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56 pages

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Connoisseurs of world literature need to spend some time acquainting themselves with the Divan of Hafiz, one of the foremost collections of Persian verse. Scholars agree this volume has exerted a singularly important influence on Middle Eastern culture, akin to Shakespeare's role in the sphere of Western letters.

Sujets

Mysticism

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 juillet 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781775458234
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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THE DIVAN OF HAFIZ
* * *
HAFIZ
Translated by
H. BICKNELL

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The Divan of Hafiz From a 1909 edition ISBN 978-1-77545-823-4 © 2012 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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Note Introduction Fragment by Hafiz The Divan I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII XIX XX XXI XXII XXIII XXIV XXV XXVI XXVII XXVIII XXIX XXX XXXI XXXII XXXIII XXXIV XXXV XXXVI XXXVII XXXVIII XXXIX XL XLI XLII Endnotes
Note
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The reader will be struck with the apparent want of unity in many of theOdes. The Orientals compare each couplet to a single pearl and theentire "Ghazal," or Ode, to a string of pearls. It is the rhyme, notnecessarily the sense, which links them together. Hence the singlepearls or couplets may often be arranged in various orders withoutinjury to the general effect; and it would probably be impossible tofind two manuscripts either containing the same number of Odes, orhaving the same couplets following each other in the same order.
Introduction
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We are told in the Persian histories that when Tamerlane, on hisvictorious progress through the East, had reached Shiraz, he haltedbefore the gates of the city and sent two of his followers to search inthe bazar for a certain dervish Muhammad Shams-ad-din, better known tothe world by the name of Hafiz. And when this man of religion, wearingthe simple woollen garment of a Sufi, was brought into the presence ofthe great conqueror, he was nothing abashed at the blaze of silks andjewelry which decorated the pavilion where Tamerlane sat in state. AndTamerlane, meeting the poet with a frown of anger, said, "Art not thouthe insolent verse-monger who didst offer my two great cities Samarkandand Bokhara for the black mole upon thy lady's cheek?" "It is true,"replied Hafiz calmly, smiling, "and indeed my munificence has been sogreat throughout my life, that it has left me destitute, so that I shallbe hereafter dependent upon thy generosity for a livelihood." The replyof the poet, as well as his imperturbable self-possession, pleased theAsiatic Alexander, and he dismissed Hafiz with a liberal present.
This story, we are told, cannot be true, for Tamerlane did not reachShiraz until after the death of the greatest of Persian lyric poets; butif it is not true in fact, it is true in spirit, and gives the real keyto the character of Hafiz. For we must look upon Hafiz as one of the fewpoets in the world who utters an unbroken strain of joy and contentment.His poverty was to him a constant fountain of satisfaction, and hefrankly took the natural joys of life as they came, supported underevery vicissitude by his religious sense of the goodness and kindlinessof the One God, manifested in everything in the world that was sweet andgenial, and beautiful to behold. It is strange that we have to go to theliterature of Persia to find a poet whose deep religious convictionswere fully reconciled with the theory of human existence which wasnothing more or less than an optimistic hedonism. There is nothingparallel to this in classic literature. The greatest of RomanEpicureans, the materialist, whose maxim was: enjoy the present forthere is no God, and no to-morrow, speaks despairingly of that drop ofbitterness, which rises in the fountain of Delight and brings torture,even amid the roses of the feast. It is with mocking irony that Danteplaces Epicurus in the furnace-tombs of his Inferno amid thoseheresiarchs who denied the immortality of the soul. Hafiz was anEpicurean without the atheism or the despair of Epicurus. The roses inhis feast are ever fresh and sweet and there is nothing of bitterness inthe perennial fountain of his Delight. This unruffled serenity, thisjoyful acceptance of material existence and its pleasures are not in thePersian poet the result of the carelessness and shallowness of Horace,or the cold-blooded worldliness and sensuality of Martial. The theory oflife which