New NaqqaliThe Nature of Man
Human dignity leads into ethical counsel and the enduring heavens. Seventeen English couplets represent a selective, redistributed sequence.
The chapter in five texts
| Text | Chapter treatment and distinctive choices |
|---|---|
| F&R English | Human dignity leads into ethical counsel and the enduring heavens. Seventeen English couplets represent a selective, redistributed sequence. |
| Moscow | The main text and apparatus preserve more counsel than the English separately renders. |
| Mohl | The additional English counsel in couplet 13 has a Persian counterpart here; other source counsel remains untranslated. |
| Ganjoor | Fifteen couplets form a shorter comparison sequence. Absence here alone does not establish an English invention. |
| Khaleghi | Counsel is redistributed across boundaries: the warning about release from evil and the two-world salvation line stand in the Prophet section on p 9. The ruby sky and Nowruz garden precede the combined Sun-and-Moon heading on p 8. |
Parallel text
English left · Persian right. Persian: Ganjoor unless the individual source label specifies otherwise. Numbers open the relevant note; source-only rows show absorbed or unmatched material.
Argument and poetic form
Humanity arrives as a key to creation and then as a being responsible for its own conduct. The English explains several compressed formulations, especially the priority-and-lateness paradox, and keeps the cypress and articulate speech as visible signs of human distinction.
The source comparison is especially useful for counsel that crosses chapter boundaries. Mohl supports the two-world salvation line, while Khaleghi places related counsel under the Prophet heading. The English sequence is defensible, but the separate Mohl counsel without an English counterpart remains recorded.
Couplet commentary
Quoted text · evidence · interpretation1–4Humanity as the key+
Ganjoor chapter 4; Moscow I printed pp 16–17; Khaleghi I printed pp 7–9. Mohl reprint I printed pp 6–6.
G 1–3; Moscow p 16; Mohl p 6; K p 7. English 1–2 expand the source’s compact image of humanity as the key to the preceding bonds or difficulties. “For whom the whole creation had been cast” is a teleological explanation rather than a separately stated source line. The cypress, articulate speech and rational command over animals remain explicit. That distinction qualifies the poetic equivalence.
5–8Human worth and two worlds+
Ganjoor chapter 4; Moscow I printed pp 16–17; Khaleghi I printed pp 7–9. Mohl reprint I printed pp 6–6.
The English makes an inward ethical reading of the question of what humanity means. “Many stages” interprets the source’s many intermediaries; it need not imply modern biological evolution. English 8 resolves “first in nature, last in number” as first in worth and last in creation. This is an effective explanatory choice.
“First in worth” makes an interpretive hierarchy explicit where the Persian balances priority in nature against lateness in number. The clarification helps an English reader follow the human place in the creation sequence. It should be understood as the translation’s resolution of the paradox, not a separate source assertion about biological history.
9Acknowledged uncertainty+
Ganjoor chapter 4; Moscow I printed pp 16–17; Khaleghi I printed pp 7–9. Mohl reprint I printed pp 6–6.
G 8; Moscow p 16; Mohl p 6; K pp 7–8. The Persian begins by acknowledging that a sage offered another account, then asks who knows the creator’s secret. English retains the epistemic humility but omits the explicit alternative testimony. The source therefore acknowledges a competing account as well as the speaker’s own uncertainty.
10–13Good work and additional Persian material+
Ganjoor 9–11; Mohl reprint I p 6; Moscow I pp 16–17 and p 17 apparatus; Khaleghi I pp 8–9. The two salvation-counsel couplets are printed under the Prophet heading in Khaleghi.
English 10–12 follow the ethical counsel with some generalization. The salvation-and-good-work couplet in English 13 has a direct counterpart in Mohl p 6 and appears among the readings in Moscow p 17’s apparatus. It is not an unsupported English addition. Mohl also has a separate couplet beginning “خداوند گردون ورا داد نیکی” that has no separate English counterpart.
Khaleghi places the release-from-evil and two-world salvation counsel in the Prophet section on p 9. The English keeps it with the human section, as the fuller Mohl sequence does. This is relocation rather than deletion. The Persian display follows the English sequence while each exceptional row retains its source label.
14–17The enduring sphere+
Ganjoor chapter 4; Moscow I printed pp 16–17; Khaleghi I printed pp 7–9. Mohl reprint I printed pp 6–6.
G 12–15; Moscow p 17; Mohl p 6; K p 8. English returns to the turning sphere after the ethical passage. “By its decree” in 17 heightens the agency of the heavens; the Persian says that increase and reckoning come from it and good and evil are manifest before it. Read within the poem’s cosmic language rather than as an independent doctrinal assertion.