From Chapter 7: SOHBET
Book VI, Verses 2632, 2665-2669, 2681-2684
View on Masnavi.net
The tale of the mouse's attachment to the owl and tying both their feet with a long string, and the crow lifting the mouse, causing the owl to dangle, and the owl's lament and regret for associating with a different kind and not harmonizing with its own kind.
By chance, a mouse and a faithful owl became acquainted by the stream.
Both became connected at a certain time, meeting in a corner every morning.
They played the game of love with each other, clearing their hearts of doubts.
Their hearts expanded from the meeting, each telling stories and listening.
They shared secrets with and without words, interpreting "togetherness is a mercy."
When that one was paired with this happy one, the five-year-old story came to mind.
The flow of speech from the heart is a sign of friendship; the silence of speech is from lack of intimacy.
When the heart sees the beloved, how can it remain sour? When a nightingale sees a rose, how can it stay silent?
A grilled fish revived by Khidr's touch became alive and settled in the sea.
When a friend sits with a friend, a hundred thousand tablets of secrets are known.
The preserved tablet is the forehead of the beloved, revealing the secrets of both worlds.
The friend is a guide on the path; the Prophet said, "My companions are like stars."
A star is a guide on sand and sea; keep your eyes on the star, not the leader.
Keep your eyes paired with his face, don't stir dust from the path of discussion and talk.
For the star becomes hidden by that dust; the eye is better than the tongue with a stumble.
So he says, whose sign is revelation, that it settles the dust and doesn't stir it.
When Adam became the manifestation of revelation and love, his speech opened the knowledge of names.
He named everything as it is, from the tablet of the heart, his tongue became its expression.
His tongue openly spoke of its essence and nature.
Noah, for nine hundred years on the path, had a new reminder every day.
His ruby spoke from the sapphire of hearts, having read neither treatises nor "The Strength of Hearts."
He learned no sermons from commentaries, but was the fountain of revelations and the explanation of the soul.
From that wine, when drunk, the water of speech gushes from the mute.
A newborn child becomes an eloquent scholar, reading the wisdom of the mature like Christ.
From the mountain that found that sweet-lipped wine, a hundred odes were learned by the prophet David.
All the birds abandoned their chirping, becoming companions and friends of King David.
What wonder that a bird becomes intoxicated by him, even hearing the iron call of his hand.
A whirlwind became a killer for the people of 'Ad, yet for Solomon, it became a porter.
The whirlwind carried the king's throne every morning and evening, a month's journey.
It became both porter and spy for him, making the absent present for him.
The wind, when it found the absent, hastened to the ear of that king.
Saying, "So-and-so said this now, O Solomon, great lord of the age."
The mouse's plan with the owl: "I cannot come to you at the time of need in the water. We need a connection so that when I come to the stream, I can inform you, and when you come to the mouse hole, you can inform me," and so on.
This talk has no end, said the mouse to the owl one day, "O lamp of wisdom."
"Sometimes I want to share secrets with you, but you are galloping in the water.
By the stream, I shout to you, but you don't hear the lovers' cries in the water.
At this appointed time, O brave one, I do not tire of your stories.
Five times came the prayer and guidance; lovers are in constant prayer.
Not five can calm that intoxication, for in those heads are not five hundred thousand.
Gold is not the duty of lovers; the true souls are very thirsty.
Gold is not the duty of fish, for without the sea, they have no soul's comfort.
The water of this sea, which is a vast expanse, is but a sip for the fish's intoxication.
A moment of separation for the lover is like a year; a year of continuous union seems like a dream.
Love is a thirst, seeking thirst; this and that follow each other like day and night.
Day is in love with night and distressed; when you see night, it is more in love.
They have not a moment of rest from seeking; they do not stop for a moment.
This one holds the other's foot, that one the other's ear; this one is intoxicated by that, and that one unconscious by this.
In the beloved's heart, all are lovers; in Azra's heart, Waamq is always present.
In the lover's heart, there is nothing but the beloved; there is no separator or divider between them.
These two are on one camel; so how can gold fit these two?
No one shows gold to themselves; no one is a companion to themselves in turn.
That oneness that the intellect understood, understanding this depended on the death of the man.
Barks Interpretation
A mouse and a frog meet every morning on the riverbank.