Part One: From the Praise of God to the Lover's Unrest

Part One: From the Praise of God to the Lover's Unrest

Pen, write first the praise of the loving Lord,
who is present in every single place.

The being of the Worshipped One is everlasting;
whatever else there is, is passing.

He has no equal and no companion;
all things are created, none is eternal.

In Praise of the Prophet

How can the praise of Ahmad come upon the tongue?
How can the ocean be held in a cup?

Who can know the being of Ahmad?
Ali knows it, or God knows it.

In Praise of Ali

If one opens one's mouth in praise of Haidar [TN: Ali],
there is no room for speech beyond it.

Some understood Haidar's rank:
some thought him a servant of God, some thought him God.

On Love

Ever since the garden of creation was made,
every thing has been given its help to everyone.

He gave the rose the colour of beauty,
and gave the nightingale lament and pain;

to the moon light, to the halo grace,
to the narcissus an eye, to the tulip its scar;

He gave straightness to the pine,
curls to the hyacinth, and lustre to the pearl.

All hardness He put into the hearts of the idols [TN: the beloveds],
and love He put into man's water and clay.

What man is free of love,
which has emptied house after house?

In it one's very life is in danger;
it raises idol-temples in the heart.

Those who were versed in all good manners,
it made those beauties sift the dust.

To hope for anything from it is folly;
brother, see how it dealt with Majnun!

It let no cry come from their lips;
it picked out the young and killed them one by one.

Whoever it showed a little warmth to,
it killed that one first of all.

It makes one weep with the fire of separation;
it sets fire to water.

It killed those who came to watch the show;
it made the beauties swallow poison.

May God never put anyone in its power;
there is not a grain of pity in its heart.

The Story Begins

I write a strange story,
I write a wondrous tale.

It is a tale so new
that those who hear it are amazed.

In the quarter where our house was,
there lived a merchant,

a gentleman, a man of wealth,
most highly respected among the traders.

He had no grief, being at ease;
he was of a very high family.

He had a daughter, a moon-browed one [TN: *mah jabin*, "moon-browed", a common epithet of beauty];
she had not yet been married anywhere.

In looks she had no equal;
in truth she put the houris to shame.

She was a green young shoot of the rose of youth;
Joseph's beauty was merely a story beside her.

At that age she was wonderfully well mannered,
and in her gait and bearing perfectly refined.

May the evil eye be far from those lovely eyes,
the envy of the eyes of the gazelle of China!

Because her parents feared the evil eye,
they would not look at her their fill.

She was without equal or peer in the world,
sweet-voiced, lovely to look at, fair of speech.

There was no match for her in that city;
her beauty was the choice of hundreds of thousands.

She had a taste for writing verse,
and a love of reading and writing.

The wave of her tresses on her cheek was a calamity;
every grace she had was a Doomsday.

Such was the beauty of that rose's form that any dress became her;
in simple clothes she had a hundred charms.

The whole house was devoted to her;
if she was her mother's soul, she was her father's life.

She was the light of their eyes, the ease of their hearts;
she was the comfort of her parents' lives.

The First Sight

One day, when a cloud came over the sky,
a kind of darkness spread on every side.

When the cloud had rained and cleared,
a rainbow came out in the sky.

As I sat there my heart grew restless,
and I went up on the roof to take the air.

When the trouble of my heart began to ease,
I began to stroll this way and that.

When I raised my eyes and looked one way,
there before me was the merchant's daughter.

With her were three or four friends of her age,
watching the beauty of the sky.

They were going down from the roof little by little,
teasing one another as they went.

When that rose-faced one was left alone,
she turned to look about on every side.

When her eyes met mine,
a sigh escaped my lips.

The state of my heart cannot be told;
I held myself firmly, or I would have fainted.

Though no word passed between us,
my soul grew restless in my body.

The arrow of love that struck was deadly;
tears flowed of themselves.

There before me stood that shining moon;
I stood silent like a picture.

I had not the strength to bear the sight
even to call her by a sign.

I looked at her again and again;
I was lost in my beloved's beauty.

Though I held myself back a thousand ways,
I had no control over my heart.

When evening came in this way,
a maid brought her a message:

"Why sit here for nothing and take fright?
Your mother is calling you.

"The wind is stirring your tresses on your cheek;
come now, it is the hour of twilight."

Hearing this message from the maid's lips,
that rose-like one went down from the roof.

When I could no longer see her splendour,
I too came down, weeping.

From evening, dying and dying, I made it to morning;
I passed that night crying "God, O God."

The Lover's Unrest

Grief made a festering wound in my heart;
from that day this became my rule:

to go up on the roof a hundred times a day,
to look and search and come away again.

When I did not see that rose-faced one there,
tears burst out from the excess of my grief.

I wished a hundred thousand times, but my heart would not harden;
for comfort these comings and goings went on.

When some days had passed, from sorrow
my cheeks turned quite yellow.

Then my state became so wretched,
like someone sick for years.

From grief my heart forgot itself;
the seal of silence was set on my lips.

My heart had no strength left to hold back;
wherever I found a place, I beat my head on it.

I bore sorrows of a hundred thousand kinds;
my lips were silent, my tears flowed.

From separation my state grew strange;
from grief my face was wholly changed.

Friend and stranger were amazed;
whoever saw me did not know me.