1Cademy - دفتر دوم - بخش ۲۴ - حسد کردن حشم بر غلام خاص / Book Two - Section 24 - The Envy of the Retinue toward the Kings Favored Slave

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مثنوی معنوی: دفتر دوم / Masnavi: Book Two

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دفتر دوم - بخش ۲۴ - حسد کردن حشم بر غلام خاص / Book Two - Section 24 - The Envy of the Retinue toward the King's Favored Slave

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پادشاهی بنده‌ای را از کرم
بر گزیده بود بر جملهٔ حشم

جامگی او وظیفهٔ چل امیر
ده یک قدرش ندیدی صد وزیر

از کمال طالع و اقبال و بخت
او ایازی بود و شه محمود وقت

روح او با روح شه در اصل خویش
پیش ازین تن بوده هم پیوند و خویش

کار آن دارد که پیش از تن بدست
بگذر از اینها که نو حادث شدست

کار عارف‌راست کو نه احولست
چشم او بر کشتهای اولست

آنچ گندم کاشتندش و آنچ جو
چشم او آنجاست روز و شب گرو

آنچ آبستست شب جز آن نزاد
حیله‌ها و مکرها بادست باد

کی کند دل خوش به حیلتهای گش
آنک بیند حیلهٔ حق بر سرش

او درون دام و دامی می‌نهد
جان تو نی آن جهد نی این جهد

گر بروید ور بریزد صد گیاه
عاقبت بر روید آن کشتهٔ اله

کشت نو کارند بر کشت نخست
این دوم فانیست و آن اول درست

تخم اول کامل و بگزیده است
تخم ثانی فاسد و پوسیده است

افکن این تدبیر خود را پیش دوست
گرچه تدبیرت هم از تدبیر اوست

کار آن دارد که حق افراشتست
آخر آن روید که اول کاشتست

هرچه کاری از برای او بکار
چون اسیر دوستی ای دوستدار

گرد نفس دزد و کار او مپیچ
هرچه آن نه کار حق هیچست هیچ

پیش از آنک روز دین پیدا شود
نزد مالک دزد شب رسوا شود

رخت دزدیده بتدبیر و فنش
مانده روز داوری بر گردنش

صد هزاران عقل با هم بر جهند
تا بغیر دام او دامی نهند

دام خود را سخت‌تر یابند و بس
کی نماید قوتی با باد خس

گر تو گویی فایدهٔ هستی چه بود
در سؤالت فایده هست ای عنود

گر ندارد این سؤالت فایده
چه شنویم این را عبث بی عایده

ور سؤالت را بسی فایده‌هاست
پس جهان بی فایده آخر چراست

ور جهان از یک جهت بی فایده‌ست
از جهتهای دگر پر عایده‌ست

فایدهٔ تو گر مرا فایده نیست
مر ترا چون فایده‌ست از وی مه‌ایست

حسن یوسف عالمی را فایده
گرچه بر اخوان عبث بد زایده

لحن داوودی چنان محبوب بود
لیک بر محروم بانگ چوب بود

آب نیل از آب حیوان بد فزون
لیک بر محروم و منکر بود خون

هست بر مؤمن شهیدی زندگی
بر منافق مردنست و ژندگی

چیست در عالم بگو یک نعمتی
که نه محرومند از وی امتی

گاو و خر را فایده چه در شکر
هست هر جان را یکی قوتی دگر

لیک گر آن قوت بر وی عارضیست
پس نصیحت کردن او را رایضیست

چون کسی کو از مرض گل داشت دوست
گرچه پندارد که آن خود قوت اوست

قوت اصلی را فرامش کرده است
روی در قوت مرض آورده است

نوش را بگذاشته سم خورده است
قوت علت را چو چربش کرده است

قوت اصلی بشر نور خداست
قوت حیوانی مرورا ناسزاست

لیک از علت درین افتاد دل
که خورد او روز و شب زین آب و گل

روی زرد و پای سست و دل سبک
کو غذای والسما ذات الحبک

آن غذای خاصگان دولتست
خوردن آن بی گلو و آلتست

شد غذای آفتاب از نور عرش
مر حسود و دیو را از دود فرش

در شهیدان یرزقون فرمود حق
آن غذا را نی دهان بد نی طبق

دل ز هر یاری غذایی می‌خورد
دل ز هر علمی صفایی می‌برد

صورت هر آدمی چون کاسه ایست
چشم از معنی او حساسه ایست

از لقای هر کسی چیزی خوری
وز قران هر قرین چیزی بری

