by Dick Davis
When my love…comes tumbling down: The conceit in the first lines is that when the beloved appears, all other desirable people are disregarded, so that their “market” collapses. The trope is common in the poetry of the period.
pp. 46–47, Plant friendship’s tree – the heart’s desire
Majnun: the archetypal lover – see the note to p. 15.
pp. 48–49, To give up wine, and human beauty? And to give up love?
Magian sage: See the note to pp. 2–3.
sheikh: See the note to pp. 20–22
p. 50, That busybody criticizes me
Sohayb: a figure from the early years of Islam, proverbial for his asceticism.
pp. 54–55, At dawn, upon the breeze, I caught
Moslem beads: prayer beads, like a rosary.
his eyebrow’s curve: See the note to p. 15.
pp. 56–57, Do you know what our harps and lutes advise us
the old Magian priest: a wine-seller – see note to pp. 2–3.
Qur’an reciters: The poet here puns on his own pen-name, “Hafez,” which means, among other things, a Qur’an reciter. He refers to his religious namesakes with contempt, saying they are among those who “live by lies”; the musical instruments at the opening of the poem suggest the other meaning of “Hafez,” a musician.
sheikhs: See the note to pp. 20–22
pp. 58–59: What memories! I once lived on
And to my eyes…your doorway shone: This sentence can also mean: “The brightness of my eyes was from the dust before your door,” suggesting the dust was used as kohl, or eye-shadow.
Bu Es’haq: Abu Es’haq was the king deposed and killed by Mobarez al-din; he had been Hafez’s most generous and faithful patron, and the poem is a lament for his death.
pp. 60–61, Though wine is pleasurable, and though the breeze
morals officer: See the note to p. 16.
Khosrow’s crown…King Kasra’s skull: One of Hafez’s most direct attacks on Mobarez al-din and his laws against wine and music. Khosrow and Kasra are pre-Islamic kings, here probably used to evoke the kings against whom Mobarez al-din had fought – Abu Es’haq, and his older brother, Jalal al-din Masud Shah (the father of Jahan Malek Khatun); Obayd associates the same two pre-Islamic monarchs with the Inju kings in his lament for Abu Es’haq “The Lesson to be Learned from End of King Sheikh Abu Es’haq” (see the note to pp. 214–15).
Pars…Baghdad: Pars (now called Fars) is the province of which Shiraz is the capital; Eraq is western Iran; Tabriz is the main town in Azerbaijan in the north west of the country; Baghdad was where Sultan Ovays ruled, and it was to him that Hafez appears to have turned for patronage while Mobarez al-din was ruling Shiraz.
pp. 62–3, May your dear body never need
This poem seems to be addressed to a young prince or powerful aristocrat, and is best read as an elegant bid for patronage.
And when the wind of autumn blows: The “wind of autumn” is a periphrasis for death, so that the line is saying, “May death pass you by, and leave you unharmed.”
evil eye…rue within your beauty’s flames: Rue is still burned in Persian culture to ward off the evil eye.
pp. 66–7, You’ve sent no word of how you are
ancient wine-seller: See the note to pp. 2–3.
p. 68, Not every Sufi’s trustworthy, or pure in spirit
Hafez’s cloak: See the note to pp. 36–7.
p. 69, Good news, my heart! The breath of Christ is wafting here
Like “For years my heart inquired of me” (pp. 42–3), this poem invokes Christianity (the “breath of Christ”), Judaism (Moses), and Zoroastrianism (the “fire” of the third stanza), as well as Islam.
pp. 70–71, My love has sent no letter for
one sinuous line / To lure and capture me: There is a pun in the Persian; the word translated as “line” means both a line of handwriting and the thread of a snare to catch birds or small game.
pp. 72–3, Good wine, that doesn’t stupefy
These “pilgrims”: Almost certainly Sufis are meant.
pp. 74–5, The One who gave your lovely face its rosy
Farhad…Shirin: See the note to p. 32.
Qavam al-din: a governor of Kerman, in south-eastern Iran, and later the vizier of Shah Shoja, the son of Mobarez al-din. Qavam al-din was greatly esteemed by Hafez, who has a number of poems that mention him, and he was one of the poet’s patrons. Shah Shoja turned against Qavam and had him executed.
