The Bird's Three Counsels
The Counsel Never Given
Masnavi IV.2252–2263 · tr. R. A. Nicholson, 1930When it (the bird) had uttered the first grave counsel on his palm, it became free and went (to perch) on the wall (of his house),And said, “The second is, ‘do not grieve over (what is) past: when it has passed from thee, do not feel regret for it.’”After that, it said to him, “In my body is concealed a solitary (large and precious) pearl, ten dirhems in weight.By thy soul’s truth (as sure as thou livest), that jewel was thy fortune and the luck of thy children.Thou hast missed the pearl, for it was not thy appointed lot (to gain it)—a pearl the like of which is not in existence.”Even as a woman big with child keeps wailing at the time of parturition, so the Khwája began to cry out clamorously.The bird said to him, “Did not I admonish thee, saying, ‘Let there be no grief in thee for what passed yesterday’?Since it is past and gone, why art thou grieving? Either thou didst not understand my counsel or thou art deaf.And (as regards) the second counsel I gave thee, (namely), ‘Do not from misguidedness put any belief in an absurd statement,’O lion, I myself do not weigh ten dirhems: how should the weight of ten dirhems be within me?”The Khwája came back to himself (recovered his wits) and said, “Hark, disclose the third (piece of) excellent counsel.”“Yes,” said the bird, “thou hast made good use of those (former counsels), that I should tell (thee) the third counsel in vain!”
- First attested
- 1278No autograph survives. The oldest witness is the Qoniya manuscript (G), dated 677 A.H. = A.D. 1278, which Nicholson judged “the most authoritative text of the Mathnawi”; he wrote in April 1930 that his text “from Book III, v. 2836, to the end of Book IV is founded on that ancient and admirable MS.”, so this story, at IV.2245–2265, stands in the stretch he edited from the oldest copy.
The third counsel is never given. Asked for it, the bird answers, “thou hast made good use of those (former counsels), that I should tell (thee) the third counsel in vain!” (IV.2263). The whole story is an aside, told inside the tale of the three fishes to gloss IV.2244: “’Tis wrong to regret the past”.
Mathnawī IV.2241–2266, Nicholson's translation (1930), pp. 396–397
A trapped bird buys its freedom with counsels, shows its captor he ignored them, and keeps the third.
Mathnawī IV.2245–2265, told inside the tale of the three fishes, just after the half-intelligent fish regrets the chance he missed and Rūmī remarks that it is wrong to regret the past (IV.2244). A man traps a bird. It tells him he has eaten many oxen, sheep and camels without being sated, and offers three counsels for its freedom: the first on his hand, the second on his roof, the third in a tree. Freed after the first, do not believe an absurdity, it tells him from the wall not to grieve over what is past, then claims a pearl of ten dirhems is hidden in its body. The Khwája wails like a woman in labour; the bird points out that he has broken both counsels at once, and refuses the third. The passage here is IV.2252–2263.
Light
It is a sharp lesson in self-audit: a man told not to grieve over the past and not to believe absurdities breaks both rules within a minute, over a pearl heavier than the bird that claimed to hold it.
Shadow
Its last word closes a door. The third counsel is refused because the listener has proved a fool, and Rūmī adds that the rent of folly and ignorance does not admit of being patched up (IV.2265), a verdict that leaves the Khwája no way back.
