The Dīvān: odes

بحر هزج مثمن اخرب مکفوف محذوف · مفعول مفاعیل مفاعیل فعولن

O turning dome, green and without a window, with the stature of the decrepit and the strength of the young!

• Tehran 1993: «قبّهٔ» (dome) for «گنبد»; «و با قوّت» (and with the strength) for «با قوت»: with that «و» the second hemistich scans, without it it does not.

We are your children, O sphere, O loveless mother: O our mother, why do you keep taking revenge on us?

• Tehran 1993: «بدمهر» (unkind) for «بیمهر» (loveless).

Your child is this dark body, silent and of dust; pure intellect is not, nor this speaking substance.

The body is the house of this lofty, noble substance: you are the mother of the house, and of this lofty substance [only its house].

• Tehran 1993: «تو مادر این خانهٔ این گوهر والا», "you are the mother of the house of this lofty substance", which v. 3 favours; Taqavī «خانه و», "of the house and of this lofty substance".

When I have settled my affairs in this house today, I shall go alone, and hand the house back to you tomorrow.

This body came to you, fittingly, as a prison; and a prison does not become beautiful though they dress it in brocade. (the Persian reading is uncertain on the page image)

• Doubtful reading. The last word is under an ink blot in this copy; «بدیبا» (in brocade) is read from what shows and from the next couplet. See the print
• Tehran 1993: «پسرا» (O son) for «بسزا» (fittingly); «بپوشیش به دیبا» (you dress it in brocade) for «بپوشند بدیبا».

Put on the brocade of intellect within your soul, for your soul, my son, will never become beautiful through brocade.

• Tehran 1993: «دیبای سخن پوش به جان بر، که تو را جان» (the brocade of speech) for «دیبای خرد پوش بجان زانکه ترا جان» (the brocade of intellect).

Do you not see the bond the Lord has laid on us, which none sees but the seeing mind?

Be bound to gentleness, and gird your waist [to serve]; do not bind yourself, needlessly, to seeking the kingdom of Darius.

If you set out with gentleness, you will find, through gentleness, something far better than the kingdom of Darius.

And if the longing for the pleasures of the senses hurries you on, bring before you what the Furqān says of Adam and Eve.

• Tehran 1993: this couplet and the next stand in the other order (its vv. 11–12 are Taqavī's 12 and 11).

Be patient, for no one lays hand on what he longs for except the patient man.

• Taqavī’s note (1) on «شکیبا»: «صابر و بردبار», patient and forbearing. See the print

Take offence at no one without cause, and hurt no one, except by way of requital and in equal measure.

• Tehran 1993: «از کس و برخیره میازار» for «از کس برخیره و مازار»; «مکافات مساوا» without «و».

Do not be full of spite against everyone, always, like a thorn; nor be submissive all at once, like a date.

• Taqavī’s note (2) on «زبون»: «فرمان بردار و رام و محکوم بحکم», obedient, tame, and under another's command. See the print
• Tehran 1993: «نه نیز به یکباره زبون باش» for «نه نیز زبون باش بیکبار».

For dung has fallen into the pit for its stench, and the fragrant aloeswood has been burned for its scent.

• Taqavī’s note (3) on «مطرا»: «تازه و صلب», fresh, and [a second word, read «صلب»; doubtful]. See the print

Do not sit with everyone, nor cut yourself off from all; walk the road of intellect: be neither the fly nor the ʿAnqāʾ.

• Tehran 1993: «نه مگس باش نه عنقا» without the second «و».

When there is no congenial friend, it is better to be alone: alone is a hundred times better than having a fool for your equal.

• Tehran 1993: «چو با نادان همتا» (than being the equal of a fool) for «چو نادانت همتا».

The sun, which is alone, how fine it is by day (?): it is better than the Pleiades, which are seven. (the Persian reading is uncertain on the page image)

• Taqavī’s variant (ب) on «بروزان»: «فروزان», shining. The word in the text is doubtful. See the print
• Taqavī’s note (4) on «ثریا»: «خوشهٔ پروین», the cluster of the Pleiades. (Here the Pleiades are named; the ascent of v. 27 is to Gemini, «جوزا».) See the print
• Tehran 1993: «خورشید که تنهاست ازان نیست برو ننگ» (the sun is alone, and there is no shame on it for that).

