Agent Smith

The spider weaves the curtains in the palace of the Caesars

the owl calls the watches in the towers of Afrasiab.


According to Wikipedia this line belongs to Saadi Shirazi (1210-1291) the famous Persian Poet.


1-What does it mean?


2-What book is it from?


3-What is the original Persian lines?


Mehmed the Conqueror - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

mansamusa

I don't know the original Persian of the poem. But the two lines seem to be contemplating on the death of once great civilizations, where nature replaces human activities. Its like Percy Shelley's poem, Ozymandias:

Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

There is a line from a Swahili poem written in the 18th century saying the same about the ruins of one of the great Swahili cities;; it talks about birds making nests in the walls of ruined mansions or something of that sort, but I don't have access to it right now. And Swahili poetry would have had some Persian influence, I believe.

Shaheen

Mehmed was probably pointing out the fact that the glory days of the Byzantines were gone, and that now spiders lurked around in their desolate palaces. Meanwhile the time had come for the people of Turan (from those "beyond the black river") to rise and wake up.

Agent Smith

Come to think about it. Saadi Shirazi witnessed civilization being crumbled especially the Abbasid Caliphate in 1258. He witnessed the advancement of the Mongols in Middle East.
Ilkhanate ruled the Persia at the time of his death.
But what made him talk about the Byzantines that were far away??

Litos

Mehmed II cleverly repeated this when he conquered Constantinople. Originally Saadi Shirazi was talking about things in general; man builds things but nature takes over and uses. The towers of Afrasiab are used to call prayer but an owl is making noise from them instead. The spider is making curtains from the dark unnoticed places of the palace. Saadi probably means nature mimics man and man mimics nature, they're related, but Mehmed used it to comment on the dilapidated state of Constantinople. Saadi believed in what wed call "Ubuntu" today.

It's not part of a bigger work just an aphorism or a short work the poet wrote.

Agent Smith

I'm just amazed by those poetic lines.
I found something
The Owls of Afrasiab: The Secret Story of Constantinople 1453 - Lars Holger Holm - Google Books
At the end of page 41 the complete speech by Mehmed.

Litos

Is this all real stuff? It's awesome.

Agent Smith

As far as I know yes.

I suspect it is part of the Gulistan

Gulistan of Sa'di - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

His masterpiece.

Litos

Youre probably right about that Gulistan had a lot of symbolic language and short poems.

Agent Smith

Just reading some poems from it, can give you wisdom.

"I cried because I had no shoes until I saw a man who had no feet”

WOW, I am pretty sure it downs better in the original language. I need to buy a copy some day.