Tongues of Fire

Quī mē in flammās imposuit terrārum,

Centum linguās ignis in linguā posuit.

Cum circum mē ūreret ignis passim,

Suspīrium traxī, posuitque ōre manum.

Translation of Rūmī’s quatrain #452, Foruzanfar, ed.; 

pg 31 in Houshmand’s Moon and Sun; 

quatrain #638 in Gamard’s The Quatrains of Rumi.

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

آن کـس کـه بــر آتــش جهانــم نهاد

صد گونـــه زبانــــه بـــر زبانم نهاد

چون شش جهتم شعله آتش بگرفت

آه کردم و دست بـــر دهانــم نــهاد

ān kas ke bar ātash-e jehānam nehād

sad gūna zabāna bar zabānam nehād

chon shash jehatam shole ātash begereft

Ā kardam o dast bar dehānam nehād

The one who put me in the fire of the world,

Put a hundred tongues [of fire] on my tongue.

When in six directions the fire’s flames caught me,

I sighed and he put a hand on my mouth.

What a wonderful description of ecstacy! Someone comes and lights my heart on fire. I sigh to let the smoke and flames out, but he covers my mouth. The question is: why does he cover my mouth?

Gamard in his The Quatrains of Rumi refers the reader to his notes on annihilation, suggesting that in the evolution of the Sūfī toward sublimation to the Divine Will, there are necessary stages of self annihilation. First one must identify with the master. After this one turns to Muhammad and finally submits as completely as one can in this life to God. Thus the hand over the mouth, the shutting down of the individual will.  It is as if Rūmī is being told to shut up, and the allusion to his pen name of Khamūsh (quiet, silence) seems clear. It is as if the poet were telling himself, “All right, you are on fire, but stop talking and listen to what is happening around you and get ready for what will happen next.”

Here are some lines from two of Rūmī’s ghazzals (ode-like poems) that bring home this point:

basta konam man īn do lab tā ke cherāgh-e rūz o shab 

ham be zabāne zabān gūyad bā shomā  

بسته کنم من این دو لب تا که چراغ روز و شب  

 هــم بـــه زبانــــه زبان گویــــد قصـــه با شـــما

I’ve closed my two lips so that the lamp of day and night

Also with tongue[s] of fire may tell you stories.

[ganjoor.net, ghazzal #45]

Chū hama xāne del rā begereft ātash-e bālā

bovad ezhār-e zabāna beh az ezhār-e zabānī

چو همه خانه دل را بگرفت آتش بالا

بود اظهار زبانـه به از اظهار زبانی

When the entire house of [your] heart blazes high,

the sight of tongues [of fire] would be better than the sight of a tongue.

[ganjoor.net #2816]

The notion of flames and tongues of fire in this poem needs some explanation. Zabān [زبان] “tongue” and “language” are linguistic cousins. After thousands of years of sound change they may not look like they’re related, but they all come from these ancestors: dinghw, dngu. Change the ancient d to t and “tongue” pops into view. Change it again to l and “lingual” and “language”  come out of hiding. 

The word zabāna [زبانه] also means “tongue” but implies “tongue of fire” or “flame.” To Christians and Jews, this is a metaphor of God’s power and to Christians, in particular, a symbol of the Holy Spirit. Rūmī may be using zabāna in more than its literal sense as a way of reinforcing the ecstatic imagery but this is hard to tell. He does, however, use the word zabāna over thirty times in his poetry. Usually the meaning is simply “flame,” but there are several instances where Rūmī seems to mean “tongue of fire” as in the lines quoted above. 

A free translation:

He laid me within the flames of this world.

On my tongue he put a hundred tongues of fire.

When all around—up, down, left, and right—was aflame,

I gasped, I sighed, and upon my mouth he laid his hand.