(5) 'O God, you who know the secret of all things, bring to pass the worldly desires of my enemies, and grant my friends the eternity of the future life. But as for me, I am free of both. Even if I possessed this present world or the world of the future, I should esteem them little in comparison with being near to you. I need only you. If I should turn my eyes towards the two worlds, or desire anything but you, I should be no more than an unbeliever.'

(2) When Bu Ali Rubdar was at the point of death he pronounced these words: 'My soul is on my lips in expectation of eternal welfare. The doors of heaven are open, and they

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have placed a throne for me in paradise. The saints who dwell in the palace of immortality cry with the voices of nightingales: "Enter, O true lover. Be thankful and walk with joy, for no one on earth has ever seen this place." O God, if I obtain thy grace and favour my soul will not slip from the hand of certainty. I shall not bow my head as in the world of men, for my soul has been formed through thy love, and thus I know neither heaven nor hell.

'If I am reduced to ashes there will not be found in me another being than Thou. I know Thee but I know not religion or unbelief. I am Thou, Thou art I. I desire Thee, my soul is in Thee. Thou alone art necessary to me. Thou art for me this world and the world to come. Satisfy, ever so little, the need of my wounded heart. Show, even a little, thy love for me, for I breathe only by Thee.'

(1) "Pape Satan, Pape Satan, Aleppe!" Thus Plutus with his clucking voice began; And that benignant Sage, who all things knew, Said, to encourage me: "Let not thy fear Harm thee; for any power that he may have Shall not prevent thy going down this crag." Then he turned round unto that bloated lip, And said: "Be silent, thou accursed wolf; Consume within thyself with thine own rage. Not causeless is this journey to the abyss; Thus is it willed on high, where Michael wrought Vengeance upon the proud adultery." Even as the sails inflated by the wind Involved together fall when snaps the mast, So fell the cruel monster to the earth. Thus we descended into the fourth chasm, Gaining still farther on the dolesome shore Which all the woe of the universe insacks. Justice of God, ah! who heaps up so many New toils and sufferings as I beheld? And why doth our transgression waste us so? As doth the billow there upon Charybdis, That breaks itself on that which it encounters, So here the folk must dance their roundelay.

(27) There is nothing that is nearer you than Heaven, Paradise, and Hell, unto which of them you are inclined, and to which of them you rend [or walk,] to that in this [Life] Time you are most near: You are between both. And there is a Birth between each of them; you stand in this World between both the Gates, and you have both the Births in you: God beckons to you in the one Gate, and calls you; and the Devil beckons you in the other Gate, and calls you; with whom you go, with him you enter in. The Devil has in his Hand Power, Honour, Pleasure, and [worldly] Joy, and the Root of these is Death and Hell-fire. On the contrary, God has in his Hands, Crosses, Persecution, Misery, Poverty, Ignominy, and Sorrow; and the Root of these is a Fire also, and in the Fire [there is] a Light, and in the Light the Virtue, and in the Virtue [or Power] the Paradise, and in the Paradise [are] the Angels, and among the Angels Joy. The gross Eyes cannot behold it, because they are from the third Principle, and see only by the Splendor of the Sun; but when the Holy Ghost comes into the Soul, then he regenerates it anew in God, and then it becomes a paradisical Child, and gets the Key of Paradise, and that Soul sees into the Midst thereof.