Faces of Love: Hafez and the Poets of Shiraz Read online

  FACES OF LOVE

  HAFEZ AND THE POETS OF SHIRAZ

  Together, Hafez, a giant of world literature; Jahan Malek Khatun, an eloquent princess; and Obayd-e Zakani, a dissolute satirist, represent one of the most remarkable literary flowerings of any era. All three lived during the fourteenth century in the famed city of Shiraz, a provincial capital of south-central Iran, and all three drew support from arts-loving rulers during a time better known for its violence than its creative brilliance. Here Dick Davis, an award-winning poet and widely considered “our finest translator of Persian poetry” (The Times Literary Supplement), presents a diverse selection of some of the best poems by these world-renowned authors and shows us the spiritual and secular aspects of love, in varieties embracing every aspect of the human heart.

  PENGUIN CLASSICS DELUXE EDITION

  FACES OF LOVE

  A translator, eminent scholar, and acclaimed poet, Dick Davis is emeritus professor of Persian at Ohio State University. He received his PhD in Persian literature from the University of Manchester and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Davis has published more than twenty books. His other translations from Persian include Borrowed Ware: Medieval Persian Epigrams, The Legend of Seyavash, and several books for Penguin Classics: Vis and Ramin; Rostam; The Shahnameh, which was named one of the Ten Best Books of 2006 by The Washington Post; and, with Afkham Darbandi, The Conference of the Birds. He also edited Edward FitzGerald’s translation of Ruba’iyat of Omar Khayyam.

  Faces of Love

  HAFEZ AND THE POETS

  OF SHIRAZ

  Introduced and Translated by

  DICK DAVIS

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  First published in the United States of America by Mage Publishers 2012

  Published in Penguin Books 2013

  Copyright © Mage Publishers, 2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this product may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Some of these translations have previously appeared in Able Muse, Parnassus, Poetry, and the Raintown Review. The author is grateful to the National Endowment for the Arts for the award of a grant to translate the poems of Jahan Malek Khatun.

  THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE HARDCOVER EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

  Faces of love : Hafez and the poets of Shiraz / introduced

  and tanslated by Dick Davis.—1st hardcover ed.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

  ISBN: 978-1-101-62717-4

  1. Persian poetry—747–1500—Translations into English. 2. Hafiz, 14th cent.—Translations

  into English. 3. Jahan Malik Khatun, 14th cent.—Translations into English. 4. ‘Ubayd

  Zakani, Nizam al-Din, d. ca. 1370—Translations into English. I. Davis, Dick. II. Hafiz,

  14th cent. Divan. English. Selections. III. Jahan Malik Khatun, 14th cent. Divan. English.

  Selections. VI. ‘Ubayd Zakani, Nizam al-Din, d. ca. 1370 Poems. English. Selections.

  PK6449.E5F33 2012

  891’.5511—dc23 2012016581

  For Afkham, Najmieh and Mohammad,

  Mariam and Mehri, Zal and Rostam

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Translator

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Map: Shiraz and Places Mentioned in the Text

  Introduction

  The Pronunciation of Persian Names

  POEMS

  Hafez

  My friend, hold back your heart from enemies,

  However old, incapable,

  Last night she brought me wine, and sat beside my pillow;

  A flower, without a friend’s face there, I think

  I see no love in anyone,

  The orchard charms our hearts, and chatter when

  Sweet lips and silver ears – that idol’s elegance

  Come, boy, and pass the wine around –

  No one has seen your face, and yet

  To tell you now my poor heart’s state

  Thanks be to God now that the wine-shop door

  Wine in my glass, and roses in my arms,

  Go, mind your own business, preacher! What’s all

  Welcome, sweet flower, no one’s

  Come, so that we can scatter flowers

  A corner of the wine-shop is

  Come, tell me what it is that I have gained

  Those days when loving friends would meet –

  Lost Joseph will return to Canaan’s land again

  Last night, news of my departed friend

  What’s all this hiding happiness and wine away?

  I’ve known the pains of love’s frustration – ah, don’t ask!

  That you’re a pious prig by nature

  I saw the green fields of the sky,

  What’s sweeter than a garden and good talk

  Last night I saw the angels

  For years my heart inquired of me

  Last night, at dawn, in my distress, salvation

  When my love lifts his glass,

  Plant friendship’s tree – the heart’s desire

  To give up wine, and human beauty? And to give up love?

