بخش 92 - رجوع به حکایت خواجهٔ تاجر

This (discourse) is very long. Tell the story of the merchant, that we may see what happened to that good man.

The merchant in fire (burning grief) and anguish and yearning was uttering a hundred distracted phrases like this,

Now self-contradiction, now disdain, now supplication, now passion for reality, now metaphor (unreality).

The drowning man suffers an agony of soul and clutches at every straw.

For fear of (losing) his head (life), he flings about (both) hand and foot to see whether any one will take his hand (help him) in peril.

The Friend loves this agitation: it is better to struggle vainly than to lie still.

He who is the King (of all) is not idle, (though) complaint from Him would be a marvel, for He is not ill.

For this reason said the Merciful (God), O son, “Every day He is (busy) in an affair,” O son.

In this Way be thou ever scraping and scratching (exerting thyself to the utmost): until thy last breath do not be unoccupied for a moment,

So that thy last breath may be a last breath in which the (Divine) favour is thy bosomfriend.

Whatsoever the soul which is in man and woman strives to do, the ear and eye of the soul's King are at the window.