I. The Prince and the Handmaid.
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Jalal al-Din Rumi, Maulana and Redhouse, James W. (James William), Sir
His circling arms the welcome form embraced,
And, lover-like, with joy his neck enlaced.
Kisses bestowed he on his hand and brow;
Hoped kindly he’d fared well from home till now.
His health and welfare asking, led him in.
“Its own reward is patience,” thought he then.
Patience at first is bitter; but at length
Its fruit is sweet. It gives us heart’s content.
Then he aloud: “A gift from God thou’rt come,
The proverb’s pith: ‘By patience overcome.’65
This meeting’s the reward of all my prayer;
Thou’lt solve the riddle of my dark despair.
Th’ expounder, thou, of all my soul’s desires,
Thou’lt extricate me from despond’s deep mires.
Be welcome, then; a very friend in need;
Hadst thou delayed, my case were sad indeed.
Prince of physicians! Who’d not welcome thee,
Deserves rejection. Do his eyes not see?”
Urbanity’s requirements thus bested,
Our prince the stranger to a chamber led.70
The maiden’s tale and case he there unfolds.
The patient, next, unveiled, the guest beholds.
Complexion, pulse, egesta, all are seen;
Disposing causes, symptoms, sought, I ween.
Then he: “The remedies till now adduced,
Have detrimental been, no good produced.
The case has been from first misunderstood.
Protect us, Heaven! A blundering brotherhood!”
He saw her trouble; thence divined her ill.
Her secret kept he; hidden held it still.75
The sickness was not caused by bile or spleen.
The scent of perfume’s better smelt than seen.
He traced her suffering to a mind oppressed;
Her body sound, her soul a wish suppressed.
Her hesitations made him guess her love;
The symptoms plain,—her heart was sick, poor dove!
A lover’s smart is not from fleshly pine;
A probe is love; it sounds hearts’ depths, divine.
Let love proceed from this or other cause,
It matters not; heavenward it mortals draws.80