Mystical Poems of Rumi - Softcover

Rumi, Jalal Al-Din; Lewis, Franklin D.; Javadi, Hasan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226731626 ISBN 13: 9780226731629

Verlag: University of Chicago Press, 2009

Inhaltsangabe

My verse resembles the bread of Egypt—night passes over it, and you cannot eat it any more.
Devour it the moment it is fresh, before the dust settles upon it.
Its place is the warm climate of the heart; in this world it dies of cold.
Like a fish it quivered for an instant on dry land, another moment and you see it is cold.
Even if you eat it imagining it is fresh, it is necessary to conjure up many images.
What you drink is really your own imagination; it is no old tale, my good man.

Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207–73), legendary Persian Muslim poet, theologian, and mystic, wrote poems acclaimed through the centuries for their powerful spiritual images and provocative content, which often described Rumi’s love for God in romantic or erotic terms. His vast body of work includes more than three thousand lyrics and odes. This volume includes four hundred poems selected by renowned Rumi scholar A. J. Arberry, who provides here one of the most comprehensive and adept English translations of this enigmatic genius. Mystical Poems is the definitive resource for anyone seeking an introduction to or an enriched understanding of one of the world’s greatest poets.

“Rumi is one of the world’s greatest lyrical poets in any language—as well as probably the most accessible and approachable representative of Islamic civilization for Western students.”—James W. Morris, Oberlin College

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207-73), legendary Persian Muslim poet, theologian, and mystic, wrote more than three thousand lyrics and odes. A. J. Arberry (1905-69) was professor of Arabic at Cambridge University. Ehsan Yarshater is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor Emeritus of Iranian Studies and director of the Center for Iranian Studies at Columbia University.

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Mystical Poems of Rumi

The University of Chicago Press

Copyright © 2009 The University of Chicago
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-226-73162-9

Contents

Foreword to the New and Corrected Edition by Franklin D. Lewis (2008)......................7Foreword to Volume 2, Mystical Poems of Rumi by Ehsan Yarshater (1978).....................17An Autobiographical Sketch by A. J. Arberry................................................21Introduction to Volume 1, Mystical Poems of Rumi by A. J. Arberry..........................27TRANSLATION: POEMS 1–400..............................................................37Notes to Poems..............................................................................377

Chapter One

1

What excuses have you to offer, my heart, for so many shortcomings? Such constancy on the part of the Beloved, such unfaithfulness on your own!

So much generosity on his side, on yours such niggling contrariness! So many graces from him, so many faults committed by you!

Such envy, such evil imaginings and dark thoughts in your heart, such drawing, such tasting, such munificence by him!

Why all this tasting? That your bitter soul may become sweet. Why all this drawing? That you may join the company of the saints.

5 You are repentant of your sins, you have the name of God on your lips; in that moment he draws you on, so that he may deliver you alive.

You are fearful at last of your wrongdoings, you seek desperately a way to salvation; in that instant why do you not see by your side him who is putting such fear into your heart?

If he has bound up your eyes, you are like a pebble in his hand; now he rolls you along like this, now he tosses you in the air.

Now he implants in your nature a passion for silver and gold and women; now he implants in your soul the light of the form of Mustafa.

On this side drawing you towards the lovely ones, on that side drawing you to the unlovely; amid these whirlpools the ship can only pass through or founder.

10 Offer up so many prayers, weep so sorely in the night season, that the echo may reach your ears from the sphere of the seven heavens.

When Shu'aib's groaning and lamentation and tears like hailstones passed beyond all bounds, in the morning a proclamation came to him from heaven:

"If you are a sinner, I have forgiven you and granted you pardon for your sins. Is it paradise you seek? Lo, I have given it to you; be silent, cease these petitions!"

Shu'aib retorted, "I seek neither this nor that. What I desire is to see God face to face; though the seven seas all turn to fire, I will plunge therein if only I may encounter Him.

But if I am banished from that spectacle, if my tear-stained eyes are shut against that vision, I am more fit to dwell in hell- fire; paradise becomes me not.

15 Without His countenance, paradise for me is hateful hell. I am consumed by this hue and scent of mortality; where is the splendour of the lights of immortality?"

