XXXV
The Ruthless Thorn Gives Advice To the Soft-cheeked Rose
The thorn, his thoughts on hate and vengeance fixed,
Soon as he had outraged the Nightingale
Went straightway hurriedly to see the Rose,
And gave her counsel in a long address.
And said to her, “How did it happen, Rose,
That such an oaf could make his love to thee,
And that the very lowest of the low
By his addresses could affront thy name?
Thou art the pearl, the princess. Can it be
A nameless beggar should draw nigh to thee?
That night and day by his persistent song
He causes all the grove to prate of thee?
Is it that thou his daring would approve
And smilest on his ardor and desires,
And givest ear to such a rogue as this
And listenest to the words he says to thee,
So that the beggar in thy favor proud
Shameless inflates himself and boasts his crime?
He is a man of boundless arrogance,
And of audacity untamable.
Do not encourage him, my gracious queen.
The beggar knows the truth about himself.
I, with my sword, have pierced his breast with wounds
And gladly stretched him bleeding on the ground.
And that I did not out of fear for thee,
But out of reverence for this pleasant grove.”
Soon as the Rose these words of fury heard,
Pained to the heart, her rage o’ermastered her.
She said: “What has this beggar done to thee,
That thou shouldst thus transfix his soul with pain?
He is a harmless wretch in dire distress,
In sorrow and perplexity involved.
He came with all his melodies of love
Two days ago a guest in this fair grove.
Shame that thou thus hast wronged and injured him!
Sure no one has this guest repulsed with scorn.
Does it befit the soul magnanimous
To outrage and bring scorn upon a guest?
Tell me what harm he ever did to thee,
This pilgrim foreigner and hermit pure,
That thou hast undertaken thus to cleave
His bosom with that cruel blade of thine?
Was it because he sang with flowing heart?
A song of sorrow gives our souls delight.
He was the minstrel of our happy lawn,
And won the flowers to raise their chalice higher.
Not lawlessly my fetters he endured.
Then what disgrace for me can be in this?
For beauty and accomplishment complete
Have always made their orisons to love.
And beauty’s self is perfected through love,
And beauty without love endures eclipse.
When love entwines itself round beauty’s form
It gives no stigma to the thing it holds.
And nothing can the crown of beauty mar,
Though thousand thousands babble out her name.
Was Joseph in Egyptian lands disgraced,
When he was object of the people’s love?
Go, leave the poor man in tranquillity,
Harass him not, be pitiful to him.
Thou must not him with cruelty oppress,
But treat him after this with kindliness.”
When the thorn heard the Rose’s reprimand,
Like needles on his head uprose his hair.
What he had heard was not what he desired,
And trouble overspread his countenance.
And now the royal audience was o’er,
He went to visit Spring, the garden’s king.
XXXVI
The Hard-hearted Thorn Slanders the Lovesick Nightingale Before the Monarch of the Spring
He hurried to the palace of the shah,
And standing on his feet before the throne,
He said: “My sovereign to the end of time,
May thy prosperity unbroken be!
There lingers in the rose garden a rogue
By day and night, a rogue incurable
Who by the Rose infatuated lives,
And drunken with love’s goblet is distraught.
Nor night nor day he ceases his complaint
As he relates the beauties of the Rose,
Nor night nor day can I o’ermaster him.
The beggar still with fire poetic burns,
He has nor shame nor self-respect in life,
And finds alone in drunkenness delight.
The Rose herself is fettered by his lay,
And sympathizes with this amorous sot.
Now the affair has reached the final stage,
And he has gained the notice of the Rose.”
Soon as the monarch had heard the thorn’s address,
Perturbed, he thus addressed the listening slave:
“Where is this beggar, pale and passionate?
Let him be seized and in a cell confined.”
And so he sent his hunter to the grove,
A hunter of inexorable heart.
And said to him, “Go seek the beggar-man
And put him without pity into chains.”
Soon as the firman of the king went out
They quickly scoured the glades of Gulistan,
And sought amid the rose-garden parterres
For traces of the tuneful Nightingale.
XXXVII
The Wounded Nightingale Sees the Violets, His Companions in Adversity; They Approach Each Other, and the Nightingale is Shut Up in a Cage
He who sets out to adorn his countenance
Makes plainer the expression of his face,
And thus it fell that when the Nightingale
Felt his breast severed by the thorn’s assault,
Far wandering from the glade of Gulistan,
He traversed many a field and meadow plain.
And as he thus for consolation sought,
He saw a poor man in a quiet nook,
Who sat in weakness and in misery,
His figure bowed in deep despondency.
He seemed down-trodden, blue, and broken-limbed,
As is the life of those whom love has crowned.
