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=> Who Translasted Rumi?

Who Translasted Rumi?
Posted by Emil (Guest) squaremoon@emilsdiary.com - Saturday, October 29 2005, 3:10:21 (CEST)
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...who translated this...some parts are very contemporary...the words used I mean.

The particular book of poems from which I transcribed the Rumi poem is called "Delicious Laughter- Rambunctious Teaching Stories from the Mathnawi" Versions by Coleman Barks.
Here's excerpts from the intro:

Some of these poems contain the "Latin Parts" of Reynold Nicholson's edition of Rumi's MATHNAWI. Nicholson translated the entire six books of the MATHNAWI into English, but he cast some sections into Latin, presumably, to hide things he thought were unseemly. Until now, these stories involving sexual predicaments, and such winsomely-taboo subjects as flatulence and defecation, have remained hidden under their Latinate coverings.

Certain of these poems however, may even today shock, and perhaps offend, some readers. The 13th Century WAS an age of Kings and concubines, and the imagery of sexism and of the seeming glorification of war are not acceptable terms any longer for whatever wisdom we might have. But we should remember that these stories are not primarily about people. The characters here represent IMPULSES within people, which can act and change, for the better or the worse. Rumi's world is a tangle of creatures, all in their guided and misguided ways, participating in a Cosmic Play, which can be called the gradual Union of the personal with God, or soul-growth, or evolving consciousness. The terms don't matter to Rumi. The EXPERIENCE they point to, though, is his constant joy and the deep poetic energy that rises within him.

EVERYTHING is a metaphor for this poet. Muhammed said the GREATER way (Jihad) is the struggle inside the Self. For Rumi, anything that human beings do, any cruelty, any blindness, resonates with wisdom about the inner life. Any love-impulse especially, however distorted, moves as part of a larger Wanting. Moments of sexual shame, erections and their sudden droopings, a clitoral urgency that admits no limit, the mean impulse to play a sexual trick on one's mate- these are recognizable behaviors, and Rumi does not so much judge them as hold them up for the lens to look into the growth of the soul, which is the deep subject behind these stories.

Rumi has many strategies for mirroring the complexities of soul growth: A widely extravagant comedy, a severe toughness about the discipline necessary, an ecstatic sweetness that comes in the visionary moments.

Coleman Barks
December 1989



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