  That busybody criticizes me

  Drink wine down by the glassful, and you’ll tear

  My love for you is like a youthful tree

  At dawn, upon the breeze, I caught

  Do you know what our harps and lutes advise us,

  What memories! I once lived on

  Though wine is pleasurable, and though the breeze

  May your dear body never need

  To have my heart achieve its goal

  You’ve sent no word of how you are

  Not every Sufi’s trustworthy, or pure in spirit,

  Good news, my heart! The breath of Christ is wafting here

  My love has sent no letter for

  Good wine, that doesn’t stupefy,

  The one who gave your lovely face its rosy

  May I remember always when

  These preachers who make such a show

  The nightingales are drunk, wine-red roses appear,

  Moslems, time was I had a heart –

  Perhaps, my heart, the wine-shops’ doors

  We haven’t traveled to this door

  I said, “The grief I feel is all for you”;

  Dear friends, that friend with whom we once

  It is the night of power,

  Life’s garden flourishes when your

  Of all the roses in the world

  A loving friend, good wine, a place secure

  Last night the wine-seller, a man

  Love’s road’s an endless road

  My heart, good fortune is the only friend

  Although our preacher might not like

  When you drink wine, sprinkle

  My heart was stolen by a lout,

  Good news! The days of grief and pain

  I’ll say it openly, and be

  Ah, God forbid that I relinquish wine

  Mild breeze
of morning, gently tell

  Where is the news we’ll meet, that from

  My love’s for pretty faces,

  My body’s dust is as a veil

  The musky morning breeze

  If that Shirazi Turk would take

  Flirtatious games, and youth,

  A black mole graced his face; he stripped, and shone

  Desire’s destroyed my life; what gifts have I

  What does life give me in the end but sorrow?

  Each friend turned out to be an enemy,

  With wine beside a gently flowing brook – this is best;

  Jahan Malek Khatun

  For most of these long nights I stay awake

  How long will you be like

  O God, I beg you, open wide

  Each new flower opening in the morning light,

  My heart will take no drug to dull this pain,

  I didn’t know my value then, when I

  Heart, in his beauty’s garden, I –

  If you should kiss me with

  My heart is tangled like thick curls

  Sweet breeze return to me, you bear

  Your face usurps the fiery glow and hue

  From now on I have sworn

  How sweet sleep is! I dreamed I saw

  Come here a moment, sit with me, don’t sleep tonight,

  How can I tell you what I want from you

  At dawn my heart said I should go

  Suppose a breeze should bring to me

  O God, be kind, and open wide your door,

  My friend, who was so kind and faithful once,

  Have all your feelings for me gone?

  It will be God who opens up,

  How sweet those days when we were still

  How would it be, my soul’s love, if you healed

  In all the world, my love,

  Why is it you neglect me so? Why is it

  Most people in the world want power and money,

  His glances trap my heart within their snare,

  Why, in your heart, have you forgotten me

  You don’t know how you ought to treat a lover,

  Your face is like a shining sun,

  I am still drunk that you were here,

  I know you think that there are other friends for me than you:

  How long will heaven’s heartless tyranny

  Last night I dreamed I saw with fortune’s eyes

  The roses have all gone; “goodbye,” we say; we must;

  Here, in the corner of a ruined school

  I swore I’d never look at him again,

  You wandered through my garden, naked and alone –

  Wherever my eyes look I see your image there,

  Last night, my love, my life, you lay with me,

  My love’s an ache no ointments can allay now;

  I told my heart, “Ican’t endure this tyranny!

  My heart, sit down, welcome love’s pain,

  I feel so heart-sick. Should my doctor hear,

  Your face’s absence leaves mine waxy-white,

  I’m like the moth that flutters round a light

  Always, whatever else you do, my heart,

  My heart, if you have words you need to say,

  What has this life we long for given me? Tell me.

  When someone is imprisoned for a while

  A picnic at the desert’s edge, with witty friends,

  To see the blossom of his face, my heart – how sweet;

  A happy heart’s the place for plans and piety,

  If I can’t even get beyond your door,

  Pity the wretch, forced from her native land,

  Shall I complain of absence? Of my heart? Or of the skies?

  Laughing, the rose said to the nightingale one day,

  My enemies’ glib lies are never done –

  Shiraz when spring is here – what pleasure equals this?

  Obayd-e Zakani

  In arts and sciences, don’t try to be a master,

  I’ve set out from shiraz, I’ve put

  My hurt heart’s tales, my nights’ travails, ah, where

  The breeze of Mosalla, and Roknabad’s

  Here in our corner, wretched and undone,

  If that full moon were true and good,

  Devil, and then angel – is it the same you?

  I’m off to stroll through the bazaar – and there

  This tool of mine that’s taller than our minaret

  I’d like a boy to fuck – but I can’t pay;

  I’ve debts, and nothing else: endless

  My heart still hankers after her,

  Some are on fire for faith’s sake, some to see

  After forty your sprightly days are done,

  Where is Shiraz’s wine, that burned our grief away?

