quatrain 1141

From Sunlight, two more versions of quatrain 1141, to add to the Houshmand version discussed at the best joy.

I can't let you know
all the secrets
I can't open to you
all the doors
there is something inside
that makes me happy
but I can't put my finger
on its source

Translation by Nader Khalili

The secrets are bursting inside me
but to give them away and
expose them to mockery, I cannot.
Something inside me is bursting with joy
but to put my finger on it, I cannot.

Translation by Azima Melita Kolin and Maryam Mafi

the you we call companion

From Sunlight, a little piece (last two lines) from Ghazal 2956:

There is a sun within every person,
the you we call companion.

Version by Coleman Barks, with Nevit Ergin

floral saqi

from wikimedia commons

quatrain 97

From Sunlight, three interpretations of Quatrain 97:

Our drunkenness does not come from wine.
The joy of our gathering
does not come from the harp or rubaab.
With no celestial beauty to fill our cup,
Without friends, without singing, without wine,
We burst out like madmen,
rolling drunk on the floor.

Version by Jonathan Star and Shahram Shiva
A Garden Beyond Paradise
Bantam Books, 1992

We don't need wine to get drunk,
or instruments and singing to feel ecstatic.
No poets, no leaders, no songs,
yet we jump around totally wild.

Version by Coleman Barks
"Unseen Rain"
Threshold Books, 1986

i don't really need wine
to get drunk
i don't really need music
to feel delight
without a wine pal
music and dance
i'm intoxicated
happy and gone

Translation by Nader Khalili
Rumi, Dancing the Flame
Cal-Earth Press, 2001

The heart's mirror has no limits

The saints have polished their breasts until cleansed of greed, cupidity, avarice, and hatred.
Without doubt the pure mirror is the heart acting as a receptacle for infinite pictures.
The Moses-like saint possesses within his breast, in his heart's mirror, the infinite, formless Form of the Unseen.
What does it matter if that Form is not contained by the heavens, the divine Throne, the Footstool, or the Fish supporting the earth?
These things are all delimited and defined, but the heart's mirror has no limits - Know that!
Here the intellect must remain silent, or else lead us astray.
For the heart is with Him - indeed, the heart is He.

-- Mathnawi I, 3484-89
Translation by William C. Chittick
"The Sufi Path of Love"
State University of New York Press, Albany, 1983

with thanks to Sunlight
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