Persian Poetry- from Poetry Found in Translation by A.Z. Foreman

Poems Found In Translation: “Hafiz: Ghazal 203 "In Memoriam" (From Persian)”   Khwāja Shams-ud-Dīn Muhammad Hāfez-e Shīrāzī (Persian: خواجه شمس‌‌الدین محمد حافظ شیرازی‎), known by his pen name Hāfez (حافظ; also Hāfiz) (1325/26–1389/1390),[1] was a Persian poet. His collected works composed of series of Persian literature are to be found in the homes of most people in Iran who learn his poems by heart and use them as proverbs and sayings to this day. His life and poems have been the subject of much analysis, commentary and interpretation, influencing post-fourteenth century Persian writing more than any other author.[2][3] Themes of his ghazals are the beloved, faith, and exposing hypocrisy. His influence in the lives of Iranians can be found in "Hafez readings" (fāl-e hāfez, Persian: فال حافظ‎), frequent use of his poems in Persian traditional music, visual art and Persian calligraphy. His tomb is visited often. Adaptations, imitations and translations of Hafez' poems exist in all major languages. -LK--from Wikipedia I know very little about Persian poetry but I find it is always fascinating to look at works from outside the Western European tradition and note what we can easily grasp and what is a little puzzling to very obscure Since human beings tend to be cut from the same cloth everywhere, we usually have a good chance of being able to relate to and understand enough of what we read translated from not just another language but a totally different culture

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Hafiz: Ghazal 203 "In Memoriam" (From Persian)

Posted: 17 Feb 2014 10:10 AM PST

This poem is a lament for Abu Ishaq, the last of the Injuids, a patron whom Hafiz had loved a great deal. After barely a decade of rule in Shiraz, Abu Ishaq was toppled and executed by the Muzaffarid Mubariz al-Din Muhammad. Whereas Abu Ishaq was a sybarite who loved poetry, wine and the funner things of life, Mubariz al-Din was a pietistic killjoy who closed the wine-taverns and attempted to enforce religious orthodoxy in a way that many in Shiraz, including Hafiz, found profoundly unpleasant. 






(This poem contains the phrase hapax legamenon, of which wikipedia says:

A hapax legomenon (/ˈhæpəks lɨˈɡɒmɨnɒn/ also /ˈhæpæks/ or /ˈheɪpæks/;^[1][2] pl. hapax legomena; sometimes abbreviated to hapax, pl. hapaxes) is a word that occurs only once within a context, either in the written record of an entire language, in the works of an author, or in a single text. The term is sometimes incorrectly used to describe a word that occurs in just one of an author's works, even though it occurs more than once in that work. Hapax legomenon is a transliteration of Greek ἅπαξ λεγόμενον, meaning "(something) said (only) once".^[3]
The related terms dis legomenon, tris legomenon, and tetrakis legomenon respectively (/ˈdɪs/, /ˈtrɪs/, /ˈtɛtrəkɨs/) refer to double, triple, or quadruple occurrences, but are far less commonly used.
Hapax legomena are quite common, as predicted by Zipf's law,^[4] which states that the frequency of any word in a work (corpus) is inversely related to its rank in the frequency table. For large corpora, about 40% to 60% of the words (counting by type) are hapax legomena, and another 10% to 15% are dis legomena.^[5] Thus, in the Brown Corpus of American English, about half of the 50,000 words are hapax legomena within that corpus.^[6]
Note that hapax legomenon refers to a word's appearance in a body of text and to neither its origin nor its prevalence in speech. It thus differs from a nonce word, which may never be recorded, or which may find currency and may be widely recorded, or which may appear several times in the work which coins it, and so on.

--LK)

Ghazal 203: In Memoriam
By Hafiz
Translated by A.Z. Foreman
Click to hear me recite the original Persian

Be it remembered: I lived on
the very street that you lived on. 

 Light of my eyes it was to me 

when dust of your dear doorway shone.
A lily and a rose were you
and I, our talks so pure and true 

 That what I uttered with my tongue 

and what lay in your heart, were one.
When our hearts joined in dialecticã
with words of ancient mystics' truth, 

Love's commentary would shed light 

on each hapax legomenon.  
I told my heart, I told myself:
"I'll never be without my Friend" 

But when my self and heart have tried 

and come to naught, what's to be done? 
Last night for old time's sake I passed
our drinking spot, and saw a cask 

Corked in the mud, wine spilt like blood.  

My feet turned clay could not go on. 
Much as I wandered, as I wondered
and asked why parting's pain had come, 

The judge of Reason found no reasons

 and lost all judgement thereupon.
Although the turquoise signet ring¹
of Bu-Ishaq the splendorous king 

Shone brilliantly, that dynasty 

was all too swiftly felled and gone. 
Hafez, see how the partridge struts
cackling away with every cluck. 

The falcon-claws he flouts are Laws of Fate

 by which he'll be undone².

Notes:

1- Turquoise was highly prized by Persians as a bringer of good luck. To wear it was said to protect one against evil and bring one prosperity. However it was also said that rulers should not wear turquoise because their glory would be subsumed in that of the stone. 

2 - according to historians, Abu Ishaq's carefree indulgence and pleasure-seeking even as the Muzaffarid army was advancing on Shiraz, was the former's undoing. 



The Original:

یاد باد آن که سر کوی توام منزل بود　دیده را روشنی از خاک درت حاصل بود

راست چون سوسن و گل از اثر صحبت پاک　بر زبان بود مرا آن چه تو را در دل بود

دل چو از پیر خرد نقل معانی می‌کرد　عشق می‌گفت به شرح آن چه بر او مشکل بود

در دلم بود که بی دوست نباشم هرگز　چه توان کرد که سعی من و دل باطل بود

دوش بر یاد حریفان به خرابات شدم　خم می دیدم خون در دل و پا در گل بود

بس بگشتم که بپرسم سبب درد فراق　مفتی عقل در این مسله لایعقل بود

راستی خاتم فیروزۀ بواسحاقی　خوش درخشید ولی دولت مستعجل بود

دیدی آن قهقهۀ کبک خرامان حافظ　
که ز سرپنجۀ شاهین قضا غافل بود