چون ستاره با ستاره شد قرین
لایق هر دو اثر زاید یقین

چون قران مرد و زن زاید بشر
وز قران سنگ و آهن شد شرر

وز قران خاک با بارانها
میوه‌ها و سبزه و ریحانها

وز قران سبزه‌ها با آدمی
دلخوشی و بی‌غمی و خرمی

وز قران خرمی با جان ما
می‌بزاید خوبی و احسان ما

قابل خوردن شود اجسام ما
چون بر آید از تفرج کام ما

سرخ رویی از قران خون بود
خون ز خورشید خوش گلگون بود

بهترین رنگها سرخی بود
وان ز خورشیدست و از وی می‌رسد

هر زمینی کان قرین شد با زحل
شوره گشت و کشت را نبود محل

قوت اندر فعل آید ز اتفاق
چون قران دیو با اهل نفاق

این معانی راست از چرخ نهم
بی همه طاق و طرم طاق و طرم

خلق را طاق و طرم عاریتست
امر را طاق و طرم ماهیتست

از پی طاق و طرم خواری کشند
بر امید عز در خواری خوشند

بر امید عز ده‌روزهٔ خدوک
گردن خود کرده‌اند از غم چو دوک

چون نمی‌آیند اینجا که منم
کاندرین عز آفتاب روشنم

مشرق خورشید برج قیرگون
آفتاب ما ز مشرقها برون

مشرق او نسبت ذرات او
نه بر آمد نه فرو شد ذات او

ما که واپس ماند ذرات وییم
در دو عالم آفتاب بی فییم

باز گرد شمس می‌گردم عجب
هم ز فر شمس باشد این سبب

شمس باشد بر سببها مطلع
هم ازو حبل سببها منقطع

صد هزاران بار ببریدم امید
از کی از شمس این شما باور کنید

تو مرا باور مکن کز آفتاب
صبر دارم من و یا ماهی ز آب

ور شوم نومید نومیدی من
عین صنع آفتابست ای حسن

عین صنع از نفس صانع چون برد
هیچ هست از غیر هستی چون چرد

جمله هستیها ازین روضه چرند
گر براق و تازیان ور خود خرند

وانک گردشها از آن دریا ندید
هر دم آرد رو به محرابی جدید

او ز بحر عذب آب شور خورد
تا که آب شور او را کور کرد

بحر می‌گوید به دست راست خور
ز آب من ای کور تا یابی بصر

هست دست راست اینجا ظن راست
کو بداند نیک و بد را کز کجاست

نیزه‌گردانیست ای نیزه که تو
راست می‌گردی گهی گاهی دوتو

ما ز عشق شمس دین بی ناخنیم
ورنه ما آن کور را بینا کنیم

هان ضیاء الحق حسام الدین تو زود
داروش کن کوری چشم حسود

توتیای کبریای تیزفعل
داروی ظلمت‌کش استیزفعل

آنک گر بر چشم اعمی بر زند
ظلمت صد ساله را زو بر کند

جمله کوران را دواکن جز حسود
کز حسودی بر تو می‌آرد جحود

مر حسودت را اگر چه آن منم
جان مده تا همچنین جان می‌کنم

آنک او باشد حسود آفتاب
وانک می‌رنجد ز بود آفتاب

اینت درد بی‌دوا کوراست آه
اینت افتاده ابد در قعر چاه

نفی خورشید ازل بایست او
کی برآید این مراد او بگو

باز آن باشد که باز آید به شاه
باز کورست آنک شد گم‌کرده راه

راه را گم کرد و در ویران فتاد
باز در ویران بر جغدان فتاد

او همه نورست از نور رضا
لیک کورش کرد سرهنگ قضا

خاک در چشمش زد و از راه برد
در میان جغد و ویرانش سپرد

بر سری جغدانش بر سر می‌زنند
پر و بال نازنینش می‌کنند

ولوله افتاد در جغدان که ها
باز آمد تا بگیرد جای ما

چون سگان کوی پر خشم و مهیب
اندر افتادند در دلق غریب

باز گوید من چه در خوردم به جغد
صد چنین ویران فدا کردم به جغد

من نخواهم بود اینجا می‌روم
سوی شاهنشاه راجع می‌شوم

خویشتن مکشید ای جغدان که من
نه مقیمم می‌روم سوی وطن

این خراب آباد در چشم شماست
ورنه ما را ساعد شه ناز جاست

جغد گفتا باز حیلت می‌کند
تا ز خان و مان شما را بر کند

خانه‌های ما بگیرد او بمکر
برکند ما را به سالوسی ز وکر

می‌نماید سیری این حیلت‌پرست
والله از جمله حریصان بترست

او خورد از حرص طین را همچو دبس
دنبه مسپارید ای یاران به خرس

لاف از شه می‌زند وز دست شه
تا برد او ما سلیمان را ز ره

