The Sage and the Peacock

The Beauty That Draws Arrows

Tear not thy plumage off, it cannot be replaced;Disfigure not thy face in wantonness, O fair one!That face which is bright as the forenoon sun,—To disfigure it were a grievous sin.’Twere paganism to mar such a face as thine!The moon itself would weep to lose sight of it!Knowest thou not the beauty of thine own face?Quit this temper that leads thee to war with thyself!It is the claws of thine own foolish thoughtsThat in spite wound the face of thy quiet soul.Know such thoughts to be claws fraught with poison,Which score deep wounds on the face of thy soul.
Masnavi V · tr. E. H. Whinfield, 1887

Earliest record: 1278Masnavi V.553–558 in Nicholson's numbering, from the tale of the sage and the peacock that begins at V.536. No autograph survives. The earliest complete manuscript, the Konya copy, was finished in December 1278, five years after Rūmī's death. Nicholson judged the Qoniya MS., dated 677 A.H., the most authoritative text, and his printed text from Book III, v. 2836 onward follows it. The English quoted here is later. Whinfield translated from the Bulaq edition of 1268 A.H., keyed his section pages to the Lucknow edition of 1282 A.H., and printed in London in 1887 (Trübner & Co.).
Said to date from: the 1270sasserted by Nicholson, in the Introduction to his translation of Books V and VI (dated Cambridge, 19 August 1933), says both books were “composed when the author was approaching his seventieth year”. Whinfield gives Rūmī's dates as born at Balkh in 604 A.H. (1207) and died at Qonia in 672 A.H. (1273), and Book VI breaks off unfinished. The 1270s decade is this entry's reading of those two statements: no manuscript from Rūmī's lifetime survives to date the book.

The peacock grants that a self-restrained man may keep his feathers (V.652–653); it is not that man, so it throws its weapons into the well (V.659–660).

Masnavi V.652–660, the peacock's answer (Nicholson's translation of Books V–VI, 1934; paraphrased, not quoted)

A sage finds a peacock tearing out its own feathers and pleads with it to stop; the bird has its reasons.

More context

Masnavi Book V opens on the four birds Abraham was told to cut in pieces (Qurʾān 2:260). Whinfield summarises them as the duck of gluttony, the cock of concupiscence, “the peacock of ambition and ostentation” and the crow of bad desires (V.42–44). The peacock's tale begins at V.536 in Nicholson's numbering: a sage finds a peacock tearing out its feathers and pleads with it. The lines here close his plea and carry Rūmī's gloss on it, V.553–558. Rūmī then sets the ḥadīth “There is no monkery in Islam” over the counsel to turn the heart from the feathers rather than tear them out (V.574–578). The peacock weeps, and answers (V.641–664) that fowlers and archers hunt it for its plumage and it cannot restrain itself, so it will be ugly and safe. Whinfield gives the tale in prose and marks his cut after these lines with a row of dots.

Light

A gift torn out “cannot be replaced”; the wound comes from “the claws of thine own foolish thoughts”.

Shadow

The peacock speaks for whoever cannot restrain himself, and argues that rending its face is no sin (V.664).

Sources7 sources

Primary source

Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī; trans. and abridged E. H. Whinfield, Masnavi i Ma'navi: The Spiritual Couplets of Maulána Jalálu-'d-Dín Muhammad i Rúmí, translated and abridged (Trübner's Oriental Series; London: Trübner & Co.), 1887, Book V, Story I (p. 221, the four birds) and Story III, "The Sage and the Peacock", pp. 228–229, section headed "There is no monkery in Islam" — the twelve lines quoted here, which stand before a row of dots marking Whinfield's cutThe verse_text, verbatim; Whinfield's prose summary (the sage going out to till his field, the peacock's explanation that his plumage made hunters pursue him, the poet's point that worldly accomplishments endanger the spiritual life "but, nevertheless, they are appointed for our probation"); his heading and its note "A Hadis"; and, in Story I, his gloss of the four birds with the note "Koran ii. 262".
Tear not thy plumage off, it cannot be replaced; / Disfigure not thy face in wantonness, O fair one!
Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī; trans. Reynold A. Nicholson, The Mathnawí of Jalálu'ddín Rúmí, vol. VI: translation of Books V and VI (E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Series); Introduction dated Cambridge, 19 August 1933, 1934, Book V: V.42–44 (the four birds); V.536–556 (the sage's plea); the heading before V.557 and V.557–558; the heading before V.574 and V.574–578; V.641–664 (the peacock's answer)That Whinfield's twelve lines render V.553–558 and that his row of dots stands for V.559–573; that V.44 makes the peacock eminence; that Rūmī sets the ḥadīth of no monkery over V.574; and the substance of the peacock's answer — hunted for its plumage, unable to restrain itself, it grants the self-restrained may keep their feathers (V.652–653) and argues that for itself rending its face is no sin (V.664). Read for line numbers and headings only and paraphrased: this translation is still in US copyright, so none of its English is quoted in this entry.

Scholarship

Quran.com, The Qurʾān, Sūrat al-Baqarah 2:260, 2:260 (Whinfield's note numbers it ii. 262)The command to Abraham to take four birds, cut them in pieces and call them back, which Book V takes as its opening text.
Reynold A. Nicholson, The Mathnawí of Jalálu'ddín Rúmí, vol. IV: translation of Books III and IV (E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Series), 1930, Introduction, dated Cambridge, April 1930Nicholson's judgement that the Qoniya MS. (G), dated 677 A.H., is the most authoritative text of the poem, and that his printed text from Book III, v. 2836 is founded on it; and his estimate of Whinfield — some 2000 of the roughly 17,500 verses of Books III–VI translated in the abridged version, good in general but seldom precise enough for obscure passages. That is why the line numbers in this entry are Nicholson's and the English is Whinfield's.
Good as his renderings are from a general point of view, I cannot say that I owe much to them, since they are seldom precise enough to afford help in dealing with obscure and doubtful passages.