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Here, Sunlight offers Ghazal (Ode) 2958, from Rumi's "Diwan-e Shams", in a version by Coleman Barks, and in the translation by A.J. Arberry, upon which Barks based his version:
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The musician draws his hand across the strings,
so the idlers will come in off the street.
Those who have been waiting start to work.
The thieves of inner qualities no longer threaten.
They're brought to justice.
The figurers can't read their own column of figures.
Friend calls friend to a secret cave.
Saddle the nimble horses with gold-inlaid leather.
Let the pack-horses continue with their loads.
Comfort the grieving, not those who think only
of how to sell things. The sensualities they live for
are sharp points pushing into their flesh.
Those who walk into fire feel refreshed,
who run to water scald themselves.
The duty face of Moses moves toward light.
Pharoah parades into stupdity and humiliation.
The mystery of the way is the old trick
of reversing horsehsoes. Moses bends
to pick up a stick. It's alive.
-- Version by Coleman Barks
These Branching Moments
Copper Beech Press, 1988
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Minstrel, when you draw your plectrums over the strings,
you draw into labor these idlers of the way.
Love, when you enter, you draw these tarriers in the world
of separation to the Beloved.
Despite the highwaymen you make the world secure, you
drag to the gallows the thieves of the heart city.
You see the cunning schemer, and cunningly blind him; when
you are the friend, you draw him into the cave.
You bind a golden saddle on the nimble-footed horses; the
evil pack-horses you draw to the baggage.
You cherish our melancholic ones every moment; our market-
minded ones you drag very miserably.
To the thorn-enduring lovers you show the rose bower; you
draw into the thorns the self-willed whose joy is but for a moment.
To him who enters the fire you give access to the water; he
who runs to water, you drag him into the flames.
To Moses, dusty of face, you give the way to glory; Pharaoh,
the seeker of pomp, you draw into disgrace.*
This reversed horsehoe acts without how and why; Moses the
stick-seeker, you draw into a serpent.**
* "Dusty of face" means humble.
** The "reversed horsehoe" is a metaphor for someone who reverses
the shoes of his horse in order to confuse the trail and mislead his
pursuers. Cf. Nicholson, Math. notes, 1:2841. The metaphor could refer
to the world as well.
-- Translation by A. J. Arberry
"Mystical Poems of Rumi 2"
The University of Chicago Press, 1991
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