Barks, and in a literal translation, with footnotes, from Dr. Ibrahim
Gamard:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When I see Your Face, the stones start spinning!
You appear; all studying wanders.
I lose my place.
Water turns pearly.
Fire dies down and doesn't destroy.
In Your Presence I don't want what I thought
I wanted, those three little hanging lamps.
Inside Your Face the ancient manuscripts
seem like rusty mirrors.
You breathe; new shapes appear,
and the music of a Desire as widespread
as Spring begins to move
like a great wagon.
Drive slowly.
Some of us walking alongside
are lame!
-- Version by Coleman Barks
"Like This"
Maypop, 1990
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1941 When you reveal those rose-colored cheeks (of
yours),you make the stones whirl* from joy.
Put (your) head out from the veil once again, for the
sake of amazed lovers;
So that knowledge may lose the way, (and) the
intellectual may shatter (his) learning;
So that water may become a pearl* from your reflection,
(and) fire may quit war.
1945 With (the presence of) your beauty, I don't desire the
(lovely full) moon or those few little hanging lanterns (in
the heavens).
(And) with (the presence of) your face, I don't call the
ancient rusty sky a "mirror."
You breathed into and created this narrow world* in
another form once again.
O Venus,* make that harp melodious again, in desire for
his Mars-like eyes!
-- From "The Dīwān-� Kabīr" (or "Dīvān-� Shams-� Tabrīzī,"
"Kulliyāt-� Shams") of Jalaluddin Rumi.
Translated from the Persian by Ibrahim Gamard
(7/01)
(c) Ibrahim Gamard (translation, footnotes, &
transliteration)
Footnotes:
(1941) you make the stones whirl: possibly a reference
to the rotation of millstones.
(1944) So that water may become a pearl: pearls were
believed to form when a drop of rain-water fell into the sea
and was consumed by an oyster. Here the process is imagined
as an immediate transformation.
(1947) You breathed into and created this narrow world:
in this line the Divine Beloved (God) is in the foreground.
It is a characteristic of Persian sufi poetry to be
ambiguous about whether the human beloved or the Divine
Beloved is addressed. Here, there is a reference to the
Divine creation with breath and sound: "He is the Originator
of the heavens and the earth. And if He decrees a thing, He
says to it, "Be!' And it is." (Qur'ān 2:117)
(1948) Venus: the planet associated with music and joy.
*******************
1941 chōn namāy-ī ān rokh-� gol-rang-rā
az Tarab dar charkh ār-ī sang-rā
bār-� dźgar sar berūn kon az Hijāb
az barāy-� `āshiq-ān-� dang-rā
tā ke dānesh gom kon-ad mar rāh-rā
tā ke `āqil be-sh'kan-ad farhang-rā
tā ke āb az `aks-� tō gawhar shaw-ad
tā ke ātesh wā-hel-ad mar jang-rā
1945 man na-khwāh-am māh-rā bā Husn-� tō
w-ān dō-se qindīl-ak-� āhang-rā
man na-goy-am āyena bā roy-� tō
āsmān-� kohna-y� por-rang-rā
dar damīd-ī w-afrīd-ī bāz tō
shakl-� dźgar īn jahān-� tang-rā
dar hawāy-� chashm-� chūn mirrīkh-� ō
sāz deh ay zuhra bāz ān chang-rā
(meter: XoXX XoXX XoX)