Every Form You See
The Fountain Does Not Fail
Dīvān-e Shams, ode XII · tr. R. A. Nicholson, 1898Every form you see has its archetype in the placeless world;If the form perished, no matter, since its original is everlasting.Every fair shape you have seen, every deep saying you have heard,Be not cast down that it perished; for that is not so.Whereas the spring-head is undying, its branch gives water continually;Since neither can cease, why are you lamenting?Conceive the Soul as a fountain, and these created things as rivers:While the fountain flows, the rivers run from it.Put grief out of your head and keep quaffing this river-water;Do not think of the water failing; for this water is without end.From the moment you came into the world of being,A ladder was placed before you that you might escape.First you were mineral, later you turned to plant,Then you became animal: how should this be a secret to you?Afterwards you were made man, with knowledge, reason, faith;Behold the body, which is a portion of the dust-pit, how perfect it has grown!When you have travelled on from man, you will doubtless become an angel;After that you are done with this earth: your station is in heaven.Pass again even from angelhood: enter that ocean,That your drop may become a sea which is a hundred seas of ‘Omān.Leave this ‘Son,’ say ever ‘One’ with all your soul;If your body has aged, what matter, when the soul is young?
- Earliest record
- the 1440sThe oldest witness Nicholson lists for this ode is the manuscript he followed, L, in the Leyden University Library, dated 851 A.H. (1447–48); the only other source at the foot of the Persian (p. 46) is Rosenzweig's Auswahl (R), printed at Vienna in 1838. Nicholson's introduction names this ode, with XVII and XXXI, among three of the finest in his selection that occur in a single manuscript, and Ibrahim Gamard lists it among seven of his forty-eight that are not in the earliest manuscripts of the Dīvān.
Nicholson's note ties the closing 'Son' to the Trinity and Qurʾān 4:171. His rhymed version says it outright: “‘The Son of God!’ Nay, leave that word unsaid”.
Nicholson, Selected Poems (1898): note on XII. 11, p. 232 (“see VI. 13, note”); note on VI. 13, p. 217 (“alluding to the doctrine of the Trinity (see Kor. IV. 169, with Sale's note, v. 77)”); Appendix II (b), p. 344; Qurʾān 4:171
Every form has its archetype in the placeless world; the soul climbs from mineral to angel to the sea.
More context
Ode XII, eleven couplets, printed here whole. Every form has its archetype in the placeless world, so no fair shape or deep saying is lost when it perishes. The Soul is a fountain and created things its rivers. From the sixth couplet the ode becomes a ladder: mineral, plant, animal, man with knowledge, reason and faith, then angel. Then comes the ocean where the drop becomes “a hundred seas of ‘Omān”. The ode ends by telling the reader to leave “this ‘Son,’” and say “One”. Nicholson's note on couplets 6–10 quotes the Persian of the Masnavi passage that Whinfield renders “I died as inanimate matter and arose a plant” (Book III). He followed the Leyden manuscript (L) for the Persian, which Rosenzweig's Auswahl also carries. He named it among three of the finest poems in his selection found in a single manuscript, and recast it as rhymed quatrains in Appendix II.
Light
Nothing fair you have seen or heard is lost while its spring runs; age is no loss “when the soul is young”.
Shadow
Nicholson found it in one manuscript, Leyden 851 A.H.; Ibrahim Gamard counts it among seven of his forty-eight no longer thought Rūmī's.