[Sunlight] ""The Master's bond is very strong" -- Ghazal 2776

~

Here, Sunlight offers Ghazal (Ode) 2776, in a poetic version by
Coleman Barks and in the literal translation by A.J. Arberry, from
which Barks derived his version:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You miss the garden,
because you want a small fig from a random tree.
You don't meet the beautiful woman.
You're joking with an old crone.
It makes me want to cry how she detains you,
stinking mouthed, with a hundred talons,
putting her head over the roof edge to call down,
tasteless fig, fold over fold, empty
as dry-rotten garlic.

She has you tight by the belt,
even though there's no flower and no milk
inside her body.
Death will open your eyes
to what her face is: leather spine
of a black lizard. No more advice.

Let yourself be silently drawn
by the stronger pull of what you really love.

-- Version by Coleman Barks
"Open Secret"
Threshold Books, 1984

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

You who let a garden go for the sake of a small fig, let slip the
houri for the sake of an unworthy crone.
I am rending my shirt, and repulsion comes over me from the
glance that a crone cast at a youth.
A stinking-mouthed crone with a hundred clutching talons and
tricks, putting her head down from the roof to snare a clever one.
Who is such a crone? A savorless deception, fold on fold like
an onion, fetid as garlic.
A prince has become her captive, pledged his belt--she laughs
in secret, "Fool of a princeling!"
No full blossom is the garden of her beauty, no milk in the
breasts of fidelity of that whore.
When death opens your eyes, then you will behold her, her
face like the back of a lizard, her body black as pitch.
Now be silent, give no more counsel. The master's bond is
very strong; the chain of his love draws without the help of a
miserable chain.

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

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~

------------------------------------

Archive for Sunlight can be accessed at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sunlight /messages
To subscribe, please send an email to : sunlight-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
To unsubscribe, please send an email to: sunlight-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sunlight/

<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sunlight/join
(Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
Sunlight-digest@yahoogroups.com
Sunlight-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
Sunlight-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

[Sunlight] ""The Master's bond is very strong" -- Ghazal 2776