Hafiz

Excerpt from "A Question of Presence," written by our friend, Sergio Antonio

Hafiz is a medieval Persian poet, almost contemporary with Dante. He is a conscious man.

In countries like Iran where Farsi is spoken, everyone knows his poems by heart, even the illiterate; they quote them as proverbs and use them to divine the future.

He is the greatest of the Persian poets, and also the most difficult. Those accustomed to Rumi's poetry—always immediately accessible—remain bewildered by Hafiz' mysterious verses. His technique is to proceed by couplets, or pairs of verses, that constantly change subject, point of view, and time, in a collage of seemingly chaotic images that leave the intellectual center stunned, and force the reader to either give up the attempt to understand or use a higher faculty.

Reading one of his poems resembles inner work: no path is indicated; one must be open and know how to improvise. One can guess little by little, understand in flashes. The deep unity that hides behind this apparent chaos of overlapping snapshots must be divined. Almost all the images that continually return in these poems, such as the nightingale and the rose, the lover and the beloved, the wine, the cup, the prayer mat, the caravan, the Sufi, the tavern, are well-known codes in all ancient Persian poetry.

Translating from the Persian is almost impossible, and translating Hafiz from the Persian is completely impossible. Yet I cannot deprive you of this great poet, not inferior to Shakespeare or Dante. It is from this tradition that the Stil novo poets such as Dante borrowed language and symbols.

Let's be content with what we can gather from this beautiful translation.

A word of advice: take it one sip at a time, like a good tea. Read it out loud, slowly, one couplet at a time, stopping between each one.

I've always said it, I'll say it again:

I, a vagabond, do not deviate from myself.

I am like a parrot; the mirror is in front of me;

what the Master of Eternity says, stammering I repeat.

Ah Sufi, how can you think that I would abandon a love like this for a

pitiful cliché?

Stop squeezing the grapes in the glass.

I, Sufi, may have been wrong, but maybe I'm right:

Hafiz must follow his path, and in her red lips meet his heavenly food.

If you must speak, speak another day: but not tonight . . .

Beloved, don't blame him if, looking for relief,

the sanctuary of his heart in ruins,

protecting the precious treasure of his sentence,

brings Hafiz to the delightful tavern door;

but Hafiz has no shame of shame;

if the world had an immaculate name

Hafiz, he'd really be ashamed to use it.

Call him a wine drinker and an adulterer.

What else? He won't say no to you.

Love is a sea without shores

and in this limitless sea there is no help.

He who sets sail never again turns his gaze to the land; and yet, I am happy

to set sail on this voyage,

because it's wonderful to sail in this sea.

What does it matter if even the longest travel comes to an end,

who cares if the most majestic of ships eventually sinks

my love is with me in the same great big ship

and when she goes down, I'm going down, too.

__

Arise, oh Cup-bearer, rise! and bring

To lips that are thirsting the bowl they praise,

For it seemed that love was an easy thing,

But my feet have fallen on difficult ways.

I have prayed the wind o'er my heart to fling

The fragrance of musk in her hair that sleeps

In the night of her hair—yet no fragrance stays

The tears of my heart's blood my sad heart weeps.

Hear the Tavern-keeper who counsels you:

"With wine, with red wine your prayer carpet dye!"

There was never a traveller like him but knew

The ways of the road and the hostelry.

Where shall I rest, when the still night through,

Beyond thy gateway, oh Heart of my heart,

The bells of the camels lament and cry:

"Bind up thy burden again and depart!"

The waves run high, night is clouded with fears,

And eddying whirlpools clash and roar;

How shall my drowning voice strike their ears

Whose light-freighted vessels have reached the shore?

I sought mine own; the unsparing years

Have brought me mine own, a dishonoured name.

What cloak shall cover my misery o'er

When each jesting mouth has rehearsed my shame!

Oh Hafiz, seeking an end to strife,

Hold fast in thy mind what the wise have writ:

"If at last thou attain the desire of thy life,

Cast the world aside, yea, abandon it!”

Two pages from the manuscript of Hafiz Shirazi’s Divan, Treasury of the National Library and Museum of Malek, Tehran.