Hafiz entertained was founded upon the relation of the humansoul to God. The one God of Sufism was a being of exuberant benignity,from whose creative essence proceeded the human soul, whose experienceson earth were intended to fit it for re-entrance into the circle oflight and re-absorption into the primeval fountain of being. Inaccordance with the beautiful and pathetic imagery of the Mystic, lifewas merely a journey of many stages, and every manifestation of lifewhich the traveller met on the high road was a manifestation and a giftof God Himself. Every stage on the journey towards God which the soulmade in its religious experience was like a wayside inn in which to restawhile before resuming the onward course. The pleasures of life, allthat charmed the eye, all that gratified the senses, every draught thatintoxicated, and every fruit that pleased the palate, were, in thepantheistic doctrine of the Sufi considered as equally good, because Godwas in each of them, and to partake of them was therefore to be unitedmore closely with God. Never was a theology so well calculated to put torest the stings of doubt or the misgivings of the pleasure-seeker. Thistheology is of the very essence of Hafiz's poetry. It is in fullreliance on this interpretation of the significance of human existencethat Hafiz faces the fierce Tamerlane with a placid smile, plungeswithout a qualm into the deepest abysses of pleasure, finds in thelove-song of the nightingale the voice of God, and in the bright eyes ofwomen and the beaker brimming with crimson wine the choicest sacramentsof life, the holiest and the most sublime intermediaries between divineand human life.
It is this that makes Hafiz almost the only poet of unadulteratedgladsomeness that the world has ever known. There is no shadow in hissky, no discord in his music, no bitterness in his cup. He passesthrough life like a happy pilgrim, singing all the way, mounting in hisown way from strength to strength, sure of a welcome when he reaches thegoal, contented with himself, because every manifestation of life ofwhich he is conscious must be the stirrings within him of that divinityof which he is a portion. When we have thus spoken of Hafiz we have saidalmost all that is known of the Persian lyric poet, for to know Hafiz wemust read his verses, whose magic charm is as great for Europeans as forAsiatics. The endless variety of his expressions, the deep earnestnessof his convictions, the persistent gayety of his tone, are qualities ofirresistible attractiveness. Even to this day his tomb is visited as theMecca of literary pilgrims, and his numbers are cherished in the memoryand uttered on the tongue of all educated Persians. The particulars ofhis life may be briefly epitomized as follows: He was born at Shiraz inthe early part of the fourteenth century, dying in the year 1388. Thename Hafiz means, literally, the man who remembers, and was applied tohimself by Hafiz from the fact that he became a professor of theMohammedan scriptures, and for this purpose had committed to memory thetext of the Koran. His manner of life was not approved of by thedervishes of the monastic college in which he taught, and he satirizeshis colleagues in revenge for their animadversions. The whole Mohammedanworld hailed with delight the lyrics which Hafiz published to the world,and kings and rulers vied with each other in making offers to him ofhonors and hospitality. At one time he started for India on theinvitation of a great Southern Prince, who sent a vessel to meet him onthe way, but the hardships of the sea were too severe for him, and hemade his way back to Shiraz without finishing his journey.
His out-and-out pantheism, as well as his manner of life, caused him athis death to be denied burial in consecrated ground. The ecclesiasticalauthorities were, however, induced to relent in their plan ofexcommunication at the dictates of a passage from the poet's writings,which was come upon by opening the book at random. The passage ran asfollows: "Turn not thy feet from the bier of Hafiz, for though immersedin sin, he will be admitted into Paradise." And so he rests in thecemetery at Shiraz, where the nightingales are singing and the rosesbloom the year through, and the doves gather with low murmurs amid thewhite stones of the sacred enclosure. The poets of nature, the mysticalpantheist, the joyous troubadour of life, Hafiz, in the naturalness andspontaneity of his poetry, and in the winning sweetness of his imagery,occupies a unique place in the literature of the world, and has no rivalin his special domain.
Fragment by Hafiz
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In Praise of His Verses.
The beauty of these verses baffles praise: What guide is needed to the solar blaze?