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

We return to Him
* continually!
Each moment you must die and then return,
1150
‘The world is but a moment’, you’ll soon learn;
Our thought’s an arrow He’s shot from the sky,
Can it rise up again to Him on high?
Each breath the world’s renewed, though we can’t tell,
While it’s renewed, the world persists as well:
Life’s constantly renewed just like the stream,
A single mass in form though it might seem,
Its swift 
flow makes it seem continuous
Like sparklers twirling round –– it’s marvellous!
For if you spin a lit torch round and round
1155
Its
flame looks like a circle that is sound;
A stretch of time appears thus through sheer pace ––
Speed in creation covers time like space,
But scholars can’t perceive beyond the looks ––
Even Hosam, who’s read the loftiest books.
The hare reaches the lion
The lion in a rage 
first lost his patience,
Then saw the hare approaching in the distance,
Running, bold, unafraid, self-con
fident,
Angry, outraged and 
fierce in temperament––
Meekness would be in vain, the hare’d worked out,
1160
While bravery wouldn’t make the lion doubt.
The hare came nearer to the lion’s den
And heard it roar, ‘Here comes that wretch again!
I’ve torn apart the limbs of elephants
And boxed the ears of lions during hunts ––
Who does this half-wit hare think that he’s found
To wrestle with and pin down on the ground?
Continue with your heedless sleep no more,
Listen, you ass-eared beast,
* to my deep roar!’
How a Hare Killed the Tyrannical Lion
73

---

The hare’s apology
The hare cried, ‘Please hear my apology,
1165
I pray that your forgiveness pardons me!’
‘What kind of explanation do you bring
As you approach the presence of the king?
For such bad timing we’ll chop o
ff your head,
No cheap excuses do we let be said.’
A lame excuse is worse than the misdeed,
It ruins all you might have earned, take heed!
‘Hare, your excuse is bound to be absurd,
I don’t have donkeys’ ears to hear a word!’
‘This worthless wretch, king, count as someone true
1170
For tyranny’s what held me back from you,
My noble lord, show mercy please today ––
Don’t drive from here a slave who lost his way!
That ocean which 
fills up each river-bed
Bears all the 
flotsam happily on its head:
By being kind seas don’t end up with less,
They don’t decrease in spite of their largesse.’
He said, ‘I’m generous when the time is right,
I tailor cloth to 
fit each person’s height.’
The hare said, ‘If I don’t deserve your grace
1175
Before your snake-like wrath I’ll turn my face:
Since breakfast I’ve been on my way to you,
A fellow traveller made the journey too ––
The other beasts sent out another hare
To come with me, it’s safer as a pair ––
But then a lion stopped us in our tracks:
It pounced on us and gave us heart attacks!
“We are the slaves of a great king,” I warned,
“At court our disappearance would be mourned.”
He said, “Which king makes you now feel no shame
1180
Before me to recall another’s name?
You and your king I’ll tear apart like clay
If you two hares should try to run away!”
How a Hare Killed the Tyrannical Lion
74

---

I pleaded, “Let me see my king again
To tell him where we’ve been –– I’ll come back then!”
He said, “But leave your friend as guarantee,
Or you will be the sacri
fice for me!”
Although we begged him, we could not succeed,
My friend was tied up, so that I’d be freed;
My captive friend was twice as fat as me
1185
And twice as 
fine in grace and dignity.
That lion’s blocked the road since this event,
This is what happened after I was sent.
Abandon hope of more allowances,