S. R. Faruqi:

(1) So you believe that Majnun is in futile pursuit of the howdah, my young friend?
Well, actually he’s very wise, that deranged crazy man, my young friend.

[The howdah in which Laila travels, riding her camel.]

(2) Does anyone bother even to taste sugar, my young friend?
Everyone here grants the utter sweetness of those lips and talks of nothing else, my young friend.

(3) I grant the preacher is angel-pure.
What’s difficult is to be human, my young friend.

(4) Largesse from wet eyes flows all the time.
Even the flood comes to beg at this door, my young friend.

(5) (5) There’s surely relief and comfort beyond death
but between then and now there’s that deadly event, my young friend.

(6) Trampling the heart under foot is not only tyranny but wrathful violence.
Did anyone ever pound it so? After all, it’s a heart, my young friend.

(7) Why dread the doomsday that must come someday. Tomorrow?
The night is pregnant, so let’s see what it brings forth at dawn, my young friend.

[[A Persian proverb, shab hāmil ast tā fardā che zayad, translated almost literally here by the poet. It was not an uncommon practice until about the mid-nineteenth century to literally

[A Persian proverb, shab hāmil ast tā fardā che zayad, translated almost literally here by the poet. It was not an uncommon practice until about the mid-nineteenth century to literally translate a Persian phrase or proverb into Urdu.]

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FWP:

(inspired by SRF's translation)

(1) Crazy like a fox

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Zahra Sabri:

Zahra Sabri is a special guest translator for this site.

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