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

Now that I’ve begged, please lead me to decide
That wealth and knowledge don’t deserve our pride;
Don’t let a heart you’ve blessed now go astray!
*
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Make evil fates decreed now fade away!
Please spare our souls from meeting wretched ends,
Don’t separate us from pure-hearted friends.
There’s nothing worse than life apart from You,
Filled with anxiety, and helpless too.’
Our worldly goods steal what is spiritual,
Our body likewise strips our precious soul:
Our own hands broke our legs –– if not for You
To save their souls what can mere humans do!
If he should save his soul from dangers here
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He will have stopped calamity and fear,
For if the soul’s deprived of unity
It blindly mourns alone eternally ––
Since You won’t grant admission though he tries
To save his soul, that exiled lover dies.
Call heaven and God’s Throne contemptible,
Say seas and mines are poor and miserable ––
Compared with Your perfection that’s correct
For transitory things You can perfect.
Why Ali Dropped his Sword in Battle
237

---

If You should curse Your slaves, You have the right,
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For You that’s
fine, successful source of light!
The sun and moon You can call worthless things
And say that cypress trees are bent like springs,
From non-existence and from harm You’re free,
To non-existence You grant strength to Be:
Shedding is known by those who cause to grow,
Since those who tear know also how to sew.
Each autumn He makes gardens disappear
Then causes glorious roses to grow here,
Saying: ‘You’d withered; come back fresh and bright!
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Bloom beautifully and 
fill men with delight!’
Once the narcissus’ eye went blind, He then
Healed it; a broken reed He 
fixed again.
We’re not the Maker but the objects made,
Content though weak –– this is the way we’ve stayed,
Saying: ‘
Myself! Myself! ’
* repeatedly;
We’d all be demons if You should decree.
Escape from demons due to this we 
find:
You have redeemed our souls from being blind;
You show the way to all who are alive ––
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Without their sticks how can the blind survive!
Whatever’s sweet or bitter, all but You,
Burns humans up and is 
fire’s essence too,
Whoever’s refuge and support’s a 
flame
As Zoroastrians has become the same,
*
For 
everything but God is foul and vain;
God’s grace is that cloud which pours down much rain.
Resumption of the story about Ali and his leniency
towards his own killer
Think of Ali and his vile murderer,
The kindness he showed his inferior:
He said, ‘I see my foe by day and night
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But I nurse no bad feelings, nor feel spite,
For, just like manna, death to me tastes sweet
Since Resurrection’s what I’m bound to meet.’
Why Ali Dropped his Sword in Battle
238

---

This deathless death is lawful for us now,
Lack of provisions feeds us anyhow:
Though it may look like death on the outside
There’s life through which we will live on inside,
As birth for foetuses seems like death too
Though in the world they are thus born anew.
Because I yearn for death so eagerly
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‘
Don’t cause yourself to perish’
* speaks to me:
We all know sweet fruit’s banned, and we take heed
But to ban bitter fruit there is no need;
This berry with sour skin and 
flesh you see
Is banned for sourness and dishonesty,
The fruit of death though tastes sweet once it’s peeled ––
For me ‘