خود چه جنس شاه باشد مرغکی
مشنوش گر عقل داری اندکی

جنس شاهست او و یا جنس وزیر
هیچ باشد لایق گوزینه سیر

آنچ می‌گوید ز مکر و فعل و فن
هست سلطان با حشم جویای من

اینت مالیخولیای ناپذیر
اینت لاف خام و دام گول‌گیر

هر که این باور کند از ابلهیست
مرغک لاغر چه درخورد شهیست

کمترین جغد ار زند بر مغز او
مر ورا یاری‌گری از شاه کو

گفت باز ار یک پر من بشکند
بیخ جغدستان شهنشه بر کند

جغد چه بود خود اگر بازی مرا
دل برنجاند کند با من جفا

شه کند توده به هر شیب و فراز
صد هزاران خرمن از سرهای باز

پاسبان من عنایات ویست
هر کجا که من روم شه در پیست

در دل سلطان خیال من مقیم
بی خیال من دل سلطان سقیم

چون بپراند مرا شه در روش
می‌پرم بر اوج دل چون پرتوش

همچو ماه و آفتابی می‌پرم
پرده‌های آسمانها می‌درم

روشنی عقلها از فکرتم
انفطار آسمان از فطرتم

بازم و حیران شود در من هما
جغد کی بود تا بداند سر ما

شه برای من ز زندان یاد کرد
صد هزاران بسته را آزاد کرد

یک دمم با جغدها دمساز کرد
از دم من جغدها را باز کرد

ای خنک جغدی که در پرواز من
فهم کرد از نیکبختی راز من

در من آویزید تا نازان شوید
گرچه جغدانید شهبازان شوید

آنک باشد با چنان شاهی حبیب
هر کجا افتد چرا باشد غریب

هر که باشد شاه دردش را دوا
گر چو نی نالد نباشد بی نوا

مالک ملک نیم من طبل‌خوار
طبل بازم می‌زند شه از کنار

طبل باز من ندای ارجعی
حق گواه من به رغم مدعی

من نیم جنس شهنشه دور ازو
لیک دارم در تجلی نور ازو

نیست جنسیت ز روی شکل و ذات
آب جنس خاک آمد در نبات

باد جنس آتش آمد در قوام
طبع را جنس آمدست آخر مدام

جنس ما چون نیست جنس شاه ما
مای ما شد بهر مای او فنا

چون فنا شد مای ما او ماند فرد
پیش پای اسپ او گردم چو گرد

خاک شد جان و نشانیهای او
هست بر خاکش نشان پای او

خاک پایش شو برای این نشان
تا شوی تاج سر گردن‌کشان

تا که نفریبد شما را شکل من
نقل من نوشید پیش از نقل من

ای بسا کس را که صورت راه زد
قصد صورت کرد و بر الله زد

آخر این جان با بدن پیوسته است
هیچ این جان با بدن مانند هست

تاب نور چشم با پیهست جفت
نور دل در قطرهٔ خونی نهفت

شادی اندر گرده و غم در جگر
عقل چون شمعی درون مغز سر

این تعلقها نه بی کیفست و چون
عقلها در دانش چونی زبون

جان کل با جان جزو آسیب کرد
جان ازو دری ستد در جیب کرد

همچو مریم جان از آن آسیب جیب
حامله شد از مسیح دلفریب

آن مسیحی نه که بر خشک و ترست
آن مسیحی کز مساحت برترست

پس ز جان جان چو حامل گشت جان
از چنین جانی شود حامل جهان

پس جهان زاید جهانی دیگری
این حشر را وا نماید محشری

تا قیامت گر بگویم بشمرم
من ز شرح این قیامت قاصرم

این سخنها خود بمعنی یا ربیست
حرفها دام دم شیرین‌لبیست

چون کند تقصیر پس چون تن زند
چونک لبیکش به یارب می‌رسد

هست لبیکی که نتوانی شنید
لیک سر تا پای بتوانی چشید

English translation

Book Two – Section 24 – The Envy of the Retinue toward the King's Favored Slave

A king, out of generosity, had chosen one slave above all the retinue. His allowance was the stipend of forty amirs; a hundred viziers would not have seen a tenth of his worth. Through perfect fortune, favor, and destiny, he was an Ayaz, and the king was the Mahmud of the age. His soul and the king's soul, in their own origin, before this body, had been joined and kin. The real matter is that which existed before the body; pass beyond these things that have newly come into being.

