Masnavi i Ma'navi — trans. E. H. Whinfield (abridged) (1898)

That string drags soul down to earth.
The soul is the frog in the water of ecstatic bliss;
Escaping from the mouse of the body, it is in bliss.
The mouse of the body drags it back with that string;
Ah! what sorrow it tastes through being dragged back
If it were not dragged down by that insolent mouse,
The frog would remain at peace in its water.
On the last day, when you shall awake from sleep,
You will learn the rest of this from the Sun of truth!

In illustration of the thesis that the sense which perceives the unseen and spiritual world is superior to the other senses, and is exempt from death and decay, the poet tells an anecdote of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni and some robbers. One night, when walking about the city alone, he fell in with a band of robbers. He told them he was one of them, and proposed that each should tell his own special talent. Accordingly one said he could hear what the dogs said when they barked; another that his sight was so good that when he saw a man at night he could recognize him without fail next day; another said his talent lay in the strength of his arms, whereby he dug holes through the walls of houses another said he could divine by his sense of smell where gold was hidden; another said his wrist was so strong that he could throw a rope farther than any one. At last it came to the turn of the king, and he told them that his talent lay in his beard, for when he wagged it he could deliver criminals from the executioner. The robbers then went to the king's palace, and, each of them co-operating by the exercise of his peculiar talent, they broke into it, and plundered a large sum of money. The king, after witnessing the burglary, withdrew from them secretly, and, having summoned his Vazir, gave orders for their apprehension. No sooner were the robbers brought before the king than the one whose talent lay in recognizing by day those whom he had seen in the darkness of night at once knew him, and said to the others, "This is the man who said his talent lay in his beard!" Thus the only one whose talent profited him at the time of need was he who could recognize by day what he had previously seen by night; for he appealed to the king to exercise his talent of deliverance, and the king listened to his entreaty, and delivered him from the executioner.

He whose eyes discern God in the world is safe from destruction. He who, when he had once seen a person at night, Recognized him without fail when he saw him by day, Saw the king upon the throne, and straightway cried, "This was he who accompanied us on our nightly walk; This is he whose beard possessed such rare talent; Our arrest is due to his sagacity." He added, "'Yea, he was with you,' 9 this great king; He beheld our actions and heard our secrets. My eyes guided me to recognize that king at night, And dwelt lovingly on his face, like the moon at night. Now, therefore, I will implore his grace for myself, For he will never avert his face from him that knew him." Know the eye of the ' Knower is a safeguard in both worlds, For therein ye will find a very Bahram to aid you. For this cause Muhammad was the intercessor for faults, Because his eye 'did not wander' 10 from the King of kings. In the night of this world, when the sun is hidden, He beheld God, and placed his hopes on Him. His eyes were anointed with the words, ' We opened thy heart,' 11 He beheld what Gabriel himself had not power to see." 12 The story of the frog is concluded by the lamentations of the frog over his folly in consorting with an animal of a different genus to his own, on which Reason warns him that homogeneity lies in spirit, not in outward form; and this is illustrated by an anecdote of a man named 'Abdu'l Ghaus, who was the son of a fairy mother, and consequently homogeneous with the fairies, though only an ordinary man to outward appearance.

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