Baháʼu'lláh's Mathnaví

[Ahanu]

A recent provisional translation of Baháʼu'lláh's Mathnaví uses the powerful image of two "Springs" to contrast the material and spiritual realms. The lines, "Our Beloved! — When She flings away the niqáb, / This Spring will get all fired up — without the hijáb!" resonate strongly with current struggles for freedom and self-expression, especially in the context of the Women, Life, Freedom movement in Iran. Here are lines 39-55:

O Beloved! — From Your Face, The Spring has come!
And, from This Spring, unnumbered Truths have come!
Every flower of Him — a book of His Story!
Every heart of Him — a fount of His Glory!
This Spring won’t be followed by fall, ever!
All its flowers will circle Him forever!
This kind of spring the soul can’t understand.
This kind of spring harrows the soul of man.
Those springs bring the strong desire for lovely mates,
and These Springs bring The Love of God that He creates.
Those springs end, because of their mortality,
and These Springs have the title: “Eternity”.
That Spring rises in the world from seasons taking place,
and This Spring from the Light of His Heart-Capturing Face!
That Spring brings lots of tulips coming out,
and This Spring has a lot of groaning now!
This Eternal Spring from The King’s Great Light
has raised His Tent to Heaven’s Greatest Height!
All the world’s people have entered His Tent!
(If you have eyes to see, behold This Event!)
Our King! — When He flings the veil away from His Face,
This Spring will pitch His Tent up over the stars in space!
Our Beloved! — When She flings away the niqáb,
This Spring will get all fired up — without the hijáb!
We will be within This Spring, then, looking at her face.
We will not be in a garden, searching for her face.
We will, in His Praise, be free from any other one.
We will, in this world, become enlightened from His Sun.
If a Breeze from This Beautiful Spring comes to you,
hundreds of Josephs you will see come into view.
If a Breeze wafts to you from This Fragrance-Garden,
you’ll see the spiritual Josephs in the world then —
you’ll see their bodies become like spirits, and these
will achieve — each moment — manifold victories!

 

[Ahanu]

The translator notes that, although a previous English translation has been done before, he wanted to create a translation that rhymed like Baháʼu'lláh's original work: "In Spring of 2017, I noticed that Frank Lewis’s provisional translation of The Blessed Mathnaví on bahai-library.com was unrhymed. Knowing how musical and lyrical the Persian language is, I wanted to see if this poem could be rendered in English in rhyming couplets, like the original." We can see his attempt to render rhyming couplets in the passages cited in this thread.

Baháʼu'lláh emphasizes the importance of wisdom and gentleness in sharing spiritual truths in lines 92-96:

From The Garden of Truth, open a gate!
For God’s sake, don’t make a wall of this gate! —
so I’ll come and explain, with evidence,
the Mystery of Your Benevolence!
He said: “O God! O God! — No, O Good Man!
Don’t explain this to the ignorant man!
God, no! — O Tongue of God’s Mystery! — Be wise.
Softly, nicely talk — and so, form loving ties,
for, if You take them gently by the hand,
they won’t fear 'this and that', do understand."

Baháʼu'lláh guides us to patiently guide people ("taking them gently by the hand") so they don't become fearful or resistant due to comparisons and contrasts ("this and that").