A Facebook post by Imam Ahmed Alhasan احمد الحسن
Darar Ibn Damra said about Imam Ali PBUH, when he attained rulership:
‘I bear witness by Allah I have seen him in some of his positions when the curtain of the night came down and the stars sank down. He was standing in the place of worship (Mihrab) and holding his beard, swaying from side to side as if a snake had bitten him; he would cry just as the sad one cries, and it as if I can hear him saying:
“O temporal world, O temporal world! Are you interfering with me? Are you seduced by me? How far-fetched! How far-fetched! Deceive someone else. There is nothing I want from you. I have divorced you three times. There is no returning to you by me. Your age is short, your danger is mild, and your hope is trivial. Woe to that! Woe to that! O how short the supply is! [God wariness], and how far the travel, how lonely the path, and how great the ending place.”
Here is one of the texts from the Epic of Gilgamesh that has the same meaning. It is a dialogue between the temporal world (Goddess Ishtar or Anana) and Gilgamesh:
‘When Gilgamesh had put on the crown, glorious Ishtar lifted her eyes, seeing the beauty of Gilgamesh. She said, ‘Come to me Gilgamesh, and be my bridegroom;
grant me seed of your body,
let me be your bride and you shall be my husband.
I will harness for you a chariot of lapis lazuli and of gold,
with wheels of gold and horns of copper; and you shall have mighty demons of the storm for draft mules.
When you enter our house in the fragrance of cedar-wood, threshold and throne will kiss your feet.
Kings, rulers, and princes will bow down before you . . . ‘
Gilgamesh opened his mouth and answered glorious Ishtar,‘ . . .
But as for making you my wife – that I will not. How would it go with me?
Your lovers have found you like a brazier which smoulders in the cold,
a backdoor which keeps out neither squall of wind nor storm,
a castle which crushes the garrison,
pitch that blackens the bearer,
a water-skin that chafes the carrier, a stone which falls from the parapet,
a battering-ram turned back from the enemy,
a sandal that trips the wearer.
Which of your lovers did you ever love for ever?
What shepherd of yours has pleased you for all time? . . . ’”