First Volume
A merchant possessed a nightingale, confined within a cage, a creature of exquisite beauty. The merchant began preparations for his journey to India. Out of kindness and generosity, he asked each of his slaves and female servants, “Hurry and tell me, what shall I bring you from India?” Each one made a request of him. He, the benevolent man, vowed to fulfill their desires. To the nightingale, he said, “What gift do you desire? What shall I bring you from India?” The nightingale replied: “When those in India see your nightingales, let them know my plight. She said: ‘The one who yearns for you is our captive by God’s decree. She sends you greetings and asks for help; she seeks a solution, a way to be freed.’
She said: ‘Is it right that I perish in foreign lands with your longing? Should I remain in a strict prison while you enjoy greenery and shade? Is this the loyalty of friends? I am confined within this prison, while you are in gardens of roses. O Noble Ones! Remember this lamenting stranger even in a convivial gathering!’
It is a great joy for beloveds to be remembered by their lovers. Especially when the one remembering and being remembered are Layla and Majnun. O confidants of the beautiful, graceful beloved! Is it right that I break vows made with my own blood? Beloved! If you wish to grant me a share, remember me as you drink, and pour a draught of wine onto the earth in remembrance of this wretched lover! When drinking, remember this fallen devotee spread upon these lands and pour a sip of wine into the soil! How astonishing! Where is that covenant, where are those promises? Where are the vows given by your sugar-sweet lips? It is better to be estranged from this world than to repay evil with evil.
But your anger is delightful, more pleasurable than the chants from heaven. O beloved whose severity surpasses that of a ruler, and whose vengeance is sweeter than life! Your fire is like this… what then is your light? How can one’s wedding be joyous when grief prevails? There are such sweetnesses in your nature that no one can truly comprehend them due to the magnificence you possess. I wail, and yet I fear that the beloved will believe me and lessen that injustice through their generosity.
I am passionately devoted to her wrath as well as her kindness. How astonishing that I have given my heart to these opposites! By God, if I were freed from this thorn and attained a garden of roses, I would lament like a nightingale. It is astonishing that the nightingale opens its beak and swallows both the thorn and the rose garden together, seeing them as one! This is not a nightingale but a fire demon! Through her love, all evils seem pleasing to it. A lover of roses, yet she herself is a rose, in love with her own love, seeking her own passion!
The story of this beloved nightingale is of this kind. But where is the one who is intimate with birds? Where is the weak and innocent bird upon whom Solomon has built an army with his soldiers! Let earthquakes shake the earth with lamentations of gratitude or complaint! Let a hundred messengers from God reach him at every moment; let sixty voices of “Labbaik” come from God whenever he says,