Will know my story.
My only portion of you
Is promises.
Enough of this rejection,
O source of my choking agony!
By you alone
Am I afflicted.
3.2.41
A
NOTHER
O lazy-lidded one, what came over you
To give the cold shoulder to a lover of your beauty?
O ben tree trunk, what made you turn
From one besotted who hopes for union with you?
Torture as you wish, my gazelle,
Except with coldness (that thing that makes the reprovers gloat).
May the Good Lord make my mind happy one day through union with you!
May the Good Lord make your mind happy as long as you live!
Why give me the cold shoulder, when I have done you no wrong,
And my heart from your love has never turned?
By Him who has granted you everything you want,
Let me kiss, if but once, the hem of your robe!
I have no more stamina to bear your rejection
And this longing of mine has lost patience with you.
I have no desire for any but you
And will my eye ever behold your like?
You deprived my eye of sleep by night
And I said, “I am content, hoping that he will be too.”
I wonder, is your rejection of me imposed upon you?
But who, O Rashā, can have given you a ruling to kill me?
I implore you (and may God obtain for me my solace!)
Be a companion to me, O hoped-for one!
What you can see of my thinness is enough,
May the Lord of the Throne protect you from such a thing!
3.2.42
A
NOTHER
O Moon, tell me,
This abandonment of me,
Were you seduced into it,
Or is it your own wish?
Grant me a tryst,
O ben tree branch!
You’ll be rewarded for it
Or for the intention at least.
All that is hoped for
Is to see you one day
For love has reached
A state of tribulation.
Fear no reprover
Among those who have misled you.
They are but commanders
To injury.
Grant me joy,
May God grant you the same,
You with the
Flirtatious eyelids!
I shall be made well,
May you be ever well,
For I suffer pains
In the innermost recesses of my soul.
You have risen above all mankind
By virtue of what you possess
Of tresses
Like a princess’s.
He desires,
That slave whom you’ve taken prisoner
With your coquetry,
A close proximity.
For how much longer this temporizing
Without a lover’s union?
It is not what’s desired,
This way of behaving.
These acts,
O You of the Mole,
O You Who Command Passion,
Are death for me.
You are the one desired
Among all mankind.
There is none who is your equal
Among humanity.
Where is Suʿād36
Among the beauteous?
You are an angel
Or a houri.
3.2.43
A
NOTHER
Come hither, Moon!
You are my desire.
All have garnered acceptance
From you except for me.
O you who bewitched me
With your coyness as you strut,
And distressed me
As you passed with glance askance,
Your blooming countenance
Has filled me with longing
And my love has led me
To the point of death.
Whene’er I encounter you
Turning from me
I feel my love growing
But my body turns sick.
O dark-lipped one,
Till when will you show no consent?
Reward one who loves you
On whom you have imposed this emaciation.
Glory to Him
Who gave you this beauty unequaled!
(How many an ardent lover has he enchanted
Who has been brought low by his love!)
You are the beauteous,
And the longing in my heart increases,
Grief has weakened us
To the bone.
I have paid the cost
For this passion with the dire blows of love
That you might grant me my request,
But how unlikely is that fulfillment!
Will not some friend,
One who will see that I gain the rights
That love has decreed,
Help me attain my desire?
O Moon, do not
Listen to the reprover’s words
But observe loyalty.
Let it be enough that my ardor kills me!
You exceed all people
In beauty, so exceed them too in granting boons.
Bestow wine From thy mouth,
O you whose fruits are sweet!
3.2.44
A
NOTHER
If love’s ways confuse you,
Don’t open to it your door.
Don’t fill your days with it,
Lest it impose on you grief and care.
I came to passion without dissimulation
And drank of its cups one after another.
What I tasted of its bitter aloes
Induced me to taste no other flavor.
Passion has a point at which it starts
But you will not find its end.
It makes the suitor taste sleeplessness
And wears through the skin and the bone.
O you who have branded my heart
With the fiery mark of this coquetry and pride,
If you will not hear out my reproach,
To whom can I complain of my disease?
It has made an end of me, what I experience
Of longing that burns.
My soul and body have been given to ransom you
So be, for once, to me a peacemaker.
3.2.45
You have gone to excess in cold-shouldering me
And put love in charge of my affair.
And now, by God, I know not
If it be magic or a dream
That you might cure a sick man
Who seeks his well-being from you
And put out the fires of love.
So say, “Be extinguished!” and take whatever you wish.
The one whom you’ve made heartsick, O love,
Is patient now and has no heart
And tears are poured out for you
So that their water may be irrigated with your mouth.
3.2.46
A
NOTHER
My bird! None other!
I cannot do without him for an hour.
O people of goodwill,
Please scare off him who would scare it.
My tears pour forth
And the fire of my longing cannot be hidden.
I have a heart
That makes obeisance to love.
I am the one mad with love,
Going all day without the love of the well-proportioned,
My night spent in waking,
My eyes not closing for an hour.
I complain of my devotion
But you add only more rejection.
Take pity on a slave
Whose pains you have made diverse!
I have no patience
And how can I have patience, O moon,
When this coldness
Has hurt my greedy soul?
Rejection has gone too far
And nothing cures burning love
Like forgetting
But my soul is near to death.
Separation has shown me
The varieties of grief and demise
And my passion for the beauteous one