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THE TARJUMAX AL-ASHWAQ (X X V ) 99

20. Who, whene\'er a turtle-dove inoan.s, is thrilled by the
remembrance of his beloved and passes away.

COJIMEXTARY
1. ‘ 0 grief for my heart’ : he fears that the anguish of
love will destro}^ this body by the mediation of which he has
acquired the Divine sciences. Although most souls desire to
be stripped thereof and to return to their elemental world,
yet in the opinion of jirofound theosophists abstraction from
the body should onlj?^ be fought through ecstasy and self-
annihilation (Miij not by dissolving the connexion of
body and soul.
‘ O joy for my mind,’ because the mind is the ?oe?w in
wliich the Truth is contemplated.
2. ‘ The full moon of darkness liath set’ : in refei'ence to
the Tradition, ‘ Ye shall see your Lord as ye see the moon on
the night when she is full.’
‘ Darkness,’ i.e. the invisible world. He describes the moon
as having set in the sensible world and risen in his mind.
3. ‘ O musk,’ i.e. breathing Divine mercy.
‘ O full moon,’ because her light is borrowed from the Light
of God, and because she is a miiTor for Him who manifests
Him.self in her.
‘ O bough of the sand-hills,’ referring to the quality of
Self-subsistence
‘ How green is the bough ! ’ i.e. clothed with Divine Names.
4. ‘ Bubbles ’ : as water is the source of all life, the bubbles
Divine Life when the breaths (of mercy) flow.
•signify the sciences of Divine mercy which appear from the

‘ Saliva,’ i.e. sciences of communion and converse and speech
which leave a delicious taste in the heart.
5. God is de.scribed as bashful
Tradition. in an Apostolic-
0. ‘ Had she remo\-ed her veil,’ etc. : according to the
Tradition, ‘ God hath seventy thousand veils of light and
darkness; if He were to remove them, the splendours of His
face would consume all that His siglit perceives.’ Therefore