Zulaikha:
What a bird you are, o red-billed bird,
You do not eat reddish mangoes!
By eating which ash, will you exist then
In this bower of fate?
Yusuf:
That there is any fruit better than the name of God
And any food better than piety is not known to me.
Zulaikha:
Having eaten the fairy tale, you are living on earth;
How will you know the taste of a mango, o bird?
If the roots cannot touch the soil, how will the boughs
Have the taste of soil?
Look, this ripe mango freshly collected from the tree-
What a taste and fragrance it bears
And being what an easy food, it is hanging
Just near your hungry beak!
O very obstinate bird, raising your deep dark eyes,
Stare for once and eat this mango tearing with your beak
Red as lac-dye.
Eat for once and see how tasty it is!
Yusuf: (Soliloquy)
O God! We have reached a very mad age of blood;
If you do not guide us into this darkness, we will fill up
The fertile land of youth with wrong weeds and wrong grasses
Like an unskilled farmer.
Zulaikha:
O Prince, how beautiful your eyes are!
Come near, let me get drowned
Into your wavy Nile-eyes
Setting my peacock-boat eyes there.
Yusuf:
O Lady, imagine that loathsome scene for once
When these bright eyes, after death, will fall down
Upon our face getting melted like the burning candles!
Zulaikha:
Yet, o young man, there have risen bank-breaking waves
Of youth into the river of our colorful eyes; Doesn’t it have
Any meaning? O foolish inexperienced young man,
Hasn’t God kept the touch of His skilled hand there?
Keep it in mind, there is nothing negligible on earth,
Not false, not meaningless.
So, come near me, come here into this bosom where
My bastard born-blind heart is burning day and night
Like a volcano.
Come near- a little more- set sweetly your eyes for once
Into these swallow-eyes-
I am telling you, o handsome Prince with beautiful hair,
I am calling you towards this ripe, holly garden full of grapes;
All my riches I will give you- all which are in my whole body
And all which are arranged in rows into my mind.
I will give you love, offerings of worship, tidal surge of pain
And intense passion of storm which will fill up your heart.
O proud divine man, how beautiful your bushy black hair are,
As if multitude of torn clouds have gathered together
On your head. And my heart, forgetting public disgrace,
Dilemma and fear, has tumbled upon that hair.
Yusuf:
How will this hair look when, very soon,
It will fall off on the hungry dust of blind grave?
Listen to me, o the golden wife of noble family,
What you are seeing in the mad dazzled light of youth
Is nothing but the illusion of lust; When the dust
Of your two eyes is flown, you will see, o disoriented lady,
You are not riding the horse, it is an ass
On whose back you are.
Zulaikha:
What is my fault, tell me, o the handsome sunny Prince?
Your beautiful face seems to be the full Moon of the night;
Looking at this face, who can remain sane,
Who does not lose his sense?
May be, every thing on earth is merely dream
And false illusion; but is the flame of beauty
Burning on your Moon-face false too?
Yusuf:
This face will be the food of the soil of grave one day;
On that rotten face, the hungry, wild and blind insects
Will come in a body to attack;
This way you, me and all will become the night-food
of insects.
Julaikha:
If that happens, let it happen so; Still I want to be for once,
only for once, your food, o Yusuf, as tasty as Manna-Salwa.
O my life-long dream’s attractive man, come near,
A little more, come like a lion and touch me…
Yusuf:
What an ugly call do you throw to me, o woman?
But your husband, honorable Aziz, my Lord,
Has given me shelter; How do you tell me
To treason against him? Won’t I be as faithful
As a dog? Won’t I be an obedient grateful servant?
Those who are not grateful can never succeed.
Julaikha:
How illiterate you are! In the primitive solitude
And dumb darkness, we have only two identities:
Not bridegroom, not bride; not brother, not sister;
Not lord and slave-girl; not lady and slave-
Like day and night, there exist two inevitable names-
Everlasting, indestructible:
Woman and man.
Yusuf:
That is a rootless beastly life.
But in this civilized mortal city, we have a social mind,
Bound with inevitable rules and customs;
You can break that, o bewildered, strayed woman;
Can we do that, we who have the fear of hell?
That which you call light is called darkness by us;
That which you call love is called adultery by us.
By God and by the piety of father Jacob,
Yusuf will never give in to the waste, blue, forbidden lust.
(He runs towards the door with the speed of a storm)
Julaikha:
Stay, o young man; Do not go; Hear my last words…
But he’s gone away- Julaikha, have you seen your illiteracy?
You wanted to catch the lion of God with gossamer!
Tell, where is that trap, by which I will catch him again
And confine him into the golden cage of this blind heart;
If he flees away breaking that cage too,
I won’t get tired of losing him,
I will set my trap again and again in forests
To catch him finally.
