Vis and Ramin

258 VISRAMIANI
on me. They speak thus in their chatter, mocking me:
'
Surely our invalid is gone away to the chase that she is
not here/ Desire to see thee has so emaciated my form
that those I see can no longer see me. Only by my sighing
did they perceive that I lived ;
and now through weakness
not even sighing is possible to me. The only advantage
which remains to me from thine absence is that if Death
were to come and seek me for a year I am so shrunken by
desire of thee that he could not find me in the bedding ;
yet though by reason of thine absence I long for death, I am
thus safe from it. Affliction for thy sake has become great,
like mountains upon me, and the path of patience is made
hard to me. May God not deliver me from this grief if I
bear thine absence ! And
how can that heart endure and
be patient which is like the furnace J of hell, and neither
has its blood in it nor anything else ? It is a lie that the
soul lives by blood. 2
live.
"
I have no longer any blood, and yet I
beloved ! as long as thou wert near, my
form was a
tree whose fruit was roses. Now it is fit that I should be
burned, for everybody burns a barren branch. When thou
didst depart, patience went from me. Since I cannot see
thee, I find no joy in anything. In thine absence my will
291 has gone from me, and as long as thou art away |
it will
not return. Fate is so enraged against me as if I were
bound to (her) chariot 3 (wheel). Fate has brought me into
confusion, like that of an army
without a leader. Under
grief the day has become night to me, as to a wild goat
4
from fear of a greyhound. If I have wept at such a
plight, marvel not. Let none reproach me. I am lover-
less, and the beloved of sorrows. I am without work, and
have fainted from the works of love. I cannot rest with-
out thee. Surely thou wert rny life, for by thine absence
thou hast sown in my heart thy love, and now I adjure
thee to water it with the canal 5 of joy.
1 Sdklihmili, K., 818, 326, 332, 775, 1135, 1247.
2 I.e., that " the blood is the life."
4 Avaza coursing-panther, 30, 56, 277, 316.
3 Etli, K., 97a
5
Ru, 276.