Speech of The Birds  

The Beginning of The Book 
  
Discussion    Join   


Greetings, Hoopoe, the guide become [1]
In truth the courier of every valley become

You, to the Sabaean frontier your journey a success [2]
To Solomon you bird-talk a joy

You became the master of the Solomon’s Secret
Of boasting of being crown-adorned you became [3]

Restrain the devil in fetters and in prison
That Solomon’s confidant you might be:

The devil when you in prison put [4]
Accompanying Solomon you might attempt the great carpet.

Bravo! Well-done O Dove of the quality of Moses!
Arise cooing away in knowledge of the Divine [5]

Turned for the soul’s sake man recognitive of music: [6] 
The musical notes, the Creation’s thanksgiving

Like Moses seeing the fire from afar [7]  
Inevitably, the Ring-Dove on the mountain of Sinai

Welcome, O Rose-ringed Parakeet Tuba-tree perching [8] 
Attired in a verdant robe, a fiery collar.

The collar of fire is on account of the hell-bound
The robe is for the heaven-bound and generous.

Like Khalil, the one who escapes from Nimrod [9]
Can happily nest in fire.

Slit the head Nimrod has, like a pen-tip:
Like the Friend of God, step into the fire

Once you have been rid of the terror of Nimrod
Don your satin robe—what feat of your fiery collar?

Hail, O Partridge proudly strutting!
A happy bird are you, treading over the Mount of Irfān [10]

Cluck away chuckling in the mode of the Path
Strike the knocker on the iron of the door of Allah

Welcome O Goshawk slim, predatory-eyed
How long will you be of a fury swift and relenting?

Make the scroll of the love eternal-without-beginning your talon’s jess
Do not for eternity-without-end loosen that scroll’s thongs

The inborn intelligence for the heart exchange [11]
That you might perceive as one, eternity-without-end and eternity-without-beginning.

Hail, O Francolin of the “Miraculous Ascent” of the Covenant
You have seen the crown of the head of ‘Yes’, the Crown of the Covenant.

When the Alastu (Am I not?) of love you heard with the soul [12]
At the ‘Yes’ the carnal spirit’s filled with revulsion.

Welcome, O Nightingale of the Garden of Love
Go on sweetly sobbing from love’s pain and searing.

In melancholic melody, of the heart’s sorrow gently sing David-like [13]
That lives by the hundred may be offered up to you at each breath.

A David-throat with spiritual meaning open
For creation by the harmony of your kind guide.

Greetings, O peacock of the eight-doored garden!
You've burned with the strike of the seven-headed serpent! [14]

Associating with this serpent cast you into grief
And from the Paradise of Eden cast you out.

It took you away from the Lote tree and Tuba: [15]
It made your heart ashamed of your form’s defect.

So long as you do not encompass this snake’s slaughter
How can you be worthy of these mysteries?

If you gain freedom from this ugly snake [16]
Adam, with the Elect, will take you into Paradise.

Welcome, O graceful Pheasant far-sighted!
Seer of the heart’s spring drowned in the ocean of Light!

O left imprisoned in the pit of darkness
Afflicted in the dungeon of misery left

Yourself from this pit of shadows wrest
Your head lift towards the pinnacle of the Throne Divine:

Like Joseph go beyond the prison and the pit [17]
To become in the Egypt of glory king.

Greetings, O Turtle Dove coming plaintively cooing
Gone our joyful, returned despondent

Despondent of heart because you’ve been left standing in blood:
In the constraint of the Lord of the Fish’s prison left. [18]

O your head turned by the fish of the carnal soul
How long must you experience the malevolence of the carnal self?

Cut off the head of this invidious fish
That you might be able to stroke the top of the head of the moon!

If you had released from the fish of the carnal soul
You’d be the intimate of Jonah in the Ocean of the Elect

Welcome, Ring Dove, strum out your note
That pearls over you the Seven Heavens might scatter

As the collar of fidelity is round your neck
It would be unbecoming for you to commit infidelity

Of your existence so long as a hair remains in place
I’ll dub you unfaithful from head to the foot

If you come in and come out of the self
The way towards the inner meaning you’ll find through wisdom

When wisdom conducts you towards spiritual meaning
Khidr will bring you the water of life!

