Muntakhab al-tawarikh 363: A Masnavi
Muntakhabu-t-tawārīkh (Ranking, Lowe, Haig) 363
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A Masnavi
363.1
“Whilst thou art far from me, O moon that illuminest my heart, I sleep not at night and have no ease during the day, My tears, rose red with blood, trickle adown my cheek Like tulips blooming in a field of saffron, My eyelashes are tinged with the blood of my heart Like branches of red coral showing their heads above the ocean. I, like the serpent of the Speaker, “ will overpower him in a minute.” He wrote the following couplet in praise of the prophet: “The seal of thy finality has broken the seals of old And has introduced in its device a new and fresh design.” The following verses are selected from one of his poems concerning one of the great ones among those of our kind, ingenious in oppression: — “How long wilt thou boast saying, ‘In magic I am a Samiri, a Samiri, a Samiri’ ? Every breath of mine is one of the miracles of ‘Isa, A flame of light from the bush of Moses. In eloquence I am the phoenix of the age, The teacher of all the eloquent. Each breath of mine deprives magic itself of patience (in enduring its inferiority). Each speech of mine is magic that would deceive angels. I am the king of the kingdom of omniscience, I am the wise man of the region of sublime realities; I am the jeweller who values the chain of rhetoric, I am the assayer of the coin of eloquence. All this am I. To-day, in this contest, Thou dost but take a flame of fire on thy tongue.
363.2
Boast not that thou art the discoverer of spiritual truths, Thou art no candle, let not the machinery of thy tongue be too well greased. O thou who art formed of flame, of jewels of fine water, I believe in the day of resurrection, and in the resurrection of the dead, I am hopeful of Paradise, of houris, and of Kausar. O envious one, glance not towards me with contempt Although in outward semblance I may appear contemptible. I am a fierce flame, pass not near me; Since thou art not the Friend, set not thy foot on my fire. Under my seal is the face of the whole earth: I in this age am like the seal with my head hidden within the collar of my robe. From east to west I am tempered with perfection, From pole to pole I am the axis of every country. The convex surface of the sky of excellence, even in the eyes of my enemy, Will never fit the concave surface which is bounded by my eye. Though I dwell on the earth like an imaginary point I am still the centre round which the spherical sky revolves. The hand of fate has drawn, with the compass of time, The circles of the seven heavens around my body. Although I am less than the fixed point which is the centre I am nevertheless more boundless than the circumference. If my enemy performs a thousand of the magical tricks of Samiri The cypress whose head brushes the sky, Is void of all flavour of fruit. Why all this vaunting of thine own eloquence? Why all this ridicule of a heart-broken one like me?
363.3
If I from shame open not my mouth Do not attribute my silence to folly. My breast does not contain a stone as does a ripe date, I am like the oyster-shell, full of pearls, but close my lips. If I release my tongue from its bonds The eloquent will refrain from opening their lips. Do not cast gibes at me as Satan did at Adam. Consider my state and refrain from speech. I am a Samiri, and can, by the power of my spells And magical power, bring into existence a puppet form. I can throw Venus and the moon into turmoil, I can throw Harut’s magic scroll into his well. I am all this, — a magician who is magic’s self, From whose words magic has been spread abroad. I, who am famous for my words of magic, Am myself the sky, the moon, and Venus. Samiris are in every curl of my hair, Babylons are in the well of my magic.
363.4
"Make no boast: since thou hast not even dust in thy pouch Although thy mind has knocked at the door of sense So now conceit has fallen on our ears That which thou sayest has been said by others, The pearls which thou stringest have been strung by others For the house of verse which thou hast adorned Thou hast borrowed both the water and the clay from others The painted ceiling which is in this house Has its colours from a stranger's pencil Thy wit is like that of a gardener Who lays out his garden with plants taken from others The verdure in that garden is from another lawn, Each beautiful flower that blooms there is from another garden Each bud of it, though it be life-cherishing Is sprung from the heart's blood of another than thee The unfruitful willow which rears its head Has drawn its leaves from that seed already decorated with designs of trees! Its freshness is from no rain which thou hast bestowed on it, But is from the sweat of the brow of thy friends How long wilt thou burn with desire for the money of others? How long wilt thou glue thy eyes to the property of others? Collect not the cash of those who foster eloquence, Fill not thy pouch with the gold of others Turn thy thoughts from the drink of others, Drink water from thine own fountain If thou be Khizr, where is thy water of life? If thou be sugarcane, where is thy sweet branch? Like a date palm thou raisest thy head to the sky But thou givest no fruit but dry date stones
363.5
He Faizi merely sowed the seed which had been raised by others whose mind is the astrolabe of the astronomers of the Path nimbly represent to those who are admitted to his heavenly assembly, that gathering where angels sit, swearing by God and by the honour of God (He is blessed and exalted !), that by the blessing of the consideration which has been bestowed by that incomparable and unequalled Being on the leisure time of this humble one, by asking him to collect his scattered scribblings, I desire to give a hundred praises for the favour which he has shown to me. I am writing for his servants two fragments, one of prose composition, and the other of masnavis, et caetera, and have half finished the work. Please God, I shall pack them up and despatch them to-morrow or the day after. For the present I have sent several couplets from that masnavi in the opening couplet of which the hemistich, ‘I am a Samiri, a Samiri, a Samiri,’ occurs. Pray be pleased to correct it and to set aside what may be fit for reproduction. May you remain in health.” Among his letters was the following regarding the emperor’s seal with its die containing the names of his majesty’s great ancestors as far as the lord of the (fortunate) conjunction (Timur), which he wrote and sent to me.
