The Conference of the Birds

[Nada Jung]

Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Folio from an illustrated manuscript dated c.1600.
Painting by Habiballah of Sava (active ca. 1590–1610), in ink, opaque watercolor, gold, and silver on paper.

“The home we seek is in eternity;

The Truth we seek is like a shoreless sea,

Of which your paradise is but a drop.

This ocean can be yours;

why should you stop

Beguiled by dreams of evanescent dew?

The secrets of the sun are yours,

but you

Content yourself with motes trapped in its beams.

Turn to what truly lives,

reject what seems --

Which matters more, the body or the soul?

Be whole: desire and journey to the Whole.”

*

Farid ud-Din Attar, From 'The Conference of the Birds'