The Conference of the Birds (Penguin)

by Farid al-Din Attar

And seeing him the prince’s noble eyes

  Flooded with tears that he could not disguise.

  He wished to hide them from his army’s sight,

  But tears in princes are a sign of might.

  They flowed like rain and in that moment he

  Increased a hundred times his sovereignty.

  Endure in love, be steadfast and sincere –

  At last the one you long for will appear;

  Act as this beggar did, lament and sigh

  Until the glorious prince gives his reply.

  lines 4103–19

  He saw the prince approach from far away

  But could not catch the words he tried to say;

  He twisted, struggled, raised his face and there

  The prince’s weeping eyes returned his stare.

  He trembled, weak as water with desire;

  He shuddered, burnt by love’s consuming fire,

  And with his last laborious, hoarse breath

  Gasped: “Prince, you see me at the point of death –

  Your words can kill me now; you did not need

  Guards and a gibbet to perform this deed.”

  Then as a dying candle flares he cried

  The last exultant laugh of death and died;

  Made one with his beloved he became

  The Nothingness of an extinguished flame.

  True pilgrims fathom, even as they fight,

  The passion of annihilation’s night –

  Your being here is mixed with nothingness,

  And no joy comes to you without distress;

  If you cannot endure, how will you find

  The promised peace that haunts your troubled mind?

  You leapt like lightning once, yet now you stand

  Like marshy water clogged with desert sand –

  Renew your courage, put aside your fear

  And in love’s fire let reason disappear.

  To be unsure, to pine for liberty,

  Is to resist our journey’s alchemy.

  How long will caution make you hesitate?

  Fly beyond thought before it is too late!

  To reach that place where true delight is won,

  Accept the dervish path as I have done –

  I speak of “I”; in truth there is no “I”

  Where logic falters and the mind must die.

  I lose myself within myself; I seek

  For strength in being poor, despised and weak.

  When poverty’s bright sun shines over me,

  A window opens on reality;

  4120–35

  I see both worlds and in that light I seem

  Like water lost in water’s moving stream.

  All that I ever lost or ever found

  Is in the depths of that black deluge drowned.

  I too am lost; I leave no trace, no mark;

  I am a shadow cast upon the dark,

  A drop sunk in the sea, and it is vain

  To search the sea for that one drop again.

  This Nothingness is not for everyone,

  Yet many seek it out as I have done;

  And who would reach this far and not aspire

  To Nothingness, the pilgrim’s last desire?

  Nouri was questioned by one pure in soul:

  “How far is it until we reach our goal?”

  And said: “We pass through fire and splendour first;

  Then seven oceans have to be traversed.

  A fish* (now listen carefully to me,

  And I will show you how to cross this sea)

  Will draw you by its breath – a mighty whale,

  Vast but invisible from head to tail,

  Who deep in solitude delights to swim

  And by his breathing draws the world to him”.’

  The journey

  The hoopoe paused, and when the group had heard

  His discourse, trembling fear filled every bird.

  They saw the bow of this great enterprise

  Could not be drawn by weakness, sloth or lies,

  And some were so cast down that then and there

  They turned aside and perished in despair.

  With fear and apprehension in each heart,

  lines 4136–54

  The remnant rose up ready to depart.

  They travelled on for years; a lifetime passed

  Before the longed-for goal was reached at last.

  What happened as they flew I cannot say,

  But if you journey on that narrow Way,

  Then you will act as they once did and know

  The miseries they had to undergo.

  Of all the army that set out, how few

  Survived the Way; of that great retinue

  A handful lived until the voyage was done –

  Of every thousand there remained but one.

  Of many who set out no trace was found.

  Some deep within the ocean’s depths were drowned;

  Some died on mountain-tops; some died of heat;

  Some flew too near the sun in their conceit,

  Their hearts on fire with love – too late they learned

  Their folly when their wings and feathers burned;

  Some met their death between the lion’s claws,

  And some were ripped to death by monsters’ jaws;

  Some died of thirst; some hunger sent insane,

  Till suicide released them from their pain;

  Some became weak and could no longer fly

  (They faltered, fainted, and were left to die);

  Some paused bewildered and then turned aside

  To gaze at marvels as if stupefied;

  Some looked for pleasure’s path and soon confessed

  They saw no purpose in the pilgrims’ quest;

  Not one in every thousand souls arrived –

  In every hundred thousand one survived.