363.6
“O outstripper of the swift runners of the subtleties of sciences in difficulties arising in the assemblies of the noble and the learned, shooter of the arrows of boundless knowledge from the bows of perfections against the globes of the hearts of high and low, striker of the disavowing ordinances with the swords of brilliant proofs, and opener of the doors of the obscurities of truths with the keys of convincing arguments; how art thou in this age, on every day of which people of penetration have known the signification of ‘on that day shall a man fly from his brother and his mother and his father?’ Verily the object of the gaze of the aspirations The wealth which springs from this work is mine, to my heart’s desire, The coin of this kingdom is struck in my name. Learn from my speech the beauties of style. Have no false shame, lay hold of a master’s skirt. He who comes as a true disciple to his master Gathers in both worlds the treasure of happiness. Not one line of thy verse is correct, Thy verses are the laughing-stock of the eloquent. Although nobody has told thee this to thy face And nobody takes up thy faults before thee, Yet thy detractors, in thy absence, Delight the meetings of eloquent men; When thy verses are quoted among them They pick out thy errors one by one. They praise thy poetry to thy face And curse and abuse thee behind thy back.
363.7
Thou art a friend of none and hast none for thy friend, Thou hast, alas, no bosom friend to sympathize with thee, To show thee what thy faults are Or what it is (in thy verse) that thy auditors criticize.” When I was writing this memoir and asked Nishānī for some of his verses as a memorial of him he wrote me the following letter:— “Having made the jewels of the mines of holy poverty and humility and the gems of the oceans of despondency and restlessness, which the jewellers of the workshop of yearning and the ocean rangers of the handicraft of taste have washed with the limpid water of sincerity and threaded on the string of supplication, a sacrifice to the joy-giving footsteps of that incomparable one of this age, that miracle of the mercy of Providence, whose heart, with its knowledge of hidden mysteries, is as a world-displaying cup to prudent searchers after truth, and the mirror , shall I complain of the power of the spells of this old enchanter sitting on a throne, wearing a patched robe, and turning round lofty temples, who has, by the power of his magical incantations, brought the whole universe, from the fish to the moon, into his blue glass bottle, and, having closed the mouth of that bottle with wax from the candle of the moon, has sealed it with so many thousand seals that the foot of flight has no power to step from within it, and there is no hope of the hand of any helper from without reaching those within ?
363.8
I have uttered many cries but no one comes to my assistance. It is as though there were nobody in this turquoise vault. Perforce, therefore, I remain in the bonds forged for me from eternity, and place my head on the threshold of discipleship. And, since the country and the king are alike in this condition in relation to fate, it is evident that mankind in general, much less a solitary individual, can have but little power to move hand or foot in those bonds, or release himself from durance in its prison; unless it be a perfect religious leader and perfected guide, aided in various ways and by different means by divine guidance and divine inspiration. Such a man might, striving with the strength of divine assistance, and the aid of boundless struggles and ecstacies, free himself from this most dangerous of places, this most difficult of situations. But, in truth, in these days there is, save that incomparable one of the age, whose nature is endowed with auspicious attributes, angelic qualities, and holy signs of God’s handiwork, who is a revelation of the marks of the mercy of Providence (His power is honoured), no perfect knower of God illuminated and adorned by the qualities described above. into the service of the youngest prince. The following verses are by him:— “I am Nau‘i the wine-bibber, and after my death My blisters will fester like the sun.” “Nau‘i’s sorrow arises not from pain and grief But from the exiguity of his stomach.”
363.9
“Again has my desire taken the road, That road in which even Khizr fears to walk, The flowers of the plains about it are thorns of eyelashes The stones in that road are the skulls of men.”