. Thou didst set in my path a net1 of impurity, and didst 3 4 "See how many ill deeds thou hast done. Thou hast brought dishonour on me and thyself; thou hast seduced me, the wife of a mighty monarch; thou hast made thy race and posterity a reproach; thou hast sworn falsely; thou hast forsaken a faithful and troth-keeping lover; thou hast gone away from me without regret or sorrow, and thou hast heaped reproaches on such a lover as none save thee possesses. I am that Vis whose face is the 287 sun, and whose hair is musk. I am she whose face in fulness is like a fifteen days' moon, and whose lip is like immortality. I am that gracious one whose love is longlived. I am the queen of beauties and sovereign of enchantresses. I find many a monarch better than thee, but thou canst never find one like me. Since thou hast forsaken me and left me, thou shalt find me with difficulty when thou returnest. "Do not this thing, O Ramin! thou canst find no balm save Vis. Ramin! When thou art sated with able to get hold of Vis by bravery. 1 Bade, 261. 3 Buki, 355. R., 55, 712, 965. When thou repentest, Do not this thing, THE FIRST LETTER OF VIS TO RAMIN 255 O Ramin! Now thou art drunk, and in drunkenness thou hast broken thine oath. Do it not, O Ramin, for when thou art sober thou shalt remain wifeless and loverless! I see thee weeping before me, and with thy face fixed at the door of my palace (or lying on the threshold of the door of my palace'); thine enmity turned to love, seeking me, thou canst not find me. Since thou art sated of me and my lips, doubtless thou wilt soon have enough of Gul. When thou wast not submissive to me and didst not rejoice beside me, to whom else wilt thou be subject? Lovers cry with a loud voice: 'He whom Vis does not suit, let him receive death as his reward.' "It will suffice thee as a sign of ill-luck that God gave thee a rose (?i.e., Gul), and then straightway bereft thee of the planted garden (i.e., Vis). He showed thee the darkened moon (Gul), and bereft thee of the brilliant sun (Vis). Thou boastest of having found one tree, and thou knowest not that thou no longer hast the vineyard. Surely thou dost not forget what sorrow and impatience thou wast in for my love? When thou sawest me in a dream thou didst think thyself a king. When my soul was given to thee, thou wast raised from death to life. 66 Man's folly is this, that he soon forgets grief and joy. Thus thou didst say: 'I have lost my youth in the pursuit of her. I have repented, and the pleasant world is become 288 bitter to me.' Then I thought this: 'I have planted thee as a sugar-cane, and then I looked for fruit, and gall showed itself as fruit.' If I remembered my griefs from thee, fire would come up even into my brain, and Djeon1 would flow from mine eyes. How many griefs have I seen from thee? And at last it befalls me that thou diggest a well,2 the nurse hast cast me in, and you are both seated pleasantly. Thou didst bring wood, the nurse lit the fire, and both burned me in it against my will. I know not if I should complain of thee or her, the fund of my woe is from both. How much hatred I have known from thee! Thou hast chained me with the fetters of separation, and hast lighted 2 Dcha, 189. 1 Djeon, 267, 431 a fire in my heart. Thou hast caused blood to flow from mine eyes. Thou hast set me in a lake of blood, and drowned me in Djeon.1 My heart neither tells me to curse thee nor to cry out before God. May God never let me hear of thy grief-thy grief would pain me more than thee. Nevertheless, I shall thus write thee letters until the pen begins to write in blood or until I see thee, for may God not slay me until I have seen thee!" 1 Djeon, 267, 431. | CHAPTER XLIX THE SECOND LETTER OF VIS TO RAMIN "IF I had the seven heavens1 for paper, if I had all the stars as scribes, if the air of night were ink, if the letters (of the alphabet) were as numerous as leaves, sands, and fishes-if till the end I had hope and longing to see my lover-by thy sun, not even then could I write half I desire. "I can fear nought save separation from thee; nought afflicts me save thine absence. Remaining afar from thee I have no rest. Sleep comes not to me; and if I slumber, thy face is before mine eyes. Without thee I am so wretched that I am pitiable even to my foes. When I do that which seems comforting to me, I shed streams of tears from mine eyes. This seems to me as if I extinguished fire with fire, and healed woe with woe. By reason of thine absence I sit mourning, and thou makest merry and rejoicest by the side of my foe. Mine eye must weep when it sees my lover's bridle in the hands of a foe. It is as if thine absence were a fire which burns (everything) save suffering. None can sleep in the heat, and how can I repose being in a fire? 289 "I am that old cedar 2 which thy separation has over- 290 thrown, withered, burned. That form of mine, which thou didst know straight as an arrow-thinking of thee has crooked it, it has fallen on a couch. When they come to sympathize, to see me, and to inquire after me-all those who sit around me-I am so wretched that they cannot look 1 Seven heavens, R., 608, 1285; nine heavens, R., 399. on me. They speak thus in their chatter, mocking me: 'Surely our invalid is gone away to the chase that she is not here.' Desire to see thee has so emaciated my form that those I see can no longer see me. Only by my sighing did they perceive that I lived; and now through weakness not even sighing is possible to me. The only advantage which remains to me from thine absence is that if Death were to come and seek me for a year I am so shrunken by desire of thee that he could not find me in the bedding; yet though by reason of thine absence I long for death, I am thus safe from it. Affliction for thy sake has become great, like mountains upon me, and the path of patience is made hard to me. May God not deliver me from this grief if I bear thine absence! And how can that heart endure and be patient which is like the furnace of hell, and neither has its blood in it nor anything else? It is a lie that the soul lives by blood.2 I have no longer any blood, and yet I live. 1 "O beloved! as long as thou wert near, my form was a tree whose fruit was roses. Now it is fit that I should be burned, for everybody burns a barren branch. When thou didst depart, patience went from me. Since I cannot see thee, I find no joy in anything. In thine absence my will 291 has gone from me, and as long as thou art away it will not return. Fate is so enraged against me as if I were bound to (her) chariot3 (wheel). Fate has brought me into confusion, like that of an army without a leader. Under grief the day has become night to me, as to a wild goat from fear of a greyhound. If I have wept at such a plight, marvel not. Let none reproach me. I am loverless, and the beloved of sorrows. I am without work, and have fainted from the works of love. I cannot rest without thee. Surely thou wert my life, for by thine absence thou hast sown in my heart thy love, and now I adjure thee to water it with the canal5 of joy. 1 Sakhhmili, R., 318, 326, 332, 775, 1135, 1247. 3 Etli, R., 973. |