إذا

أوتار مبعثرة
ترجمة إنجليزية
شارك:
إِذَا أَسْمَعْتَنِي لَحْنَ الْحَيَارَىبِدَنْدَنَةِ الصَّعَالِيكِ السُّكَارَى
وَأَهْلُ اللَّهِ غَصُّوا فِي حَنِينٍلِتَجْأَرَ مِنْهُمُ الرُّوحُ اصْطِبَارَا
وَأَهْلُ اللَّيْلِ فِي كَنَفِ الزَّوَايَاوَقَدْ جَعَلُوا لَيَالِيَهُمْ نَهَارَا
فَتَحْتُ نَوَافِذِي لِأَرَى قُلُوبًاتُسَارِعُ نَحْوَ غَايَتِهَا الْمَسَارَا
يُوَحِّدُهَا جَوَى الْأَرْوَاحِ لَهْفًاوَتَصْلَى فِي هَوَى الْعُشَّاقِ نَارَا
فَكُنْ حَدِبًا عَلَيْهِمْ لَا تُفَرِّقْفَدَاعِي الْحُبِّ وَحَّدَهُمْ مَدَارَا
مَعَانِيهِمْ مَجَازَاتٌ تَوَارَتْوَرَاءَ مَنَاظِرٍ حَمَلَتْ شِعَارَا
فَخُضْ فِي لُبِّ مَعْنَاهُمْ وَجَاوِزْمَظَاهِرَ مَا بَدَا وَأَقِمْ حِوَارَا
فَكُلٌّ فِي الْهَوَى أَلْقَى عَصَاهُوَأَنْشَأَ فِي شِغَافِ الْقَلْبِ دَارَا

When…

  1. When you let me hear the melody of the bewildered1
    in the humming of drunken vagabonds2,
  2. while the people of God3 are choked with yearning,
    till their souls cry out4 in patient endurance,
  3. and the people of the night5, in the shelter of the lodges,
    have turned their nights to day,
  4. I opened my windows to see hearts
    racing towards their goal along the way,
  5. made one by the fever of their souls, in eager longing,
    as in the fire of lovers' passion6 they burn away.
  6. So be tender to them, and make no distinctions:
    the call of love has drawn them all into a single orbit.
  7. Their meanings are metaphors, hidden
    behind appearances that bear an emblem7 on display.
  8. So dive into the kernel of their meaning; pass beyond
    the outward show of things, and open a dialogue.
  9. For each of them, in love, has thrown down his staff8
    and built a house in the heart's core9, there to stay.

Notes

  1. Al-ḥayārā, ‘the bewildered’, are those lost in ḥayra, perplexity. In Sufi language ḥayra is a spiritual station: the bewilderment of the soul before the Divine. The poem gathers seekers of every kind, the lost, the drunk, the devout and the night-watchers, and finds one love beneath them all. ↩
  2. Ṣaʿālīk (singular ṣuʿlūk) are penniless vagabonds; the word also recalls the brigand-poets of pre-Islamic Arabia, outcasts from their tribes. ‘Drunkenness’ is also a familiar Sufi image of ecstasy. ↩
  3. Ahl Allāh, ‘the people of God’, is a name for the saints and Sufis devoted to God. ↩
  4. Tajʾaru is to cry out aloud in supplication, a Qurʾanic word (Qurʾan 23:64–65). Iṣṭibāran, ‘in patient endurance’, makes the cry itself an act of patience. ↩
  5. Ahl al-layl, ‘the people of the night’, are those who keep vigil in prayer. Al-zawāyā means both ‘corners’ and zāwiyas, the Sufi lodges where the brotherhoods gather for night worship and remembrance of God. ↩
  6. Taṣlā nāran, ‘roasting in a fire’, is Qurʾanic diction (e.g. Qurʾan 88:4), used there of the fire of punishment; here the fire is love’s. ↩
  7. Shiʿār is an emblem or badge. It is also the garment worn next to the skin, as opposed to dithār, the outer cloak. The verse contrasts inward meaning with outward sign: what these people show is only the emblem, while their true meanings lie hidden, like the inner garment, behind it. ↩
  8. Alqā ʿaṣāhu, ‘he threw down his staff’, is an old Arabic idiom for a traveller who has reached his journey’s end and settled down. Each lover has arrived and will go no further. ↩
  9. Shighāf al-qalb is the membrane enclosing the heart, its innermost covering. The Qurʾan uses the related verb of the Egyptian noblewoman’s love for Joseph: qad shaghafahā ḥubban, ‘love for him has pierced her heart’s core’ (Qurʾan 12:30). ↩

English translation prepared by artificial intelligence and reviewed against the Arabic for accuracy of meaning and rhetoric.