  The birds arrive and are greeted by a herald

  A world of birds set out, and there remained

  But thirty when the promised goal was gained,

  Thirty exhausted, wretched, broken things,

  With hopeless hearts and tattered, trailing wings,

  lines 4155–74

  Who saw that nameless Glory which the mind

  Acknowledges as ever-undefined,

  Whose solitary flame each moment turns

  A hundred worlds to nothingness and burns

  With power a hundred thousand times more bright

  Than sun and stars and every natural light.

  The awe-struck group, bewildered and amazed,

  Like insubstantial, trembling atoms, gazed

  And chirmed: ‘How can we live or prosper here,

  Where if the sun came it would disappear?

  Our hearts were torn from all we loved; we bore

  The perils of a path unknown before;

  And all for this? It was not this reward

  That we expected from our longed-for Lord.’

  It seemed their throats were cut, as if they bled

  And weakly whimpered until left for dead,

  Waiting for splendour to annihilate

  Their insubstantial, transitory state.

  Time passed; then from the highest court there flew

  A herald of the starry retinue,

  Who saw the thirty birds, trembling, afraid,

  Their bodies broken and their feathers frayed,

  And said: ‘What city are you from? What race?

  What business brings you to this distant place?

  What are your names? You seem destroyed by fear;

  What made you leave your homes and travel here?

  What were you in the world ? What use are you ?

  What can such weak and clumsy creatures do?’

  The group replied: ‘We flew here for one thing,

  To claim the Simorgh as our rightful king;

  We come as suppliants and we have sought

  Through grievous paths the threshold of His court –
/>
  How long the Way was to complete our vow;

  Of thousands we are only thirty now!

  Was that hope false which led us to this place,

  Or shall we now behold our sovereign’s face?’

  lines 4175–93

  The herald tells the birds to turn back

  The herald said: ‘This king for whom you grieve

  Governs in glory you cannot conceive –

  A hundred thousand armies are to Him

  An ant that clambers up His threshold’s rim,

  And what are you? Grief is your fate–go back;

  Retrace your steps along the pilgrims’ track!’

  And when they heard the herald’s fearsome words,

  A deathly hopelessness assailed the birds;

  But they replied: ‘Our king will not repay

  With sorrow all the hazards of the Way;

  Grief cannot come to us from majesty;

  Grief cannot live beside such dignity.

  Think of Majnoun, who said: “If all the earth

  Should every passing moment praise my worth,

  I would prefer abuse from Leili’s heart

  To all creation’s eulogizing art –

  The world’s praise cannot equal Leili’s blame;

  Both worlds are less to me than Leili’s name,”

  We told you our desire – if grief must come,

  Then we are ready and shall not succumb.’

  The herald said: ‘The blaze of Majesty

  Reduces souls to unreality,

  And if your souls are burnt, then all the pain

  That you have suffered will have been in vain.’

  They answered him: ‘How can a moth flee fire

  When fire contains its ultimate desire?

  And if we do not join Him, yet we’ll burn,

  And it is this for which our spirits yearn –

  It is not union for which we hope;

  We know that goal remains beyond our scope.’

  The birds narrated then the moth’s brief tale:

  ‘They told the moth: “You are too slight, too frail

  To bear the vivid candle-flame you seek –

  lines 4194–4213

  This game is for the noble, not the weak;

  Why die from ignorance?” The moth replied:

  “Within that fire I cannot hope to hide –

  I know I could not penetrate the flame;

  Simply to reach it is my humble aim”.’

  Though grief engulfed the ragged group, love made

  The birds impetuous and unafraid;

  The herald’s self-possession was unmoved,

  But their resilience was not reproved –

  Now, gently, he unlocked the guarded door;

  A hundred veils drew back, and there before

  The birds’ incredulous, bewildered sight

  Shone the unveiled, the inmost Light of Light.

  He led them to a noble throne, a place

  Of intimacy, dignity and grace,

  Then gave them all a written page and said

  That when its contents had been duly read

  The meaning that their journey had concealed,

  And of the stage they’d reached, would be revealed.

  Joseph’s brothers read of their treachery

  When Malek Dar bought Joseph as a slave,

  The price agreed (and which he gladly gave)

  Seemed far too low – to be quite sure he made

  The brothers sign a note for what he’d paid;

  And when the wicked purchase was complete

  He left with Joseph and the sealed receipt.

  At last when Joseph ruled in Egypt’s court

  His brothers caine to beg and little thought

  To whom it was each bowed his humbled head

  And as a suppliant appealed for bread.

  Then Joseph held a scroll up in his hand

  And said: ‘No courtier here can understand

  These Hebrew characters – if you can read

  This note I’ll give you all the bread you need.’

  lines 4214–31

  The brothers could read Hebrew easily

  And cried: ‘Give us the note, your majesty!’

