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| You are drunk and i'm intoxicated no one is around showing us the way home Again and again i told you drink less a cup or two I know in this city no one is sober one is worse than the other one is frenzied and the other gone mad Come on my friend step into the tavern of ruins taste the sweetness of life in the company of another friend Here you'll see at every corner someone intoxicated and the cup-bearer makes her rounds I went out of my house a drunkard came to me someone whose glance uncovered a hundred houses in paradise rocking and rolling he was a sail with no anchor but he was the envy of all those sober ones remaining on the shore Where are you from i asked he smiled in mockery and said one half from the east one half from the west one half made of water and earth one half made of heart and soul one half staying at the shores and one half nesting in a pearl I begged take me as your friend i am your next of kin he said i recognize no kin among strangers I left my belongings and entered this tavern i only have a chest full of words but can't utter a single one ~ Rumi Ghazal 2309 Translated by Nader Khalili Rumi, Fountain of Fire Cal-Earth, September 1994 |
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Friday, 8 June 2012
You are drunk and i'm intoxicated...by Rumi
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I'm drunk and you're insane, who's going to lead us home?
ReplyDeleteHow many times did they say,
"Drink just a little, only two or three at most?"
In this city no one I see is conscious;
one is worse off than the next, frenzied and insane.
Dear one, come to the tavern of ruin
and experience the pleasures of the soul.
What happiness can there be apart
from this intimate conversation
with the Beloved, the Soul of souls?
In every corner there are drunkards, arm in arm,
while the Server pours the wine
from a royal decanter to every particle of being.
You belong to the tavern: your income is wine,
and wine is all you ever buy.
Don't give even a second away
to the concerns of the merely sober.
O lute player, are you more drunk, or am I?
In the presence of one as drunk as you, my magic is a myth.
When I went outside the house,
some drunk approached me,
and in his eyes I saw
hundreds of hidden gardens and sanctuaries.
Like a ship without an anchor,
he rocked this way and that.
Hundreds of intellectuals and wise men
could die from a taste of this yearning.
I asked, "Where are you from?"
He laughed and said, "O soul,
half of me is from Turkestan and half from Farghana.
Half of me is water and mud, half heart and half soul;
half of me is the ocean's shore, half is all pearl.
"Be my friend," I pleaded. "I'm one of your family."
"I know the difference between family and outsiders."
I've neither a heart nor a turban,
and here in this house of hangovers
my breast is filled with unspoken words.
Shall I try to explain or not.
Have I lived among the lame for so long
that I've begun to limp myself?
And yet no slap of pain could disturb
a drunkenness like this.
Listen, can you hear a wail
arising from the pillar of grief?
Shams al-Haqq of Tabriz, where are you now,
after all the mischief you've stirred in our hearts?
(Translation by K. Helminski, A, Godlas, and L. Saedin)
[Kabir Helminski, "The Rumi Collection," pp. 32-24]