Story of the lewd woman who said to her husband, “Those illusions appear to you from the top of the pear-tree, for the top of that pear-tree causes the human eye to see such things: come down from the top of the pear-tree, that those illusions may vanish.” And if any one should say that what that man saw was not an illusion, the answer is that this (story) is a parable, not a (precise) similitude. In the (story regarded as a) parable this amount (of resemblance) is sufficient, for if he had not gone to the top of the peartree, he would never have seen those things, whether illusory or real.
That woman desired
to
embrace her
paramour in the presence of her foolish husband.
3545. Therefore the
woman said to her husband, “O fortunate one, I will climb the
tree to gather fruit.”
As soon as she had climbed the
tree, the woman burst into tears when from the
top she looked in the direction of her husband.
Marito dixit, “O cinaede
improbe, quis est ille paedicator qui super te incumbit? Tu sub eo velut
femina quietus
es:
O homo tu vero
catamitus
evasisti.”
“Nay,” said the
husband: “one would think your head is turned
(you have lost
your wits); at any rate, there is nobody here on
the
plain except
me.”
3550. Uxor rem repetivit. “Eho,” inquit, “iste pileatus quis est super
tergo tuo incumbens?”
“Hark, wife,” he
replied, “come
down from the
tree, for your head is turned
and you have become very dotish.”
When she came
down, her husband went up:
(then) the woman drew
her paramour into
her arms.
Maritus dixit, “O scortum,
iste quis est qui velut simia super te venit?”
“Nay,” said the wife, “there is no one
here but me.
Hark, your head is turned: don't talk nonsense.”
3555. He
repeated the charge
against his wife. “This,” said the wife, “is from the
pear-tree. From the top of the pear-tree
I was seeing just as falsely as you, O cuckold.
Hark, come down,
that you may see there is
nothing: all this illusion is caused
by a pear-tree.” Jesting
is teaching:
listen to it in
earnest, do not you be in pawn
to (taken up
with) its
appearance of jest.
To jesters every
earnest matter
is a jest;
to
the wise (all) jests are earnest.
3560. Lazy folk seek the
pear-tree, but it is a good
(long) way to that pear-tree.
Descend from
the pear-tree on
which at present you
have become giddy-eyed and giddy-faced.
This (pear-tree)
is the primal egoism and
self-existence
wherein the eye is awry and
squinting. When you comest down
from this pear-tree, your thoughts
and eyes and words will no more be
awry.
You wilt see that
this (pear-tree) has become
a tree of fortune,
its boughs
(reaching) to the Seventh Heaven.
3565. When you comest down
and partest from it, God in His mercy will cause it to be
transformed.
On account of this
humility shown by
you in coming down, God will bestow on yours
eye true
vision.
If true vision
were easy and
facile, how
should Mustafá (Mohammed)
have desired it
from the
Lord?
He said, “Show (unto me) each part from above and below such as that part is in Thy sight.”
Afterwards go up the
pear-tree which has
been transformed
and made verdant by the (Divine) command, “Be.”
3570. This tree has (now) become like
the
tree connected with Moses,
inasmuch
as you have transported your baggage towards (have been endued with
the
nature of) Moses.
The fire (of Divine illumination) makes it verdant and flourishing; its boughs cry “Lo, I am God.” Beneath its shade all your
needs are fulfilled: such is the Divine alchemy.
That personality and existence is lawful to you, since you
beholdest therein the attributes of
the
Almighty.
The crooked tree
has become straight, God-revealing: its root fixed (in the earth) and its branches in the sky.
……….
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