The Martian Astronomer Comes Out of the Observatory

An aged man, his beard white as snow, having expended many years upon science and wisdom;

Keen of eye like the Western sages, his raiment like the robes of a Christian monk;

Far on in years, yet tall of stature as a cypress, his features glowing like a Turk of Merv;

Well-versed in the wont and way of every road, the deep thoughts evident in his eyes;

Seeing a man approaching, he opened like a flower and spoke in the tongue of Tusi and Khayyam.

‘A form of clay, prisoner to Quantity and Quality, has come forth from the abode of Under and Over;

He gave dust the power to fly without an aeroplane, he gave the fixed stars the essence of planets.

His speech and comprehension flowed like a river; I was lost in stupefaction at his words:

Is this all a dream, or a trick of magic? Pure Persian proceeding from a Martian’s lips!

He continued: ‘In the time of the Chosen One there was a Martian, a man pure of soul,

Who opened his world-beholding eyes on your world and set his heart on travelling the confines of man.

He spread his wings in the vast expanses of being until he alighted in the desert of Hejaz.

He wrote down all that he saw in East and West, his picture more colourful than the Garden of Paradise.

I too have been in Iran and Europe; I have travelled in the realms of Nile and Ganges;

I have seen America and Japan and China, investigating the metals of the earth.

I have knowledge of earth’s nights and days; I have journeyed through its lands and seas.

The tumults of Adam’s sons are open before me, though man is not intimate with our labours.’

I am of the skies, my companion is of the earth, intoxicated, yet he has not tasted the veins of the vine;

A man intrepid, his name is Zinda-Rud, his drunkenness derived from contemplating existence.

We who have chanced thus upon your city are in the world, yet free from the world.

In our quest for ever new apparitions be our companion on the road for a little time.

The Martian Sage These are the environs of Marghadin of Barkhiya – Barkhiya is the name of our ancestor.

Farzmarz, the tempter to all evil, came up to Barkhiya once in Paradise;

‘How can you remain here content?’ he cried. ‘For many ages you have been dominated by God.

There is a world far better than your abode; compared with which Paradise itself is but a moment’s springtide;

That world is loftier than all other worlds, that world is more sublime than spacelessness.

God Himself knows nothing of that world; I have never seen a world more free.

God does not interfere in its ordering, it has no Book, no Prophet, no Gabriel,

No circumambulations, no prostrations there, no prayers, no thanksgivings.’

Barkhiya replied, ‘Depart, you sorcerer, pour your own image upon that world!’

Since our ancestor did not succumb to his guile God entrusted to us another world.

So enter this God-given kingdom; behold Marghadin and its laws and customs.