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Out of jealousy, Love makes the lover appear
like everyone's enemy. Once it has made people reject him, he
turns to It.
He who is worthy of the creatures is not worthy
for Love -- only the whore's soul marries a hundred husbands.
Since the lover is not suited for "others," let
them all reject him -- then the King of Love will make him His
sitting companion.
When the creatures drive him from themselves,
he cuts himself off from their company; he accustoms his
outward and inward to sweet-natured Love.
But when the creatures accept him, his mind
drags him in their direction and his heart turns furtively this
way and that toward anyone's love.
When Love sees this It says, "My tresses have
thrown a shadow, so the lover smells there the fragrance of
musk and ambergris.
I will make these two scents the enemy of his
mind and brain -- he will have to abandon both.
Though the lover has sniffed the musk in
remembrance of Me, only a beginner on the Path wanders like
a child saying, 'Where? Where?'
Once he has left childhood, he will open the
eye of knowledge -- why should he run to and fro on the river
bank looking for water?"
If you have newly become a lover, take the
bitter medicine and drink it, so that Shirin may make you
sweeter than Khusraw's honey.*
Perhaps Shams-I Tabrizi will intoxicate you
from beyond the two worlds and remove you from
yourself!
-- Ghazal (Ode) 742
Translation by William C. Chittick
"The Sufi Path of Love"
SUNY Press, Albany, 1983
* King Khusraw and Shirin are a pair of lovers often
celebrated in Persian verse. Khusraw I or "royal" honey
was a famous kind of exquisite honey. Shirin, whose
name literally means "sweet," of course represents the
Beloved.
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