From The Bustan (or Bostam,)Chapter III: On Love
Oh happy the time of those distraught in love of Him,
Whether they experience the wound (of separation) or the plaster (of propinquity to Him)!
Beggars from royalty fleeing;
In the hope of union with Him, in beggary, longsuffering.
Time to time they drink the wine of pain (of love for Him);
And if they consider it bitter, they draw breath (are patient).
In the pleasure of wine there is the evil of headsickness;
The thorn is the armorbearer of the rosebranch.
Patience which is in remembrance of Him is not bitter;
For bitterness from a friend's hand is sugar.
His captive desires not release from bonds;
His prey seeks not freedom from the snare.
Sultans of retirement, beggars of Hai!
Stages of God recognizer, foottrace lost.
Intoxicated with the love of the friend (God), reproach enduring;
The camel, intoxicated, more easily bears the load.
How may people find the path to their state?
For, like the water of life, they are in darkness.
Like the holy house (Jerusalem) within--full of towers (pomp);
Withoutthe wall left desolate.
Mothlike, they set fire to themselves;
Silkwormlike, they spin not on themselves a protection.
Mistress in embrace--mistressseeking;
On the streambank, lip dry with thirst.
I say not that as to water they are powerless;
But they are, on the Nile, dropsical.
The love of one, like thyself--of water and clay--
Ravishes patience and heartsease.
In wakefulness--enamored of her cheek and mole;
In sleep--footbound, in thought of her.
In truth, thou places thy head at her feet, in such a way
That thou consider the world, in comparison with her existence, nonexistent.
When thy gold comes not to the eye (of approval) of thy mistress,
Gold and dust appear to thee the same.
To thee--desire for another appears not;
For with her--place for another remains not.
Thou says: "Her lodging is within my eye";
And if thou closest together the eye-- "It is in my heart."
Neither thought of any one, lest thou shouldst become disgraced,
Nor power that thou shouldst, for a moment, become patient.
If she desires thy life, thou places it on the palm of her hand;
And if she puts the sharp sword on thy head, thou places thy head in submission.
When love, whose foundation is on desire,
Is to such a degree tumultexciting and commandissuing,
Hast thou wonder at the travelers of the path of God
That they should be immersed in the sea of truth--
In passion for the Beloved, with soul engaged;
In remembrance of the Friend (God), careless of the world?
In memory of God, they have fed from the world;
So intoxicated with the splendor of the Cupbearer (God) that they have spilled the wine!
It is impossible to effect their cure with medicine;
For none is acquainted with their pain (of love).
From eternity without beginning, to their ear comes: "Am I not your God?"
With clamor, in a shout, they utter: "Yes!"
A crowd--officeholding, cornersitting;
Feet clayey, breath fiery--
Pluck up, with a shout, a mountain from its place;
Keep together, with a cry, a city:
Are windlike, invisible, and swiftmoving;
Are stonelike, silent, but praiseuttering.
In the morning, they weep to such a degree that the water
Washes down from their eyes the collyrium of sleep.
Steed of the body slain, with the great austerity with which they have urged the night;
In the morning, shouting, saying: "They are wearied!"
Night and day, in the sea of frenzy and burning;
From perturbation they know not night from day.
So enamored of the splendor of the figurepainter (God)
That they have no occupation with the beauty of the outward form.
The pious ones gave not their hearts to the covering;
And if a fool gave--he is brainless and fleshless.
That one drank the pure wine of the Unity of God,
Who forgot this world and the next.
I have heard that once upon a time one, beggarborn,
Had affection for one kingborn.
He went, and cherished a vain desire;
Imagination plunged its teeth in desire.
Milestone like, he used not to be free (absent) from his (the prince's) plain;
Bishoplike, at all times, at the side of his horse.
His heart became blood, and the secret remained in his heart;
But his feet, through weeping, remained in the mire of desire.
The guards obtained intelligence of his grief;
They said to him: "Wander not again here!"
A moment, he went; recollection of the friend's face came to him;
Again he pitched his tent, at the head of his friend's street.
A slave broke his head, and hand, and foot,
Saying: "Said we not once to theecome not here?"
Again to him patience and rest remained not;
On account of his friend's face, patience remained not.
Like flies from off the sugar, with violence him
They used to drive away; but with speed he used to return.
One said to him: "Oh, impudent one of insane appearance!
Thou hast wonderful patience as to blows of stick and stone."
He said: "This violence against me is through his tyranny;
It is not proper to complain of a friend's hand.
