Primer prefacio (1879)

First Preface (1879)

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. With praise and blessings.

The nightingale has given up singing in chorus in the garden;
it has given up reciting verse in the company of poets.
Since you, O living heart, forsook me,
I too have given up your old, old story.

Childhood, which is truly the time of one's kingship over the world, passed in a pleasant, open plain that was wholly free of the dust of artifice. There were no sand hills there, no thorn bushes; no storms of wind, no scorching blast of the simoom.

When I ran and played my way out of that plain, another wilderness appeared, more charming still, at the mere sight of which thousands of impulses and a hundred thousand longings sprang up of themselves in the heart. But this wilderness was as full of terror as it was full of delight. Fearful beasts lay hidden in its green thickets, and snakes and scorpions were coiled round its lovely plants. The moment I set foot within its bounds, lions and leopards, serpents and scorpions came out of every corner. The spring of the garden of youth was indeed worth seeing, but the vexations of the world gave me no leisure to draw breath, let alone to think of adorning myself. The wind of love and youth touched me, yet I tasted neither the sweetness of union nor the flavour of parting.

A cruel net lay hidden close to the nest;
we had not yet learnt to fly when we were caught.

Thanks to poetry, however, I had for some days to play the false lover. In pursuit of an imaginary beloved I raised such dust in the desert of madness for years on end that I left Qais and Farhad far behind. Now with a midnight wail I shook the inhabited quarter of the earth; now with a streaming eye I drowned the whole world. The ears of the cherubim were deafened by the din of my sighs and cries. Time itself cried out under the hail of my complaints. The sky was riddled by the volley of my taunts. When the storm of jealousy rose, I took the whole of creation for my rival, until I grew suspicious even of myself. When the flood of longing surged, I made the pull of the heart do the work of the magnet and of electricity. A hundred times I was martyred by the sword of an eyebrow, and a hundred times I rose to life again at a single kick. Life, in short, was a shirt that I took off when I pleased and put on when I pleased. I often passed through the field of the Last Judgement. I often toured Heaven and Hell. When I turned to drinking, I emptied the wine jars by the dozen and still was not satisfied. Now I rubbed my forehead on the threshold of the tavern; now I begged at the door of the wine seller. I was at home with unbelief and weary of faith. I swore allegiance to the old Magian; I became the disciple of Brahmins; I worshipped idols; I tied on the sacred thread; I painted the caste mark. I made jokes at the expense of the pious and drew caricatures of the preachers. I honoured the temple and the idol house and insulted the Kaaba and the mosque. I took liberties with God and was insolent to the prophets. I treated the miracles of Christ as a game and the beauty of Joseph as a show. When I wrote a ghazal, I talked the language of hardened rakes; when I wrote a qasida, I put the bards and the beggar-minstrels to shame. In every handful of dust I found the properties of the great elixir; in every dry stick I showed the wonders of the rod of Moses. I made every Nimrod of the day the equal of Abraham the Friend of God; I set every penniless Pharaoh against the Almighty. Whoever I praised, I tied him up in such knots that the object of the praise himself could get no pleasure from it. In short, I blackened the record of my deeds so thoroughly that I left no white space on it anywhere.

When my sins are called to account on the Day of Judgement,
the bonds of all mankind's sins will be torn up.

From the age of twenty to the fortieth year I went round and round in this one circle like the oilman's bullock, believing that I had travelled the whole world. When my eyes opened, I found that I was still where I had started.

The colour of youth is broken, and still you are vain;
you are still in the land where you were born.

Raising my eyes, I saw to right and left, before and behind, a wide plain in which countless roads lay open on every side, and there was no frontier anywhere for thought. I felt like stepping forward and exploring that plain; but feet that for twenty years had not moved out of one gait into another, and whose running had been confined to a yard or two of ground, were not easily to be used in that wide plain. Besides, twenty years of idle and useless turning had worn my limbs to pieces, and the power of walking had given out. Yet there was a restlessness in my feet, so that sitting still was hard too. For some days this was my state of indecision: one foot went forward and the other drew back. Suddenly I saw a servant of God who is the man of that plain, a wayfarer on a difficult road. Many of those who had set out with him have tired and fallen behind. Many are still going with him, stumbling and rising, but their lips are cracked, their feet are blistered, their breath comes hard, their faces are drained of colour. But that man of high resolve who is the guide of them all is as fresh as ever. He feels no weariness from the road, no concern at the dropping away of his companions, no fear at the distance of the goal. There is such a powerful magic in his glance that whoever he looks at closes his eyes and goes along with him. One of his glances fell this way too, and did its work. Tired and beaten, bruised and battered after twenty years, I set off on that same difficult road. I do not know where I am going, nor why I am going. I have no true desire, no firm step, no resolve, no steadfastness, no sincerity, no devotion; but there is a mighty hand that drags me on.

