Song of the Cupbearer

Come, cupbearer, set out the wine; open the seal of the jar in God's name. The God from whom the turning heavens come, from whom the earth of the body and the seed of the soul arise. The wise One who set the heavens spinning, and poured the wine of the soul into the jar of the body. From Him the earth and time are fresh and fine; from Him comes the oil that lights the lamp of reason. He shapes the flask, the cup, the pitcher; the clay of the jar and the clay of the goblet are His making. He raises the vine from the garden; He kindles the bright wine to its glow. He draws the lamp of wine out of the vine; He raises such fire out of mere dust. He grants a soul to a fistful of clay; to dust He gives the cup that shows the whole world. If plain and desert exist, all are His garden; if tulip and rose bloom, all bear His mark. Before His face, candle and moth are the same; in His lane, mosque and tavern are the same. In the name of such a Powerful One who needs nothing, who finds the cure for every door shut to remedy: Come, throw open the tavern's lock; call the world to come and drink the wine. Come, before the uproar begins, before dawn breaks open over the face of night. Lift your head from sleep, light as a flower; the flask is sleeping, wake it up. Tell the goblet to make its ablutions; wash the eye and the rim of the cup with wine. Don't sleep, the sun is rising; the flask's prayer time will be missed. Your companions lie scattered everywhere, restless from the pain of last night's hangover. Through love of you they have stayed bound to this lane; on your kindness they have pinned their hopes. Pass a cup of wine into every hand; bring these thirsty ones to water. First give it to me, so I may drink it down, and reciting my prayers, drain it to the dregs. My God, by my unavoidable shortcomings, by my nearness to You and my distance: By the patience that brings an ache to the heart, by the ache that stays unspoken in the heart: By that grief-nursing, pain-born heart that turned to blood yet showed no color outside: By the hand stretched out toward the goblet, by the eye fixed open on the cupbearer's face: By the stature the wine-flask has raised, by the hand that has lifted the measuring cup: By the pure conviction of the wine's surge, that has spread its prayer rug on the surface of the water: By the foot that kneaded the clay of the pitcher, by the soil that nourished the gourd seed: By the gardener who tended the soil, by the water the vine drank from his hand: By the drunkard who caught the wine's scent, by the shoulder that carried the weight of a pitcher: By the carefree wanderer whose mind the wine carries off, by the drunk men carry home on their shoulders along the road: By the self-restraint of the pious ascetic, by the carefree ways of the wine-cup rogue; by a discipline whose freedom is no shame, by a piety that does not war with joy; by the clear minds of the drunken wine-lovers, by the tumbling collapse of those wholly drunk; by the hopes of elders whose hearts have hardened, by the dreams of young men born to luck; by a back bent double from the weakness of age, by a leg that leans upon a cane; by the helplessness of lust-driven youths, by the patience of rivals who have lost their hands and feet; by the foot of the greedy man gone numb, by the hand of the generous man left penniless; by the shyness the lover feels before the beloved, by the rapture so fierce the blood can hardly stay in the skin; by the curls the lover loosens knot by knot, by the face the mystic gazes on; by those who dwell in the desert of nothingness, by those who keep solitude in the realm of eternity; by those who have lost their way in the city of being, by those who, in the gathering of witness, do not know themselves: warm my heart with the cup of oneness, and soften this iron of mine in that fire. A hard heart in love is wretched, ill-fated; in this furnace melt me like wax. Work upon my copper with this alchemy, free me from every grief, make me pure as gold. Temper me like a blade with a single stretch, then give me water from the spring of fire. Polish away my rust like a dagger, then let my true essence show. Make my heart single-faced like a mirror, turn my face from this side toward that. I have come to you with a face full of error, denying all I have ever done. For I have done the unforgivable wrongs, I have committed faults beyond all measure. Youth, drunkenness, love, and madness weaken reason and inflame desire. Reason is humble, desire rebellious; madness and lust are cotton and fire. To flee from you because of my sins is wrong; but to flee from you into you is right. Though distance is the only trade I practice, you are near, so there is no need to worry. You know; what need