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70 THE TARJUMAN AL-ASHWAQ (XI, XIl)

are different, for they loved a phenomenon, whereas I love the
Essential.’ ‘ We have a pattern in them,’ because God only
afflicted them with love for human beings like themselves
in order that He might show, by means of them, the falsene.ss
of those who pretend to love Him and yet feel no such
transport and rapture in loving Him as deprived those
enamoured men of their reason and made them \mconscious
of themselves.

XII
1. At Dhii Salam and the monastery in the abode of al-Hiniil
are gazelles who show thee the sun in the forms of
marble statues.
2. Therefore I watch spheres and serve in a church and guard
a many-coloured meadow in tlie spring.
3. And at one time I am called the herdsman of the gazelles
in the desert, and at another time I am called a
Christian monk and an astrologer.
4. My Beloved is three although He is One, even as the
(three) Persons (of the Trinity) are made one Person
in essence.
5. So be not displeased, O friend, that I speak of gazelles
that move round the marble statues as 'ashinincr sun’,
6. Or that I use metaphorically the necks of the gazelles,
the face of the sun, and the breast and wrist of the
white statue,
7. Just as I have lent to the branches (spiritual) endowments
lightning laughing lips.
and to the meadows moral qualities, and to the

C o m m e n t a r y
‘Dhu Salam’ : a station to which submission is I’endercd
1.
on account of its beauty.
‘ The monastery,’ referring to a Syrian ecstasy (ills-
Apb ^ ) .
‘ The abode of al-IIima,’ that which surrounds the most
inaccessible veil of Divine glory.