He sat in weeds of sorrow on the plain,
For he was clad in robes of mourning blue,
His head sank low upon the mossy sod,
As if his mind wandered beyond the world.
He breathed the fragrant love breath of the grove,
His cup was filled with wine of suffering.
He had a tongue which never uttered sound,
’Twas oft thrust out from very weariness.
And since he filled his vials with his tears,
They called him in the garden violet.
The wounded Nightingale accosted him,
Beholding one all destitute of strength,
But he was overcome with hopeless love,
His frame convulsed with suffering and dismay.
Here Bulbul found a comrade in distress,
And with a question tried to hearten him,
And said: “My friend, what has befallen thee?
How is it love has dealt so hard with thee?
I see, thou art a worthy slave of love,
From which thou art so weak and overwrought.
What is it in thy mind which makes thee sigh?
Pilgrim, why wearest thou this mourning blue?
Is it that thy beloved has done thee wrong?
Or has a rival stepped into thy place?
For grief has bent thee double by its load,
And all thy soul is out tune through grief.
Who is it that has flung thee to the dust?
Who is it gave thee to be rapine’s sport?
The feet of men have trod thee to the ground,
As a poor weakling in the gay parterre.
Was it the loved one pierced thee to the soul?
Or is it that a rival tortures thee?
Say, wretched one, what ails thee, for thy pain,
Binds thee at once in kinship with my heart.”
He noticed how the violet, weak in speech,
With stammering tongue at length replied to him,
“I, too, am wounded by the darts of love,
And thus my case is witness to thy wit,
’Tis love that bows my bosom to the dust,
’Tis grief that thus has flung me to the earth.
For oh, my soul has taken the fire of love,
I burn for satisfaction and relief.
The breath which from my lips forever comes
Has tinged my raiment with this mournful blue,
And longing for the Rose has done to death.
Absence from her has thus afflicted me;
’Tis love that makes me grovel in the dust.
And in this guise I traverse all the world.
I am tormented by the pangs of love,
And finally the dust becomes my home.
Love as I may the beauty of the Rose,
Alas, that beauty I may ne’er enjoy.
For she is ignorant of my distress,
And I may never paint it to her heart.
And no man knows the anguish of my mind.
I have no friend familiar on this plain,
And now I am so wan and courageless,
I cannot even speak of my distress.”
Now when the Nightingale this poor man saw,
He felt compassion for his misery,
And each one to the other freely spoke
Of all their woes, and many things besides.
Then suddenly the royal spy approached,
With darkling eyes and cunning looks askew,
And while these two together converse held,
And mourned over the ardor of their love,
The cunning snare was spread above the bird,
And corn was scattered for the prey’s decoy.
The Nightingale was seized with cruel hand,
And in a moment into durance cast.
And for the pain and anguish of the wretch
A cage was brought with many an iron bar,
And then he was imprisoned in the cage.
The cage must be his dungeon evermore,
And now the Nightingale at last was caught,
And banished evermore from peace and joy.
Like a poor anxious prisoner was he now,
For what more like a prison than a cage?
And night and day within that cage he wept,
O’erwrought by absence and the pang of love.
They brought him in his cage before the shah,
Before the shah he sang his well-a-day.
The Nightingale was sick from suffering sore.
Ah, see, what a deluding world can do!
XXXVIII
King August Appears in the East and Devastates the Earth
O heart, thy tongue now kindle into fire,
Soften thy disposition with desire.
Build up a burning story out of truth,
And with hot breath go raging through the world.
Oh, let the utterance of the pen stream fire,
And let the world itself go off in fire.
Whoever sets ablaze the narrative
Shall lighten up the circle of the world.
In Eastern lands there sat enthroned in might
A mighty monarch potent and revered.
A sovereign who could set afire the earth,
He was a hero of a fiery heart.
His marrow was with happiness aflame,
And the world sighed beneath his conquering arm,
And he was wont with his prevailing wrath
To lay in devastation all the land.
He blazed in every confine of the earth,
And glowing ardor shone where’er he trod.
Although he was of fervent nature born,
All that he counselled was by wisdom marked.
He touched the mountain with the brew of life,
And gave to all the world her energy.
A king of flame who sat enthroned in light,
His name was that of sun and moon in one;
His happiness was heat on heat increased,
And the world swooned submissive to his sway.
And more and more his fervor he increased,
His rage and heat laid desolate the earth,
The world was kindled like a flame of fire,
His deadly hand threw conflagration round.
The people doffed the garments they had worn,
So much they feared the coming of his rage.
During his reign went no one out of doors,
And all the people kept themselves at home,
Until they wearied of this quietude,
And all were willing to endure his glow,
And all were willing in the shade to be,
Some in the garden, some by city wall.
Meanwhile the world flamed out in cruel plight,
And like a templed altar worshipped him.