The work belongs to the gnostic, for he is not cross-eyed; his eye is fixed on the first sowings. What was sown as wheat and what as barley: his eye is pledged to that place day and night. What the night is pregnant with will give birth to nothing but that; tricks and plots are wind upon wind. How could one gladden his heart with fine tricks when he sees God's stratagem above him? He is inside the trap and yet sets a trap; your soul is neither that effort nor this effort.

Whether a hundred plants sprout or fall away, in the end that seed sown by God will grow. They sow a new crop over the first crop; this second is passing, and that first is sound. The first seed is perfect and chosen; the second seed is corrupt and rotten. Cast this planning of yours before the Friend, although your planning too comes from His planning. The matter belongs to what God has raised; in the end, what was planted first will grow. Whatever you do, do it for His sake, since you are love's captive, O lover. Do not circle around the thieving self and its work; whatever is not God's work is nothing, nothing.

Before the Day of Religion appears, the night-thief will be disgraced before the Owner. The stolen goods gained by his planning and craft will remain around his neck on the day of judgment. A hundred thousand intellects leap up together to set a trap other than His trap; they only find their own trap tighter. When can a straw show strength against the wind?

If you say, “What was the benefit of existence?” there is benefit in your question, O obstinate one. If your question has no benefit, why should we listen to this vain, profitless thing? And if your question has many benefits, then why, after all, should the world be without benefit? If the world is without benefit from one direction, from other directions it is full of benefit. If your benefit is no benefit to me, since it is benefit to you, do not desist from it.

Joseph's beauty was a benefit to a whole world, though to his brothers it was vain and excessive. David's melody was so beloved, yet to the deprived it was the sound of wood. The water of the Nile was more excellent than the water of life, yet for the deprived denier it was blood. For the believer martyrdom is life; for the hypocrite it is death and wretchedness. Tell me, what single blessing is there in the world from which some community is not deprived?

What benefit do ox and ass have from sugar? Every soul has a different nourishment. But if that nourishment is merely incidental to him, then counsel for him is useful training. Like someone who, because of illness, has come to love clay, though he thinks that it is his true food: he has forgotten the original nourishment and turned toward the nourishment of disease. He has left nectar and eaten poison; he has treated the food of illness as if it were rich fat.

