The Martian Damsel who claimed to be a prophetess

We passed by thousands of streets and mansions; on the edge of the city was a broad square

and in that square a swarm of men and women, amidst them a woman with the stature of a tall pomegranate tree.

Her face was radiant, but without the light of the soul, as if its meaning were too hard to express;

her speech lacked fire, her eyes lacked tears, not intimate with the joy of desire:

her breast was void of the ardour of youth, blind and unreceptive to images her mirror;

she knew nothing of love and the laws of love, she was a sparrow spurned by the hawk of love.

That sage who knew all subtleties spoke to us: ‘This damsel is not of the Martians;

simple and free of guile, without artifice, Farzmarz kidnapped her from the Franks

and made her expert in the craft of prophethood, then let her loose upon this world,

She declared, “I have come down from heaven; my message is the final message of time.”

She speaks of the status of man and woman, she speaks more openly of the secrets of the body.

The destiny of life in this end of time I will now recount in the language of earthlings.’

Admonition of the Martian prophetess

Women! Mothers! Sisters! How long shall we live like fond darlings?

To be a darling here is to be a victim, to be a darling is to be dominated and deprived.

We idly comb out our tresses and think of men as our prey;

but man is a hunter in the guise of a quarry and circles about you to lasso you.

His swooning ardours are but cunning and deceit, cunning and deceit his anguish and agony and yearning.

Though that infidel makes a shrine of you, he causes you to suffer much anguish and grief.

To be his consort is a torment of life, union with him is poison, separation from him sugar.

A twisting serpent he—flee from his coils, do not pour his poisons into your blood.

Maternity pales the cheeks of mothers; O happy, to be free and without husband!

The divine revelation comes to me continuously augmenting the delight I have in faith.

The time has come when by a miracle of science it is possible to see the foetus within the body;

from life’s field you may gather a harvest of sons and daughters exactly as you choose,

and if the foetus accords not with our desire it is the essence of religion ruthlessly to slay it.

After this age other ages will come wherein new secrets shall be revealed;

the foetus will take nourishment of another kind, without the night of the womb it will find the day.

Finally that being utterly demonic will die even as died the creatures of the ancient days.

Tulips without scar, with skirt unstained, not in need of dew, will rise from the earth.

Of their own accord the secrets of life will emerge, life’s string will yield melodies without a plectrum.

Oyster dying of thirst under the sea, do not accept the scatterings of April;

rise up and wage war with nature, that by your battling the maiden may be freed.

Woman’s unitarianism is to escape from the union of two bodies; be guardian of yourself, and tangle not with men!

Rumi

Regard the creed of this new fangled age, regard the harvest of irreligious education.

Love is the law and ritual of life, religion the root of education; religion is love.

Love externally is ardent, fiery, inwardly it is the Light of the Lord of the Worlds.

From its inward fever and glow, science and art derive, science and art spring from its ingenious madness;

religion does not mature without Love’s schooling; learn religion from the company of the Lords of Love.