Me, plaintive wanderer from my peerless maid, Not he who reasons best this wisdom knows; Go; to your vase the gather'd main convey A volume might be filled with similar passages from the Súfi poets; from Saib, Orfì, Mír Khosrau, Jámi, Hazín, and Sábik, who are next in beauty of composition to Háfiz and Sadi, but next at a considerable distance; from Mesíhi, the most elegant of their Turkish imitators; from a few Hindi poets of our own times, and from Ibnul Fared, who wrote mystical odes in Arabic; but we may close this account of the Súfis with a passage from the third book of the Bustan, the declared subject of which is divine love; referring you for a particular detail of their metaphysics and theology to the Dabistan of Moshani Fani, and to the pleasing essay, called the Junction of two Seas, by that amiable and unfortunate prince Dárá Shecúh: "The love of a being, composed like thyself, of water and clay, destroys thy patience and peace of mind; it excites thee, in thy waking hours, with minute beauties, and engages thee, in thy sleep, with vain imaginations: with such real affection dost thou lay thy head on her foot, that the universe, in comparison of her, vanishes into nothing before thee; and, since thy gold allures not her eye, gold and mere earth appear equal in thine. Not a breath dost thou utter to any one else, for with her thou hast no room for any other; thou declarest that her abode is in thine eye, or, when thou closest it, in thy heart; thou hast no fear of censure from any man; thou hast no power to be at rest for a moment; if she demands thy soul, it runs instantly to thy lip; and if she waves a cimeter over thee, thy head falls immediately under it. Since an absurd love, with its basis on air, affects thee so violently, and commands with a sway so despotic, canst thou wonder, that they who walk in the true path are drowned in the sea of mysterious adoration? They disregard life through affection for its giver; they abandon the world through remembrance of its maker; they are inebriated with the melody of amorous complaints; they remember their beloved, and resign to him both this life and the next. Through remembrance of God, they shun all mankind: they are so enamoured of the cupbearer that they spill the wine from the cup. No panacea can heal them, for no mortal can be apprized of their malady; so loudly has rung in their ears, from eternity without beginning, the divine word alest with belt, the tumultuous exclamation of all spirits. They are a sect fully employed, but sitting in retirement; their feet are of earth, but their breath is a flame: with a single yell they could rend a mountain from its base; with a single cry they could throw a city into confusion; like wind, they are concealed and move nimbly; like stone, they are silent, yet repeat God's praises. At early dawn, their tears flow so copiously as to wash from their eyes the black powder of sleep: though the courser of their fancy ran so swiftly all night, yet the morning finds them left behind in disorder: night and day they are plunged in an ocean of ardent desire, till they are unable, through astonishment, to distinguish night from day. So enraptured are they with the beauty of Him who decorated the human form, that, with the beauty of the form itself they have no concern; and if ever they behold a beautiful shape, they see in it the mystery of God's work. "The wise take not the husk in exchange for the kernel; and he, who makes that choice, has no understanding. He only has drunk the pure wine of unity, who has forgotten, by remembering God, all things else in both worlds." Let us return to the Hindus, among whom we now find the same emblematical theology, which Pythagoras admired and adopted. The loves of Crishna and Radha, or the reciprocal attraction between the divine goodness and the human soul, are told at large in the tenth book of the Bhagavat, and are the subject of a little Pastoral Drama, entitled Gítagóvinda: it was the work of Jayadeva, who flourished, it is said, before Calidas, and was born, as he tells us himself, in Cenduli, which many believe to be in Calinga; but, since there is a town of a similar name in Berdwan, the natives of it insist that the finest lyric poet of India was their countryman, and celebrate, in honour of him, an annual jubilee, passing a whole night in representing his drama, and in singing his beautiful songs. After having translated the Gitagóvinda word for word, I reduced my translation to the form in which it is now exhibited: omitting only those passages, which are too luxuriant and too bold for an European taste, and the prefatory ode on the ten incarnations of Vishnu, with which you have been presented on another occasion: the phrases in Italics are the burdens of the several songs; and you may be assured, that not a single image or idea has been added by the translator. INDEX TO VOLUME II. DISCOURSE IX. On the origin and families of nations.-Philosophi- DISCOURSE X. p. 1 On Asiatic history, civil and natural.-Introductory DISCOURSE XI. On the philosophy of the Asiatics.-Introductory 36 End of Sir William Jones's Discourses............ 54 |