Worthless Words for Worthless Minds
From Rumi’s Masnavi (مثنوی معنوی), Book 2, section 107 of 113: How worthless sayings find acceptance in the minds of worthless folk (پذیرا آمدن سخن باطل در دل باطلان). Below, each of its 10 couplets is given in Persian, followed by R. A. Nicholson’s English translation.
How worthless sayings find acceptance in the minds of worthless folk. پذیرا آمدن سخن باطل در دل باطلان
گفت اینک راست پذرفتم به جان
کج نماید راست در پیش کجان
He (the fool) said, “Here you are, this is the truth! I accept (it) with (all) my soul.” Wrong seems right to the wrong-minded.
گر بگویی احولی را مه یکی است
گویدت این دوست و در وحدت شکی است
If you say to a squinting man, “The moon is one,” he will say to you, “These are two (moons); and there is a (great) doubt as to (the moon’s) being one”;
ور بر او خندد کسی گوید دو است
راست دارد این سزای بد خو است
And if somebody laughs at him and says, “There are two,” he deems it the truth. This (mockery) is what the ill-natured (ignorant and contumacious) fellow deserves.
بر دروغان جمع میآید دروغ
الخبیثات الخبیثین زد فروغ
Lies muster round (those who are living) lies: (the text) the wicked men for the wicked women has thrown light (upon this point).
دل فراخان را بود دست فراخ
چشم کوران را عثار سنگلاخ
They whose hearts are (opened) wide (to receive spiritual truths) have wide (far-reaching) hands; they whose (spiritual) eyes are blind have to stumble on stony ground.
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