Do not let the more and the less of the world wring your heart: be gentle with time and generous with people.

The states of the world pass: cold after heat, ease after hardship. (the Persian reading is uncertain on the page image)

• Doubtful reading. The first hemistich is too short for the metre, here and in the 1993 printing: a word or more seems lost.
• Tehran 1993: «زپس» for «سپس».

Not seeking what will not stay with you, listen to good words and do nothing in anger. (the Persian reading is uncertain on the page image)

• Doubtful reading. After «خوب» the print has a mark, overwritten by hand in this copy as «و»; the edition's note (ج), «در نسخهٔ بدل این شعر بنظر آمد» (this line appeared in a variant copy), is struck through in the print itself. See the print
• Tehran 1993: «خوب و مکن».

In the earth, gold and stone remain alike; and your grave is the same, under a hovel or in a green palace.

• Taqavī’s note (5) on «کریجی»: «بضم اول، اینجا بمعنی بیغوله و چاه و زندان باشد», with u in the first syllable; here it means a nook, a pit, a prison. See the print
• Tehran 1993: «و چه سنگ و، تو را گور».

For all that [the king] raised in Ṣanʿāʾ, at Ghumdān, look: neither Ghumdān remains nor Ṣanʿāʾ.

• Taqavī’s note (6) on «غمدان»: The palace of Ghumdān in Yemen, in the city of Ṣanʿāʾ, now a mound in the middle of the town, said to have been the palace of the king of the whole world, with treasures buried in it that no one may take; citing Nāṣir-i Khusraw's own Safarnāma (Berlin printing, p. 102) and the Tajārib al-salaf on its destruction under ʿUthmān. See the print

The world is a demon, harsh and deceiving: the alert and the wise, surely, have not sought it.

• Tehran 1993: «دیوی است جهان صعب و فریبنده» (a demon) and «هشیار و خردمند نجسته است».

If you have any intellect, alertness and wakefulness, do not go after it longingly, like a drunkard.

The world is a dark water, and very deep: beware of muddying your clear soul in it.

• Taqavī’s note (7) on «ژرف»: «عمیق و دور و دراز», deep, far and long. See the print

Your soul becomes pure through speech, for the wise man rises by the road of speech from the well to Gemini.

• Note. Not doubtful: the edition reads «بجوزا», to Gemini (al-Jawzāʾ), as do the 1993 printing and Mīnuvī–Muḥaqqiq (p. 5). It is not Thurayyā, the Pleiades (they appear in v. 18).

Your glory must be in speech, for by it he gained glory after whom the she-camel ʿAḍbāʾ did not remain (?). (the Persian reading is uncertain on the page image)

• Taqavī’s variant (د) on «بگرد»: «بماند» (remained); a reader of this copy wrote «نماند» (did not remain) above the line. The reading in the text is doubtful. See the print
• Tehran 1993: «نماند», "after whom the camel ʿAḍbāʾ did not remain", the sense followed in the English.

You must become alive through speech, for the Messiah brought the dead to life through speech. (the Persian reading is uncertain on the page image)

• Doubtful reading. The print looks like «کشتنت» (your killing), with the kāf of the period for gāf; read «گشتنت» (your becoming), as the sense and the 1993 printing require. See the print

You must remain manifest through speech, for no one in the world has remained manifest without speech.

• Tehran 1993: «نمانده است».

Better not to speak when you do not know the word, for the unspoken is far better than a shameful saying.

• Tehran 1993: «ناگفته سخن» (the unsaid word) for «نا گفته بسی».

Make the arrow of your speech straight, then shoot it; do not talk idly, do not hurl the stick sideways.

Become fine through speech, not through this outward form, for a person becomes lofty through speech, not through height.

The almond is better than the willow and the poplar in its fruit, however much the poplar has added to its height.

The wakeful man looks like the madman, but through speech the wakeful is told from the mad.

The sea of words is God's good word, full of precious gems and lustrous pearls.

