https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRGlzIhWgAY
Translation (of the most common version, in Arabic below):
When she began to sway
my Love’s beauty entranced me
With a glance, she captured me
the branch bends when it sways
O my promise, O my wonder,
None can console my complaint
of love and my sufferings
except the queen of beauty
Original:
لما بدا يتثنى
حبي جماله فتنا
او ما بلحظه أسرنا
غصنٌ ثنا حين مال
وعدي ويا حيرتي
من لي رحيم في شكوتي
بالحب من لوعتي
إلا مليكُ الجمال
Compare with the famous opening of Rumi’s Mathnawi:
1. Listen to the reed how it narrates a tale,
A tale of all the separations of which it complains.
2. Ever since they cut me from the reed-bed,
Men and women bemoaned my lament.
3. How I wish in separation, a bosom shred and shred,
So as to utter the description of the pain of longing.
4. Whoever becomes distanced from his roots,
Seeks to return to the days of his union.
5. I joined every gathering uttering my lament,
Consorting with the joyous and the sorrowful.
6. Everyone befriended me following his own opinion,
No one sought the secrets from within me.
7. My secret is not far away from my lament,
Yet, eye and ear do not possess that light.
8. Body is not hidden from soul, nor soul from body,
Yet, none has the license to see the soul.
–Translation by Seyyed Hossein Nasr. From “The Lament of the
Reed: Rumi,” translated and recited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr,
music directed by Suleyman Ergunerm, 2000.
Original:
بشنو از نی چون حکایت می کند
از جدایی ها شکایت می کند
کز نیستان تا مرا ببریده اند
از نفیرم مرد و زن نالیده اند
سینه خواهم شرحه شرحه از فراق
تا بگویم شرح درد اشتیاق
هر کسی کو دور ماند از اصل خویش
بازجوید روزگار وصل خویش
من به هر جمعیتی نالان شدم
جفت بدحالان و خوشحالان شدم
هر کسی از ظن خود شد یار من
از دورن من نجست اسرار من
سر من از نالهٔ من دور نیست
لیک چشم و گوش را آن نور نیست
تن ز جان و جان ز تن مستور نیست
لیک کس را دید جان دستور نیست