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6 He (alone) whose garment is rent by a (mighty) love is purged of covetousness and all defect.

Hail, O Love that bringest us good gain—thou that art the physician of all our ills,

The remedy of our pride and vainglory, our Plato and our Galen!

Through Love the earthly body soared to the skies: the mountain began to dance and became nimble.

Love inspired Mount Sinai, O lover, (so that) Sinai (was made) drunken and Moses fell in a swoon.

Were I joined to the lip of one in accord with me, I too, like the reed, would tell all that may be told;

(But) whoever is parted from one who speaks his language becomes dumb, though he have a hundred songs.

When the rose is gone and the garden faded, thou wilt hear no more the nightingale’s story.

The Beloved is all and the lover (but) a veil; the Beloved is living and the lover a dead thing.

When Love hath no care for Him, he is left as a bird without wings. Alas for him then!

How should I have consciousness (of aught) before or behind when the light of my Beloved is not before me and behind?

Love wills that this Word should be shown forth: if the mirror does not reflect, how is that?

Dost thou know why the mirror (of thy soul) reflects nothing?

Because the rust is not cleared from its face.

O my friends, hearken to this tale: in truth it is the very marrow of our inward state.

The story of the king’s falling in love with a handmaiden and buying her.

In olden time there was a king to whom belonged the power temporal and also the power spiritual.

It chanced that one day he rode with his courtiers to the chase.

On the king’s highway the king espied a handmaiden: the soul of the king was enthralled by her.

Forasmuch as the bird, his soul, was fluttering in its cage, he gave money and bought the handmaiden,

After he had bought her and won to his desire, by Divine destiny she sickened.

A certain man had an ass but no pack-saddle (as soon as) he got a saddle, the wolf carried away his ass.

He had a pitcher, but no water could be obtained: when he found water, the pitcher broke.

The king gathered the physicians together from left and right and said to them, “The life of us both in our hands.

My life is of no account, (but) she is the life of my life. I am in pain and wounded: she is my remedy.