• Taqavī’s variant (ب) on «پر گوهر با قیمت و پر»: «پر گوهر و یاقوت و پر از» (full of gems and rubies and full of …). The mark (ب) itself does not show in this copy; there is a gap after «پر». See the print
• Browne (Tabriz): «پر گوهر و یاقوت پر از لؤلؤ لالا», close to Taqavī's variant.

The outward revelation is salt, like the sea, by way of likeness; the interpretation is, to the wise, like the pearl.

• Tehran 1993: «صورت تنزیل» (the form of the revelation) for «ظاهر تنزیل» (the outward revelation).
• Browne (Tabriz): «شورست» (one word); otherwise as Taqavī, «ظاهر تنزیل».

At the bottom of the sea are all the gems and pearls: seek out the diver; why run along the shore?

Why did He place so many gems and pearls, precious and beautiful, at the bottom of the brine?

• Tehran 1993: «دارندهٔ دنیا» (the possessor of the world?) for «ارزنده و زیبا».
• Browne (Tabriz): «ارزندهٔ زیبا» (precious, beautiful) and «نهادست».

For the Prophet's sake, who was told in this design [of God]: "Give the interpretation to the wise, and the revelation to the crowd."

The diver has given you nothing but mud and brine, because he saw nothing from you but enmity.

• Browne (Tabriz): «ندادست» and «زیراک ندیدست از تو» for «نداد است» and «زیرا که ندید است ز تو».

Seek the meaning beyond the outward revelation, like a human being; do not be content, like a donkey, with the sound of the words.

• Taqavī’s note (1) on «بآوا»: «مخفف آواز است و هزاردستانرا هزارآوا گویند», short for āvāz, voice; the nightingale (hazār-dastān) is also called hazār-āvā. See the print
• Browne (Tabriz): «خورسند» for «خرسند».

You light lamps in the mosque on the Night of Power: the mosque made bright as day, and your heart like the longest night.

Do not light lamps; learn, for a lamp will not take the darkness out of your heart full of ignorance.

In renunciation you do not see, but in greed you read a cryptic script at night in a well. (the Persian reading is uncertain on the page image)

• Doubtful reading. In this copy «نئی بینا» and «بشب» are gone over in ink by a reader; the print beneath agrees with the 1993 printing («نه‌ای بینا»). See the print

If you are not a snake but a human being, why is the believer unsafe from you, and the Christian afraid of you?

• Tehran 1993: «گر مار نه‌ای دایم از بهر چرایند» (always) for «گر مار نئی مردمی از بهر چرا اند» (but a human being).

Do not strut, do not rejoice in the favour of the age, for this dusty centre was not made your endowment.

• Tehran 1993: «کرّهٔ غبرا» (this dusty globe) for «مرکز غبرا» (this dusty centre).

The sphere has bewildered many of the heedless, and through it many an untroubled life has fallen into disorder.

• Tehran 1993: «بی‌خردان» (the senseless) for «بیخبران» (the heedless); «مهیّا» (ready) for «مهنا» (untroubled).

Darius, who had thousands of servants, horsemen and attendants, left it all entirely and went alone with his body.

• Tehran 1993: «بشد خود تن تنها»; Browne as Taqavī, «با تن تنها».

The age is a game of grabbing, from which no one gets free: neither master nor servant.

• Taqavī’s note (2) on «مولی»: «بمعنی آقا و بنده هر دو استعمال شده», used in both senses, master and servant (the line plays on them). See the print
• Tehran 1993: «نیابند» and «نه مولی و نه مولا»; Browne «نه مولا و نه مولا».

There is a day after it on which people will find no refuge and no escape from the judgment of justice.

• Tehran 1993: «نیابد» and «منجا» for «نیابند» and «منجی».

On that day all people will receive their recompense, the unjust and the just alike, without any favour.

On that day, in that terror and dread, before that assembly, in the presence of the martyrs: my hand and the hem of al-Zahrāʾ,

• Browne (Tabriz): «حول» for «هول» (terror).

until God, the just Giver, the Exalted, gives me my full due from the enemies of the Prophet's family.