Tabriz. The Tavern
تبریز. خرابات
این آتش عشق می‌پزاند ما را
هر شب به خرابات کشاند ما را
با اهل خرابات نشاند ما را
تا غیر خرابات نداند ما را
This flame of love make us ripe;
We gather in tavern each night,
With men of the tavern we sit,
Except men of the tavern no one knows who - we.
Rumi, Quatrain 27
Strophes on the water quivering
Breeze was seeking,
But all letters rain
Away was washing... only shades
Have kept the shreds of rhymes...
Silent sigh
Of breeze, "This poesy -
Pieces of the broken crockery..."
Clouds wan and strange are flowing
Like perplexity itself is floating...
Strolling 'mid the hills, I seek
That hill with niche amid...
But alack, wet stones only,
Lonely edifíce in mist afar, belonging,
Seems, to deepest past -
Someone's dream forgotten, or mirage...
Thereto I'll go, an olden tune
I shall find, perhaps, in that refuge...
But ah... the hour is trodden yet,
But edifíce - still far, but why? I may
Be slipping echo chase...
An hour, yet one another, further only
Night... But I still wend and wend to phantom lonely,
Sleepwalker lost - am I...
"Wayfarer cannot find
Pathway, in maze enchanted roves...
But come with me..." The voice
Called me familiar; on the verge
Of dusk met I
The dervish with another cup of wine.
Dervish: Drink this cup of inspiration; for
A sober shall not open door...
عاشق همه سال مست و رسوا بادا
دیوانه و شوریده و شیدا بادا
با هشیاری غصهٔ هرچیز خوریم
چون مست شویم هرچه بادا بادا
O lover, each year tipsy, inspired be,
Crazy, in love, and ardent be;
Sobriety brings only grief,
When we become drunk - be what shall be!
Rumi, Quatrain 54
Soon we reached the inn of times -
From which are only left the rhymes...
Fire, fire in the window
Spread the hands and heart enkindled;
Feelings are become the tunes,
I am dancing, dancing with the moon...
Don't dilute, O night, this fire,
We are whirling in desire -
Moon and me; in reeling dance
I, at last, have lost myself...
Whether wind in ears sounds,
Whether flap of wings aloud;
NOW did unlock the bolts,
Time is left on yonder shore;
But before us surges rolling,
Whether evening or the morning,
Ocean restless; maiden moon
Did embrace me... Ah... "But look
Into sombre eyes of mine, -
Ocean this - is thine..."
But the touch of rain me roused,
I see his steps around
Soft; What the vision 'twas?
Oh, I feel that me no more
Is me, but then who?
"The moon..."
The dervish spake...
I see him sitting in a shade,
On the porch of olden tavern.
- Say, what with me happened..?
Dervish:
فمن اجتهد ورفع ستره رأى سره
Who toiled and raised his veil, thus he
Saw his mystery.¹
Ibn 'Arabi
Desert still your steps remembers,
On the water still are traces -
Where thy galley sailed...
Met two oceans, thereof a pearl
Mysterious appeared, stepped forth...
ووقع النكاح المعنوي، واجتمع الماءان،
في الرحم الآن
Noetic marriage happened, and
Two waters in the womb of Now blent.²
Ibn 'Arabi
Shining spirit³ said: I am
Akh, at sky I dwell,
But my half on Terra fell;
It sustains me with my feed
Until I be the crested ibis beautifíc, and we
Can marry - soul and me...
But if my half forgot me, oh, -
Then broken heart, alas and oh...
But who is she,
This fulgent Akh? - The name of Sea...
The Sea is He;
The name receives...
That's why we call it she... The hint:
Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened
unto ten virgins, which took their lamps,
and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And
five of them were wise, and five were foolish.
They that were foolish took their lamps, and
took no oil with them. But the wise took oil
in their vessels with their lamps.
Matthew 25: 1-4
I speak the riddles, or maybé
The riddles say themselves through me...
But here is key:
في زجاجة القلب يزداد ضياء
بزيت العمل
In the lamp of heart the shine increases
by oil of deeds.
Umar Suhrawardi
The riddle is unsolved, you say,
But let me guide you on the way.
This name is but expression His,
Unfathomed and unique...
Alif - the day - its oneness, Nūn -
Its mystery and night; The moon -
Is mirror His in which He looks...
وهي معرفة ذاته جلت عن
الإدراك الكوني والعلم الإحاطي
For she is the cognition of His entity,
beyond the range of knowledge and understanding.¹
Ibn 'Arabi
He said: O mirror, take
My Ocean, do reflect its waves;
And streams in deep, in depth, you do
Reflect, My mirror-moon...
And yet another sign for you:
وَالنَّجْمُ وَالشَّجَرُ يَسْجُدَانِ
And the stars and the trees
prostrate themselves.
Qur'an 55:6
Lofty Khab, and half below -
Khat - a house of the soul;
Starry body Khab - abode of Akh,
Her hands in Terra dwell in Khat.
At last, when Akh become the ibis, then
The soul and spirit marry, and
This man becomes Barzáh - a Sahu - crane.
You say again, why She..?
For nothing of my own - all His.
'Tis symbol - meditate on it...
Me: Aught of Ocean, waves do say...
Dervish:
بحرها الأفكار،
موجها الأحوال
Its sea - the thoughts,
Its wave - the states.⁴
Ibn 'Arabi
Me: And those oceans two, which met,
And hindrance - between them...
Dervish:
إعلم أن الإنسان موجود في برزخ
كالخط بين الظل والشمس والبرزخ
الذي بين البحرين فهم في العالم بين
العلو وهم الروحانيات والعقول جميع
العلويات وبين العالم السفلي وهي
الحيوانات والنباتات والمعادن والأرض
Know, that man is in Barzáh,
as a strip between shadow and sun.
And Barzáh, which is between two seas, -
is a strip between the lofty world of spirits,
intelligences, sublimities, and
the lower world of animals, vegetables,
minerals, earth.⁵
Ibn 'Arabi
But rain is getting stronger, as
You know us anow, then
In our tavern, welcome, and come in...
April 2019
1 Ibn 'Arabi, The Book of Anqā of the West
كتاب عنقاء مغرب في ختم الأولياء وشمس المغرب
2 Ibn 'Arabi, The Book of Cleaving the Breast
with the Knowledge Arcane
كتاب شق الجيب بعلم الغيب
3 روح Rūh (Spirit) - feminine in Arabic
4 Ibn 'Arabi, The Book of Nocturnal Journey
كتاب الإسراء إلى مقام الأسرى
5 Ibn 'Arabi, The Epistle on the Divine Dispensation
رسالة القسم الإلهي
Rumi, Quatrains
دیوان شمس. رباعیات
Umar Suhrawardi, The Knowledge of the Spiritually Learned
عوارف المعارف
Translations from Farsi and Arabic
by Denis Bezmelnitsin
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