Vis and Ramin

VIS'S LETTER TO RAMIN 373
sea of separation, pitiful, always weeping. I have one
hand upon my heart and one upon my head. The ruby 1 of
my lips has become turquoise, 2 and every man burns with
compassion towards me. One eye and a thousand clouds
are raining, one heart and a thousand kinds of woe.
Separation has revealed my secret,
tears upon my yellow cheek. Such a fire is kindled in my
it writes with blood and
heart that both patience and joy are consumed. Mine eyes
are like a sea from the excessive flow of water, in which I
have lost sleep from mine eyes. When the sleeping place
is full of water, how can sleep be there? With this
hand by which I have written this letter, even with it have
I folded up the couch of joy. My heart is fleeing from
excess of grief, and rny form is exhausted by torture !
more |
'Why hast thou taken far from me thy sun-like face,
beloved even than my life ? How can I seek heart-
desire and joy on the earth since in my form neither my
heart remains nor my soul ? Or how can I endure life,
since God has decreed to give me a life without soul and
heart ! How can I remain without it, since I have no
repose from thee ? To-day I have forgotten, from increase
of woe, my former desire of death ! Since I have been
absent from gazing on thee I have become emaciated as
(one of) thy hairs. By day I gaze on the sun for its likeness
to thee, and at night on the darkness for its resemblance
to thy hair. If woes as many as mine were to
come upon a mountain, it would give forth blood instead
of water.
" My friends counsel me, and mine enemies reproach me,
and say I have become a byword in the land. Bat not
thus can I be torn from affection and love for thee. Do
not wrath, watchfulness, and scolding in giving advice, only
make the lover more possessed, as it has done in my case ?
From day to day I grow worse. This which troubles me is
not affection, it is a rainy cloud increasing from day to day.
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