have we to speak? Our hope in your grace is our excuse for failing. Though our rebellion springs from drunkenness, our soul cannot get along with sober reason. In sobriety, between speech and silence, we found nothing but the same loss of sense. Better, then, that we play openly, and flee once more from drunkenness into drunkenness. Cupbearer, give that wine the color of light, whose radiance wipes the rust from the face of light. Cupbearer, give that light from the eternal cup, that lifts the rust of grief from the mirror of the heart. Give that bitter, riot-rousing wine, now from the cup's clear top, now from the dregs of the jar. Give me that wine which sets the heart's blood boiling, and makes every hair on the body cry out. A wine hotter than blood, fluid like the spirit; a fire both warm and flowing, like the soul itself. A wine warmer than blood in its nature, agreeing with every temperament the way the soul does. To keep the body well, this tulip-red wine is as necessary in every frame as blood. A wine whose tavern is the heavens, and in that cup the sun is the measuring glass. From every brick of this wine's tavern, the very light of the sun shines clear. If this wine showed itself through the glass, the bowl of the sky would tumble from its wheel. And if this wine were stripped bare of its garment, judge by it the pain a shirt feels on the body. A wine that cures the affliction of reason, a remedy for every wretched disease. A wine that sets the mind ablaze and lights the lamp of longing within the head. It comes out of the glass with such majesty that meaning itself springs forth from thought. A wine from which the sea of oneness roars, a wine from which the blood of Mansur boils. If I could get even one glass of it, I would shatter the crystal vault of heaven. Hand me the brimming cup, to spite all sorrow, for a full goblet leaves grief diminished. It is morning, cupbearer, and the flask is empty; we are hungover, and any other thought is foolish. To swear off wine for fear of people is foolish; to abandon wine for hypocrites' piety is plain infidelity. It would be a loss; how could anyone trade a single drop of wine for a hundred prayer beads? Don't say the wine's exhilaration is a mere accident with some purpose behind it; you wouldn't claim substance is no real attribute. When divine grace gives you refuge, it grants you a path to the wellspring of the glass. Come, cupbearer, bring the dregs of that primal cup, the cup of 'Am I not?', from whose rapture the Universal Mind is drunk. From that wine all things are alive; from it the moon and the sun shine bright. A single drop of that wine fell upon the heavens, and the sun is the burn-scar that wine left behind. Give it to me, for the blood has frozen in my body, and grief's grip has crushed my every vein and root. How many candles of thought I have lit, burning my mind like a wick to its core. How much learning I gathered from the master, how many subtle points I committed to memory. I have spent so long with book and prayer, so devout, so abstinent and pious. I carried my notebooks tucked under my arm, and if any wildness lived in me, I kept it hidden. Sometimes in the branches of the law, sometimes in its roots, I wrestled with every pompous quibbler. What nights I had no sleep in my cell; how could there be bread when I had no water? I found no leisure even to eat; my belly was filled with nothing but the smoke of the lamp. Law and tradition, principles and theology, commentary and the whole art of philosophy: I chased after all of them for a lifetime, and gained a heavy share from each. At times I turned to poetry too, and worked a miracle from the magic of words. And what shall I say of the prayer I faked? My whole concern was bowing and kneeling. I rubbed my head so often at the prayer leader's feet that I wore down completely, like a frayed toothpick. From none of these did I get any joy. I am dizzy now, and the road of wine lies open. Now for years, in the lane of wine, I have had no food but the scent of wine. From now on, if life grants me leave, I mean to let wine be the strength of my soul. I will serve as an apprentice to the wine jar in the tavern, and like the cup brighten my eyes with wine. In the tavern I have another duty: like the bottle, my head is laid on the path of the cup. How fine is the tavern floor and that gathering, how blessed the head that has fallen at the foot of the wine jar. What a feast, the feast of the morning drinkers: surely it gives a sign of the feast of oneness. From every side they line up in waves, troop after troop, the cup riders moving like a sea onto the field. Wine and intoxication wear a single shirt; the flask and the cup speak tongue to mouth. It hides no one's thought from anyone; I