More Crooked Than the Christians’ Script
Khaqaniخاقانی
فلک کژروتر است از خط ترسا
The heavens move more crookedly than the Christians’ script;
مرا دارد مسلسل راهب آسا
they keep me chained like a monk.
نه روح الله در این دیر است چون شد
The Spirit of God is not in this monastery; how is it, then,
چنین دجال فعل این دیر مینا
that this azure monastery acts like the Antichrist?
تنم چون رشتهٔ مریم دوتا است
My body is bent double like Mary’s thread;
دلم چون سوزن عیساست یکتا
my heart is single, like the needle of Jesus.
من اینجا پای بند رشته ماندم
Here I am left bound by the thread,
چو عیسی پای بند سوزن آنجا
as Jesus there is held back by the needle.
A note for readers
The opening of the poem known as the Tarsa'iyya, or ‘Christian ode’, a qasida full of images from Christian lore, which most accounts say Khaqani wrote while held in confinement. ‘Spirit of God’ is a Quranic title of Jesus; in Islamic legend Jesus was held back in the fourth heaven by a needle he carried, and Mary’s thread recalls her spinning. The excerpt gives the first four couplets.
More poemsشعرهای دیگر
یک عمر می‌توان سخن از زلف یار گفت
در بند آن مباش که مضمون نمانده است
One could speak for a lifetime of the beloved’s tresses;
do not fret that there are no themes left.
A Lifetime on the Beloved’s Tresses
بلبلی برگ گلی خوش رنگ در منقار داشت
و اندر آن برگ و نوا خوش ناله‌های زار داشت
A nightingale held in its beak a rose petal of lovely colour,
and with that petal and its song it made sweet, piteous laments.
A nightingale held a rose petal
ستاره ای بدرخشید و ماه مجلس شد
دل رمیده ما را رفیق و مونس شد
A star shone out and became the moon of the gathering,
became friend and companion to our startled heart.