English
In Praise of the Master of Martyrs, Imam Hussein
I wrote a letter to my beloved with the blood of my lost patience and calm, folded tight like a rosebud, layer upon layer, all of it blood.
What a letter, adorned with this account; what a letter, refined with this theme.
It said: you, for whose absence my soul of longing hangs on my lips; you, parted from whom my eye of hope is filled with blood.
I am the one who, without you, has no steadiness or patience in my soul; I am the one who, without you, has no rest or calm in my heart.
You are the one who, without me, is at ease inside and out; you are the one who, without me, is composed within and without.
How can I tell you what I suffer at the hand of separation? May no one be left helpless in the hand of his enemy.
Live happily and free, for far from you my share of love has dragged its tent out to the desert of madness.
To free me from this spell, breath by breath the thought of your narcissus eyes breathes out an enchantment.
I still thirst for the water of life that is your lips, though a hundred rivers have burst from my eyes.
I have no sense of day or night; this much I know: now and then my grief grows beyond all bounds.
The lasso of your curls is still around my heart's neck, even if I were to pass beyond the veil of the seven heavens.
The sting of the nail of longing: who is its Layla? They point to me, saying this is the new Majnun.
Grief for you cut me off from friend and stranger; even the joy of madness drove me from the dust of your street.
I wrote this petition in black ink, meaning: from being far from you, I have no blood left to give my heart.
When the letter brimmed over, top to bottom, with the blood of complaint, suddenly I remembered my heart, so full of faithfulness,
which had stayed behind, far from me, in that lock of hair, sitting in the curve of that tress, sunk to the waist in blood.
As kindness required, I did this: I filled the margin of the letter with questions about its state,
saying: this heart, deceived and caught in the trap of your tress, tell me, in that curl of black hair, how are you, how do you fare?
Even in dreams my fate is to see her face, but in dreams too I have no luck, for my fortune is wretched.
Since you have access to the ring of that tress, you who from eternity were caught in the curve of that curl,
the way meaning lies coiled in the torment of letters, the way a theme hides in the bend of an inadequate word,
remembering my eye that throbs with the blood of the liver, it would be fitting if you gazed on that rosy face.
When you steal a dark glance, remember my breast, for I too swallow only the blood of grief in memory of you.
Though my place there is crowded with rivals, still your place stays empty in this sorrowing breast.
The letter was sent off in the hands of the morning breeze; having kissed the dust of her door, the breeze stood waiting outside.
It lingered there before her door, outside, because the breeze had no way into her sacred presence.
With a courteous hand it brought the letter forward; she took it from its hand and made grace its debtor.
When with a coy hand she opened the letter, what did she see? A letter tangled, like a captivating tress.
Fold on fold like fresh wounds brimming with blood, line by line like a sea of blood tossing in waves.
Mockingly she said: this resembles no one's handwriting; surely its scribe was a child or a madman!
Its meanings all more disconnected than talk of faithfulness; its phrases all more tangled than the speech of madness.
Neither familiar to the eye nor close to the heart's word; neither its wording nor its theme is known to the mind.
Perhaps it is the rough draft of some idol's curl on curl of hair! Perhaps it is crammed with the state of some heartsick lover!
She tossed it down beside her own tress and said coyly: you, who have such a script, work out the meaning yourself.
When the tress saw the familiar writing, it coiled in on itself; it threw the knot of the thread's end into the hand of doubt.
After much thought she said: this is from someone whose patience and calm have left him, as he has left our side.
Who has the spirit to write, in the way of faithfulness, a reply, and ask: what is your state, what has befallen you?
She sent a spoken message, yet veiled with coyness: you, who from being far from us are as wretched as your own luck,
why have you become so helpless in the grip of parting? Did I not tell you that separation from the beloved brings no good fortune?
Being far from the dust of our threshold does not suit you; strive hard to free yourself from the claws of grief.
If escape from separation is not easy for you, seek help from the king of the inhabited world.
A king whose praises cannot be confined, even if the mind grew artful in mastering every art,
a king whose honor has set the very color of his kingship's foot upon the head of the heavens,
a king whose stature of rank, though it strain forever, will never bow beneath this overturned vault.
The Imam whose obedience is a duty, Prince Hussein, cherished by the grace of God who is beyond all how.
Strange would it be if his virtues, which have escaped all counting, surrendered even the hem of their robe to confinement.
The six directions are all a sea and his essence the pearl; the nine heavens all a scroll and his essence the meaning.
Were he not the link of creation's coming to be, eternity-past would be the storehouse of the letter K, eternity-future the stable of N.
For his birth the heavens moved; for his abode the earth chose stillness.
Before the palace of his glory, the sky's circle was like a small window to the eye; before the chamber of his sanctity, the heavens were a mere antechamber.
Suppose they spread out the spheres into one vast plain: before the courtyard of his worth it would be but a bridge over a wilderness.
Had his banner not been raised high to the sky, what would have held up this old roof like a pillar?
At the smallest sign of opposing him, the twilight sat down in blood; opposing him brought no blessing to the base sky.
I sang it wrong, I erred in this point; it does not befit him to be spoken of by such a measure.
Who is Time, to clash with him so rashly? Who is the sky, to come at him with trickery?
If opposing him so much as crossed the sun's mind, like the dark heart of a tulip it would sit black-faced in blood.
Time, in its months and years, never strays from his will; through ages and centuries the wheel does nothing but his command.
He had no desire for this two-day life; he had no attachment to this base little chamber.
Otherwise he would have raised the dust of eternity-past out of eternity-future, had his pleasure been bent on seizing the world.
If his will set the point of the compass moving, it would draw the world into a loop, like the letter N and the dot of N.
If a single dot fell from the pen of his command, the sky would drown in it like a drop in a great river.
If he set a knot in the corner of his brow, the motion of the sky would turn into stillness.
Eternity-future thrusts its head out from the collar of eternity-past to gaze at his glory, which has pitched its tent outside.
For the palace of his glory, Destiny carries the building materials, fixing the brick of moon and sun upon the heavens.
At his threshold the high heaven is lowly; for those who dwell at his door the inhabited world is cramped.
The banner of his fortune does not fit within the world, just as the sigh of a sorrowing lover will not fit a narrow heart.
How can anyone see the splendor of his rank and majesty while imprisoned in the torment of these six directions?
He has cast his shadow over past, present, and future; he has set his foot on what was, what is, and what will be.
Alexander is among the guardians of his splendor; Plato is among the narrators of his knowledge.
On the scale of his wisdom, the reason of the world's wise men weighs as little, before sound judgment, as the lightweight nonsense of madness.
His gentle, sweet breeze has the nature of the water of life; the flame of his wrath has the nature of the plague.
Even with infinite numbers one cannot reckon the count of his grace, for it exceeds infinity itself.
Number could not encompass his perfection, though it tried, for his limit, like his perfections, surrounds all things.
For the infinity of numbers exists only in potential, while his infinity stands free of the disgrace of mere potential.
How heart-opening now is the dawning of his praise's rising; the heavens cast a thousand smiles of mockery at the sun.