salute the clear heart of the glass. Whoever raised his head high like the glass is one who hid no secret from all the world. I have heard that many a deep ship sinks down to the floor of the vast sea. In our tavern the difference is just this: here the sea is drowned inside the ship. From it the longing of a hundred destitute souls is fulfilled. Yes, this wine ship has the heart of a sea. Cupbearer, hand me that cup full of delight, for I hold my soul as wine's pledge upon my lips. Give me the wine that frees me from myself and makes me a chosen one at the tavern door. Long is our distance from the tavern, far; and far from the tavern, we are near the grave. Lord, shall we ever taste joy from this life? Shall we pass by the tavern once again? Shall we become one heart with the tavern's friends, and like a drop merge into that sea? Reason cannot reach that place by reckoning; the mind takes fright at its own shadow there. On this road the blood of proof is spilled freely; on this path the guide himself goes astray. Unless the cupbearer takes the lead on this road and lights the way's lamp with the glow of wine. How wretched I am, parted from wine. Perhaps the reed flute's voice will grant me a tune. A moment of weeping makes my chance feel narrow, while the reed plays and the bottle softens with sorrow. The song of my reed carried me out of myself; my heart turned to blood from the weeping of the glass. When my weeping hands me over to the storm, perhaps the ship of wine will save me. Cupbearer, pour that source of grace, wine like a mirror that reveals all secrets. So I may learn what this lament is for, and for whom my heart bleeds inside its glass. Where did the glass learn to weep like this, and why has my breath turned to burning sighs? I have no strength to explain this secret; I draw breath, but no sound comes out. No one told it to me, and I tell it to no one; this secret can be known through wine alone. Come, you who are the substance of my life, the trickle from the spring of my delight. Our vigil through the night is in your memory; come, candle of those who keep the night awake, come. Stop bleeding my heart further, enough; you have wronged it lifetimes over, now enough. The heart broke head to foot from the cupbearer's cruelty; long live the cup, our heart has shattered. What a cupbearer! Earth and time are drunk on him; the drinker's very soul rests in his hand. The cupbearer's eyebrow reflects in the cup like a new moon set against the dusk of evening. From the corners of his black, intoxicated eyes, a glance drips down like wine from a goblet. His lips put the rose petal to shame; his lashes breach the fortress of the heart. A mouth tinier than an ant's waist, where a smile has forced its way in. When reason sees his mouth smile, it imagines existence in what is nothing. The down on his lip casts a shadow round it, like ants swarming toward a jar of sugar. That down has drawn a circle over beauty's work; his mouth is the center point of beauty's compass. His glance can arm an empty, wineless cup the moment it falls on it, half drunk. When he takes the cup of coquetry in his grip, he smashes the glass of heaven against a stone. When he keeps serving cups of feigned neglect, the kingdom of the body yields, yawning for wine. His reflection has barely touched the wine before the flame has sunk its roots into the water. Once a hand has held the cup he serves, how could it ever let that goblet go? The cupbearer has worn me out to the soul; he has rid me of both faith and unbelief. Neither fully sober nor drunk as I wish, the forbidden is lawful to me, the lawful forbidden. Cupbearer, give me back my honor, that same water that washes me clean. So it cleanses me of the stain of repentance, and if I turn to piety, lays me in the dust. Where has the singer gone, where is the minstrel? Why is the lute's string a vein without the blood of song? The cupbearer is the Messiah, so why this deadness of heart! The wine is fire, so why this frozen gloom! Singer, tell some melody to begin, to wet its lips at the wellspring of song. Tell the musician to set the music going, to open the lute's veins with his pick. Singer, freshen your mind with wine; with a single note plunder my weary yawns. First strike up the tune of lovers, play it to my heart, my soul, my longing. With the trills of soaring melodies, bind the hearts and souls of those who are drunk. Make a fresh song in every branch of the scale; with one voice make both worlds ring with fame. Do not lie in wait on a single flower of song; like the nightingale, move from branch to branch. The heavens are vast and we are small; the earth is our cradle, and we are children. It is not right to put on greatness for the base, nor to hear taunts of smallness