"Behold, I express the breath of friendship
If he holds me friend; or, if enemy,
"Expect not, without him, patience from me;
Nay--even with him, repose has no possibility.
"Neither the power of patience, nor room for anger;
Neither the possibility of being (stopping), nor the foot of flight.
"Say not--turn aside the head from this door of the court;
Though he place my head, like a tentpeg in the tentrope.
"Nay--the moth, life given at its friend's foot,
Is better than alive in its dark corner."
He said: "If thou shouldst suffer the wound of his club?"
He replied: "I will fall at his feet, balllike."
He said: "If, with the sword, he cuts off thy head?"
He replied: "This much even I grudge not.
"To me--indeed, there is not so much knowledge--
Whether the crown or the axe be at my head.
"Display not reproof with me impatient;
For patience appears not in love.
"If my eye becomes white like Yakub,
I abandon not hope of seeing Yusuf.
"One who is happy with another
Is not vexed with him for every little thing."
One day the youth kissed the prince's stirrup;
He became angry; and turned the rein from him.
He laughed, and said: "Turn not the rein;
For the Sultan turns not away the rein from any.
"To me--by thy existence, existence remains not;
To me--in memory of thee, selfworshiping remains not.
"If thou observes a crime, reproach me not:
Thou art head brought forth from my collar (of existence) .
"I fixed my hand in thy stirrup with that boldness;
For I brought not myself in the account.
"I drew the pen on my own name;
Placed my foot on the head of my own desire.
"The arrow of that intoxicated eye slays me indeed;
What need that thou should bring thy hand to the sword!
"Set fire to the reed, and pass;
So that in the forest neither dry nor green thing may remain."
I have heard that at the chanting of a singer
One of Pari face began to dance.
From the fire of the distracted hearts around her
A candleflame caught in her skirt.
She became troubled in heart and vexed;
One of her lovers said: "What fear?
"Oh love! as to thee--the fire burned the skirt;
As to me--it burned, all at once, the harvest (of existence)."
If thou art a lover, express not a breath about thyself;
For it is infidelity to speak of lover and one's self.
I recollect hearing from a knowing old man in this way,
That one, distraught with love, turned his head to the desert.
The father, through separation from him, neither ate nor slept;
They reproached the son; he said:
"From that time, when Friend called me one of his own,
Further love for any one remained not to me.
"By God! when He showed me His beauty,
Whatever else I beheld appeared to me fancy."
He who turned away from the people became not lost;
For he found again his own lost one (God).
There are beneath the sky shunners of men,
Whom one can call, at once, wild beast and also angel.
Like the angel, they rest not from remembering the King (God);
Like the wild beast they, night and day, shun men.
Strong of arm (by spirituality); but short of hand (by materiality);
Wiseoutwardly mad; sensibleoutwardly intoxicated.
Sometimes tranquil in a corner, religious habitstitching;
Sometimes perplexed in society, religious habitburning.
Neither passion as to themselves; nor solicitude for any one;
Nor place for any one, in the cell of their unitarianism.
Perturbed of reason, confused of sense;
Earstuffed to the word of the adviser.
The duck will not become drowned in the river (of lust);
The samundar! what knows he of the torment of burning?
Empty of hand, men of full stomach (proud);
Desert wanderers, without a Kafila:
They have no expectation of the people's approbation;
For they are approved of God; and that is enough.
Dear ones of God concealed from the people's eye;
Not those waistcordpossessing, clothed in the habit of the dervish.
They are full of fruit, and shady, vinelike;
Are not like us--of black deeds, and blue garmentdyers.
Head plunged in themselves (in reflection), oysterlike;
Not foam (on mouth) gathered, riverlike.
If wisdom be thy friend, be afraid of them (those foam-gathered);
For they are demons in the garb of men.
They are not men indeed of bone and skin;
A true soul is not in every form.
The Sultan (God) is not the purchaser of every slave;
Not beneath every religious garment is there a living man.
If every drop of hail had become a pearl,
The bazaar would have become full of them like small shells.
A person said to a moth: "Oh contemptible one!
Go; take a friend suitable to thyself,
"Go on such a path, that thou mayst see the way of hope;
Thou, and the love of the candle is from where to where?
"Thou art not the samundar; circle not around the fire;
For, manliness is first necessary for man, then conflict.
"The blind mouse (bat) goes hidden from the sun;
For force is foolish against an iron grasp.