The poem begins apparently as a love lyric, but towards the end reveals itself as a lament for Qavam, and an impotent cry for “Justice” as Hafez clearly saw Qavam’s execution as unjust. This “swerve” in meaning and emotional direction is not unusual in medieval Persian lyric poetry (an Iranian friend once referred to it to me as “in the Persian DNA”), but Hafez tends to indulge in it more extensively and unexpectedly than most of his predecessors and contemporaries.
pp. 76–7, May I remember always when
This poem may be in memory of Hafez’s patron, Abu Es’haq, or it may be one of a number of poems by Hafez that imply he had once been very close to a young prince who is now neglecting him. The verse suggests both an erotic relationship and a prince-courtier one, and the two were often written of in terms of each other, so that it is sometimes difficult to decide which is the primary meaning; this ambiguity is certainly deliberate. The end of the poem implies that the friend/prince had taken a hand in revising and correcting Hafez’s poems.
Canopy: literally “parasol,” as used to shade a Middle Eastern prince, but the Bois de Boulogne connotations of “parasol” were too insistent, so I settled on “canopy.”
pp. 78–9, These preachers who make such a show
My master reigns among the ruins: The master is the wine-seller; the ruins are literal ruins or a tavern. See the note to p. 16.
The house / Where Magians meet: This is the wine-shop, while the “liquid that revives men’s hearts” is wine; the mystical interpretation is that the house is a Sufi meeting place, and the liquid that revives men’s hearts is the doctrines and practices of the Sufis. See also the note to pp. 2–3.
pp. 80–81, The nightingales are drunk, wine-red roses appear
men knew this and said, “Yes”: This refers to the pact made at creation when God asks mankind, “Am I not your lord?” and mankind answers, “Yes.” Hafez elaborates this as an assent to all the happiness and grief that living in the world entails.
Asef: the chief minister of King Solomon. Riding the wind and understanding the language of the birds were said to be among Solomon’s accomplishments.
pp. 84–5, Perhaps, my heart, the wine-shops’ doors
One of a number of poems by Hafez referring to the closing of the wine-shops by Mobarez al-din, who is the “ascetic” referred to in the second stanza. Grape’s fair child is wine, which has been “murdered” (i.e., banished). The metaphor is an elaboration of a long tradition in Persian poetry of the “murder” of the grape in order to make wine. “Grape’s fair child” and “daughter of the vine” (see the first line on p. 109) are both quite common periphrases for wine in Persian poetry. As in a number of poems, Hafez ends by saying he may wear a Sufi cloak at times but underneath he’s not “really” a Sufi at all.
pp. 86–7, We haven’t travelled to this door
Hafez, cast off this Sufi cloak: See the note to pp. 84–5.
pp. 90–91, Dear friends, that friend with whom we once
Like “May I remember always when” (pp. 76–7), this poem seems to refer to Hafez’s past relationship with a prince or powerful nobleman, who has now apparently forgotten him. The “friend” mentioned in the first line, and implicitly invoked throughout the poem, is probably Hafez himself.
pp. 92–3 It is the night of power
the night of power: This phrase refers to the night on which the first revelation of the Qur’an was made to the prophet Mohammad, by the angel Gabriel. Typically, Hafez suggests both religious and erotic meani
ngs as the poem goes forward.
pp. 96–7, Of all the roses in the world
The monastery / Where Magians live: Magians – Zoroastrians – did not have monasteries, so this cannot be meant literally. Given the association of “Magians” with wine, which is everywhere in Hafez’s poetry (see the note to pp. 2–3), the primary intended meaning is almost certainly a wine-shop/tavern. The mystical interpretation would be that this itself is a metaphor, for a Sufi meeting place.
See how the world’s bazaar pays cash: in distinction to religion’s “payment” of heaven, which is in the nature of a promissory note.
pp. 98–9, A loving friend, good wine, a place secure
My tears are ruby-red: Tears are often referred to as red in Persian poetry; the conceit is that it is blood that is wept. This motif turns up occasionally in European medieval poetry too (for example in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde).