Hail O Falcon swooping:
Ascending head aloft, coming down head in reverse

Raise not your head since you stay nose-diving
Surrender the boy, since you’re steeped in blood

You’ve become addicted to the carrion of this world
Of necessity you’ve become cut-off from the Meaning True

Pass beyond both this world and the hereafter
Them remove the hood from over your head and look!

Welcome, O Golden Eagle! Be welcomed
Be warm to the task ever like fire

Whatever you encounter, in ardor burn
Against creation the eye of the soul sew completely up

When you burn whatever you chance upon
Dainty tidbits of the True every moment will be offered to you

When your heart’s become informed of God’s Mysteries
Consecrate yourself to God’s work

When you become in God’s affair the Perfect Bird
No ‘you’ will remain. God remain. Farewell!

End.






Translation by Peter W. Avery, Research by Professor Homaee and edited by his honorable daughter Mahdokht Banoo Homaee



[1] Hoopoe, in Arabic Hodhod, is a bird smaller than a dove with a crown. In legends it is called the Solomon’s Bird who had great eyesight and could spot water under the ground and in Solomon’s expeditions it was always ahead of the army. In this book it is the allegory for Pir (Old Sage) or Perfect Morshid (Guide). Hafez used similar concept:

To the place of intellect I did not find the way
Trekking this stage I did with Solomon’ Bird

In this book the story is centered on bird characters: Hoopoe, Dove, Partridge, Francolin, Peacock, Turtle Dove, Falcon, Golden Eagle, Nightingale, Goshawk, Rose-ringed Parakeet, Pheasant, Ring Dove. Bird is the symbol of human Soul caged within the body and yearning to break free from this cage and fly to that Beloved, as versed by Hafez:

Ghazal 342
How can I circle the skies of the holy universe?
Where I am entrapped in this tiny corpuscular jail yard

This cage unbefitting such a fine songbird I am
Must fly to the meadows of assent for I am the bird of that savanna

                             *** 

The songbird of my soul that once sang atop the pine
It was the seeds of Your beauty that trapped him caught

                              ***

Sing aloft the tree of the Tuba with wings stretched
What a waste for this bird in bondage of this cage

                             *** 

How can I explain, the bird of holy meadows, I am
Fallen within the trap of this temporal life, I am


And Mulana has versed:

I am the bird from the orchards of souls, not this universe
A cage they crafted from my body for just a few days

‘courier’ in this verse means the postman since the Hoopoe carried a letter to the Queen of Sheba, "Go thou, with this letter of mine, and deliver it to them: then draw back from them, and (wait to) see what answer they return" (Koran [27:28]). 

[2] ‘Sabaean’ an ancient city around Yemen where the Queen Sheba ruled. Solomon was taught the ‘language of the birds’ as an endowment from Allah, “And Solomon was David's heir. He said: "O ye people! We have been taught the speech of birds, and on us has been bestowed (a little) of all things: this is indeed Grace manifest (from Allah.)"” (Koran [27:16]). The name of Attar’s book “The Speech of the Birds” comes from this verse in Koran.

[3] “crown-adorned” refers to the feather crown of the Hoopoe. Some said that when Solomon wanted to send Hoopoe out as a messenger, and the bird did not have feather crown, he rubbed his fingers on her head and she was endued with the feather crown as a sign of royalty.

[4] ‘devil’ means the Nafsol Am-mārah of the Nafs that incites to evil. This is an allegory referring to Solomon who enchained as subjects the Djin and all kinds of evildoers. Therefore the poet uses the same imagery for the Sufi to be like Solomon and throw his Nafs (Psyche, Self) into chains to be restrained.

‘great carpet’ was a very large carpet upon which Solomon would place people and things and the winds would carry them to far away lands under his command.

[5] ‘Divine Knowledge’ is the Sufism’s Ma’refat (Divine Gnosis). ‘Cooing away’ was supposed to be pan-flute, an instrument that Dervishes played. 

