Discipulus

Cor, discipulus tuus, amōrem discit.

Noctis similis ante diem praecēdit

Quōquō vādis, vultus amōris praestat,

Quod ad ardentem oleum lūcem adit.

Translation of Rūmī’s quatrain #237, Foruzanfar, ed.; 

pg 17 in Houshmand’s Moon and Sun; 

quatrain #1530 in Gamard’s The Quatrains of Rumi.

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

شاگـرد تـوست دل کـه عشق آمـوز است

مانــنده شــب گــــرفتــــه پای روز است

هر جا که روم صورت عشق است بپیش

زیـــرا روغن در پــی روغن ســـوز است

A literal translation of the Persian gives us:

Your student is the heart because it is a love-learner

Resembling the night it is a follower of the day

Everywhere I go the face of love is at the fore

Because oil follows burning oil.

Rūmī tells us that the heart is open to learning about your love. I will leave it up to you to decide who “your” is. He then follows this statement with a metaphor often seen in Persian poetry about the passage of night into day. The student seeks knowledge just as the night seeks the day. More than that, love as the teacher, is always in front guiding the student. The last line, however, presents us with an unusual metaphor. We can imagine the oil being lamp oil. We know that fire will eventually turn it into light. The mystical—Sūfī implications—seem enormous. What I learn will eventually lead to my own destruction. The self will burn and as it does will become one with the light. At least, this is my take on the meaning of the last line.

Before leaving this quatrain, I want to point out two things. The first is meter. The second is etymology.

Here is the quatrain in Persian and Latin. The bold letters indicate long syllables. The simple letters in italics indicate short syllables. The grey letters indicate that the syllable is dropped. The Latin doesn’t always mirror the Persian, but the Latin does stick to the accepted variation for this meter (see blog posting for October 31, 2021).  

Shāgerd-e to ast del ke eshq āmūz ast

cor discipulus tuus  amōrem discit

Mānandeye shab gerefta pāye rūz ast

Noctis similis  ante diem praecēdit

Harjā ke ravam sūrat-e eshq ast bepīsh

Quōquō vādis vultus amōris praestat

Zīra rōghan dar peye rōghan sūz ast

Quod ad ardentem oleum lūcem adit

Persian and Latin share a common ancestor (Indo-European). These words are highlighted in green below. The two words in black come from Arabic: eshq (love) and sūrat (face). 

Shāgerd-e to ast del ke eshq āmūz ast

Mānandeye shab gerefte pā-ye rūz ast

Harjā ke ravam sūrat-e eshq ast be pīsh

Zīra rōghan dar peye rōghan sūz ast

Although Persian and Latin went their separate ways centuries and centuries ago, some of the words in green still bear some family resemblance, as distant cousins might at a family reunion:  to—tū (to is pronounced tu in Afghanistan by the way), ast—est, ke—quod, ravam—repam, rūz—lux, pīsh—prae, gerefta—capta, pā—pēs, etc. Other words seem to show no resemblance, unless you are a trained historical linguist:  del—cor, shāgerd—socius, har—solidus, jā—itus, etc.  Still other Persian words have no surviving relatives in Latin like rōghan—oil (which can be seen in Old English as reám, ‘cream’), shab—night (which might be related to creper, crepusculum) and sūz—burning. 

Here is a freer translation of the quatrain:

Your heart is a learner, a learner of love

Like the night it follows day

Wherever I go, love’s face is before me,

Like oil before the fire of light.