In the Presence of Shah-i-Hamadan

Zinda-Rud

I seek from you the key to the secret of God: He sought from us obedience, and created Satan.

So to adorn the hideous and unlovely and to demand of us comeliness of works—

I ask you, what is this magic mongering, what this dicing with an evil adversary?

A handful of dust, against yon revolving sphere— tell me now, did it beseem Him so to do?

Our labour, our thoughts, our anguish is but to bite our hands in despair.

Shah-i-Hamadan

The man who is fully aware of himself creates advantage out of loss.

To sup with the Devil brings disaster to a man, to wrestle with the Devil brings him glory.

One must strike oneself against Ahriman; you are a sword, he is the whetstone;

become sharper, that your stroke may be hard, else you will be unfortunate in both worlds.

Zinda-Rud

Under the heavens man devours man, nation grazes upon another nation.

My soul burns like rue for the people of the Vale; cries of anguish mount from my heart.

They are a nation clever, perceptive, handsome, their dexterity is proverbial,

yet their cup rolls in their own blood; the lament in my flute is on their behalf.

Since they have lost their share of selfhood they have become strangers in their own land;

their wages are in the hands of others, the fish of their river in other men’s nets.

The caravans move step by step to the goal; but still their work is ill done, unformed, immature.

Through servitude their aspirations have died, the fire in the veins of their vine is quenched.

But do not think that they were always so, their brows ever lowered thus to the dust;

once upon a time they too were warlike folk, valiant, heroic, ardent in battle.

Behold her mountains turbaned in white, behold the fiery hands of her chenars;

in springtime rubies leap down from the rocks, a flood of colour rises from her soil,

stippled clouds cover mountain and valley like cotton flocks strewn from a carder’s bow.

Mountain and river, and the setting of the sun: there I behold God without a veil.

I wandered with the zephyr in Nishat chanting as I roved, ‘Listen to the reed’.

A bird perched in the branches was singing: ‘This springtide is not worth a penny.

The tulip has blossomed, the dark eyed narcissus is in bloom, the breeze of Nauruz has torn their skirts;

for many ages from this mountain and valley have sprung daisies purer than the light of the moon,

for many ages the rose has packed and unpacked her baggage, yet our earth has not begotten a second Shihab al-Din.’

The passionate lament of that bird of dawn filled my heart with new fire and fever.

Presently I beheld a madman, whose threnody robbed me of all endurance and reason.

‘Pass us by, and seek not an impassioned lament, pass from the rose twig, that talisman of colour and scent.

You said that dew was dripping from the tulip’s petals; nay, it is a feckless heart weeping beside the river.

What have these few feathers to do with such a chant? It is the spirit of Ghani mourning the death of desire.

Zephyr, if you should pass over Geneva speak a word from me to the League of Nations:

they have sold farmer and cornfield, river and garden, they have sold a people, and at a price how cheap.’

Shah-i-Hamadan

I will tell you a subtle mystery, my son: the body is all clay, the soul a precious pearl.

The body must be melted for the sake of the soul, the pure must be distinguished from the clay.

If you cut off a part of the body from the body, that slice of the body will be lost to you;

but the soul which is drunk with vision— if you give it away, it will return to you.

The soul’s substance resembles nothing else; it is in bonds, and yet not in bonds;

if you watch over it, it dies in the body, and if you scatter it, it illuminates the gathering.

What, noble sir, is the soul ‘drunk with vision’? What does it mean to ‘give the soul away’?

To give away the soul is to surrender it to God, it means melting the mountain with the soul’s flame.

‘Drunk with vision’ means discovering one’s self, shining like a star in the night‐season:

not to discover one’s self is not to exist, to discover is to bestow the self on the self.

Whosoever has seen himself and has seen naught else has drawn forth the load from the self’s prison;

the ‘drunk with vision’ who beholds himself deems the sting sweeter than the honey—

in his eyes the soul is cheap as the air, before him the walls of his prison tremble;

his axe shivers the granite rock so that he takes his share of the universe.

When he gives up the soul, his soul is truly his, otherwise his soul is his guest but for a moment or two.

Zinda-Rud

You have spoken of the wisdom of foul and fair; learned sage, expound a further subtlety.

You were the guide of those who behold the inner meanings you were the confidant of the secrets of kings.

We are poor men, and the ruler demands tribute; what is the origin of the sanction of throne and crown?

Shah-i-Hamadan

What is the origin of Kingship in East and West? Either the consent of the peoples, or war and violence.

Exalted sir, I will speak with you plainly; it is forbidden to pay tribute save to two persons:

either those in authority as being among you, whose proof and demonstration is the verse of God,

or else a hero swift rising like a hurricane who seizes cities, and stakes himself in the battle,

on the day of war conquering the land by force of arms, on the day of peace by the winning ways of love.

You might indeed purchase Iran and India, but kingship cannot be bought from any man;

virtuous friend, the Cup of Jamshid none shall procure from the glassmaker’s shop,

or if he procures aught, all he owns is glass, and glass has no other property but to break.