Towards the end of the poem Hafez’s rhetoric becomes quite over the top, and the addressee responds in the final stanza with a remark that means, “Very seductive phrases, but you needn’t think I’m so stupid as to be taken in.”
pp. 100–101, Last night the wine-seller, a man
Venus dance in heaven: See the note to pp. 118–19.
Sorush: a pre-Islamic, Zoroastrian angel, who continued to be invoked in Persian poetry after Iran became a predominantly Moslem country. In the Moslem period he is often seen as giving those to whom he speaks insight into hidden truths.
And if your heart is red with blood: “Blood” here means “suffering,” so an equivalent would be: “And if you’re heart-broken.”
Asef: used generically for a powerful lord, particularly a king’s vizier or chief minister. See the note to pp. 80–81.
pp. 102–3, Love’s road’s an endless road
the new moon’s sliver: The new moon at the end of Ramadan, the month of fasting, is eagerly watched for, as it means the time of austerity is over.
pp. 104–5, My heart, good fortune is the only friend
our ancient Zoroastrian: See the note to pp. 2–3. His “precincts” are the wine-shop. The prayers mentioned toward the end of the poem can be taken as literal prayers, particularly if one reads the wine-shop and the wine mystically, but in a more secular interpretation they could also refer to wine drunk (or to love making) at night and then first thing in the morning (the morning draught of wine to clear one’s head, on the “hair of the dog” principle, is a commonplace of medieval Persian poetry).
pp. 106–7, Although our preacher might not like
he’s such a hypocrite: Hypocrisy is the unpardonable sin for Hafez, and he is the first significant medieval Persian poet to make his contempt for it such a prominent feature of his poetry.
pp. 108–9, When you drink wine, sprinkle
six directions: the geometrical directions an architect would use: right, left, up, down, forward, and backward.
daughter of the vine: See the note to pp. 84–5.
pp. 110–11, My heart was stolen by a lout
Sufi cloaks: See the note to pp. 36–7.
An angel has no notion…pour on Adam’s dust: The meaning is that love belongs to the human, not the angelic, world; angels know nothing about love, because they can’t suffer, and in discussing love it is Adam, as the first human, whom we should honor.
pp. 112–13, Good news! The days of grief and pain
doorman: the chamberlain who grants or denies access to a king.
Jamshid: a legendary pre-Islamic Persian king, famous among other things for his longevity.
pp. 114–15, I’ll say it openly, and be
both worlds: that is, this world and the world after death.
I am a bird from paradise: Hafez uses this metaphor in a number of poems; it was a stock motif in medieval Persian poetry.
This ruined monastery: a periphrasis for the world.
pp. 116–117, Ah, God forbid that I relinquish wine
Jamshid and Kavus: legendary pre-Islamic Persian kings.
pp. 118–19, Mild breeze of morning, gently tell
If Venus dances…Lord Jesus in the whirling dance: The planet/deity Venus is associated with music (her attribute is a harp or lute) and sensuality, Jesus with asceticism and spirituality; Venus is feminine, Jesus masculine; Venus as a deity belongs to the pre-Islamic, pagan world, Jesus represents a religion recognized by Islam as legitimate. Their dance, which Hafez implies his poetry brings about, is a uniting of the physical and the spiritual, the feminine and the masculine, the pagan and the religiously legitimate; it also represents the cosmic “dance” of the turning of the heavens. Presenting the “lesser” of two figures (here the pagan, the feminine, the sensual) as the guide of the one who is apparently the “superior” is common in Sufi anecdotes. Together with the association of Jesus with Venus, which would be somewhat shocking to the religiously orthodox, this gives a Sufi feeling to the end of the poem.
pp.122–3, My love’s for pretty faces
Don’t scare me with your fire – that is, with your warning of how much love burns, or with your threat of hell-fire, or both.
