Paradoxes?

Ad tē accēdō tantum, ut absim longē.

Tē consociō tantum, ut abiungam mē.

Rēs tam nūdae videntur, ut mē vēlem. 

Tantum bene rēs valent, ut angar vērē.

Translation of Rūmī’s quatrain #1197, Foruzanfar, ed.; 

pg 18 in Houshmand’s Moon and Sun; 

quatrain # 1101 in Gamard’s The Quatrains of Rumi.

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

از بس که به نزدیک توام من دورم

وز غایــت آمــیزش تـو مــهجــورم

وز کــثرت پیداشده گی مستـورم

وز صحت بسیـار چـنین رنجورم

az baske be nazdīk-e to am man dūram

vaz ghāyat āmīzesh-e to mahjūram

vaz kasrat-e paidāshodagī mastūram

vaz sahhat-e besyār chonīn ranjūram

Inasmuch as I am close to you I am far.

And from mixing with you, I am estranged.

And from the openess, I am hidden.

And from the wellness, I am troubled.

Rūmī sets a paradoxical tone in today’s quatrain by beginning with the expression az baske (از بس که, inasmuch, so much that). With az baske, he juxtaposes opposites and sets us in an impossible world. I am so close I am far — so with you I am separate. Everything seems so out there that I am the one hiding, so filled with well-being that I am the one in pain. 

This list of paradoxes is one way to look at the poem. Another is to ask (as Brandon Stone suggested to me the other day), from whom am I far away or estranged? To whom am I troubled? Perhaps, just perhaps, we might read these lines as:

I am so close to you that [to others] I am distant

I am so in your company that [they see] me estranged 

Things are so clear, that [to them] I am a recluse

Things are so right, that [to them] I am crazy.

There is another way to look at these apparent paradoxes. Just as one might say, for example, the more I know about physics, the more I realize how little I know because there is so much more to learn. Sir Isaac Newton, in modesty and wisdom, said that he had only picked up a few bright pebbles on the shore of a vast sea of understanding. So, returning to the poem, the closer I am, the more I realize how really far away I am from understanding you.

There is probably much more to see in these four lines. From the start, I got the sense that Rūmī was offering me a puzzle to solve, and I have only just begun to put the pieces together.

And a final etymological note. Each line ends in -am, which, it turns out, means ‘am’ in English. The two words are related to be sure, but after five thousand years of separation—and there is no paradox here—it is rare to see them so close.  

Here is a freer translation:

 

The closer I am to you the farther away I am

The more we’re friends, the more apart I feel

The more open things are, the more I close up

The more there is well-being, the sicker I am.