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When a feeling of spiritual contraction comes over you, O traveler, it's for your own good. Don't burn with grief, for in the state of expansion and delight you are spending. That enthusiasm requires an income of pain to balance it. If it were always summer, the sun's blazing heat would burn the garden to the roots and depths of the soil. The withered plants never again would become fresh. If December is sour-faced, yet it is kind. Summer is laughing, but yet it destroys. When spiritual contraction comes, behold expansion within it; be cheerful and let your face relax.
ân salâh-e tost âtesh-del ma-shaw Zânke dar kharji dar ân bast o goshâd kharj-râ dakhli be-bâyad ze e`tedâd Gar hamâreh fasl tâbestân bodi suzesh-e khvorshid dar bostân shodi Manbetesh-râ sukhti az bikh o bon keh degar tâzeh na-gashti ân kohon Gar torsh-ruist ân Day moshfeq ast sayf khandânast ammâ mohreqast Chonke qabz âyad to dar vay bast bin tâzeh bâsh va chin mi-fegan dar jabin
-- Mathnawi III, 3734-3739
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And another version:
-- Mathnawi III, 3734-3739
When a feeling of (spiritual) contraction comes over you,
O traveller, `tis (for) your own good:
do not become afire (with grief) in your heart,
For in that (contrary state of ) expansion and delight you are
spending: the expenditure (of enthusiasm) requires an income
of (painful) preparation (to balance it).
If it were always the season of summer,
the blazing heat of the sun would penetrate the garden
And burn up from root and bottom the soil whence its plants grow,
so that the old (withered) ones would never again become fresh.
If December is sour-faced, (yet) it is kind; summer is laughing,
but (none the less) it is burning (destroying).
When (spiritual) contraction comes, behold expansion therein:
be
fresh (cheerful) and do not let wrinkles fall on your brow.
Translation by Reynold A. Nicholson
"The Mathnawi of Jalalu'ddin Rumi"
Published and Distributed by
The Trustees of The "E.J.W. Gibb Memorial"