Who's Calling?

 Nē aufugiās, nam tuus emptor ego sum.

Mē spectās; lux tuōrum oc’lōrum sum.

Adventā; splendor sum tuī effectūs

Nē dēlassēre; sum tuum emporium.

Translation of Rūmī’s quatrain #1268, Foruzanfar, ed.; 

pg 20 in Houshmand’s Moon and Sun; 

quatrain #1210 in Gamard’s The Quatrains of Rumi.

See blog entry for October 31, 2021 about Latin and Persian poetry.

مگریز ز من که من خریدار توام

در من بـنگـر کـه نور دیدار توام

در کار مـن آ کـه رونـق کار توام

بیزار مـشو ز من کـه بازار توام

mag’rīz ze man ke man xarīdār-e to am

dar man benegar ke nūr-e dīdār-e to am

dar kār man ā ke rōnaq-e kār-e to am

bīzār mashō ze man ke bāzār-e to am

Don’t flee from me, for I am your buyer.

Look at me because I’m the light of your sight.

Into my work come, for I am the splendor of your work.

Don’t grow weary of me, for I am your market.

In the days before Caller ID, ‘who calling?’ was a frequent question when the voice at the other end of the line sounded unfamiliar. 

Today’s poem is from a mystery caller. It comes with no Caller ID. Gamard in his translation states right out that it is the beloved speaking. Houshmand is not so explicit, and I, unfortunately, am no help at all.

That the “I” is the beloved seems to be the most logical answer to the question “who’s speaking?” The beloved is your buyer, your illumination, your splendor. However, to some readers, I suppose, the “I” could be “you” begging the beloved not to ignore you because you “buy” whatever he has to sell. You become radiant in his presence. Your work glows because of him and you, like merchandise in a market stall, are “for sale.”

In the last poem, I talked about the common poetic threads tying Judaism, Christianity, and Islam together. In this poem the metaphor of the market place undergirds the message. Indeed, the market place is part of the structure of these religions born in the desert. Jehovah redeems. Christ redeems. Allah redeems. 

One interesting feature of both the Persian and Latin poems is the use of syncopation. Simply put, this is the omission of a short syllable. The first word in the Persian poem is مگریز [magorīz], which means ‘don’t flee.’ In order to make this word fit the meter Rūmī has shortened it to magrīz. Because the Persian/Arabic script does not indicate the short vowels, the spelling remains the same. It is up to the reader to shorten magorīz to magrīz. (Technically the Persian/Arabic alphabet has no vowels. Here is the first line with a one-to-one transliteration with the international phonetic alphabet sign of ʔ for alef (ا): mgryz z mn kh mn xrydʔr tw ʔm. As long as I am talking about the Arabic alphabet, I might mention that it has a beautiful feature, which I will call the lengthener. It can lengthen any word or words in a line of poetry so that all of the lines are the same length. گه ke (that) can stretch itself out to کـه and کــه  and کــــــــــه. This lengthening feature accounts for the beauty of Arabic calligraphy.)

 

The Roman alphabet can do none of this. Moreover, all the vowels are written and so the syncopated vowel must be omitted. Oculōrum ‘of the eyes’ becomes oclōrum. Taking my cue from English poetry, I have uncustomarily used an apostrophe to mark this shortening: oc’lōrum. 

Here is an extremely free translation—almost Christian in the choice of words, but then Rūmī, surrounded by Christian communities in Turkey at the time and a speaker of Greek, may have intended a bit of religious fraternity in these four lines.

Don’t go; I am your redeemer.

Don’t look away; I am the light.

Work with me; you will prosper.

Stay with me; I have what you need.