"The person whom thou knowest to be thy enemy,
To take for a friend is not the part of wisdom."
No one says to thee: "Thou dost do good
When thou places thy life in the desire of his love.
"The beggar who, of a king, asked (in marriage) for his daughter,
Suffered pushing on the back of his head, and nurtured a vain passion.
"How may she bring into reckoning a lover like thee,
For the faces of kings and sultans are toward her?
"Think not that, in such an assembly, she
Will exercise courtesy to a poor one like thee.
"Or if she practice gentleness toward the whole creation--
Thou art a helpless one--she will exercise severity to thee."
Behold! the ardent moth what it said:
"Oh wonderdisplayer! if I burn, what fear?
"Like Ibrahim, a fire of love is in my heart,
That thou mayst consider this candledame is to me a rose.
"My heart draws not the skirt of the ravishing one (the candle);
But its love draws the collar of my soul.
"Voluntarily I take not myself to the fire;
But the chain of love is about my neck.
"Even so, I was far, when it burned me;
Not this moment, when the fire of love kindled in me.
"A beloved one, in regard to loveliness, does not do that,
That one can speak to her of continence.
"Who reproaches me for love of the friend,
When, slain at the friend's foot, I am content?
"Knowest thou why I have a lust for destruction,
When it (the candle) is, if I am notit is proper.
" I will burn because it is the approved beloved,
In whom, the burning of the friend (the moth) makes circulation.
"How long speakest thou to me, saying: "Suitable to thyself
Get a companion, compassionate to thyself'"
Nimrod threw Ibrahim, or Abraham, into the fire.
God made the fire a rosegarden for Ibrahim's sake.
"Admonition to that one of distraught state is as if
Thou shouldst say to one scorpionbitten--lament not!
"Oh, astonished one! utter not advice to that person
In whom thou knowest that it will take no effect.
"To the helpless one, reingone from the hand,
They say not: 'O boy! urge slowly.'"
How pleasantly occurred this witticism in the book
Sindbad: "O son! love is fire; advice, wind."
The fierce fire, by the wind, becomes more lofty;
The panther, by striking, becomes more angry.
When I saw, thoroughly thou doest evil
That thou places my face opposite to one like thyself.
Seek one better than thyself, and reckon it gain;
For, with one like thyself, thou loses time.
The selfworshipers go in pursuit of such as themselves;
Those intoxicated of God go in a dangerous street (of love).
When I first possessed desire for this work,
I took up, at once, my heart from desire (of life).
One headcasting is true as a lover;
For one of whiteliver is the lover of himself.
Death, in ambush, suddenly slays me;
It is better, indeed, that the delicate one should slay me.
When, doubtless, destruction is written on my head,
Destruction is most pleasant by the hand of the beloved.
Dost thou not, one day, in helplessness, yield the soul?
Then it is best thou surrender it at the feet of the beloved.
One night I recollect that my eyes slept not;
I heard that a moth spoke to a candle,
Saying: "I am a lover; if I burn, it is lawful,
Wherefore is thy weeping and burning?"
It replied: "Oh, my poor lover!
Honey (wax), my sweet friend, has departed from me.
"When sweetness (wax) goes away from me,
Like (the statuary) Farhad, fire goes to my head."
The candle kept speaking--and every moment a torrent of grief
Ran down on its yellow cheeks--
Saying: "Oh claimant! love is not thy business;
For thou hast neither patience nor the power of standing.
"Thou dost fly from before a naked flame;
I am standing until I completely burn.
"If the fire of love burns my feathers,
Behold me, whom it burns from head to foot.
"Observe not my splendor, assemblyilluminating;
Consider the heat and torrent of my heartburning.
"Like Sadi, whose outward form is illuminated;
But, if thou look, his vitals are burned."
A portion of the night, even so, had not passed,
When one of Pariface suddenly extinguished it.
While its smoke rose to its head, it kept saying:
"Oh, son! this is indeed the end of love!"
This is the way of God, if thou wilt learn;
By being slain, thou wilt obtain ease from the burning (of love) .
Make not lamentation over the grave of one slain by the friend;
Say: "Praise be to God! that he is accepted by Him."
If thou art a lover, wash not the hand of sickness (of love).
Wash the hand, like Sadi, of worldly design.
The one who sacrifices his life keeps not his hand from his object,
Though they rain arrow and stone on his head.
I said to thee, "Beware; go not to the ocean;
But if thou goest, entrust thy body to the storm."
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