The People Suspect the Prophets
From Rumi’s Masnavi (مثنوی معنوی), Book 3, section 117 of 185: How the people suspected the prophets (متهم داشتن قوم انبیا را). Below, each of its 5 couplets is given in Persian, followed by R. A. Nicholson’s English translation.
How the people suspected the prophets. متهم داشتن قوم انبیا را
قوم گفتند این همه زرقست و مکر کی خدا نایب کند از زید و بکر
The people said, “All this is fraud and deceit: how should God make a vicar of Zayd and Bakr?
هر رسول شاه باید جنس او آب و گل کو خالق افلاک کو
Every king’s messenger must be of his (the king’s) kind: where are water and clay in comparison with the Creator of the heavens?
مغز خر خوردیم تا ما چون شما پشه را داریم همراز هما
Have we eaten ass’s brains that we, like you, should deem a gnat to be the confidant of the humá?
کو هما کو پشه کو گل کو خدا ز آفتاب چرخ چه بود ذره را
Where is a gnat in comparison with the humá? Where is earth in comparison with God? What relation to the mote has the sun in the sky?
این چه نسبت این چه پیوندی بود تاکه در عقل و دماغی در رود
What resemblance is this, and what connexion is this, that it should enter into any mind and brain?
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by: Reza about (category: Masnavi, Persian Poetry)
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