The Conference of the Birds (Manteq at-Tair) is the best-known work of Farid ud-Din Attar, a Persian poet who was born sometime during the twelfth century in Neishapour (where Omar Khayyam had also been born), in north-east Iran, and died in the same city early in the thirteenth century. His name, Attar, is a form of the word from which we get the ‘attar’ of ‘attar of roses’ and it indicates a perfume seller or druggist. Attar wrote that he composed his poems in his daru-khané, a word which in modern Persian means a chemist’s shop or drug-store, but which has suggestions of a dispensary or even a doctor’s surgery; and it
is probable that he combined the selling of drugs and perfumes with the practice of medicine.
Below is an excerpt from the epic poem. The entire poem can be read on the site Sufi Path of Love.
The Conference of the Birds (lines 693–716)
No one can share the grief with which I seek
Our longed-for Lord, and quickened by my haste
My wits find water in the trackless waste.
I come as Solomon’s close friend and claim
The matchless wisdom of that mighty name
(He never asked for those who quit his court,
But when I left him once alone he sought
With anxious vigilance for my return –
Measure my worth by this great king’s concern!).
I bore his letters – back again I flew –
Whatever secrets he divined I knew;
A prophet loved me; God has trusted me;
What other bird has won such dignity?
For years I travelled over many lands,
Past oceans, mountains, valleys, desert sands,
And when the Deluge rose I flew around
The world itself and never glimpsed dry ground;
With Solomon I set out to explore
The limits of the earth from shore to shore.
I know our king – but how can I alone
Endure the journey to His distant throne?
Join me, and when at last we end our quest
Our king will greet you as His honoured guest.
How long will you persist in blasphemy?
Escape your self-hood’s vicious tyranny –
Whoever can evade the Self transcends
This world and as a lover he ascends.
Set free your soul; impatient of delay,
Step out along our sovereign’s royal Way:
We have a king; beyond Kaf’s mountain peak
The Simorgh lives, the sovereign whom you seek,
And He is always near to us, though we
Live far from His transcendent majesty.
A hundred thousand veils of dark and light
Withdraw His presence from our mortal sight,
And in both worlds no being shares the throne
That marks the Simorgh’s power and His alone –