The original nourishment of human beings is God's light; animal nourishment is unworthy of them. But from illness the heart has fallen into this, that day and night it eats from this water and clay. Yellow face, weak feet, and a light heart: where is the food of “By the heaven full of woven paths”? That food belongs to the favored ones of fortune; eating it is without throat or instrument. The sun's food came from the light of the Throne; for the envious and the demon it came from the smoke of the earth. About the martyrs, God said, “they are provided for”; that food has neither mouth nor tray.

The heart eats a food from every friend; the heart carries away a purity from every knowledge. The form of every human being is like a bowl; the eye is sensitive to that person's meaning. From meeting each person you eat something, and from the conjunction of each companion you carry something away. When star is joined with star, an effect suited to both is surely born. From the conjunction of man and woman, a human being is born; from the conjunction of stone and iron, a spark. From the conjunction of earth with rains come fruits, greenery, and sweet herbs. From the conjunction of green things with human beings come gladness of heart, freedom from sorrow, and freshness. From the conjunction of freshness with our soul, our goodness and beneficence are born. Our bodies become fit to be eaten when our desire is fulfilled through enjoyment.

Rosiness of face comes from the conjunction of blood; blood is made pleasantly rose-colored by the sun. The best of colors is redness, and that comes from the sun and reaches us from it. Every earth that is conjoined with Saturn becomes saline and has no place for cultivation. Power comes into act through conjunction, as in the conjunction of the demon with the people of hypocrisy.

These meanings rightly have their splendor from the ninth heaven, without all this external pomp and show. For created beings, pomp is borrowed; for the divine Command, pomp is its very essence. For borrowed pomp they endure humiliation; in hope of glory they are content in humiliation. In hope of the ten-day honor of a small lord, they have made their necks like a spindle from grief. Why do they not come here where I am, where in this glory I am a radiant sun?

The sun's rising-place is a pitch-dark sign; our sun is beyond all rising-places. Its rising-place exists only in relation to its particles; its essence neither rose nor set. We, who are the particles left behind by it, are a shadowless sun in both worlds.

Again I circle around Shams. How strange: this cause too is from the glory of Shams. Shams is aware of causes, and from him too the cord of causes is cut. A hundred thousand times I have cut off hope. From whom? From Shams. Believe this. Do not believe me if I say I have patience apart from the sun, or that a fish has patience apart from water. And if I become hopeless, my hopelessness is the very work of the sun, O Hasan.

How can the work itself go away from the Maker's self? How can any existence graze from anything other than Being? All existences graze in this meadow, whether Buraq and Arab horses or mere donkeys. Whoever has not seen that the turnings come from that sea turns his face every moment toward a new prayer-niche. He drank salt water from the sweet sea until his salty water blinded him. The sea says, “Drink with the right hand from my water, O blind one, so that you may gain sight.” The right hand here is right opinion, which knows good and bad and where they come from. This is spear-turning, O spear: you turn straight at one time and bent at another.

We are without claws because of love for Shams al-Din; otherwise we would make that blind one see. Come, Diya al-Haqq Husam al-Din, quickly: be the medicine for the blindness of the envious eye. The kohl of majesty, sharp in action, is darkness-killing medicine, strong in action. If it is applied to the eye of a blind person, it will tear a hundred years of darkness away from him. Cure all the blind except the envious one, for out of envy he brings denial against you. As for the one who envies you, even if that is I, do not give him your soul while I am in such agony of soul.

The one who is envious of the sun and is pained by the sun's existence: what an incurable pain, what blindness, alas; what a one fallen forever to the bottom of the well. He would need the eternal sun to be negated. Tell me, when will this wish of his come about?

The falcon is the one who returns to the king; blind is the falcon that has lost the road. It lost the road and fell into a ruin; in the ruin it fell among owls. It is all light from the light of divine contentment, but the officer of fate blinded it. He threw dust in its eyes, led it from the road, and handed it over among owls and ruins. The owls strike it on the head and tear out its delicate wings and feathers.

A cry arose among the owls: “Look, a falcon has come to take our place!” Like angry, fearsome street dogs, they fell upon the stranger's patched cloak. The falcon says, “What have I to do with an owl? I have given a hundred such ruins over to the owl. I do not want to be here; I am going, returning toward the King of Kings. Do not wear yourselves out, O owls, for I am not staying; I am going toward my homeland. This ruined place is precious in your eyes; for us, the king's wrist is the place of honor.”

