بخش 144 - حکایت آن زن کی گفت شوهر را کی گوشت را گربه خورد شوهر گربه را به ترازو بر کشید گربه نیم من برآمد گفت ای زن گوشت نیم من بود و افزون اگر این گوشتست گربه کو و اگر این گربه است گوشت کو

There was a man, a householder, who had a very sneering, dirty, and rapacious wife.

Whatever (food) he brought (home), his wife would consume it, and the man was forced to keep silence.

(One day) that family man brought home, for a guest, (some) meat (which he had procured) with infinite pains.

His wife ate it up with kabáb and wine: (when) the man came in, she put him off with useless words.

The man said to her, “Where is the meat? The guest has arrived: one must set nice food before a guest.”

“This cat has eaten the meat,” she replied: “hey, go and buy some more meat if you can!”

He said (to the servant), “O Aybak, fetch the balance: I will weigh the cat.

He weighed her. The cat was half a mann. Then the man said, “O deceitful wife,

The meat was half a mann and one sitír over; the cat is just half a mann, my lady.

If this is the cat, then where is the meat? Or, if this is the meat, where is the cat? Search (for her)!”

If Báyazíd is this (body), what is that spirit? And if he is that spirit, who is this (bodily) image?

’Tis bewilderment on bewilderment. O my friend, (the solution of) this (problem) is not your affair, nor is it mine either.

He is both (spirit and body), but in the corn-crop the grain is fundamental, while the stalk is derivative.

(The Divine) Wisdom has bound these contraries together: O butcher, this fleshy thigh-bone goes along with the neck.

The spirit cannot function without the body; your body is frozen (inanimate) and cold (inert) without the spirit.

Your body is visible, while your spirit is hidden from view: the business of the world is conducted by means of them both.

If you throw earth at (some one's) head, his head will not be broken; if you throw water at his head, it will not be broken.

If you wish to break his head, you bring the earth and the water into contact with each other (and make a lump of clay).

When you have broken your head, its water (the spirit) returns to its source, and earth returns to earth on the day of separation.

The providential purpose that God had—namely, humble supplication or obstinate contumacy—was fulfilled by means of the marriage (of body and spirit).

Then (afterwards) there are other marriages that no ear hath heard and no eye hath seen.

If the ear had heard, how should the ear have remained (in action) or how should it have apprehended words any more?

If the snow and ice were to behold the sun, they would despair of (retaining their) iciness;

They would become water (formless and) devoid of roots and knobs: the air, David-like, would make of the water a mail-coat (of ripples),

And then it (the water) would become a life-giving medicine for every tree: every tree (would be made) fortunate by its advent.

(But) the frozen ice that remains (locked) within itself cries to the trees, Touch me not!

Its body makes none its friend nor is it made a friend by any: its portion is naught but miserly selfishness.

It is not wasted (entirely), the heart is refreshed by it; but it is not the herald and lord of (the vernal) greenery.

“O Ayáz, thou art a very exalted star: not every sign of the zodiac is worthy of its transit.

How should thy lofty spirit be satisfied with every loyalty? How should thy pureness choose (to accept) every sincerity?”