[6] Mulana has explained similarly:

For people the wheel of cosmos’ call
Played on their throat and on their lyre:

Indeed some part of Adam we all are
In Paradise this music we all heard aloud 

                             *** 

Though IT poured in the water & mud of doubt
Yet we still remember some of what has been lost

[7] This is the story of Moses who heard ITs voice from behind the fire, “Now when Moses had fulfilled the term, and was traveling with his family, he perceived a fire in the direction of Mount Tur (in Sinai). He said to his family: "Tarry ye; I perceive a fire; I hope to bring you from there some information, or a burning firebrand, that ye may warm yourselves." But when he came to the (fire), a voice was heard from the right bank of the valley, from a tree in hallowed ground: "O Moses! Verily I am Allah, the Lord of the Worlds....” (Koran [28:29]). In Torah it was mentioned that a Dove showed Moses the way to the Tree of Tawhid (Divine Oneness) i.e. the burning bush.

[8] Tuba is a tree in Paradise used for fruits and some say for the clothing as well.

[9] Khalil means the friend in this case the friend of IT and this was the nickname of Prophet Abraham who was chosen by IT as a friend. Nimrod was the king that wanted to punish Abraham with a bon fire however when they threw Abraham into the flames they became cool and turned into a flowery meadow.

[10] ‘Irfan’ refers to Ma’refat (Divine Gnosis).

[11] Sufis, they differ with others who believe that mind & intelligence are inborn or intuitively the same amongst all people. They say people differ on all things because the intelligence is NOT inborn and it is acquired through the years. However Sufis do believe that if all affairs were left to the heart, each & every human being would have decided the same in unison.

[12] ‘Alastu’ which in Arabic means exactly “Am I not?” is a phrase from Koran which is the corner stone of Sufi expression, “When thy Lord drew forth from the Children of Adam - from their loins - their descendants, and made them testify concerning themselves, (saying): "Am I not (Alastu) your Lord (who cherishes and sustains you)?"- They said: "Yea! We do testify!" (This), lest ye should say on the Day of Judgment: "Of this we were never mindful": Or lest ye should say: "Our fathers before us may have taken false gods, but we are (their) descendants after them: wilt Thou then destroy us because of the deeds of men who were futile?"” (Koran [7:127, 128]).
Alastu refers to the covenant associated with Tawhid (Divine Oneness) which was agreed between IT & humanity at large, each soul face-to-face saw IT and agreed to only worship IT before there were any of the concreted forms we are given, as Mulana says:
You have divulged secrets of one hundred thousand
Just like the way one lover intimately talks to another

Over there no bodies nor any faces
Just hundred Alastu and hundred Yeses

[13] David was given a Divine Book called Zaboor that was filled with wise admonishments. He had a beautiful voice and when he would sing the Zaboor people, animals Djin and birds all circle around him to listen while the trees and the mountains would sing along with him in chorus. Although he was the king he made his living by making armor that he invented since Allah made the steel soft in his hands.

[14] Legend has it Satan befriended the snake and peacock to get into Paradise to fool Adam & Eve push them to eat from the forbidden tree. Along side Adam & Eve, the peacock was exiled to this earth as well.

‘Eden’ in Arabic is ‘Adn which means a place for residing or living, in our case the ‘Adn or Eden means the eternal abode for human beings.

‘seven-headed serpent’ is the Nafs (Psyche) which has seven evil dispositions: Arrogance, Avarice, Lusts, Envy, Anger, Greed, Grudge/Hate.

[15] ‘Lote tree’ is a tree in Paradise that hides its secrets and it forms an impassable border, “Near the Lote-tree beyond which none may pass: Near it is the Garden of Abode. Behold, the Lote-tree was shrouded (in mystery unspeakable!)” (Koran [53:14-16]).

“It made your heart ashamed of your form’s defect” is not a good translation, the actual meaning is this: there is a lasso or rope that bounds the human being with his physical nature in this world, this lasso causes the soul and heart to become dark i.e. empty of Divine Light.

[16] ‘ugly snake’ is the Nafs (Psyche) … if you can save yourself from this snake you find the way to the Paradise.

[17] Joseph was thrown into a well by his envious brothers, and later on the king of Egypt adopted him and his wife falsely accused Joseph of sexual assault that caused his imprisonments for many years. However at the end Joseph interpreted the dream of the King while in prison and the kingdom was saved from a famine and the king’s wife confessed that it was her who attempted to seduce Joseph. Therefore the king appointed Joseph a minister. So Joseph went from the well & the pit (dungeon) to rule Egypt.

[18] Jonah.




© 2004-2002,  Dara O. Shayda