Leggi› Libro 3› La richiesta di quell'uomo a Mosè della lingua degli animali e degli uccelli› Distico 3272
M3:3272 — گرمتر شد مرد زان منعش که کرد / گرمتر گردد همی از منع مرد
M3:3272
Significato · به زبانِ تو — La tua lingua · AI
When Moses forbade the man from seeking the language of animals, it only made him more determined, because human nature is such that it craves what is forbidden.
This couplet serves as a psychological pivot in the story. A young man has asked the prophet Moses for a dangerous gift: the ability to understand the language of animals. Moses, foreseeing disaster, tries to dissuade him (M3:3270). This beyt captures the man's immediate reaction, which Rumi then elevates into a general maxim about human nature.
The first hemistich, "The man grew more inflamed by the prophet’s warning," describes the specific event. The word garm-tar (literally "warmer") here means more eager, more insistent, and more fired-up with desire. The prohibition, meant to protect him, acts like fuel on his ambition.
The second hemistich, "from prohibition, a man’s desire is always burning," universalizes this observation. Rumi points to the paradoxical human tendency to desire things more intensely precisely because they are denied. This is a recurring theme in the Masnavi, echoing the Quranic idea that "Man was created hasty" (21:37) and the famous Arabic proverb often attributed to early Islamic sources, "Man is covetous of what is forbidden" (al-insānu ḥarīṣun ʿalā mā muniʿ). The warning from a prophet, which should inspire caution, instead triggers the man's ego and obstinacy, setting the stage for the tragedy that Moses foresees.
- منع
- Prohibition, forbidding, refusal. An Arabic loanword used commonly in Persian, it is central to the couplet's theme of desire being inflamed by denial.
- گرمتر
- Literally 'warmer' or 'hotter'. Here used idiomatically to mean more eager, more insistent, more fired-up, or more ardent.
- همی
- An archaic poetic particle that adds a sense of continuity or emphasis, similar to 'always', 'ever', or 'indeed'. Here it helps generalize the statement in the second hemistich.
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