perhaps the reason for concealment was not to alienate the beloved or to alienate him. for i know of someone whose beloved was a home and companion if he revealed the slightest reason other than that he loved him he would be like the pleiades whose stars are raised high and this is a kind of politics. and the one mentioned used to reach the highest and most distant level of comfort with his beloved but he had only revealed to him what he finds so he could no longer reach the trivial and insignificant with the confusion and the influence of love and the prevention of trust in the king of the heart and that comfort was gone and pretense and injustice occurred so he was a brother and then became a slave and a peer and then became a prisoner and if he had increased his disclosure a little so that the beloved knew that he would not have seen him except in a phantom and we do not separate the little from the much and that would have brought him harm.
وربما كان سبب الكتمان ألا ينفر المحبوب أو ينفر به. فإني أدري من كان محبوبه له سكنا وجليسا، لو باح بأقل سبب من أنه يهواه لكان منه مناط الثريا قد تعلت نجومها ؛ وهذا ضرب من السياسة. ولقد كان يبلغ من انبساط هذا المذكور مع محبوبه إلى فوق الغاية وأبعد النهاية، فما هو إلا ان أباح إليه بما يجد فصار لا يصل إلى التافه اليسير مع التيه ودالة الحب وتمنع الثقة بملك الفؤاد، وذهب ذلك الانبساط ووقع التصنع والتجني، فكان أخا فصار عبدا، ونظيرا فعاد أسيرا، ولو زاد في بوحه شيئا إلى أن يعلم خاصة المحبوب ذلك لما رآه إلا في الطيف، ولا نقطع القليل والكثير، ولعاد ذلك عليه بالضرر.