… Hafez / Hafiz (some stuff I found helpful from Wikipedia too):
Khwāja
Shamsu d-Dīn Muhammad Hāfez-e Shīrāzī (Persian:
خواجه
شمس دین محمد حافظ شیرازی),
known by his pen name
Hāfez
(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. The question of whether his work is to be interpreted literally, mystically or both, has been a source of concern and contention to western scholars.[15] On the one hand, some of his early readers such as William Jones saw in him a conventional lyricist similar to European love poets such as Petrarch.[16] Others such as Wilberforce Clarke saw him as purely a poet of didactic, ecstatic mysticism in the manner of Rumi, a view which modern scholarship has come to reject.[17] This confusion stems from the fact that, early in Persian literary history, the poetic vocabulary was usurped by mystics who believed that the ineffable could be better approached in poetry than in prose. In composing poems of mystic content, they imbued every word and image with mystical undertones, thereby causing mysticism and lyricism to essentially converge into a single tradition. As a result, no fourteenth century Persian poet could write a lyrical poem without having a flavor of mysticism forced on it by the poetic vocabulary itself.[18][19] While some poets, such as Ubayd Zakani, attempted to distance themselves from this fused mystical-lyrical tradition by writing satires, Hafez embraced the fusion and thrived on it. W.M. Thackston has said of this that Hafez "sang a rare blend of human and mystic love so balanced...that it is impossible to separate one from the other."[20] For this reason among others, the history of the translation of Hāfez has been a complicated one, and few translations into western languages have been wholly successful. Divan of Hafez, Persian miniature, 1585. One of the figurative gestures for which he is most famous (and which is among the most difficult to translate) is īhām or artful punning. Thus a word such as gowhar which could mean both "essence, truth" and "pearl" would take on both meanings at once as in a phrase such as "a pearl/essential truth which was outside the shell of superficial existence". Hafez often took advantage of the aforementioned lack of distinction between lyrical, mystical and panegyric writing by using highly intellectualized, elaborate metaphors and images so as to suggest multiple possible meanings. This may be illustrated via a couplet from the beginning of one of Hafez' poems. Last night, from the cypress branch, the nightingale sang, In Old Persian tones, the lesson of spiritual stations. The cypress tree is a symbol both of the beloved and of a regal presence. The nightingale and birdsong evoke the traditional setting for human love. The "lessons of spiritual stations" suggest, obviously, a mystical undertone as well. (Though the word for "spiritual" could also be translated as "intrinsically meaningful.") Therefore, the words could signify at once a prince addressing his devoted followers, a lover courting a beloved and the reception of spiritual wisdom.[21]
Hafez Poem
Hafez Poem
By: Gertrude Bell, 1897
LAST night I dreamed that angels stood without
The tavern door, and knocked in vain, and wept;
They took the clay of Adam, and, methought,
Moulded a cup therewith while all men slept.
Oh dwellers in the halls of Chastity!
You brought Love's passionate red wine to me,
Down to the dust I am, your bright feet stept.
For Heaven's self was all too weak, to bear
The burden of His love God laid on it,
He turned to seek a messenger elsewhere,
And in the Book of Fate my name was writ.
Between my Lord and me such concord lies.
As makes the Huris glad in Paradise,
With songs of praise through the green glades they flit.
A hundred dreams of Fancy's garnered store
Assail me - Father Adam went astray
Tempted by one poor grain of corn! Wherefore
Absolve and pardon him that turns away
Though the soft breath of Truth reaches his ears,
For two-and-seventy Jangling creeds he hears,
And loud-voiced Fable calls him ceaselessly.
That, that is not the flame of Love's true fire
Which makes the torchlight shadows dance in rings,
But where the radiance draws the moth's desire
And send him fort with scorched and drooping wings.
The heart of one who dwells retired shall break,
Rememb'ring a black mole and a red cheek,
And his life ebb, sapped at its secret springs.
Yet since the earliest time that man has sought
To comb the locks of Speech, his goodly bride,
Not one, like Hafiz, from the face of Thought
Has torn the veil of Ignorance aside.
Hafiz Poem
By: Abbas Aryanpur Kashani
From: Odes of Hafiz, Poetical Horoscope
The angels knocked at the tavern-door last night,
With man's clay, they kneaded the cup outright.
The dwellers of God's heavenly abode,
Drank wine with me - a beggar of the road.
Heaven could not bear this wonderful trust,
That to a madman this honor was thrust.
Disputes of religions is but a false pretense,
Having not seen the Truth, they speak nonsense.
Thank God! There is peace between Him and me.
So dancing mystics took their cups with glee.
What makes the candle laughing isn't a flame.
The fire that burned the butterfly is my aim.
No one can display thoughts as Hafiz can,
No such words are written by the pen of man.
Try your hand at a response to this poem of love,
drink deep to the One who gives all good things from above,
and humanity from the soil or clay or dust
of earth, and yet who knocks, to eat & drink with us:
(Have a go yourself, & then post it:)
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