Poem from Urdu- Muhammud Irqbal- Translated by A Z Foreman- Poems Found in Translation

Poems Found in Translation: “Muhammad Iqbal: At Napoleon's Tomb (From Urdu)” plus 2 more

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• Muhammad Iqbal: At Napoleon's Tomb (From Urdu)
• Hafiz: Ghazal 36 "A Rest From Both Worlds" (From Persian)
• Muhammad Iqbal: Slavery (From Persian)

Muhammad Iqbal: At Napoleon's Tomb (From Urdu) Posted: 05 Jun 2015 06:25 PM PDT I haven't been studying Urdu for very long, but I thought I'd try my hand at a poem. I chose this one because (a) it's an immensely interesting and entertaining piece, and (b) it's the first Urdu ghazal I managed to understand all the way through, without recourse to a dictionary or puzzling over grammar. Then again, I'm not sure that's actually much of an accomplishment, given how heavily Persianized it is. The final verse is actually in Persian, and is a direct quote from Hāfiz. In fact, the difficulties I encountered in translating this poem have little to do with how new I am to Urdu. Most troublesome was the quite Persian expression jōš-i kirdār, a phrase central to the poem's thrust, occurring no less than four times, whose vast, evocative semantic range encompasses everything from "the seething/boiling force of action" to "the energy of behavior, of character" (and for which I have found the rather unsatisfying equivalent "seething mettle.") There is much I could say about Iqbāl. Most of which would royally piss off his fans. Perhaps I'll say more of it if, and when, I translate other work by him. For now, I'll content myself with a few cursory remarks. I think he had even more in common with Nietzsche than he ever realized, and was even more "western" in his outlook than he would ever have admitted. (Indeed, one of the most western things about him is the terms in which he denounces the west.) Like Nietzsche, too, he was far worthier as a poet than as a philosopher, as witnessed by the vitalism on display in this poem. An alienated and modern man yearning for the palingenetic revitalization of the polity he identified with, it is no surprise that his religiously sophisticated conservative modernism found great appeal in the same irrationalist, retrograde strains of western thought that also gave rise to mysticizing secular fascism. In this respect he had less in common with his masters RÅ«mÄ«, Ḥallāj and Goethe, than he did with his European contemporaries like Yeats and Stefan George. At Napoleon's Tomb By Muhammad Iqbal Translated by A.Z. Foreman Click to hear me recite the original Urdu Strange and mysterious, the fate ã€€ã€€ of this world of stress and storm,　　 　　Only in men of seething mettle  　　does fate reveal its form. From seething mettle Alexander's ã€€ã€€ sword dawned upon the land　　 　　To blaze on high, and melted down  　　the mountain of Alvand.  From seething mettle came torrential  ã€€ã€€ Timur's all-conquering flood.　　 　　Such mighty waves make nothing of  　　the land's vicissitude.  The cry of prayer, the cry of war　　 from God's men as they trod　　 　　The battlefield, in seething mettle 　　became the Voice of God. Yet little more than meager moments　　 are granted to the brave,　　 　　A breath or two in time against 　　the long night of the grave. "The Valley of the Silenced ends　　 the road of every man.　　 　　Seethe and resound beneath the vault 　　of stars, while yet you can."