If A Camel Knows 

By Saadi to Sa`adi

If you would make yourself a man of love,
then make yourself a man whom none notice. 
Otherwise, choose the path that offers safety.
Do not fear that the Lover will turn you to dust;
if He destroys you, you will last forever.
No plant grows correctly from its seed
unless the seed itself is first unmade.
That which grants you access to the Truth
can only be what grants you freedom from yourself, 
and only when you breathe that freedom’s air
will the road to the Self open for you to travel.
Only one who’s given himself up knows this.
If you have lost yourself in frenzied love
the melody you need to dance can come
from musicians playing, of course, but also
from the clip-clop of a packhorse’s hooves;
and if a man is wild with Love, a fly’s
beating wings are all he needs to clap
his hands, fly-like, above his head. He can’t 
distinguish bass from treble, and when he sings,
a rooster’s crowing leaves his love-struck mouth. 
Still, the singer never stops his singing,
even though the ear he serenades
may not be listening; and when those crazed
with love drink in the wine of worship, even
a water wheel’s creaking is music to them,
and like the wheel, they wheel round and round, 
and like the wheel, the water pours from them, 
tears of surrender, their heads deep in their collars. 
But when the pain is more than they can bear, 
they tear their collars to shreds. So don’t blame
a darvish that he’s drunk beyond all reason:
he flails about like that because he’s drowning. 

I will not tell you, brother, how to hear
such music unless I know who’s listening. 
If his bird takes flight from Reality’s loft,
the angels themselves will lag behind it; but if
he trifles with his life and gives himself 
to idle play, the Demon in his brain 
will grow in strength. When the man who hears this 
       tune 
embraces his desire, he rises in sleep 
to the sweet sounds of heaven, not the pull 
of his own intoxication. The morning wind 
will scatter a rose’s petals, but only an axe 
can split wood. Ecstatic music, frenzy,
intoxication—they fill the world, but think: 
When he looks in a mirror, what does a blind man see? 
The Arabs coax their camels on with song, 
and the camels move, and if a camel knows
to give itself to melody, then the man 
who does not understand this is an ass.

By Saadi Shirazi, translated by Richard Jeffrey Newman in Selections from Saadi’s Bustan

(Global Scholarly Publications, 2006)