Hidden Lantern
Read Free / The Mathnawí, Book I

How the lion answered the beasts and explained the advantage of exertion.

“Yes,” said he, “if I see (find) good faith (on your part), not fraud, for often have I seen (suffered) frauds from Zayd and Bakr[51.1].

905 I am done to death by the cunning and fraud of men, I am bitten by the sting of (human) snake and scorpion;

(But) worse than all men in fraud and spite is the man of the flesh (nafs) lying in wait within me.

My ear heard ‘The believer is not bitten (twice),’ and adopted (this) saying of the Prophet with heart and soul.”