Tē Amō vel Mē Amās

In tē amore aestuat furenter pontus

Cōram tē margarīta fundit nimbus

In tē amore īcit terram et aequor fulmen

Ad caelum sīc surrigit et hīc fūmus

Translation of Rūmī’s quatrain #559, Foruzanfar, ed.; 

pg 16 in Houshmand’s Moon and Sun; 

quatrain # 1579 in Gamard’s The Quatrains of Rumi.

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

Love is not always mutual. You may love someone but are not loved in return. Expressing the exact relationship between lover and beloved is somewhat challenging, especially in Persian poetry, where the words

عشقِ تو

eshq-e to,

literally ‘love of you’ or ‘your love’ might also mean ‘love for you.’ This ambiguity is quite apparent in today’s quatrain, which begins with

از عشقِ تو دریا همه شور انگیزد

az eshq-e to daryā hama shūr angīzad.

Zara Houshmand in her Moon and Sun [Amrevan Books, 2020] translates eshq-e to as ‘your love.’ Ibrahim Gamard and Rawan Farhadi in their The Quatrains of Rumi [Sufi Dari Books, 2008] translate eshq-e to as ‘love for You.’

The entire line literally means: from eshq-e to, all the sea is disturbed. So, does your love cause the sea to be in tumult or is it love for you that disturbs the sea?  If it is God’s love then we enter a theological discussion about the meaning of love in the Qur’ān, where love and mercy and forgiveness are part of the definition of Allāh and how His love could so affect the sea. But if it is my love for God, then I might say that it is strong enough to set the entire sea into violent motion. Maybe Rūmī is not talking about God and love but about his deep friendship with his teacher and spiritual leader Shams-e Tabrīzī. I will let you decide. 

But my take is that it is Rūmī who is passionately in love and it is this passion that he compares to a stormy sea. I even have half a mind to translate this opening line as:

Tantum tē dīligō, ut aestuet aequor

I so love you that the sea rages.

But perhaps this is going a bit far.

One small note before we leave this first line—and this is what makes poetry so complex—the word شور shūr not only means ‘commotion,’ ‘revolt,’ but also ‘salty’!

The next two lines continue to give the magnitude of this love and are straightforward:

در پای تو ابرها درر می ریزد

dar pāye to abrhā darar mīrīzad

at your feet, clouds pearls pour

از عشق تو برقی به زمین افتادست

az eshq-e to barqī be zamīn oftādast

out of love for you, lightning to the ground has fallen

The last line presents us with a puzzle, however.

این دود به\در آسمان از آن می خیزد

īn dūd be/dar āsemān az ān mīxīzad

It says “this smoke to the sky, from that it rises.’  What smoke? Where does it come from? Houshmand declares this to be dark smoke rising and a burning fire.’ Gamard and Farhadi say simply that smoke rises because of it. Neither of these translations clarifies or attempts to tell us what is behind such a statement about smoke. 

The answer, I think, comes from the metaphorical use of the word ‘smoke.’ دود dūd, ‘smoke’ is used in the expression دودِ دل dūd-e del, literally ‘smoke of the heart,’ and refers to a deep sigh either out of passion or cavernous sadness. To a Persian, the heart burns with the fire of love or depression. Thus the smoke. This last line is then a culmination of the emotional states expressed in the foregoing lines: love for you has burned up my insides. There is only the smoke now that rises heavenward.  I might add here that the Latin vapor was used in a similar way. It means not only ‘steam’ but to Vergil ’smoke’ and to Lucretius ‘exhalation,’ and finally to Seneca the ‘ardor of love.’

With a little fiddling with the second and third lines we might be able to use vapor:

Tantum tē dīligō, ut aestuet aequor

Tantum tē dīligō, ut īcat fulgor

Cōram tē margarīta fundit nimbus

Ad caelum sīc surrigit et iste vapor

Here are my two English translations of this quatrain:

I so love you that the sea rages

At your feet, the clouds pour pearls

I so love you that lightning strikes

So skyward rises too this smoke.

Out of love for you the see rages

At your feet, the clouds pour pearls

Out of love for you, lightning strikes

And so heavenward this smoke arises