Sultan Mahmud Shows Favour to Ayaz
From Rumi’s Masnavi (مثنوی معنوی), Book 5, section 155 of 175: How the Sultan (Mahmud) showed favour to Ayáz (نواختن سلطان ایاز را). Below, each of its 8 couplets is given in Persian, followed by R. A. Nicholson’s English translation.
How the Sultan (Mahmud) showed favour to Ayáz. نواختن سلطان ایاز را
ای ایاز پر نیاز صدق‌کیش صدق تو از بحر و از کوهست بیش
“O Ayáz, who art full of humbleness and sincere in all thy ways, thy sincerity is mightier than sea and mountain.
نه به وقت شهوتت باشد عثار که رود عقل چو کوهت کاه‌وار
For thee there is no stumbling in the hour of lust, so that thy reason, which resembles a mountain (in solidity), should go (hither and thither) like a straw;
نه به وقت خشم و کینه صبرهات سست گردد در قرار و در ثبات
Nor in the hour of anger and vengeance do thy powers of long-suffering fail to hold fast and firm.”
مردی این مردیست نه ریش و ذکر ورنه بودی شاه مردان کیر خر
Virilitas haec virilitas est, barba et penis non est; sin minus, rex virorum esset veretrum asini. [Manhood is this manliness, not (just) a beard and a penis; otherwise, an ass’s penis would be the king of men.]
حق کرا خواندست در قرآن رجال کی بود این جسم را آنجا مجال
Whom has God in the Qur’an called men? How should there be room for this body there?
روح حیوان را چه قدرست ای پدر آخر از بازار قصابان گذر
What worth has the animal soul? O father, come now, pass through the market of the butchers,
صد هزاران سر نهاده بر شکم ارزشان از دنبه و از دم کم
(And you will see) a hundred thousand (sheeps’) heads laid on paunches (tripe), of which (heads) the value is less than (that of) the fat caudal part and tail.
روسپی باشد که از جولان کیر عقل او موشی شود شهوت چو شیر
Meretrix est (quaevis femina) cui penis impetu mens (tanquam) mus fiat, libido tanquam leo. [A prostitute is (one) who, due to the movement of a penis, (her) intellect becomes a mouse (and her) lust like a lion.]
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by: Reza about (category: Masnavi, Persian Poetry)
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