From a cage to La-Makan (From Cage to No-Place): A Reading of Rumi’s Ghazal of Departure

  بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ

This is a ghazal from Divān-e Shams (often listed as Ghazal 3051), built around the repeated refrain رفتی (raftī: “you went / you left”), which gives the whole poem the pulse of astonishment and grief—like someone who can’t stop repeating, “You’re gone.” 
A small textual note: in some manuscripts the first verb appears as ببریدی (“you cut/severed [ties]”) instead of بپریدی (“you flew”), but the “flight” reading fits the poem’s sustained bird-and-release imagery.

به عاقبت بپریدی و در نهان رفتی
عجب عجب به کدامین ره از جهان رفتی

At last you took flight and slipped into the hidden.
How strange—how strange: by what road did you leave this world?
Explanation
    به عاقبت: “in the end / finally”—suggests a long tension before release.
    در نهان رفتن (“going into the hidden”) can mean death, disappearance, or the Sufi idea of withdrawing from the visible into the unseen.
    The doubled عجب عجب is not calm philosophy; it’s the voice of someone stunned.

بسی زدی پر و بال و قفس دراشکستی
هوا گرفتی و سوی جهان جان رفتی

You beat your wings again and again, and you shattered the cage.
You caught the air—and toward the world of spirit you went.

Explanation
    The cage is the classic symbol: body, ego, habit, fear, social “roles,” even ordinary thinking.
    هوا گرفتی literally “you took the air,” like a bird finally getting lift—an image of liberation that feels physical.
    جهانِ جان is “the world of soul/life”—not “another planet,” but a deeper mode of being.

تو باز خاص بدی در وثاق پیرزنی
چو طبل باز شنیدی به لامکان رفتی

You were a prized falcon, yet tethered to an old woman’s rope.
But when you heard the falcon-drum, to the placeless you went.

Explanation
    باز is a hunting falcon: noble, trained, meant for heights.
    وثاق پیرزنی (“the bond/tether of an old woman”) is deliberately humiliating: the high bird is tied down by something low and worn-out—often read as the soul bound to the tired “old” world of matter and routine.
    طبلِ باز: in falconry, a drum or call associated with summoning the bird back. Here it becomes the call of the Beloved.
    لامکان (“no-place”) is a key mystical word: what is beyond location, beyond “where.”

بدی تو بلبل مستی میانه جغدان
رسید بوی گلستان به گل ستان رفتی

You were a drunk nightingale among owls.
When the scent of the rose-garden arrived, to the rose-gathering you went.

Explanation
    Nightingale vs owls: song and longing in a deadened, nocturnal world.
    مست (“drunk”) signals intoxication with love, not alcohol alone.
    بوی گلستان (“the scent of the garden”) is the moment of recognition: one whiff of the real, and you can’t stay among the owls.
    گل‌ستان can be heard as “place of taking roses” (a deliberate pull toward the source).

بسی خمار کشیدی از این خمیر ترش
به عاقبت به خرابات جاودان رفتی

You endured many hangovers from this sour dough.
At last, to the everlasting tavern of ruin you went.

Explanation
    This is one of my favorite images in the poem: خمیر ترش (sour dough) suggests a ferment that never becomes true wine—life’s petty intoxications that leave you heavy and fogged (خمار).
    خرابات in Persian Sufi poetry is not “just a bar.” It’s the place where respectability collapses, the ego’s architecture is ruined, and a different kind of “wine” is poured—often meaning annihilation of self-consciousness in love.

پی نشانه دولت چو تیر راست شدی
بدان نشانه پریدی و زین کمان رفتی

Seeking the sign of true fortune, you became straight as an arrow.
With that sign you sprang—and from this bow you went.

Explanation
     دولت can mean worldly “fortune,” but in mystical usage it often means inner sovereignty, grace, right-timing.
    “Straight as an arrow” hints at استقامت (uprightness, unswerving orientation).
    Bow and arrow: the body/time is the bow; the soul is the arrow. Release is painful—but it’s the point.