That heart which used to shy away from fair-faced youths,
an old man of many years carried off with a single glance.

Seeing the new fashion of the age, I had grown sick of the old poetry, and I had begun to feel ashamed of tying up false fabrications. Neither the encouragement of friends raised my spirits, nor did rivalry with my companions bring any warmth. But this was like stopping the mouth of an ulcer, which cannot help discharging by one channel or another. So the inward vapours, whose stoppage was choking me, were in tumult in heart and brain and looking for some crack to escape through. A true well-wisher of the nation (who is known by that very name throughout the country, except among his own people, and who, just as he is serving his brothers with his own strong hand and powerful arm, wants to put every cripple and lame man to the same work) reproached me and shamed me: to claim to be a speaking animal and make no use of the tongue God has given you is a great disgrace.

Go, like a man, move your lips in your mouth;
or, if you are a stone, make no boast of being human.

The condition of the nation is ruinous. The honoured have been disgraced, the noble have been ground into the dust. Learning is at an end; of religion only the name is left. Poverty cries out from every house; the belly clamours on every side. Morals have been utterly corrupted and go on being corrupted. The black cloud of bigotry hangs over the whole nation. The fetter of custom and usage is on every man's foot. Ignorance and blind imitation ride on everyone's neck. The nobles, who could do the nation much good, are heedless and indifferent. The learned, who have a great part to play in the reform of the nation, are ignorant of the needs and expediencies of the time. In such a state, whatever anyone can manage is worth doing; otherwise we are all aboard one boat, and our safety lies in the safety of the whole boat. Though people have written a great deal and are still writing, verse, which by nature pleases everyone and is in particular the legacy of the Arabs and the inherited portion of the Muslims, has not yet been written by anyone to wake the nation. It is obvious that what other measures have failed to do, this measure will hardly do; but in such straits two kinds of thought have always passed through the human heart. One is that we can do nothing; the other is that we ought to do something. The result of the first thought has been that nothing was done. From the second thought the great wonders of the world have come forth.

This is the door of bounty; do not sit here despairing of its opening;
here, like grain, a key grows from every lock.

"And He it is who sends down the rain after they have despaired, and spreads His mercy." He is such a God that when people lose hope, He sends the rain and spreads out His mercy.

Although obeying this command was hard and bearing the burden of the service was difficult, the counsellor's spellbinding speech made its home in my heart. What had come from the heart went and lodged in the heart. In a temperament that had been extinguished for years a stir arose, and the stale broth came to the boil. The withered heart and the worn-out brain, which the repeated assaults of illness had left good for nothing, were set to work, and the foundation of a musaddas was laid. The vexations of the world gave me very little leisure, and the crowd of illnesses never once allowed me peace of mind; but in every state this one obsession stayed with me. At last, God be praised, after many difficulties a broken, halting poem was got ready, as far as this helpless servant's means allowed, and I was not put to shame before my kind counsellor. This long, long road has been travelled on the strength of a single hope; otherwise no sign of the goal has been found so far, nor is there any expectation of finding it hereafter.

I do not know where the goal of my desire lies;
this much there is, that the sound of a bell is coming.

At the beginning of this musaddas, after writing the first seven stanzas by way of prologue, I have first sketched the wretched state of Arabia as it was before the appearance of Islam, which in the language of Islam has been given the name of the Age of Ignorance. Then I have described the rising of the star of Islam; how, through the teaching of the unlettered Prophet, that desert suddenly became green and fresh; how that cloud of mercy left the field of the community green and growing at the very moment of its growth; and how the Muslims outstripped the whole world in religious and worldly progress. After that I have written the story of their decline, and with my unskilled hands have built for the nation a house of mirrors, into which they may come and see their own features: who we were, and what we have become. Although in this soul-destroying poem, whose difficulties only the writer's heart and the Knower of the Unseen fully know, I have not done justice to the subject, nor could I, still I am thankful that as much as has been done is more than I had hoped. The people of taste in our country will obviously not like this dry, flat, plain and simple poem, because it contains either historical facts, or the translation of a few verses of the Quran and a few traditions of the Prophet, or a true and faithful picture of the present condition of the nation. There is no subtlety of thought anywhere, no exaggeration of statement; no relish of hyperbole, no sweetness of artifice. In short, there is nothing in it to which the ears of my countrymen are accustomed or their taste attuned, and no marvel such as "no eye has seen, no ear has heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man". It is as if a cloth had been spread for a feast given to the people of Delhi and Lucknow on which there was nothing but stale rice and lentils and a curry without chillies. But this poem has not been composed to give pleasure and to earn applause; it has been composed to put my dear ones and my friends to shame, and to rouse their honour. If they look at it, read it and understand it, the favour is theirs; if not, I have no complaint.

Hafiz, your office is to offer prayer, and that is all;
do not trouble yourself whether anyone heard or not.