How the hare again answered the beasts.

He said: “O friends, God gave me inspiration: to a weakling there came a strong judgement (wise counsel).”

That which God taught to the bees is not (belonging) to the lion and the wild ass.

1010 It (the bee) makes houses of juicy ḥalwá (sweetmeat): God opened to it the door of that knowledge;

That which God taught to the silkworm—does any elephant know such a device?

Adam, created of earth, learned knowledge from God: (his) knowledge shot beams up to the Seventh Heaven.

He (Adam) broke the name and fame (pride) of the angels, to the confusion of that one who is in doubt concerning God.

He (God) made the ascetic of so many thousand years (Iblís) a muzzle for that young calf (Adam),

1015 That he (Adam) might not be able to drink the milk of knowledge of religion, and that he might not roam around that lofty castle.

The sciences of the followers of (external) sense became a muzzle, so that he (the believer in sense-perception) might not receive milk from that sublime knowledge.

(But) into the blood-drop (core) of the heart there fell a jewel which He (God) gave not to the seas and skies.

How long (this regard for) form? After all, O form-worshipper, has thy reality-lacking soul not (yet) escaped from form?

If a human being were a man in virtue of form, Aḥmad (Mohammed) and Bú Jahl would be just the same.

1020 The painting on the wall is like Adam: see from the (pictured) form what thing in it is wanting.

The spirit is wanting in that resplendent form: go, seek that jewel rarely found!

The heads of all the lions in the world were laid low when They (God) gave a hand to (bestowed favour on) the dog of the Companions (of the Cave).

What loss does it suffer from that abhorred shape, inasmuch as its spirit was plunged in the ocean of light?

’Tis not in pens to describe (the outward) form^[57.1]: (what is written) in letters is (qualities like) “learned” and “just”;

1025 (And qualities like) “learned” and “just” are only the spiritual essence which thou wilt not find in (any) place or in front or behind.

The sun of the spirit strikes (with its beams) on the body from the quarter where (the relation of) place does not exist: it (that sun) is not contained in the sky.