  Her pussy had the kindness to invite

  O God, sole help of men in misery,

  My pretty dear, you’re still too young to make

  Pussy remarked, “this prick’s a masterpiece,

  This nonsense-spouting doctor couldn’t see

  I’ll fix this hangover, then find a whore

  It’s summer, and my prick’s too hot today,

  My prick’s a cypress that grows tall and straight

  Ramadan’s come – the time for passing wine around

  Although the ass can be enticing and attractive

  An individual fucked with all his might

  Well, once upon a time, in dribs and drabs,

  Try hard to have men make a fuss of you

  The Lesson to Be Learned from the End of King Sheikh Abu Es’haq

  Cat and Mouse

  Explanatory Notes

  Appendix: Poems on Translating Hafez

  1. Translating Hafez: Northwest Frontier, 1880s

  2. Translating Hafez, or Trying To

  3. A Daniel Come to Judgment (or Fal-e Hafez)

  Index of English First Lines

  Index of Persian First Lines

  Introduction

  Shiraz is the capital of Fars, the southern central province of Persia/Iran that was the home of two of its greatest pre-Islamic imperial dynasties, the Achaemenids, who established the Persian Empire and are known in western history as the Asian antagonists of ancient Greece, and the Sasanians, who fought against Rome and Byzantium until their empire was destroyed during the Arab/Islamic conquest of the country in the seventh century. During this pre-Islamic period, Shiraz was a place of very minor importance, overshadowed at first by the nearby Achaemenid palace of Persepolis, and later, when this fell into ruin, by the imperial city of Estakhr. Shiraz, at this time though, does have one claim to fame; it is one of the archaeological sites that show the earliest traces of systematic wine-making in the Near East. It was not until the Islamic period that Shiraz became the capital of the province; this seems to have been a deliberate strategy on the part of the Islamic conquerors, as the more established towns of southern Iran, like Estakhr and Isfahan, were for a long time fiercely resistant to their new rulers, and also for a while to the new religion that they brought with them.

  The green, fertile plain on which Shiraz is located is admirably suited for agriculture, including wine production, and this is in stark contrast to the aridity of much of the Persian landscape. The city nestles at the foot of the Zagros Mountains, and its elevation of over 5,000 feet above sea-level has ensured it a comparatively mild and equable climate compared with much of the rest of Iran. The pass through the mountains to the north affords a sudden sight of the city lying below in its green splendor; in the Middle Ages, this view was thought to be so strikingly beautiful that the pass became known by the name “Allahu Akbar” (“God is Great”), from the phrase travellers were said to shout out when they saw Shiraz and its orchards and gardens spread out below them.

  Shiraz prospered in the medieval period; it became a trading center with direct links to the Persian Gulf to the south, and so to imported goods from India and the Arabian peninsula, and its merchant class, centered on the city’s b
azaar, became wealthy and important in the government of Fars. Its commercial life was not unlike that of the great mercantile cities of medieval Italy, such as Venice and Genoa, although on a more modest scale, because Shiraz for a long time remained a comparatively small city. As in its Italian counterparts, at the highest levels of society the city’s wealth resulted in a great deal of artistic patronage, and the efflorescence of a culture of self-conscious luxury and elegance. One result of this artistic patronage was the development of a distinctively Shirazi school of poetry; in the thirteenth century the Shirazi poet Sa’di (c.1213–92) was considered the greatest living Persian poet, and from this time on Shiraz’s reputation as a city of poetry was assured. Sa’di was followed by various other poets associated with the city, including Khaju Kermani (1280–1352), who, despite his name, which identifies him as coming from the city of Kerman, made his home in Shiraz, and whose poetry provides a kind of link between that of Sa’di and that of Hafez and his contemporaries. Khaju’s poetry has had the unfortunate fate of being overshadowed by the work of both his illustrious predecessor, and his even more illustrious successor. Some of the great families of the city were also known for their interest in Sufism, the heterodox mysticism of Islam, and the Sufism and the poetry often tended to become mixed up with one another, which is not surprising as it was the wealthy who provided poets with patronage. This literary Sufism has varying degrees of seriousness in the work of different poets: sometimes it seems sincere, and central to what the poet is saying; sometimes it can seem little more than the deployment of a fashionable rhetoric.

  The three Shirazi poets whose work is featured in this book, Hafez, Jahan Malek Khatun, and Obayd-e Zakani, lived at the same time (the mid fourteenth century), and certainly knew of one another – Obayd wrote at least two poems about Jahan Khatun, and Jahan Khatun quotes Hafez in one of her poems. It’s extremely likely that, during the 1340s and early 1350s at least, they also knew one another personally. The poetic life of the city during this period centered on the court of the ruling family, the Injus; Jahan Khatun was an Inju princess, while her uncle, Abu Es’haq, the head of the family and the ruler of the city, was a great patron of poets. Both Hafez and Obayd were among the recipients of his patronage (they each wrote praise poems dedicated to him), and both are likely to have been frequent visitors at his court. Perhaps because her parents had no sons, Jahan Khatun had received what was then an unusual education for a woman, even an aristocratic one – she had been taught to read and write, and was a highly accomplished poet whose verses brought her a local fame. The women of the largely Mongol families that ruled Iran during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and which included the Inju dynasty, were much less secluded than was usual in other Moslem courts of the period, and they often took an active part in their courts’ social life; it seems reasonable to assume that a princess who had access to her uncle’s court, and who wrote poetry, would make sure that she was there whenever Hafez – the most famous poet of the town, not to say the whole of Iran – was present. Whether she enjoyed the company of Obayd-e Zakani is more doubtful. His verses about her are not at all complimentary, and he was famous for the satirical, scabrous, and often obscene nature of his poetry; even the relatively easygoing Injus might have thought his company was a bit much for a well-brought-up young woman. Still, it is likely that Jahan Khatun and Obayd had an at least nodding acquaintance, as Obayd too was, for a while, a member of the poetic gatherings convened by Jahan Khatun’s uncle, Abu Es’haq.