“Narcissus’ Lament” — 水仙的挽歌
Today I see the importance of friends. It is good to have them and it is even better when a friend puts up with your pestering to have your poem translated into his or her language. So today's Shout of Joy and Thanks goes out to my wonderful pen pal who goes by the pen name of Calmfeeler, translating "Narcissus' Lament" into Chinese, all the way from Beijing, China.
看不见
自己 在
这波里 一切
都如此匆匆
海浪花漂来流去
消损了的 是
我的面容
Whenever I start speaking of friends it brings up in my mind one of the great Friends, that is, Shams of Tabriz, the mystic poet Rumi's Beloved. I have heard different versions of the account of how they met, different people will always say what suits them the most, but just know this:
In the 13th Century, in what is now Turkey, Shams of Tabriz stops Rumi one day and asks him a question that rattles his entire world. "Who is greater? Mohammed or Bestami1?" According to Coleman Barks, "Rumi is reported to have chosen Mohammed as his answer, reasoning that because of him God's greatness was always unfolding, whereas Bestami had 'taken one gulp of the divine and stopped there.'"
Barks continues: "After his initial meeting with Shams, Rumi became a mystic, cupping one hand about a pillar in mosque and speaking in poetry. His followers wrote down his poems - and copied his movements, which today survive in the Mevlevi order of 'whirling dervishes' they eventually founded."
Shams! Shams of Tabriz! If Rumi was the poet, it was Shams who became his key. Rumi says of Shams in Ode 3097: "I won't try to talk about Shams./ Language cannot touch that Presence." But the story ends terribly. Rumi and Shams are inseparable; they discuss theology until all hours, needing no one but themselves. And then one night Shams is called to the door, cries out and … disappears.
It was thought that one of Rumi's sons, or a jealous follower, murdered him. Either way, Rumi's Beloved vanishes from his life, forever. Rumi will spend the rest of his life reciting ode after ode for his Shams; his grief at separation from the divine. And every time I pick up one of his books I ask myself: "how can I say these simple words without their emotional force making me cry? … knowing that they are a prayer for that which will never happen again, rather than a mundane observation about what is to come?"
When Shams comes back from Tabriz,
he'll put just his head around the edge
of the door to surprise usLike this.
Yes, just like this.
- Mohammed, the founder of Islam; and Bestami, a Muslim scholar and teacher [back]