English
Story No. 4
A man had lost his heart and given up on life, and the one he longed for lived in a dangerous place, a place where death was likely.
It was not a morsel one could imagine ever tasting, nor a bird that might fall into the net.
When your gold means nothing in the beloved's eyes,
gold and dust look the same to them.
One day they advised him: give up this impossible dream, for a whole crowd caught in the same desire you have are prisoners with their feet in chains.
He wept and said:
Tell my friends to stop advising me,
for my eyes are fixed on what he wants.
Warriors kill their enemies with the strength of fist and shoulder,
but the beautiful kill their friends.
It is against the rules of love to pull your heart back from the beloved for fear of losing your life.
If you are still tied up in yourself,
you are a lying, counterfeit lover.
If there is no way to reach the beloved,
then dying in the search is the true rule of love.
If I get the chance, I will catch hold of his sleeve;
if not, I will go and die on his doorstep.
Those close to him, who cared about his affairs and pitied his condition, gave him advice and even put him in chains, but it did no good.
How painful: the doctor prescribes patience,
yet this greedy soul craves sugar.
Have you heard how a beautiful one said in secret
to a man who had lost his heart:
As long as you hold yourself in high regard,
what worth can I have in your eyes?
They say that word reached the prince, the one whose beauty this man adored, that a youth kept lingering at the edge of this square: cheerful, sweet-tongued, speaking graceful words, sharing fresh and clever remarks, and clearly out of his mind, with a wild passion in his head.
The young prince realized the man was in love with him and that he himself had raised this storm of trouble; so he rode toward him. When the man saw that the prince meant to come near, he wept and said:
The one who killed me has come back to me;
perhaps his heart has softened over the one he slew.
As much as the prince showed kindness and asked, where are you from, what is your name, what craft do you know, the man was so drowned in the deep sea of love that he had no breath to answer.
Even if you know all seven divisions of the Quran by heart,
when love unsettles you, you forget even the alphabet.
The prince said: why not speak a word to me, for I too am one of the circle of the poor, indeed I am a servant with a ring in my ear at their door?
Then, drawing strength from the beloved's closeness, he lifted his head from among the crashing waves of love and said:
It is a wonder that with you present my own being survives at all;
you begin to speak, and I am left with no words.
He said this, gave a cry, and surrendered his soul to God.
There is no wonder in one slain at the door of the beloved's tent;
the wonder is in the living, that they carry their soul out unharmed.