M6:2938 — این سخن پایان ندارد موش ما / هست بر لبهای جو بر گوش ما

Translation: This discourse has no end, our mouse / Stands by the stream's lips, its ear on us. Meaning: Rumi, in a moment of meta-narrative awareness, alludes to a pause in his storytelling, personifying the narrative's continuation as a mouse eagerly awaiting the tale's resumption.

Mowlana, as a storyteller whose breast holds an ocean of meanings, sometimes deviates from the main narrative to articulate a deeper insight. Yet, he is quick to recall that a thread of the story has been broken and an eager audience awaits its continuation. This particular verse perfectly captures such a moment: the 'mouse' here is a vivid symbol of that narrative thread, or perhaps that part of Rumi's being committed to completing his tales, or even a symbol of the attentive, listening ear of the audience, poised like a mouse by the stream's edge, awaiting the next drop of discourse from his lips.

I have often stressed that Mowlana is not a craftsman-poet like Hafez, who hammers and polishes his words. Rumi's speech flows like a rushing river, and sometimes this torrent creates side branches. This verse is a playful, self-aware acknowledgment of this fluid and endless nature of his discourse. He states that this speech, this spiritual current, has no end; it's as if the story itself is a living entity, a 'mouse' awaiting the continuation of its life. He cannot turn away from this mouse, from this life-giving thread of narrative.

This moment in Mowlana's storytelling serves as a reminder to us that the Masnavi is not a philosophy book with a dry, logical structure, but an island in the sea of gnosis (as Mowlana himself said: "For he who thirsts for the sea of meanings, let him take refuge on the island of the Masnavi"). He is the diver of that sea, and on this island, his words, in their natural and unadorned form, sometimes stray from the main point, only to return with subtlety and such sweet allusions. This 'mouse' represents the expectation we have for the continuity of life and meaning in his words; an expectation that is always met, for Mowlana's discourse, like the ocean of his own being, is inexhaustible.

Key takeaways

• Rumi demonstrates meta-narrative awareness, commenting on his own storytelling process.
• The 'mouse' symbolizes the continuous thread of the narrative or the eager anticipation of the listener.
• Rumi's discourse is like an endless, flowing stream, never stopping.
• This verse exemplifies Rumi's natural, unadorned, and spontaneous style of composing the Masnavi.