100
Have blinded me: they’ve dealt such vicious blows!
I’ve been bound by those fatalists’ vile plots,
With wooden weapons too they’ve taken shots!
No longer will I listen to their word,
They’re screams that from the ghouls too can be heard!
Just tear them up, O heart, don’t be led on,
And skin them for they’ve nothing once that’s gone!’
What’s skin? The specious words which lead astray!
Like ripples on the tide they fade away.
The meaning’s
flesh, while speech is just the shell––
1105
Like form in contrast to the soul as well.
The rotten kernels can’t be seen through skin,
Nor good ones, for skin hides its pride within.
When water is the pad and wind the pen
The words you write will soon be gone again,
They’re etched on waves; if you seek constancy
You’ll be dissatis
fied by what you see!
Renounce lust’s breath, which 
fills you to the brim,
And wind will bring you messages from Him.
God’s messages are always sweet and pure
1110
Because throughout they always will endure:
All rulers’ glories and their sermon-praise
*
Must pass, but not the prophets’ perfect ways,
While pomp of kings comes from their own desire
By God the prophets are admitted higher,
How a Hare Killed the Tyrannical Lion
70

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The names of kings are scraped o
ff coins in days
But Ahmad’s name no coiner can erase!
His name contains the whole prophetic line
The way that ten includes one through to nine.