Quotations from Mevlana - 3
Posted: Sun Sep 20, 2009 3:18 pm
A further quotation from Mevlana provided by one of the Turners:
Not for one single moment do I let hold of you, for you are my whole concern, you are my whole affair.
I eat and enjoy your candy, I labour at your counselling;
I am a heart-wounded quarry, you are my heart-devouring lion.
You might say that my soul and your soul are one; I swear by this one soul that I care not for other than you.
I am a bunch of herbs from the garden of your beauty, I am a strand of your union's robe of honour.
Around you this world is thorn on the top of a wall; in the hope of culling the rose of union it is a thorn that I scratch.
Since the thorn is like this, how must be your rosebower! O you whose secrets have swallowed and borne away my secrets.
My soul, in the sky the sun is the moon's companion; I know that you will not leave me in this assembly of strangers.
I went to a dervish and he said, "May God befriend you!" You might say that through his blessing a king such as you became my friend.
I beheld the whole world to be a painting on the gates of a bath; you who have taken my turban away, likewise towards you I stretch my hand.
Every congener bursts his chain to come to his congener; whose congener am I, who am held fast in this snare here?
Like a thief, my soul, you ever steal around me; I know what you are seeking, crafty sweetheart of mine.
My soul, you are hiding a candle under the cloak, you desire to set fire to my stook and rick.
O my rosebower and rosegarden, O cure of my sickness, O Joseph of my vision and lustre of my market,
You are circling round my heart, I am circling round your door; circling am I giddily in your hand like a compass.
In the gladness of your face if I tell the tale of woe, if then sorrow drinks my blood, by Allah, I deserve it.
To the beat of the tambourine of your decree all these creatures are dancing; without your melody does a single lute-string dance? I do not think so.
The voice of your tambourine is hidden, and this dance of the world is visible; hidden is that itch, wherever I scratch.
I will be silent out of jealousy, because from your sugarcane I am a cloud scattering sugar, it is only your candy that I rain.
I am in water, in earth, in fire, in air: these four are all around me, but I am not of these four.
Now I am Turk, now Hindu, now Rumi, now Zangi; it is of your engraving, my soul, that I believe or disbelieve.
Tabriz, my heart and soul are with Shams-i Haqq here, even though in body I vex him no more.
Divan F1458