The Believer’s Patience in Tribulation
From Rumi’s Masnavi (مثنوی معنوی), Book 3, section 174 of 185: A comparison showing how the true believer becomes patient when he understands the inward meaning and the beneficial nature of tribulation (تمثیل صابر شدن ممن چون بر شر و خیر بلا واقف شود). Below, each of its 7 couplets is given in Persian, followed by R. A. Nicholson’s English translation.
A comparison showing how the true believer becomes patient when he understands the inward meaning and the beneficial nature of tribulation.تمثیل صابر شدن ممن چون بر شر و خیر بلا واقف شود
سگ شکاری نیست او را طوق نیست خام و ناجوشیده جز بی‌ذوق نیست
(If) a dog is not (kept) for hunting, he has no collar: the raw and unboiled is naught but the insipid.”
گفت نخود چون چنینست ای ستی خوش بجوشم یاریم ده راستی
The chickpea said, “Since it is so, O lady, I will gladly boil: give me help in verity!
تو درین جوشش چو معمار منی کفچلیزم زن که بس خوش می‌زنی
In this boiling thou art, as it were, my architect: smite me with the skimming spoon, for thou smitest very delightfully.
همچو پیلم بر سرم زن زخم و داغ تا نبینم خواب هندستان و باغ
I am as the elephant: beat and brand my head, that I may not dream of Hindustán and (its) gardens;
تا که خود را در دهم در جوش من تا رهی یابم در آن آغوش من
So that I may yield myself (submit) to the boiling, to the end that I may find a way to that embrace (of the Beloved);
زانک انسان در غنا طاغی شود همچو پیل خواب‌بین یاغی شود
Because Man, in (the state of) independence, grows insolent and becomes hostile, like the dreaming elephant.
پیل چون در خواب بیند هند را پیلبان را نشنود آرد دغا
When the elephant dreams of Hindustán, he does not hearken to the driver and displays viciousness.”
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by: Reza about (category: Masnavi, Persian Poetry)
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