If I Weep

If I weep, if I come with excuses, my beloved puts cotton wool in his ears. Every cruelty which he commits becomes him, every cruelty which he commits I endure. If he accounts me nonexistent, I account his tyranny generosity. The cure of the ache of my heart is the ache for him; how shall I not surrender my heart to his ache? Only then are glory and respect mine, when his glorious love renders me contemptible. Only then does the vine of my body become wine, when the wine-presser stamps on me and spurns me underfoot. I yield my soul like grapes under the trampling, that my secret heart may make merry, Though the grapes weep only blood, for I am vexed with this cruelty and tyranny. He who pounds upon me puts cotton wool in his ears saying, “I do not press unwittingly. If you disbelieve, you are excusable, but I am the Abu’l Hikam [the expert] in this affair. When you burst under the labor of my feet, then you will render much thanks to me.”