the Message Continues ... 5/16

Article 5

 

 

E U O L G Y
by Rumi
  
  We have come once again to a lord to whose knee no sea reaches.
    Tie together a thousand minds, they will not reach Him; how shall a hand or foot reach the moon in heaven?
    The sky stretched out its throat eagerly to Him; it found no kiss, but it swallowed a sweetmeat.
    A thousand throats and gullets stretched towards His lip.
"Scatter too on our heads manna and quails."
    We have come again to a Beloved, from whose air a shout has reached our ears.
    We have come again to that sanctuary to bow the brow which is to surpass the skies.
    We have come again to that meadow to whose bolbol  ˜anqa is a slave.*
    We have come to Him who was never apart from us; for the waterbag is never filled without the existence of a water-carrier.
    The bag always clings to the body of the water-carrier, saying, "Without you, I have no hand or knowledge or opinion."
    We have come again to that feast with the sweet dessert of which the sugarcane chewer attained his desire.
    We have come again to that sphere, in whose bent the soul roars like thunder.
    We have come again to that love at whose contact the div has become peri-like.
    Silence!  Seal the rest under your tongue, for a jealous tutor has been put in charge of you.
    Speak not of the talk of the Pride of Tabriz, Shams-e Din, for the rational mind is not suitable for that speech.

           -- Translation by A. J. Arberry
              "Mystical Poems of Rumi 2"
              The University of Chicago Press, 1991

* Anqa or Simorg is the legendary bird by which the Sufis some times represent the unknown God.  

Simorg is sometimes considered to symbolize the perfect man.

The following notes are by the Al-huda website editor:
bolobol is nightingale. div is giant. peri is fairy
Shams-e Din is Shams-e Tabriz, the Teacher and Mentor of Rumi who transformed him from a man of the pulpit to an inimitable and prolific poet (he wrote more than 70,000 verses in Persian) and philosopher whose poetry and prose
has inspired the minds and hearts of the people around the globe over 700 years and made him the most-read poet in America.

 

 

Poem # 2 

 

"Who is there that discovers the dawn?
  
  Morn-arising friends, who is there that discovers the dawn, who discovers us dancing in confusion like atoms?
    Who has the luck to come to the brink of a river to drink water from that river, and to discover the reflection of the
moon?
    Who is there that like Jacob from the shirt of Joseph seeks the scent of his son, and instead discovers the light of his eyes?*
    Or athirst like the bedouin casts a bucket into the well, and in the bucket discovers a beauty like an ass-load of sugar?*
    Or like Moses seeking fire, who seeks out a bush, comes to gather the fire, and discovers a hundred dawns and sunrises?*
    Jesus leaps into the house to escape from the foe; suddenly from the house he discovers a passage to heaven.
    Or like a Soloman he splits a fish, and in the belly of that fish he discovers a ring of gold.
    Sword in hand, "Uman comes intending to slay the Prophet; he falls into God's snare, and discovers a kindly regard from
fortune.*
    Or like Adham's son he drives towards a deer to make the deer his prey, and instead discovers another prey.*
    Or like a thirsty oyster shell he comes with gaping mouth to take a drop of water into himself, and discovers a pearl within
himself.
    Or a man foraging who turns towards desolations, and suddenly in a desolation he discovers news of a treasure.
    Traveller, have done with legends, so that intimate alike and stranger may discover without your exposition the light of
Did We not open.*
    Whoever strides sincerely towards Shams al-Din, though his foot may grow weary, he will discover two wings from
Love.

           -- Translation by A. J. Arberry
                "Mystical Poems of Rumi 1"
                The University of Chicago Press, 1968

* Koran 12:94
* Koran 12:19
*Koran 20:9-10
* See "Discourses of Rumi" 171.
* For the famous conversion of Ibrahim ibn Adham (d.160/776),
see E.I. II:433.
* "Did we not open": Koran 94:I.
Shams al-Din: Shams-i Tabriz, the Mentor and Teacher of Rumi
         

 

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