  (If any of my readers cannot find

  Himself in this account, the fool is blind.)

  When Joseph gave them that short document

  They looked – and trembled with astonishment.

  They did not read a line but in dismay

  Debated inwardly what they should say.

  Their past sins silenced them; they were too weak

  To offer an excuse or even speak.

  Then Joseph said: ‘Why don’t you read? You seem

  Distracted, haunted by some dreadful dream.’

  And they replied: ‘Better to hold our breath

  Than read and in so doing merit death.’

  The birds discover the Simorgh

  The thirty birds read through the fateful page

  And there discovered, stage by detailed stage,

  Their lives, their actions, set out one by one –

  All that their souls had ever been or done:

  And this was bad enough, but as they read

  They understood that it was they who’d led

  The lovely Joseph into slavery –

  Who had deprived him of his liberty

  Deep in a well, then ignorantly sold

  Their captive to a passing chief for gold.

  (Can you not see that at each breath you sell

  The Joseph you imprisoned in that well,

  That he will be the king to whom you must

  Naked and hungry bow down in the dust?)

  The chastened spirits of these birds became

  Like crumbled powder, and they shrank with shame.

  Then, as by shame their spirits were refined

  Of all the world’s weight, they began to find

  A new life flow towards them from that bright

  Celestial and ever-living Light –

  lines 4232–54

  Their souls rose free of all they’d been before;

  The past and all its actions were no more.

  Their life came from that close, insistent sun

  And in its vivid rays they shone as one.

  There in the Simorgh’s* radiant face they saw

  Themselves, the Simorgh of the world – with awe

  They gazed, and dared at last to comprehend

  They were the Simorgh and the journey’s end.

  They see the Simorgh – at themselves they stare,

  And see a second Simorgh standing there;

  They look at both and see the two are one,

  That this is that, that this, the goal is won.

  They ask (but inwardly; they make no sound)

  The meaning of these mysteries that confound

  Their puzzled ignorance – how is it true

  That ‘we’ is not distinguished here from ‘you’?

  And silently their shining Lord replies:

  ‘I am a mirror set before your eyes,

  And all who come before my splendour see

  Themselves, their own unique reality;

  You came as thirty birds and therefore saw

  These selfsame thirty birds, not less nor more;

  If you had come as forty, fifty – here

  An answering forty, fifty, would appear;

  Though you have struggled, wandered, travelled far,

  It is yourselves you see and what you are.’

  (Who sees the Lord? It is himself each sees;

  What ant’s sight could discern the Pleiades?

  What anvil could be lifted by an ant?

  Or could a fly subdue an elephant?)

  ‘How much you thought you knew and saw; but you

  Now know that all you trusted was untrue.

  Though you traversed the Valleys’ depths and fought

  lines 4255–71
/>   With all the dangers that the journey brought,

  The journey was in Me, the deeds were Mine –

  You slept secure in Being’s inmost shrine.

  And since you came as thirty birds, you see

  These thirty birds when you discover Me,

  The Simorgh, Truth’s last flawless jewel, the light

  In which you will be lost to mortal sight,

  Dispersed to nothingness until once more

  You find in Me the selves you were before.’

  Then, as they listened to the Simorgh’s words,

  A trembling dissolution filled the birds –

  The substance of their being was undone,

  And they were lost like shade before the sun;

  Neither the pilgrims nor their guide remained.

  The Simorgh ceased to speak, and silence reigned.

  The ashes of Hallaj

  Hallaj’s corpse was burnt and when the flame

  Subsided, to the pyre a sufi came

  Who stirred the ashes with his staff and said:

  ‘Where has that cry “lam the Truthhl* now fled?

  All that you cried, all that you saw and knew,

  Was but the prelude to what now is true.

  The essence lives; rise now and have no fear,

  Rise up from ruin, rise and disappear –

  All shadows are made nothing in the one

  Unchanging light of Truth’s eternal sun,’

  A hundred thousand centuries went by,

  And then those birds, who were content to die,

  To vanish in annihilation, saw

  Their Selves had been restored to them once more,

  That after Nothingness they had attained

  lines 4272–90

  Eternal Life, and self-hood was regained.

  This Nothingness, this Life, are states no tongue

  At any time has adequately sung –

  Those who can speak still wander far away

  From that dark truth they struggle.to convey,

  And by analogies they try to show

  The forms men’s partial knowledge cannot know.

  (But these are not the subject for my rhyme;

  They need another book, another time –

  And those who merit them will one day see

  This Nothingness and this Eternity;

  While you still travel in your worldly state,

  You cannot pass beyond this glorious gate.)

  Why do you waste your life in slothful sleep?