Persian Literature, Ancient and ModernReed, Elizabeth A. (Elizabeth Armstrong)
History
Persian Literature, Ancient and Modern
Reed, Elizabeth A. (Elizabeth Armstrong)
Persian literature -- History and criticism
And outspread shade,
And water outpoured;
And fruit in abundance, neither bitter nor forbidden;
* * * * * * * * * *
And God will guard them from the evil of that day and will cast on them
brightness and joy;
And their reward for their patience shall be Paradise and silk!
Reclining thereon upon couches, they shall neither see therein the sun
nor piercing cold;
And close down upon them shall be its shadows;
And lowered over them its fruits to cull;
And they shall be served round with vessels of silver and goblets that
are as flagons—
Flagons of silver shall they mete out!...
And there shall go round them eternal boys;
When thou seest them thou wilt think them scattered pearls;
And when thou seest them thou shalt see pleasure and a great estate!
On them shall be garments of green embroidered satin and brocade;
And they shall be adorned with bracelets of silver.”[215]
HELL.
Hell also has seven divisions, which are arranged in the following
order: Gehenna—The Flaming Fire—The Raging Fire that splits everything
to pieces—The Blaze—The Scorching Fire—The Fierce Fire—The Abyss.
“It is thus that we reward sinners; for them is the couch of hell-fire
with an awning above them! Thus do we reward the unjust!...
The fellows of the fire shall call out to the fellows of Paradise,
‘Pour out upon us water, or something God has provided you with.’
They will say ‘God has prohibited them both to those that
misbelieve.’ ...
Faces on that day shall be humble, laboring, toiling—shall broil
upon a burning fire; shall be given to drink from a boiling spring!
No food shall they have save from the foul thorn, which shall not
fatten nor avail against hunger!
And the fellows of the left—what unlucky fellows!
In hot blasts and boiling water;
And a shade of pitchy smoke,
Neither cool nor generous!
Verily, they were affluent ere this, and did persist in mighty crime
and say ‘What, when we die and have become dust and bones, shall we
then indeed be raised?’
Then ye, Oh ye who err! who say it is a lie!
Shall eat of the Zaqqūm tree!
And fill yourselves with it!
And drink thereon of boiling water!
And drink as drinks the thirsty camel.
This is their entertainment on the judgment day!
Whenever a new troop is brought forward to be thrown into hell they
shall hear its brayings as it boils, for it shall well nigh burst
for rage, and the treasures of hell shall come forward and shall ask
them, ‘Did not a warner come to you?’ They shall stay, ‘Yea! a
warner came to us, and we called him a liar,’
And they shall say, ‘Had we but listened or had sense we had not
been among the fellows of the blaze!’”[216]
PREDESTINATION.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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