Although

Quamvis tū mē nōn resalūtēs, summum

Ut gaudium es, et ut salūs vīnōrum.

Pastor es mundī, salūsque vītae nostrae,

Et tū dēpellis sine clāmōre lupum.

Translation of Rūmī’s quatrain #1670, Foruzanfar, ed.; 

pg 19 in Houshmand’s Moon and Sun; 

quatrain # 968 in Gamard’s The Quatrains of Rumi.

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

گـر تـو نـکـنــــی ســلام مـا را در پـــی

چون جمله نشاطی و سلامی چون می

چـــوپـان جـــهانـــی و امـــان جــــانها

دفـــع گـــرگی گـر نـکـنی هی هی هی

gar tō nakonī salām-e mā rā dar pēī

chūn jomla neshātī va salāmī chūn mēī

chūpān-e jehānī va emān-ē jānhā

daf’ē gorgī gar nakonī hēī hēī hēī

Although you don’t greet us in return

You are like all joy and you are a greeting like wine

you are the shepherd of the world and the refuge of souls

you drive the wolves away, although you don’t cry hey, hey, hey

Today’s poem hinges on the first word gar (گر), poetically shortened from agar (اگر). Given the context the word can mean ‘if’, ‘even if’ or ‘although.’ I have chosen ‘although’ as the meaning. Basically, the poem means:

Although you don’t greet me, you are still everything good and powerful.

‘Although’ clarifies the poet’s message. ‘If’ and ‘even if’ seem to suggest other messages. Houshmand seems to ask: if you don’t do all things good, who will? In other words, I am counting on you, even if you ignore me. For some people, this is the meaning of trust and belief. I believe in you and trust that you are good. How opposite the Roman idea of dō ut dēs, I give so that you give (see blog Oct 22, 2011)! For the Roman, worship was a transactional affair. Not so the Sufi, waiting, believing, meditating in the hope of gaining some relief from the agony of his soul being separated from the divine essence. Remember the lament of the cut reed in Rūmī’s introduction to his Masnavī? (see blog Nov 26, 2021).

Gamard also echos Houshmand. Unfortunately, his translation gets tangled up in complicated clauses of ‘even if,’ ‘since,’ and ’so’— even if you don’t greet me, since you do good things, so you repel the wolf, if you don’t shout ‘hey, hey, hey.’

If the images in Rūmī’s quatrain sound familiar, perhaps even Christian, it is in part due, I think, to the shared “poetic threads” that are woven into Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. All three, drawing from their environment, talk of shepherds and wolves, of a safe refuge in the harshness of the desert.

And a short note about my Latin translation. Whether a wise choice or not, I decided to play on the two meanings of salūs, which are ‘salutation’ and ‘salvation.’ Persian poets do this type of word play all the time. I haven’t run across much of this in Latin—yet.

Finally, a comment about the rhyming syllable in the Persian -ēī. This adds such a musical quality to the poem. This music is enhanced by the repetition three times of the exclamation hēī at the end. I immediately think of the songs of the sixties, Simon and Garfunkel? The Beatles? For Rūmī, rhythm and dance were as much a part of the message as the words themselves.  

Here is a freer translation:

You don’t say hello back to us

Yet you are joy, a greeting like wine

You are the world's shepherd, the souls' refuge

You drive away the wolf without even a cry, hey, hey, hey.