from worthless men. How long must we keep company with these worthless men? How long endure low notes beneath this turning sky? In this house, abasement and lament have killed me; the loss of wine and of drinking has killed me. Singer, play the songs of parting, for the longing for Iraq's melody has set my soul afire. Arab Iraq is my one desire; yet not a drop of the Tigris is in my jug. How sweet that moment when, snatched from death's grasp, I break my jug on the banks of the Euphrates. The same one who pours the wine of Kowsar is my cupbearer; the wine of his love still lingers in my heart. Come, cupbearer, bring me to union through the wine; see my branches and lead me back to my root. From the pain of a hangover I am as weak as a frail ant beneath an elephant's foot. But if the strength of wine becomes my ally, even Solomon would not dare sit beside me. Now for ages, parted from wine, I have been frail and mournful as the reed-flute's cry. Give me wine that increases my strength, a wine that steals me away from myself. When I am with myself, the whole world is my enemy; when I leave myself, even fire is a flower garden. Better that I flee from myself, for with myself I am my own worst enemy. Since with myself I am cut off from myself, that is why I cannot bear to be without intoxication. If the veil of the mind were not in the way, for one hour you could behold your own face. If you long to see your own face, in intoxication you can witness your own self. Give me wine, so I may strip myself of my head, and for a moment gaze upon myself. In this narrow corridor of fear and hope, a filthy image has made me a prisoner of myself. Perhaps the wine will take me away from myself, and free me from this tight place. At dawn the joy of thought lifted the crown from my head; my soaring fancy carried me to the heavens' ascent. In thought I went beyond the sky, and set my foot upon the placeless realm. There I saw a world of pure light, made neither of wind and fire nor of water and earth. In it were people purer than the soul itself, sharper in understanding than the keenest mind. They knew nothing of the body's darkness, and bore no trace of any shadow. No dread of death, no fear of perishing, no envy or spite, no terror or alarm. Every pleasure you might glimpse in a dream was plain there, bright as the sun. Their roofs and doors held nothing but joy and feasting; all their days were festivals and spring. I let my gaze race across that whole world and found nothing but happiness there. Then when I turned to look at myself, I saw only dust, and felt shame heaped on my head. Now I grieve, parted from that world; this grief is killing me in this narrow place. I don't know what it was, or where, or when; perhaps the light of wine will guide me there. If the road to that world can be opened again, it can be ridden back on the rose-red steed of wine. Cupbearer, give me a sip of that fiery wine, the kind that frees me from this world for a moment. So that I might find the way to that homeland; here in exile the blood of my heart has burned away. In exile I have no friend or familiar face; no one is this wretched in his own land. Give me wine, so I may rise from this demon-bound well to the lofty roof of the heavens. Give me wine, so I may leave this cramped, dark corridor and take my place above the nine vaults of the sky. That wine which turns the body light as the soul, and eases this head of its heavy burden. I will leave this heavy load behind in the earth, and shake off this dust into the grave. From the lowest depths up to the highest star I will go, climbing perhaps step by step. Cupbearer, give me the very soul of thought, the fairy-child born in the seclusion of the glass. Give me wine, for the time for delay is past; the flood of thought has already swept past the bridge. I have nothing left for anyone but quarrel and reproach; I have no will left to make peace even with the sun. Reason drains the lifeblood of wisdom; madness drives the head toward delirium. Reason sets its heart on conquering me; madness wears the ring of my chain in its ear, my willing servant. Though reason keeps me company, it is madness that truly provides for me. Though reason's path is clear, it is full of doubt and trickery. Better to overpower reason, for it veils the goal from sight. Madness draws its strength from love and intoxication; give me wine, so reason raises no army against me. I am weary of reason's fables; give me wine, so I may escape this meddler. Reason has become the blight on my harvest; reason is the owl haunting my ruins. Come, cupbearer, give me that cup bright as the sun, the one that swells my radiance and glow. Give me a wine that lights up the heart, that sets this dark gathering aglow. A wine so