Inscription

Verso: From a Bustan (Fragrant Herb Garden) of Sa‘di (Persian, 1210–1291). Persian text in nasta‘liq script: Why do the adherents of Idea to this not cleave—/ That only the Elect may go in water or in fire?/ As for the infant, uninformed of fire,/ Does not his mother guard him lovingly?/ Those, then, who’re drowned in ecstasy/ By night and day are in the very care of Truth:/ He guards the Friend against the fire’s heat/ As Moses’s crib against the whirlpools of the Nile;/ When an infant’s in a swimmer’s arms/ He knows no fear, broad though the Tigris be;/ But how shall you step on the ocean’s face/ As do real men, when even on dry land your skirt is wet?/ The way of the intellect is all twists and turns,/ But the concern of the gnostics is for God alone!/ This can be said to those who recognize realities,/ Though adherents of analogy may carp thereat and say:/ “What, then, is heaven, and what earth besides?/ Who are the sons of Adam, and the beasts both wild and tame?”/ A proper thing you’ve asked, O prudent one!/ I’ll tell you—if you find the answer proper:/ The plain and the ocean, the mountain and the sky,/ Pari and manchild, demon and angel—/ All, whatsoever they be, are less than That/ By virtue of Whose being they utter being’s name!/ Monstrous before you, with its waves, lies the ocean;/ High is the sun, all ablaze at the zenith; (after Wickens 1974, 113)