Vis and Ramin

166 VISRAMIANI
" How can a heart which is burnt up with smokeless fire
have patience ? Thou hast heard that saying how a certain
man advised somebody, who said thus :
*
Ho, friend, worry
me no longer, this strikes my heart with no more force
than a walnut falling on a dome.' 1 Ramin went away
without seeing me, and how can I bear to be without him ?
Thy advice and a bridge on the other side of a great river
are the same to me. 2
Thy heart and mine are not one. It
is the hem of thy skirt that burns, and my heart. What
does it matter to thee 3 if I am in trouble? Thou tellest
me that I have no resource but patience. It is easy for onlookers
to watch warriors. I have no pity for thee. Thou
art a horseman, and knowest not the pain of travelling;
to the
thou art rich, and knowest not the pain of poverty ;
well-fed the hungry man seems drunk. Thou, nurse,
Does
this irremediable madness afflict thee also like me ? Ramin
was more impatient. The downhearted know not patience.
If the fighting lion have no power in its heart, the fox with
its cowardice 4 overcomes it. Think not that this woe and
189 counsellest for me and advisest me to be patient. |
crying is easy for me or gives me pleasure, and that the
flow of bloody tears from mine eyes seems not irksome to
me. No sensible person desires his own distress and
unhappiness. Thou by thy meddling 6 hast dug this well of
misery for me ; thou hast cast me in, and now forsooth thou
art seated pleasantly and carelessly at the top, and sayest
to me: 'Be patient, pray to God, thou hast no resource
save this, and there is none to deliver thee from this place.' 6
It is easy to cast a felt cloak 7 into the water, but it is
difficult to draw it forth again."
* Gwnbet'hi, 243. 2 cf. 203. a Gagva, 103, 109, 207.
4
Sidjabnej djabani, 107.
5
SaJcmianoba, 91.
6
Cf. R., 250-251. 7 Nabadi.