THE SPHERE OF SATURN
The vile spirits which have betrayed the nation and
have been rejected by Hell
The Sage of Rum, leader of the righteous,
familiar with all the stages of the righteous,
spoke: ‘Hard-toiling traveller of the heavens,
do you see yonder world that wears a girdle?
That which it has twisted around its waist 2545
it stole from the tail of a star.
So heavy of pace it is, its motion seems stationary;
under its rule, every good is turned to evil and base.
Though its form is fashioned of water and clay
it is difficult to set foot on its soil. 2550
A myriad angels, thunder in hand,
dispensing God’s wrath since the Day of Alast,
continually castigate the planet
and dislodge it from its pivot.
A world rejected and repelled by heaven, 2555
its morn is as evening, the sun is so grudging.
It is the lodging-place of spirits that shall know no resurrection,
which Hell itself shrank from burning:
therein live two ancient demons
who slew a people’s soul to save their skins, 2560
Jaafar of Bengal and Sadiq of Deccan,
shame to mankind, religion and fatherland,
unaccepted, despairing, undesired,
a nation ruined by their handiwork.
A nation, which had loosed the bonds of every nation, 2565
thus lost its high sovereignty and its faith.
Do you not know that the land of India,
dear to the heart of every sensitive soul,
a land whose every manifestation lit up the world,
now grovels amid dust and blood? 2570
Who sowed in its soil the seed of slavery?
All this is the handiwork of those evil spirits.
Pause a moment in the azure expanse
that you may see the retribution for their deeds.