Wednesday, January 27, 2010

[Sunlight] Envy and the heart -- Ghazal 817

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Since a group of people have bought my words, the
old rag sewers have all gone to work.
In order to set themselves up against me they
have all washed their beards; but their envy displays
their dirty faces.
By day they make blandishments like fair maidens,
by night they repeat their lines like frogs.
Thanks be to God that my voice has made these
sleepers abandon their slumber and stay awake –
But would they were staying awake for His sake,
that all their lamentation were not for the sake of silver
and gold!
How can they restore the sick to ruddy complexions?
For they are all yellow like gold coins.
How can they deliver the creatures from envy?
For envy has made them all ill.
Those kings that have come for the sake of vision
are like an illuminated eye in men's hearts.
Like the seven planets their light is but one,
like the five fingers they perform a single task.
Not wanting people to mock them, these fools show
themselves as all turbans and beards.
The People of the Heart are the sun, the people of
clay the dust in the air; the former are the rose, the
latter the thorn.
Grieve not, oh prince, because of these fools –
the People of the Heart are heart-bestowers and heart-
pleasers.

-- Ghazal 817
Translation by William C. Chittick
"The Sufi Path of Love - The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi"
State University of New York Press, Albany, 1983

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