The sparks of horror seethed with higher glow,
And the great banners of his power rose higher.
At last he styled him “Emperor of the World,”
His banners flaunted in the firmament,
The hues of heat were painted in the sky.
The dust was in his honor turned to flame,
His blaze subdued the universe in light,
His fury kindled like a furnace coal.
In time he sent his heat out far and wide,
The scent of scorched wild-fowl went o’er the land,
His fury choked the very sigh of love,
And in the watercourse he scorched the stone.
And by the influence of his raging fire
The circling birds were roasted as they flew,
And every grain was parched upon its sod.
The scent of musk, in conflagration quenched,
The world made nothing but a pit of ash,
And nothing green was left upon the plain.
And greater still grew up the tyrant’s power,
And the burnt streams were dried within their beds.
And more and more with grisly cruelty,
What time the people lay upon the rack,
The ladder of the heavens was all aglow,
And sent out sparks like to a furnace grate.
And the earth felt his ardor like a scourge,
And melted ashen-colored into dust.
And no one wore a shoe for very heat,
And the brain reeled beneath the overpowering blast,
And in the river that reflecteth heaven
The fish and cattle were but shrivelled forms.
In short, the world was made a weary waste,
Fire raged around on every side, and heat,
Brought by the bitter fury of the blast,
Took all the beauty from the realm of man.
XXXIX
King August Sends the Hot Wind With Fire to the Rose Garden
Whoever sets afire this history
Has fed with fuel a refulgent lamp;
For August, sitting on his royal throne,
Is mighty in his exercise of power;
He gathered all the nobles of the land
To heaven, to meet him at the great Divan.
He was by fortune and by greatness warmed,
And through his power and lordship, filled with pride.
And thus he spake among his mighty lords:
“Speed as ye may o’er earth’s remotest line,
I now am lord of all the universe;
See in my hand it melt, how weak it is!
The ardor of my fury works in it,
And my heat flies from brow to sweating brow.
And lives there now on earth a single wight
Who has not felt the ardor of my breath?
And is there king of greatness and of might
Who has not felt the flaming of mine eyes?”
They answered: “Sire, the world is all aglow!
’Tis very true thy fury sways the world.
And yet in Rūm there is a little town
Such as the world has never seen before.
’Tis governed by a monarch of its own;
His throne with budding honor is adorned;
The town is called the Garden of the Rose,
The king is named the monarch of the spring.
There the green blade that tranquil lifts its head
Has never felt the fury of thy heat.”
Soon as these words the monarch August heard
His bosom with tempestuous heat was filled.
He said: “At once we undertake the task
Of devastating that forgotten realm.
And while its monarch joys with placid heart
Disaster shall rain down upon his head.
And yet ’tis necessary, first of all,
A messenger from me be sent to them,
To testify my grandeur in their sight
And bear the tidings that I send to them.
That when they learn of my design, through fear
Their courage may dissolve like ice in spring.
For he must say that I to conquer come
And captive take the people of the town.
The monarch must be yielded to my hand,
And all must live in terror of my power.”
There stands a courier at his behest,
Who, like a flea, now here, now there is found;
Like lightning sudden is he in his flight,
And rapid as the flame, or as the thought.
From his breath, warmed as by a fever’s heat,
He had been Samum named and known to all.
And he was with the East Wind closely bound,
His elder brother, as it seemed to be;
The first of them is the delight of Spring,
The second is King August’s servant true.
He waits to bear the message of the king,
Who said, “O lightning-speeding messenger,
Now hie thee swift to yonder rose garden,
And to the king who rules there stoutly speak
With thy warm breath and with thy violent speech.
Stir up fierce fire within that little realm,
For from thy mouth does fire like rain descend,
Thy tongue can scatter devastation round.
Take care thou speak not gently to the king,
Take care that not too furiously thou speak.
Say to him: “Thou to ruin doomed, keep still,
For soon my fury burns thee up with fire.
For what permission has been given to thee
To reign in peace amid this rose garden
Without a fear for my o’ermastering might,
Without a thought upon the season’s rage?
Wilt thou not listen to the word which tells
Of the resplendent lightning of my rage?
Take to thy mind and in thy brain revolve
How thou mayst save thy country from my drought.
Surrender like a slave thy throne and crown,
And stand outside the threshold of my gate.
Give up thy realm, withdraw thy hand from it,
And thus win peace and pardon for the land.
But if thou art rebellious to my will,
And dost not yield to me thy land and throne,
Be sure of this, that on thy luckless head
Swift ruin shall descend without reprieve.”
When Samum took this message from the king
Swift as a storm he hurried on his way,
He blighted every meadow land he crossed,
And found his journey’s end in Gulistan.