V. The Lion and the Beasts.
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Jalal al-Din Rumi, Maulana and Redhouse, James W. (James William), Sir
Had he possessed this very wonderful insight,
Would he be caught in springes barely out of sight?
He cannot see those traps beneath a little mound;
So caught he is, and caged. High dudgeon thence is found.”
Said Solomon: “O hoopoe, true is this remark.
A gulp of vanity has set thee raving, stark.
How is it thou’rt so tipsy early in the day,
To come and prate of things so far out of the way?”
The hoopoe then replied: “Great King, against poor me,
For love of God, believe not all my foes’ false plea.345
If untruth I have spoken,—cannot prove my tale,—
I cast myself before thee; kill me without fail.
The crow denies the rule of Providence on earth;
With all his cunning, he’s a miscreant from birth.”
Of miscreants’ defects, if any one in us
Exist, it’s sure to spread,—a plague-spot cancerous.
A snare man may detect in every lust of flesh,
If God’s decree will not he fall into its mesh.
By God’s decree our reason ceases clear to see,
As moon, when darkened all, can hide the sun from me.350
Whoever dares deny God’s ruling providence,
’Tis Providence decrees his blindness, want of sense.
The Father of Mankind, Lord Nomenclator first,168
In every nerve possess’d a vein of knowledge nursed.
He knew the names of all things, right, without default.
From first to last his mind could hold them from revolt.
Whatever name he gave, that name endured unchanged.
If he said: “This thing’s active,” slothful it ne’er ranged.
He knew at first who was believer in God’s word.
He from the first, too, knew the miscreant toward his Lord.355
From one who knows them well, of things seek thou the fames,
And mystery of the symbol: “God taught him the names.”169
The name of everything, with us, is what it seems;
With God, the name of everything, what He it deems.
By Moses was his staff a simple rod proclaimed;
By its Creator, God, a dragon was it named.
‘Umer170 idolater was classed by each array;
God him believer called upon creation’s day.
What is by man termed seed upon this transient heath,
Impressed by God was with the seal: “Father of death.”171360