"The ocean can be yours; why should you stop
Beguiled by dreams of evanescent dew?
The secrest of the sun are yours, but you
Content yourself with motes trapped in beams."
The hoopoe can see that the other birds are being stupid. They're looking for someone wiser than them to explain the mysteries of the universe, but they are unwilling to go out and find those answers for themselves. Their ignorance is apparent because they content themselves with their own limited perspectives, unwilling to challenge their beliefs in order to understand a higher truth about their universe.
Love thrives on inextinguishable pain,
Which tears the soul, then knits the threads again.
A mote of love exceeds all bounds; it gives
The vital essence to whatever lives.
But where love thrives, there pain is always found;
Angels alone escape this weary round -
They love without that savage agony
Which is reserved for vexed humanity.”
At the hoopoe's patient instruction, the birds learn about suffering. He explains that life will always bring suffering, but it is good and right that way. Love is the higher path, but it is inescapably linked with suffering. All the more desirable, he argues. The power of unrestrained, true love is greater than the pain of suffering.
“The hoopoe said: 'Your heart's congealed like ice;
When will you free yourself from cowardice?
Since you have such a short time to live here,
What difference does it make? What should you fear?
The world is filth and sin, and homeless men
Must enter it and homeless leave again.
They die, as worms, in squalid pain; if we
Must perish in this quest, that, certainly,
Is better than a life of filth and grief."
When the birds become discouraged, they turn once more to the hoopoe, hoping for easy answers. He reminds them of death. If everyone dies in the same condition they were born -- naked and alone -- then why not risk everything for a noble cause? They should be afraid of the meaninglessness of it all rather than the trouble of believing in something higher. The hoopoe considers it better to die in search for enlightenment than in the safe but stagnant place of ignorance.
“When they had understood the hoopoe's words,
A clamour of complaint rose from the birds:
'Although we recognize you as our guide,
You must accept - it cannot be denied -
We are a wretched, flimsy crew at best,
And lack the bare essentials for this quest.
Our feathers and our wings, our bodies' strength
Are quite unequal to the journey's length;
For one of us to reach the Simorgh's throne
Would be miraculous, a thing unknown.
[...] He seems like Solomon, and we like ants;
How can mere ants climb from their darkened pit
Up to the Simorgh's realm? And is it fit
That beggars try the glory of a king?
How ever could they manage such a thing?'"
When the birds finally understand the hoopoe's true charge to them, they immediately are discouraged by the magnitude of the quest. They know that they are lowly, wretched, unworthy creatures. They feel disinclined to accept the quest because they don't believe themselves capable of achieving it. Their incompetence leads them to feel worthless and incapable, but if they just accept the quest they will no longer be incompetent.