They said, "At least moderate your weeping, lest your sight be diminished, for the eye becomes blind when weeping passes beyond bounds."

He said, "If my two eyes in the end should be seeing after that fashion, every part of me will become an eye: why then should I grieve over blindness?

But if in the end this eye of mine should be deprived forever, let that sight indeed become blind which is unworthy to behold the Beloved!"

In this world, every man would become a ransom for his beloved; one man's beloved is a bag of blood, another's the sun in splendour.

20 Since every man has chosen a beloved, good or bad, as suits his own nature, it would be a pity if we should annihilate ourselves for the sake of nothing!

One day a traveller was accompanying Ba Yazid on a certain road. Presently Ba Yazid said to him, "What trade have you chosen, you rogue?"

The man replied, "I am an ass-driver." Ba Yazid exclaimed, "Be gone from me!—Lord, grant that his ass may die, that he may become the slave of God!"

2

O lovers, lovers, this day you and we are fallen into a whirlpool: who knows how to swim?

Though the world's torrent should overflow and every wave become like a dromedary, why shall the waterfowl worry? It is the bird of the air that should be anxious.

Our faces are lighted up with gratitude, schooled as we are in wave and sea, inasmuch as ocean and flood are life-increasing to the fish.

Elder, hand us a towel; water, let us plunge into you; Moses son of 'Imran, come, smite the water of the sea with your staff!

5 This wind concocts in every head a different passion; let my passion be for yonder cupbearer, and you may have all the rest!

Yesterday yon saki on the way snatched the caps of the drunkards; today he is giving yet more wine, preparing to strip us of our robes.

O envy of the Moon and of Jupiter, with us, yet hidden from sight like a peri, gently, gently you are drawing me on—will you not say whither?

Wherever you go, you are with me still, you who are my eyes and my brightness; if you will, draw me to drunkenness, if you will, transport me to annihilation.

Know that the world is like Mount Sinai, and we like Moses are seekers; every moment an epiphany arrives and cleaves the mountain asunder.

10 One portion becomes green, one portion becomes narcissus-white; one portion becomes a pearl, one portion ruby and amber.

You who seek to behold Him, gaze upon this mountainchain of His. O mountain, what wind has blown upon you? We have become intoxicated with the echo.

O gardener, gardener, why have you come to grapple with us? If we have carried off your grapes, you have carried off our purse!

3

Today I beheld the beloved, that ornament of every affair; he went off departing to heaven like the spirit of Mustafa.

The sun is put to shame by his countenance, heaven's sphere is as confused as the heart; through his glow, water and clay are more resplendent than fire.

I said, "Show me the ladder, that I may mount up to heaven." He said, "Your head is the ladder; bring your head down under your feet."

When you place your feet on your head, you will place your feet on the head of the stars; when you cleave through the air, set your foot on the air, so, and come!

5 A hundred ways to heaven's air become manifest to you; you go flying up to heaven every dawning like a prayer.

4

Every instant a revelation from heaven comes to men's innermost souls: "How long like dregs do you remain upon earth? Come up!"

Whoever is heavy of soul in the end proves to be dregs; only then does he mount to the top of the vat when his dregs are clarified.

Do not stir the clay every moment, so that your water may become clear, so that your dregs may be illumined, so that your pains may be cured.

It is spiritual, like a torch, only its smoke is greater than its light; when its smoke passes beyond bounds, it no longer displays radiance in the house.

5 If you diminish the smoke, you will enjoy the light of the torch; both this abode and that will become illumined by your light.

If you look into muddy water, you see neither the moon nor the sky; sun and moon both disappear when darkness possesses the air.

A northern breeze is blowing, through which the air becomes clarified; it is for the sake of this burnishing that at dawn the zephyr breathes.

The spiritual breeze...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: University of Chicago Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2009
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0226731626
• ISBN 13: 9780226731629
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 440
• Herausgeber: Yarshater Ehsan
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: The University of Chicago Press; https://press.uchicago.edu/index.html; ; 5801 S. Ellis Avenue; Chicago; IL; 60637; USA
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