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

you back on the path, what does it matter whether it is in
fidelity
or faith? If something leads you far from the beloved, what does
it matter whether it is ugly or beautiful?’ On the meaning of the
Prophet’s words: ‘Sa
d is truly jealous,* and I am more jealous
than Sa
d, while God, who is even more jealous than me, has
forbidden inward as well as outward foul deeds because of
His jealousy.’
The whole world’s jealous, for God’s jealousy
Surpasses that of all humanity:
He’s like the soul, the world’s His body-frame
Which must accept from Him all things the same.
If someone’s prayer-niche faces certainty
1775
To turn around to faith is treachery:
If you’re now waiting on the king, you’ll lose
If travelling o
ff to trade instead you choose,
If those now with the sultan later must
Wait at the gate, they’ll scream that it’s unjust!
He’s brought his hands, so with your lips they’ll meet ––
It’s sinful now to choose to kiss his feet:
Lowering your head down humbly in this case
Is a mistake for which you’ll earn disgrace!
The king grows jealous if an onlooker
1780
His perfume to his proud face should prefer,
God’s jealousy’s like wheat in metaphor,
Man’s jealousy is thus a stack of straw,
God is the root of every jealousy,
Including envy plaguing you and me.
I’ll stop explaining, so I can complain
Of that much-worshipped beauty’s gift of pain,
Because it pleases Him I wail and moan,
The two worlds must wail too, I’m not alone;
How can I not complain when things are hard,
1785
When from His drunkards’ circle I’ve been barred ––
The Escape of the Merchant’s Parrot
110

---

Without His day I can’t stop being night,
Of His bright face I still have not caught sight!
Unpleasantness from Him my soul thinks nice,
My spirit longs to be His sacri
fice,
I am in love with all my pain and grief
To please my peerless king who brings relief !
My grief’s dust I’ve dabbed round my ocean eyes
So they’ll produce a pearl of massive size:
They’re pearls not tears which we cry for His sake,
1790
If people think they’re tears that’s their mistake!
I moaned about the essence of our soul,
But I don’t moan –– transmitting is my role:
My heart says, ‘The Beloved tortured me!’
I laugh at its lack of sincerity!
‘Do good, O pride of good men,’ I implore,
You’re on your throne, I’m waiting at the door.
What’s throne and threshold in reality,
What meaning have such terms as ‘I’ and ‘we’?
O You whose soul has 
fled these and lives free,
1795
Each man and woman’s spirit’s subtlety ––
When man and woman join, You are that ‘one’,
And when one is e
ffaced You are that ‘none’!
You made these I’s and we’s so You could play
The backgammon of worship every day,
So all these I’s and we’s can 
finally merge,
In their Beloved totally submerge.
Bring here the order ‘
Be!’
* for only You
Transcend all speech and all our wishes too.
The body thinks that You are one as well,
1800
Your grief and laughter it thinks it can tell ––
A heart that’s bound by joy and misery
Does not deserve to see You properly;
Those trapped in misery and laughter’s snare
All live dependent on such borrowed ware.
Love’s blooming garden which lives evermore
Apart from joy and grief has fruits galore ––
Being a lover is beyond this pair,
Fresh always, in both spring and autumn air.
The Escape of the Merchant’s Parrot
111

---

Pay tax on Your fair face,
* light of my heart,
1805
And speak about the soul that’s torn apart,
For teasing glances from this expert 
flirt
Has branded this big heart inside my shirt;
I let Him shed my blood, and then I say
‘It’s lawful for You’, but He runs away,
Since from all men’s laments You thus depart
Why 
fill with grief each tired and aching heart?
While each dawn sends out from the East its light,
You are its source, full, shimmering and bright.
Your frenzied lover how can You dismiss,
1810
You whose sweet lips for no sum grant a kiss!
To an old world a soul You can provide,
I therefore wail I have no soul inside ––
Stop talking of the rose, describe for me
The nightingale which must live separately:
Our fervour does not come from joy or grief,
Our consciousness is not a false belief,
It’s di
fferent, very rare and valuable––
Don’t say it can’t be, God is capable!
On someone’s humble state please don’t decide,
1815
With doing good do not be satis
fied:
Good, evil, joy, and grief are transient states
Which die and leave to God all their estates!
It’s dawn, Our Refuge, who 
fills dawn with light,
Please make Hosam forgive it took all night
*––
To grant forgiveness to us is Your role,
The coral’s splendour, You’re the whole world’s soul!
Dawn’s spread its light, now through the rays You shine
We sit and drink Mansur’s most potent wine
*––
Since Your kind gift makes me experience this
1820
What need have I for earth’s wine to feel bliss!
Compared with ours, wine has no strength at all,
Compared with our expansions heaven’s small,
All wine gets drunk through us, not us through it,
Our form lives for us, not the opposite: