The Roashans

Why two versions?

The first is how the line stands in the oldest surviving copy of the Masnavi. It was finished in Konya in 1278, five years after Rumi’s death, under the supervision of his son Sultan Walad and of Husamuddin Chelebi, who had been with Rumi as he dictated every verse.

Copies made after the thirteenth century give the second version, probably because copyists thought they were improving the line: “this reed” became “from the reed”, and the rhyming words shikāyat (complaint) and hikāyat (tale) changed places. It became the familiar version that many people know by heart; Jami of Herat was already quoting it in the fifteenth century. Scholarly editions today follow the oldest manuscript.

The meaning hardly changes. In both, the reed sings of separation, as the next verse explains: “Ever since I was cut from the reed bed, men and women have wept in my lament.”