The Masnavi, Book Five

'If something else can capture your attention
Then it's not love, but just a trivial passion -
Love is that flame which, once it blazes up,
Burns everything but the Beloved up.'


This is the first ever translation of the entirety of Book Five of Rumi's magnum opus, The Masnavi, into English. Prior to this verse translation in heroic couplets, translations were either of selected passages or in lineated prose with passages deemed too salacious rendered into Latin, as was the convention in Brita...