pure it scours the rust from the heart; before its light, even fire is mere ash. If a single drop of this ancient wine, a wine drawn from the fire of Sinai, fell on a stone, it would turn to pure ruby; dripped on the dust, it would become a sun. You can have your preacher, your palace, your maidens of paradise; give me the cupbearer, that beautiful soul. Embracing your heavenly maiden is just a thought; but my arm is already around the neck of the bottle. Go, preacher, get away from us; the drinkers here are reckless, so cover your eyes and leave. You are too dry and our fire too fierce; like dry straw, you would be scorched by our flame. Don't lay a hand on this water-colored glass, for from this water a fire leaps like sparks from stone. May the sweetness of life be yours; just keep your distance from the bitterness of wine. You know nothing of wine but its bitterness, so don't wrap your turban around your head over it. Pour, cupbearer, that fire-kindling water, the very thing that drives grief away and burns up sorrow. Give me wine, for the pain of separation has killed me; loneliness and helplessness have destroyed me. The breeze, the roses, the nightingales are all drunk; it is right that we wash our hands of repentance. In this fresh spring when the world is at ease, my chest is a battlefield where fire runs wild. Grief has so seized me, head to heart, that even my fortune mourns at my pain. The dawn of hope is a disgrace to my night, like a white speck on the pupil of an eye. For me the dawn of hope is nothing but evening; the dark night is mine, and only in name a day. Perhaps the glow of wine will come to my aid, and the dark night will brighten with drink. Dawn, don't breathe your light upon my face; the wine rising in my glass is dawn enough for me. For me a furnace becomes a rose garden in the wine's reflection; my night is lit by the glow of the cup. May my golden cup never run dry of wine, for an empty body is better than an empty cup. Say what remains of my life is a single breath; the wine that remains is the whole of my life. Give me, cupbearer, that cup red as a tulip, so I can soothe a wound a hundred years old. Come, you whose beauty is the very grace of the rose, in whose face the rose lights its lamps. As long as you walked through the meadow, the rose breathed in a fresh delight. Tonight, when you have stepped away from the garden, look how the rose still keeps its joyful air. It is spring, cupbearer, and the air is generous; if we grow drunk like the rose, it is only fitting. The meadow is lovely, the rose garden lovely, the rose lovely; the breeze is laden with amber, and the air enchanting. The air is mild as the nature of a generous soul, the water flowing clear as the mind of a wise man. My nature grew so fond of the rose that the meadow felt like a house of exile to my eyes. The garden rose, so full of color and shine, drinks wine from its cup the way a rose drinks dew. The longing for the garden took hold of me sweetly; I saw the rose, and it set me on fire. How could anyone escape catching fire, when the rose has a face of flame and the nightingale a breath of fire? The rose's scent cut me off from the whole world; the nightingale's lament filled my heart with pain. In this moment, when the nightingale is drunk on the rose, the garden is as lovely as the cupbearer's face. Better that I make my prayer rug of joy and play at love with my own cupbearer. Why think of nightingale or rose, what kind of thought is this? The rose is my wine cup, the nightingale my flask. While everyone's lap is filled with roses, a lapful of wine roses is enough for me. When I light up my chest with wine, instead of roses I fill my lap with fire. I am the disciple of wine, reckless and drunk, the cupbearer's curl in one hand, the goblet in the other. The heart of the cup will strike me down if I ever turn my head from the line of the wine measure. For I am the servant of the old tavern keeper, one of those who drink the blood-red wine from the bowl. I have seen many hardships in the taverns; I have circled many times around the wine bowl. Now, when I share my home with the flask, it is all the bloom of drunkenness and the surge of madness. Cupbearer, give me that powerful wine that can tear sorrow out by its very roots. That same wine that makes the flask glow bright, just as your love brightens every thought. With a careless hand, make the cup's rose laugh; from the flask, make a thousand drunkards weep. Drink wine until you are drunk among the drunk; light up your face until you become a garden. Tell your lashes to hold their heads high; let your hair loose to do its mischief. Adorn the marketplace of your lashes with coquetry; with your dark eyes, throw open the door of seduction. The rose