A Journal of Oriental Studies Sayı/Issue - Doğu Edebiyatı

DOĞU ARAŞTIRMALARI 4, 2009/2 55
I gave you another name: “cureless pain”. (Dīvân-e Shams, 5, our
translation).
This great crusade towards reaching the beloved, requires the lover to pass
through the three difficult stages of Sharī’at and Tarīqat, in the hopes to gain
Haqīqat (reality) . It turns the lover to a hero in this spiritual epic, because
there are very few people who can stand the hardships of such a love (see
Purnâmdarian, 58). Even Prophet Mohammed may face problems in enduring
this suffering:
O Ahmad, here riches have no use; a breast is wanted, full of love
and pain and sighs. (Mathnavi II:2079)
Also, Abu-Hanīfa and Shâfe’ī, two great figures of the Sunni cult, and
symbols of intellect and religion in Mathnavi, are left bare-handed, and have
no advice or solution to offer:
In that quarter where love was increasing (my) pain, Bū Hanīfa and Shāfe'ī
gave no instruction. (Mathnavi ĪI:3832)
The love between Antony and Cleopatra is of the same kind. It brings about
pain and sorrow for them all the time, but they welcome it, and finally end up
in it with pride. Cleopatra clearly states:
CLEOPATRA: … All strange and terrible
events are welcome,
But comforts we despise (Act 4, scene 13)
Or in this sentence by Antony:
MARK ANTONY: … Fortune knows
We scorn her most when most she offers blows. (Act 3, scene 9)
Antony expresses this idea in another place too: before he sets out to fight
Caesar:
MARK ANTONY: ...Fare thee well, dame, whate’er becomes of me:
This is a soldier’s kiss: rebukeable
And worthy shameful check it were, to stand
On more mechanic compliment (Act 4, scene 4)
All these are proofs to Lings’s idea that "Antony’s love for Cleopatra is the
richest jewel of virtue in his soul. This opposition between the outer and inner
meaning is itself symbolic, for it reflects the truth that the Mysteries can only
be understood by a few, or more generally, for those who know nothing of the
Mysteries" (Lings, 1998: 138).
As Rumi says:
My union with the Beloved will be achieves either by this effort or by some
means outside of bodily effort. (Mathnavi VI:4202)
There is no objective for all these efforts but the spiritual unity with the
beloved. We may see this when Antony in his very last minutes of living asks
Cleopatra for the last kiss, and asks to drink wine in her arms (a common
image of Rumi and Shakespeare to denote love).
8. Lovers' Infamy
From Rumi's point of view, love seems quite contradictory – while creating
suffering, it is all blessing. In the path of love, the lover gets weak and thin