[Sunlight] "Tidings for Thee"

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Last night I pleaded with a star to intercede:
I said, 'My being is at the moon's service.'

Bowing, I added, 'Take this plea to the sun
Who makes rocks gold with his fire.'

Bearing the wounds on my breast, I cried,
'The Beloved, Whose drink is blood, must know!'

Like a child, I rocked my heart asleep
As a child does when its cradle sways.

Give my heart milk, stay its tears - you
Who help a hundred like me at every moment.

The heart's home is your city of union:
How long will you condemn mine to exile?

My head aches; there's nothing more I can say.
O cup-bearer, my troubled eye grows drunk!

-- Version by James Cowan
"Rumi's Divan of Shems of Tabriz, Selected Odes"
Element Books Limited 1997
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Last night I gave a star a message for you.
On my knees I begged her to tell you
how much I pray that you turn my stony heart
golden with your radiance.
I bared my chest to show my wounds and
asked her to tell you that if I sway this way and that
it's because I need to calm the infant of my heart,
for babies sleep when rocked in their cradle.
My Beloved, my heart was yours always
nurse it like a child, save it from wandering.
How long will you keep me in exile?
I will be quiet now but even in my silence
my heart will long for the glance of your grace.
-- Translation by Azima Melita Kolin
and Maryam Mafi
"Rumi: Hidden Music"
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2001
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III
Yestereve I delivered to a star* tidings for thee:
'Present,' I said, 'my servant to that moon-like form.'
I bowed, I said: 'Bear that service to the sun
Who maketh hard rocks gold by his burning.'
I bared my breast, I showed it the wounds:
'Give news of me,' I said, 'to the Beloved whose drink
is blood.'*
I rocked to and fro* that the child, my heart*, might
become still;
A child sleeps when one sways the cradle.
Give my heart-babe milk, relieve us from its weeping,
O thou that helpest every moment a hundred helpless
like me.
The heart's home, first to last, is thy city of union:
How long wilt thou keep in exile this heart forlorn?
I speak no more, but for the sake of averting headache*,
O Cup-bearer*, make drunken my languishing eye*.
-- T.126.9 ("Tabriz Edition of the Divani
Shamsi Tabriz, p. 126, verse 9")
"Selected Poems from the Divani Shamsi Tabriz"
Edited and translated by Reynold A. Nicholson
Cambridge, At the University Press, 1898, 1952
Notes by Nicholson:
* "I delivered to a star" -- "cf.
I hold converse nightly with every star
From desire of the splendour of thy moon-like face.
(Hafiz, II. 468.5)."
* "Beloved whose drink is blood"--for the cruelty of the
Beloved, see Winfield's Masnavi, p. 30 seq. Grief and
pain are often synonymous with love in the language
of the mystics.
* "rocked to and fro": i.e., in the sama' (whirling dance)
(cf. Ibnu'l Farid, Taiyya, beyt 434).
* "the child, my heart": cf. the same author
(ib. betyts 435 and 436)
When it (the child) tosses about in longing for one
who shall sing it sleep, and yearns
To fly to its original home,
It is hushed by being rocked in its cradle
When the hands of its nurse set the cradle moving
and
The soul is like the Messiah in the cradle of the body;
Where there is the Mary who fashioned our cradle?
(T.291.8)"
* "headache": the relapse from ecstasy into consciousness.
* "Cupbearer": the cupbearer is God, who intoxicates all
creations with the rapture of love (see Gulshini Raz, 805 seq.).
* "my languishing eye": the word is used adjectively=drunk.
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Sergey Sechiv: This Ghazal  has Furuzanfar # 0143, Arberry # 17, Nicholson # 3, Ergin # 8/3 (meter/seq)

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[Sunlight] "Tidings for Thee"