bursts into flame before your face; the hyacinth falls into disarray beside your hair. Your lips turned the tulip's measure red with blood; from this fever, the bud's lip broke into a cold sore. Longing for a kiss from those unveiled lips, the bud's mouth has become a cup of wine. Do not say the flask lies there empty, for it has given up its life from being parted from your face. Such an uproar rises from you at the feast that both the sober and the senseless are utterly drunk. When I count the lovers of your street, ask anyone you like, my heart bleeds more than them all. Just your name is enough for me; everyone seeks union, but I seek only your pleasure. I am a lover, but not like everyone else; from one person to another there is a vast difference. At nightfall, when my heart was drowned in blood, fortune lay asleep at my side. Make my head a pillow of grief, give me pain; brand my bed of suffering with a burning mark. Not a single friend is left to me, and no one comes or goes except my own breath. No confidant to pour out my heart's pain to, no sigh from which I might draw out a fire. Such a flood of tears overcame me that the storm itself, in fear, took refuge in a boat. Your image came back into my memory, and my cry rose up to the highest heaven. I pictured you and became a rose garden; remembering your lips, I grew drunker than the drunks. Parted from you and burning like this, my night turns into day, my day into night. At night my hand clings to your skirt; when I wake, it is only my own collar I grip. When will any rest show itself to my eyes, when death would come before sleep ever does? At dawn, when my heart remembers you, my dwelling becomes a doomsday of grief. Before sleep can come, I lift my head; seeing you not there, I pour dust on it in despair. Come, cupbearer, in kindness for a moment; sprinkle on me a drop from the fire of the wine. Scramble together the pages of my learning, throw the fine robes of my vanity into the fire. Wash away my book of knowledge with the water of wine, for the dust of nothingness covers my knowledge. Let my tongue fall silent from all its talk, let everything I have read be forgotten. My rescue is the curl of your bewitching hair; my cure is the slightest motion of your brow. You, who claim to know, though you are wise, you are a total stranger to faithfulness. Better for you than to burn for the beloved is to sew up a collar you never tore. Fleeing in the moment of action is no quick win; stepping into the fire is not the work of every wisp of smoke. The smoke of fire alone unsettles you; how then could union with the fire ever delight you? You see only that the fire burns away; you do not see how it blazes into light. Whether the fire's flame pleases you, or whether you are mere straw that the rising flame consumes, if your desire has truly turned toward the fire, then come, pass beyond all being and non-being. Come, tear off the borrowed garment; when you walk into the fire, do not carry cotton with you. Give, cupbearer, the mirror of the cup, the one that reveals who is ripe and who is raw, so that I may see in it the reflection of my own face, and scatter away the traces of my own self. Let it shake from me the dust of my own attributes, and show me my own pure face. Lift, for a moment, the veil from before me, for I am dying of longing to see myself. Once again love has made me young; it has turned my earth into sky. I have carried the baggage of illusion out of my house, and truth has opened its door to me once more. I have fallen for a new kind of sorrow's delight; I have plunged into a love that is real. I cannot tell whose love I am breathing out, that I stir this world and the next together into chaos. What did my cupbearer pour into the cup of my heart, that I belong neither to the inner self nor the outer world? From this wine a different ecstasy fills my head; my cupbearer must be the one who pours from heaven's spring. Ali, the saint, the king of this world and the faith, the key to the garden of certain truth. Again the joy of drunkenness has come over me, the craving for wine and the worship of wine. From sheer joy I do not know where I am going, for like the scent of a flower I rise into the air. Fortune lends my fate its honor, for my longing carries me to the soil of Najaf. It must be that I have set foot on the path of my lucky star, for my head presses on toward the road to Najaf. Najaf has become my Mount Sinai, like Moses I am called; tell the Kaaba: stop winking at me from afar. Why does the sky not die of envy, that I am the dog at the threshold of Najaf? My eager feet know a certain road, for the sun and moon lie like sandals beneath my steps. I do not walk this road to show off my piety; I walk this road for the sake of God.