The Moth and the Truth of Its Love

Someone said to the moth: You lowly thing, go choose a friend suited to your own rank. Take a road where you can see some hope. You and the love of a candle: worlds apart. You're no salamander, so don't circle the flame; battle takes courage first. The blind mole hides from the sun, for ignorance cannot force its way against an iron fist. Someone you know to be your enemy, it is not wisdom to take him as a friend. No one will tell you you're doing right when you throw your life away for his sake. The beggar who asked the king for his daughter got a beating and cooked up empty dreams. How could he count a friend like you, when kings and sultans turn their faces to him? Don't imagine that in such an assembly he'll be gentle with a pauper like you. And if he's soft with everyone else, do you, poor wretch, think he'll be warm with you? Look now at what the burning moth replied: I wonder, if I burn, what's the harm? Like Abraham, I have a fire in my heart, so that this flame feels to me like roses. It's not my heart dragging me toward the beloved; his love drags my very soul by the collar. I don't throw myself into the fire by choice; the chain of longing is around my neck. I was burning even while still far away, not only now that the fire has caught me. A beloved in his beauty doesn't act in a way you could preach piety to. Who could blame me for loving the beloved, when I am content to die at his feet? Do you know why I'm so eager to be destroyed? Since he exists, it's fine if I do not. Let me burn, for the beloved chose it, so his fire may spread into me too. How long will you tell me: find, within your own station, a companion who shares your pain? Advice to the lovesick is like saying to someone stung by a scorpion, don't groan. Strange one, don't give counsel to someone in whom you know it will never take hold. When the reins have slipped from a helpless rider's hands, no one says, ride slowly, boy. How fine this line comes in the Sindbad tale: love is fire, my boy, and advice is wind. A fierce fire only rises higher in the wind; a leopard grows more vengeful when it is struck. When I saw you clearly, you were doing me wrong, turning my face toward someone like myself. Seek someone better than yourself, and seize the chance; with an equal you only waste your days. The self-worshippers chase after their own kind; the drunkards walk into the dangerous alley. From the moment I set out on this path, I lifted my heart from my head once and for all. The one who risks his head is the true lover; the coward is only in love with himself. Death may drag me down suddenly from ambush; better, then, that my darling kills me. Since it is surely written that I'll perish, perishing at the beloved's hand is sweeter. Won't you one day give up your life in helplessness? Better to give it at the beloved's feet.