Chapter 33: On Knowing the Poles of Intentions, Their Secrets, and the Nature of Their Principles; They Are Called the People of Intention
The spirit is to the body as intentions are to action:
through them they live, as the earth lives through rain.
You see the flowers and trees coming forth,
and all the fruit the trees bring forth.
Likewise, from our actions forms come forth,
bearing odors, some foul and some fragrant.
Were it not for the revealed Law, musk would be ashamed before
their fragrances: thus my consideration judges.
For all bringing into being depends
upon Him, so there is no difference between benefit and harm.
Hold fast, then, to His Law, and through it delight in lofty dwellings,
inhabited by forms that glory upon couches.
You see them like kings upon their couches,
or like brides beloved of the eye.
Notes
Translator’s note TN839-1: “Lofty dwellings” renders suwar, read here in the sense of ranks or stations inhabited by forms, ṣuwar. The poem links the life given to acts by intention with the distinctions assigned to them by revealed Law; the prose that follows develops this distinction.