نشان‌های کژت داد این جهان چو غول
نشان گذاشتی و سوی بی‌نشان رفتی

This world, like a ghoul, handed you crooked signposts.
You left the signs behind—and toward the signless you went.
 

Explanation
    The world as غول (ghoul) is strong language: it seduces and misleads with distorted markers of “success,” “meaning,” “identity.”
    بی‌نشان (“the signless”) is a daring mystical claim: the final truth is not an object you can point to, label, or prove. You can’t carry your usual “evidence” there.

تو تاج را چه کنی چونک آفتاب شدی
کمر چرا طلبی چونک از میان رفتی

What use is a crown, once you’ve become the sun?
Why ask for a belt, once the “middle” itself is gone?

Explanation
    Crown = rank, recognition. Sun = the source of radiance. Once you’re the sun, crowns are toys.
    The second line is wonderfully strange: “the middle is gone.” I read it as: once you’ve passed beyond bodily form and social form, why would you seek any ornament of form?

دو چشم کشته شنیدم که سوی جان نگرد
چرا به جان نگری چون به جان جان رفتی

I’ve heard even slain eyes don’t turn back toward life.
Why look toward the soul, when you’ve gone to the soul of the soul?

Explanation
    There’s a deliberate piling up of جان / جانِ جان: “life/soul” and “the soul of the soul.”
    جانِ جان is a classic way to name the Beloved as the source of life—life’s very life.
    The poet scolds the impulse to look back: once you’ve reached the source, ordinary “life” is no longer the reference point.

دلا چه نادره مرغی که در شکار شکور
تو با دو پر چو سپر جانب سنان رفتی

O heart—what a rare bird you are, in the hunt of Shakūr:
with two wings like a shield, straight toward the spearpoint you went.

Explanation
    This couplet flips instinct on its head: the bird doesn’t flee the weapon; it flies into it.
    In one strong interpretive tradition, سنان (spearpoint) is explicitly read as the spear of Love—meaning the lover rushes into the danger that will end the ego. 
    شکور (Shakūr) carries layered meanings: in Arabic/Persian usage it can mean “deeply grateful,” and it is also used as a divine name (“the One who abundantly rewards / appreciates”).  
    My opinion: in this line it functions less as “thanks” and more as a titled figure—the Hunter/Beloved—so the phrase feels like “in the hunt set by Shakūr,” i.e., the sacred chase where surrender is the win.

گل از خزان بگریزد عجب چه شوخ گلی
که پیش باد خزانی خزان خزان رفتی

A rose runs from autumn—what a mischievous rose you are,
that before the autumn wind, into autumn-after-autumn you went.

Explanation
    The normal rose tries to avoid withering. This rose walks straight into it.
    The doubled خزان خزان intensifies the choice: not just “you accepted decline,” but “you went into it fully.”
    Mystically, it hints: the lover doesn’t avoid death-of-self; the lover chooses it as the way to real permanence.

ز آسمان تو چو باران به بام عالم خاک
به هر طرف بدویدی به ناودان رفتی

From the sky you fell like rain onto the roof of the earth-world.
You ran in every direction—then down the gutter-spout you went.

Explanation
    A striking “physics” image: rain hits a roof, scatters, then is gathered into a navedan (spout/gutter) and disappears downward.
    One reading: the spirit descends into the material world, disperses into multiplicity, then finds a channel back out.
    Another (more emotional) reading: you came like mercy, touched everything, and then slipped away through the one hidden exit none of us can block.

خموش باش مکش رنج گفت و گوی بخسب
که در پناه چنان یار مهربان رفتی

Be quiet—don’t strain yourself with talk; rest.
For into the shelter of such a kind beloved you went.

Explanation
    The poem ends by turning from amazement to counsel: silence, sleep, release.
    “Sleep” echoes the death-metaphor gently: not annihilation as horror, but as being held.
    The last phrase یار مهربان (“kind beloved”) changes the emotional temperature: the departure is not only loss; it is also protection.