The owl said, “The falcon is using a trick to uproot you from house and home. He will seize our houses by deceit and tear us from our nests by hypocrisy. This trickster puts on a show of satiety; by God, he is worse than all the greedy. From greed he eats clay as if it were grape syrup; friends, do not entrust the fat tail to the bear. He boasts of the king and the king's hand, so that he may lead us away from Solomon's road. What kind of king's kin could a little bird be? Do not listen to him if you have a little reason. Is he the king's kind, or the vizier's kind? Could a walnut be fitting for a garlic bulb? What he says from deceit, act, and craft is: the sultan, with his retinue, is seeking me. What incurable melancholia! What raw boasting and fool-catching snare! Whoever believes this is foolish. What is a skinny little bird in relation to kingship? If the least owl strikes him on the head, where is the king's help for him?”

The falcon said, “If one feather of mine is broken, the King of Kings will uproot owldom. What is an owl? Even if a falcon pains my heart and wrongs me, the king will make, on every slope and rise, a hundred thousand heaps from the heads of falcons. His graces are my guardians. Wherever I go, the king follows. My image dwells in the sultan's heart; without my image the sultan's heart is sick. When the king sets me flying on his course, I fly to the summit of the heart like his ray. I fly like moon and sun; I tear the veils of the heavens. The light of intellects comes from my thought; the cleaving of the heavens comes from my nature. I am a falcon, and the Huma is bewildered at me; what is the owl, that it should know our secret?

For my sake the king remembered the prison and freed a hundred thousand captives. For one moment he made me companion to the owls; by my breath he made the owls falcons. Happy is the owl who, in my flight, understood my secret through good fortune. Cling to me so that you may become honored; although you are owls, become royal falcons.”

One who is beloved of such a king: wherever he falls, why should he be a stranger? Whoever has the king as cure for his pain, even if he laments like the reed, is not without music or provision.

“I am not owner of the kingdom; I am a drum-fed falcon. The king beats my falcon-drum from afar. My falcon-drum is the call of ‘Return’; God is my witness, despite the claimant. I am not of the same kind as the King of Kings, far from it, but in manifestation I have light from Him. Kinship is not by form and substance: water becomes kin to earth in the plant. Air becomes kin to fire in constitution; nature, after all, has always become kin. Since our kind is not the kind of our king, our ‘we’ has become annihilated for the sake of His ‘we.’ When our ‘we’ was annihilated, He remained alone; before the feet of His horse I become like dust. The soul and its traces became dust; on that dust is the mark of His foot. Become the dust of His foot for the sake of this mark, so that you may become the crown on the heads of the proud. So that my form may not deceive you, drink my spiritual report before my bodily transfer.”

Many a person has been waylaid by form: he aimed at form and struck against God. After all, this soul is joined to the body; is this soul at all like the body? The ray of the eye's light is joined with fat; the light of the heart is hidden in a drop of blood. Joy is in the kidney and grief in the liver; intellect is like a candle inside the brain of the head. These attachments are not without quality and manner, yet intellects are powerless in knowing the manner.

The Universal Soul touched the partial soul; the soul took a pearl from it and put it in its bosom. Like Mary, the soul, from that touch at the bosom, became pregnant with the heart-ravishing Messiah. Not that Messiah who rules over dry and wet, but that Messiah who is beyond measurement. Then, when the soul became pregnant from the Soul of the soul, from such a soul the world becomes pregnant. Then the world gives birth to another world; this resurrection discloses a place of resurrection.

If I speak and count until the Resurrection, I am unable to explain this resurrection. These words are themselves, in meaning, an “O my Lord”; the letters are snares for the breath of the sweet-lipped one. How, then, could he fall short? How could he be silent, when his “Here I am” reaches the “O my Lord”? There is a “Here I am” that you cannot hear, but from head to foot you can taste it.

Updated 2026-05-16

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