The Masnavi of Rumi, Book One: A New English Translation with Explanatory Notes

by Rumi, Alan Williams (Translator)

Overview

Jalaloddin Rumi's Masnavi-ye Ma'navi, or 'Spiritual Couplets', composed in the 13th Century, is a monumental work of poetry in the Sufi tradition of Islamic mysticism. For centuries before his love poetry became a literary phenomenon in the West, Rumi's Masnavi had been revered in the Islamic world as its greatest mystical text. Drawing upon a vast array of characters, stories and fables, and deeply versed in spiritual teaching, it takes us on a profound and playful jourbaney of discovery along the path of divine love, toward its ultimate goal of union with the source of all Truth.

In Book 1 of the Masnavi, the first of six volumes, Rumi opens the spiritual path towards higher spiritual understanding. Alan Williams's authoritative new translation is rendered in highly readable blank verse and includes the original Persian text for reference, and with explanatory notes along the way. True to the spirit of Rumi's poem, this new translation establishes the Masnavi as one of the world's great literary achievements for a global readership.

Translated with an introduction, notes and analysis by Alan Williams and including the Persian text edited by Mohammad Este'lami.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781788311458
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	02/20/2020
Edition description:	Annotated
Pages:	600
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 9.45(h) x 1.75(d)

About the Author

Mowlana Jalaloddin Balkhi (1207-1273), known to the West as Rumi is a Persian poet comparable to the greatest poets of Europe. In 1244, Rumi began the composition of a body (divan) of lyric poems (ghazals) totalling 35,000 verses. In the early 1260s he turbaned to the composition of his most mature and final work, the mystical masterpiece in six volumes of Persian verses known as the Masnavi-ye Ma'navi 'The Spiritual Couplets'.

Alan Williams is Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Religion at the University of Manchester and the translator of Spiritual Verses (London, 2006).

Table of Contents

Preface viii

Chronology xiii

Introduction xv

1 Opening the Masnavi xv

2 The Author: Mowlana Jalaloddin Balkhi/Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi xvii

3 The Masnavi and 'Sufism' xxiv

4 The Audience of the Masnavi xxix

5 The Literary Forms of ghazal and masnavi xxx

6 Structure and Design xxxi

6.1 The Authorial Voice xxxvi

6.2 The Story-telling Voice xxxvii

6.3 The Analogical Voice xxxviii

6.4 The Voice of Speech and Dialogue of Characters xl

6.5 The Voice of Moral Reflection or Homily xli

6.6 Voice of Spiritual Discourse xlii

6.7 Hiatus xlv

6.8 A Cumulative Polyphony xlvi

7 The Music and Metre of the Masnavi xlvii

8 Rhyme and Rhythm in the Translation xlvii

9 The Persian Text xlix

10 The Notes to the Translation l

Further Reading lv

Notes on the Translation lviii

English Translation of The Masnavi Book One 'The Opening of The Path' 1

Rumi's Preface 3

The Poem

Neyname 'The Song of the Reed' 5

A King's Falling in Love with a Sickly Slave-Girl 7

The Greengrocer and the Parrot 21

The Jewish King who Killed Christians 25

Another Jewish King 52

The Hunted Beasts and the Lion 63

Omar and the Byzantine Ambassador 94

The Merchant and the Parrot 104

The Old Harpist 128

Aisha and Mohammad 134

The Old Harpist 13S

The Yearning Pillar 141

The Old Harpist 144

The Prayer of the Two Angels 148

The Poor Bedouin and his Wife 150

The Grammarian and the Boatman 188

The Prophet's Injunction to Ali 196

The Man of Qazvin and the Tattoo Artist 197

The Wolf and the Fox Attend the Lion on a Hunt 199

The Man who Knocked at his Friend's Door 202

Noah as the God-man 206

Joseph and the Guest-friend 211

Mohammed and the Scribe 213

The Prayer of Bal'am Son of Ba'ur 217

A Deaf Man Visits his Poorly Neighbour 221

A Dispute between the Greek and Chinese Painters 228

The Prophet and Zayd 230

Loqman and his Fellow Servants 235

A Fire in Medina 243

How an Enemy Spat in the Face of Ali 244

Notes to Rumi's Preface 263

Notes to The Poem 267

Appendix: Analytical Index of the Stories and Discourses of Masnavi Book One 343

Index of Proper Names, Terms and Selected Themes 351

Persian Text of The Masnavi Book One, Edited by Mohammad Este'lami 540

Editorial Reviews

'This new verse translation of the Masnavi, the mystical masterpiece of the greatest and best-loved of Persian poets, Jalaloddin Rumi, is a literary event of the first importance. Alan Williams has made it his principal life's work to present the profound spirituality of this towering poet of peerless spiritual and psychological insight – a poet for the ages and for all people – in a form that is accessible to readers of today.'” —Carole Hillenbrand, Emeritus Professor, University of Edinburgh, UK

“In mid-thirteenth century, as the Mongol hordes were destroying the fabled city of Baghdad, in the small city of Konya to the northwest Rumi was erecting a world of mystical vision in words whose amazing architectonics and blinding beauty would prove hard to imagine and harder to grasp with any sense of immediacy. In Alan Williams' English translation of the Spiritual Couplets, we finally stand a chance not only to access that vision in all its inner glory and eternal grandeur, but ultimately to gain an immediate sense of its graceful relevance not just to our time but to all of humanity through the millennia.” —Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, author of Recasting Persian Poetry

“Alan Williams brings us an English version of that epic spiritual masterpiece which is both reliable and fluently readable. The Introduction provides an indispensable key to the Masnavi's sudden, bewildering shifts between multiple dramatic voices and perspectives, the distinctive feature which makes this poem, for every reader, “the mirror of our innermost state.”” —Professor James W. Morris, Boston College, USA

“While maintaining the Persian flavour of Rumi's epic and lyric virtuosities, this superior translation by Alan Williams brings Rumi fully to life in English. Professor Williams combines his erudition and sophistication as a scholar with his poetic flair, to do justice to Rumi's sublime poetry for a modern readership.” —Ali-Asghar Seyed-Ghorab, Associate Professor of Persian, Leiden University, The Netherlands

“The Masnavi's new English translation is the publishing event of the year. At the hands of Alan Williams, Rumi's “cumulative polyphony” resembles a Shakespeare play where the poet speaks 'in one character after another . . .' This monumental poem's opening couplet, among the most captivating ever written, fills my heart with sadness every time I read it: “Listen to this reed as it is grieving, / it tells the story of our separations”. Who could stop listening to this music after hearing these first notes?” —Kaya Genc, author of The Lion and the Nightingale

From the Publisher