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Here, Sunlight offers three presentations of Ghazal (Ode) 3061 --
versions by Barks and Star, and a translation by A.J. Arberry.
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If you don't have a woman that lives with you,
why aren't you looking?
If you have one, why aren't you satisfied?
You have no resistance to your friend.
Why don't you become the Friend?
If the flute is too quiet to say,
teach it some manners.
Someone's holding you back, break off.
You sit here for days saying, "This is strange business."
You're the strange business.
You have the energy of the sun in you,
but you keep knotting it up at the base of your spine.
You're some weird kind of gold that wants to stay melted
in the furnace, so you won't have to be coins.
Say ONE in your lonesome house.
Loving two is hiding inside your self.
You've gotten drunk on so many kinds of wine.
Taste this. It won't make you wild.
It's fire. Give up,
if you don't understand by this time
That your living is firewood.
This wave of taking builds. Better
we should not speak it, but let it grow within.
-- Version by Coleman Barks
"Open Secret"
Threshold Books, 1984
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"Wood for His Fire"
If you don't have the Beloved
why aren't you looking for Him?
If you have the Beloved
why aren't you rejoicing?
If the Friend is truly your friend
Why not stay with Him?
If the rebec does not wail,
Why not teach it how to sing?
If someone bars you from the truth,
Why not fight him
and his brother as well?
You sit quietly and say to yourself,
"Something strange is going on."
The only thing strange
is that your best friend is a stranger.
You are the Sun of the world -
Why is your heart so black?
Why do you fall back
on your drab and stagnant ways?
Don't stay melted like gold in a furnace -
Become a piece of jewelry!
The treasure of Unity is found
by those who look within.
Why not join your spirit to the one
who sits inside your heart?
Did Majnun ever love two Laylas?
Why seek more than one face and one cheek?
There is such a glorious moon
hiding in the shadows of your being.
Why not make it rise
with the power of a midnight prayer?
You have danced in the tavern for ages,
Love's wine never slips from your hand,
Yet with each new sip
your soul is ravished like never before.
The wine I drink is the fire of love
And God Himself pours it into my mouth!
What use is your life
If your bones are not used
as wood for His fire?
I'll leave you with that.
I could go on,
I could fill pages with these elegant verses
But this is a tale for the heart and soul,
not the lips.
-- Version by Jonathan Star
"Rumi - In the Arms of the Beloved"
Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, New York 1997
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
If you have no beloved, why do you not seek one? And if you
have attained the Beloved, why do you not rejoice*?
If the companion is not compliant*, why do you not become
him? If the rebec* wails not, why do you not teach it manners?
If an Abu Jahl is a veil to you, why do you not attack Abu Jahl
and Abu Lahab*?
You sit idly saying, "This is strange business"; you are the
strange one not to desire such a strange one.
You are the sun of the world; why are you black at heart? See
that you do not any more have a desire for the knot [of Draco].*
Like gold you are prisoner in the furnace so that you may not
be covetous of the purse of gold.
Since Unity is the bachelor's chamber* of those who say "One,"
why do you not make your spirit a bachelor to all but God?
Have you ever seen Majnun have affection with two Leylis*?
Why not desire only one face and one chin?
There is such a moon hiding in the night of your being; why
do you not pray and petition at midnight?
Though you are an ancient drunkard and not new to the wine,
God's wine does not suffer you not to make turmoil.
My wine is the fire of love, especially from the hand of God;
may life be unlawful to you, since you do not make your life
firewood.
Though the wave of discourse is surging, yet it is better that
you should expound it with heart and soul, not with lips.
-- Translation by A.J. Arberry
"Mystical Poems of Rumi 2"
The University of Chicago Press, 1991
Sunlight note: the footnotes for this Ode, as found in "Mystical
Poems of Rumi 2," are lacking in both precision and breadth.
Sunlight thanks Ibrahim Gamard for the substitute footnotes which
are here provided:
* rejoice: This opening verse was recently displayed in front of
thousands of people in Turkey on a large banner at the Whirling
Prayer Ceremony celebrating the anniversary of Rumi's death on
December 17, 1273 in Konya, Turkey.
* not compliant: the editor of Arberry's second volume of "Mystical
Poems of Rumi" allowed a typographical error here, "not complaint."
Sunlight has taken the liberty of correcting this error.
* rebec (rabâb): a long-necked lute.
* Abu Jahl and Abu Lahab: nicknames of two pagan uncles, and
famous enemies, of the Prophet Muhammad. "Abu Jahl" means
"Father of Ignorance" and here symbolizes the "veil of ignorance," as
well as the base self, or ego. "Abu Lahab" means "Father of Flame"
and here symbolizes base desires.
* the knot: literally, "the knot of the tail." An astrological
reference to
the "Tail of the Dragon," or the descending node, where the moon
crosses the ecliptic to the south. The imagined "Dragon" on the
ecliptic was pictured as threatening to devour the sun -- and thus is
the enemy of the sun in Persian poetry.
* bachelor's chamber: literally, an unmarried person's house. The
editor of Arberry's second volume adds that this term "metaphorically
means a house of loneliness."
* Majnûn and Leylî: legendary lovers in Persian literature.
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