I am content with the pain of love; physician, keep your remedy from me
Do not cure me, for my ruin lies in the poison of your cure
Fuzuli, Turkish Dîvân, ghazals (16th century).
The physician means well.
He wants to save the patient.
But the patient pulls his hand away.
This pain is mine, he says.
Your remedy will kill me.
Some pains carry
who a person is.
When they are torn out,
a healthy stranger is left behind.
Fuzuli does not praise pain.
He only speaks in the voice of someone
who has come to know his pain.