but I / Lack mirrors to array / Myself – that’s why I sigh: The last line (stanza in the translation) of this poem is obscure and has generated quite a lot of commentary. A mystical meaning would be that Hafez cannot prepare himself for the meeting with God (the common metaphor of the pure soul as a cleansed mirror seems to be involved, though exactly how is unclear). The line could also be read as saying “I lack recognition,” in which case it can be seen as a bid for patronage. Two other perhaps relevant bits of information are that in a Persian wedding the bride sees her husband for the first time in a mirror, and that a sigh clouds a mirror (clouding a mirror is a negative metaphor in Sufi terms, involving sin, but it is also a sign of life). The line has obviously been thought obscure from early on, since an alternative last line for the poem turns up in some manuscripts.
pp. 126–7, The musky morning breeze
Nightingale will bring / His passion to the rose: See the note to p. 8.
Ramadan: See the note to pp. 16–17.
pp. 128–129, If that Shirazi Turk would take
Bokhara and Samarqand: two major cities of southern central Asia, which grew wealthy in the middle ages due to their position on the silk road linking East Asian and European trade. From 1369 Samarqand was the capital of Timur the Lame’s (Tamburlaine’s) empire. This line gave rise to the legend that in a meeting between Hafez and Timur (who had conquered much of Iran by the late 1380s; Isfahan fell in 1387), the conqueror reproached the poet by saying “These are two of my most splendid cities, and you would give them away for some pretty boy’s mole?” Different versions of the anecdote record different witty responses by the poet to deflect Timur’s anger: one is that he replied, “It is this ridiculous generosity of mine that has made me so poor”; another supposed response involves puns on the names of the cities; the poet says that what he was really proposing to give away was dates (“khorma”) and sugar (“qand”). But by the time Timur was anywhere near Shiraz Hafez was in the very last years of his life, and though it is theoretically possible that they could have met it is extremely unlikely.
Mosalla and Roknabad: See the note to p. 32.
Alas, these rowdy, sweet-voiced gypsies: because orthodox Islam can be highly suspicious of music, musicians in medieval Iran were often non-Moslems (Gypsies were seen as, in origin at least, Indian pagans). Gypsies as musicians are recorded in the 11th-century Persian epic the Shahnameh; Gorgani’s romance, Vis and Ramin, from the same period, designates Jews as musicians. Music was thus linked with wine as something that was seen as the province of non-Muslims, and as Hafez shows a constant interest in both wine and music this reinforces the atmosphere of heterodox religious practices and beliefs that permeates much of his poetry.
Like Turks who make off with a feast’s / Leftovers… : this line has generated considerable commentary. By Hafez’s time, central Asian Turks had been slaves in
southern Iran for centuries, but many of the ruling families of Iran also claimed a central Asian Turkish origin, and the word Turk could imply either subservience or royal authority. The reputation of Turkish conquerors as being ruthless and cruel was often transferred by poets to the erotic sphere, with the beautiful Turk – Turks had a reputation for beauty, largely because of their pale skin-color – being seen as treating his (or her) suitor in the same manner. It has been suggested that the Turks despoiling the feast is a metaphor for Timur’s invasion of Iran, but other commentators have suggested a more mundane (and likely) explanation: “among some Turkomans it was the custom for the guests at a king’s feast to be allowed to carry off the golden and sliver plate used there, once the feast was over” (commentary by Dr. Khalil Khatib-Rahbar, Tehran 1364/1985). The same commentator quotes a verse by Sa’di that uses a similar metaphor to Hafez’s:
He has looted the heart of Sa’di and of the world
As men carry off the leavings of a king’s New Year feast.
To tempt Zuleikha to discard: Zuleikha is the woman known in the Bible as Potiphar’s wife, who attempted to seduce Joseph during his slavery in Egypt. As Joseph became the archetype of male beauty in Persian poetry, so Zuleikha became the archetype of one hopelessly in love with such beauty. The trope often has mystical overtones, with Joseph representing the beauty of God, and Zuleikha representing the human soul trapped in the world but longing for the divine. Sometimes though, as primarily here, Zuleikha simply represents reprehensible but all-too-understandable desire.
The pearl you’ve pierced is poetry’s: See the note to p. 14.
pp. 130–31, Flirtatious games, and youth
