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Rūmī — the Masnavi

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

Open to allJalāl al-Dīn Rūmī351 segments · 117 pp

The text is shown on its own: no facing layer is held for this issue.

page 117

The translator’s English as printed (E. H. Whinfield (abridged)). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.

The death of the second prince. In short, the vengeance of That Jealous One (God) After one year bore him to the grave. When the King awoke out of his trance to consciousness, His Mars-like eyes shed tears of blood. When that incomparable one looked into his quiver, He saw that one of his arrow-shafts was missing. He cried to God, "What has become of my arrow?" God answered, "Thy arrow is fixed in his throat!" That King, bountiful as the sea, had pardoned him; Nevertheless his arrow had dealt him a mortal wound. He was slain, and cried out with his last breath, "The King is all in all, my slayer and my savior. If he is not both these, he is not all in all; Nay, he is both my slayer and my mourner!" That expiring martyr also gave thanks, That the King had smitten his body, not his spirit; For the visible body must perforce perish, Ere the spirit can live in happiness for evermore. Though he incurred chastisement, it affected his body only, And as a friend he now goes, free of pain, to his Friend. Thus at first he clung to the King's stirrup, But at last went his way guided by perfect sight. Finally, the youngest brother, who was the weakest of all, succeeded where his brothers had failed, and obtained his earthly mistress, the king's daughter, as his bride, and the Spiritual Beloved as well. Here the Masnavi breaks off; but, according to the Bulaq edition, the following conclusion was supplied by Jalalu-'d-Din's son, Bahau-'d-Din Sultan Valad: Part of the story remains untold; it was retained In his mind and was not disclosed. The story of the princes remains unfinished, The pearl of the third brother remains unstrung. Here speech, like a camel, breaks down on its road; I will say no more, but guard my tongue from speech. The rest is told without aid of tongue

To the heart of him whose spirit is alive.

NOTES:

  • 1. Koran lxvii. 10.
  • 2. Surat, or "form," means picture, image, outward appearance as opposed to reality, conception or "form of thought," the "architypes" or "ideas" in the Divine mind, "the Substantial forms" of the Realist philosophy. Here the poet runs through nearly all these meanings.
  • 3. Sale's Koran, p. 75, note.
  • 4. i.e., the architypes in the "Intellectual Presence" or "world of command," which are afterwards set forth in the "world of creation or sensible objects.
  • 5. See Koran xlii. 9.
  • 6. i.e., the similitudes used in the Koran.
  • 7. "The Truth," Al Haqq, the Divine Noumenon.
  • 8. See Gulshan i Raz, Answer III., and the Hadis, "Whoso knows himself knows his Lord."
  • 9. Koran xxvii. 16.
  • 10. Simurgh, "Oiseau extraordinaire qui reside au Caucase," as M. Garcin de Tassy calls it, means "thirty birds" (Si murgh), and is used as a type of the Divine Unity which embraces all plurality.
  • 11. i.e., the prophets and saints.
  • 12. Koran x. 37.
  • 13. Koran lxv. 2.
  • 14. i.e., "The Rule of Position."Khulasat ul Hisab, Book iv.
  • 15. Freytag, Arabum Proverbia, ii. 379.
  • 16. Koran ii. 213.
  • 17. Koran lxv. 7.
  • 18. i.e., hardened sinners like Pharaoh.
  • 19. Koran liii. 1.
  • 20. Koran xlvi. 20.

Note on Apocryphal Supplements to the Masnavi. In the Lucknow edition there follows an epilogue written by Muhammad Ilahi Bakhsh, giving a continuation of the story of the third brother, but nothing of the kind is found in any of the other editions. The Bulaq edition adds a so-called Book VII., but this is known to be a comparatively recent forgery. Haji Khalfa says: "It is notorious that the Masnavi is contained in six books, but a seventh book has made its appearance, put forth by Ismail Dadah, the commentator. He also wrote a commentary on it, and therein replied with eloquence and strenuousness to those who denied its genuineness. He says in his commentary that when he came to write out his fifth volume in the year 1035 A.H., he met with Book VII. in a copy of the Masnavi dated 814 A.H. He bought it and read it through, and was satisfied that it was undoubtedly a composition of the author of the Masnavi. But the other Darveshes of the Maulavi order denied the genuineness of the Seventh Book." 1 The contents of this Seventh Book consist of comments on various texts and traditions, illustrated by stories of no interest. They have nothing in common with the Epilogue of Muhammad Ilahi Bakhsh, found in the Lucknow edition.

NOTES:

1. Haji Khalfa, v. 377. Ismai1 was a Darvesh of the Maulavi order, surnamed Anguravi, from his native place Anguri, in Anatolia.

Commentary
page 117 ·
Historical§003

The Masnavi stops in the middle of a story: the third prince's tale is never finished, and the poem's last lines say the rest is told without the tongue. Two editions would not leave the silence alone. Whinfield records that "In the Lucknow edition there follows an epilogue written by Muhammad Ilahi Bakhsh," and that the Bulaq edition adds a seventh book which Ismail claimed to have found in "a copy of the Masnavi dated 814 A.H." On Ismail's own account, then, his witness was written well over a century after Rumi's death in 1273. Whinfield's verdict joins bibliography to taste: a forgery, with stories "of no interest." His translation keeps neither supplement, and ends where the poet stopped.