Hafiz: Ghazal 36 "Arrest From Both Worlds" (From Persian)

Ghazal 36: Arrest From Both Worlds
By Hafiz
Translated by A.Z. Foreman

Go and mind your own business, preacher!  
What's all this ado?  
  It's true my heart has left your path 
  but what is that to you? 
Until his lips have played me like   
the flute I love to hear   
  The world's advice will be mere wind 
  abluster in my ear. 
There in his bodied being which God   
created out of naught   
  Is a crux that nobody in all 
  creation can unknot.      
A beggar in your street disdains     
eight heavens, and is not vexed.1   
  The captive your locks hold is free 
  of this world and the next.
Oh even if I have fallen wasted   
drunk on love for you,   
  My being built upon that waste 
  will stand forever true.  
Please heart, do not bewail the Friend's   
injustice and cruel whim.   
  This fate that Friend has meted out 
  is just for you from him.   
Go! No more cant or incantation,     
The tall tales that you tell....  
  I've heard that mummery before. 
  I know it all too well.2   

Notes:

1 - Eight heavens:  in medieval cosmology the earth was conceived as the center of the universe surrounded by eight concentric heavens or "eternal spheres" (khuld)

2 - I translated this last verse very freely. So much so, in fact, that I feel the need to make full disclosure in a footnote. The original literally reads:

  Go, and don't recite parables/fables or breathe (fraudulent) incantations, Hafiz:
  For of these tales and incantations I have many in memory.

A few points of note:

In Hafiz' lyrics, the word hāfiz suggests any one (or any combination) of a number of things, including a Qur'an-reciter who knows the holy book from memory, a singer of secular verses and the poet himself.

The direct address to hāfiz here in the final verse of the poem also parallels, and contrasts with, the address to a wā'iz or "preacher" in the first, both of which also begin with the imperative biraw "go, begone!" Hafiz in a handful of other poems contrasts hāfiz with wā'iz within a single verse, often as internal rhymes, and his poetic persona generally sees himself as the genuine antithesis of the disingenuous preacher. It stands to reason, therefore, that if Hafiz is addressing himself in the second person, his prohibitions are against doing as the preacher does.

"Breathing incantations" calls to mind "the women who breathe on knots" (al-naffāθātu fī l-ˁuqad) from the Qur'an, traditionally understood to be witches who blew on knots in order to induce magical spells, a pre-Islamic Arabian "pagan" practice condemned by Muhammad, implying that the voluble behavior being enjoined against (in my view implicitly attributed to the preacher one way or another) is itself beyond the bounds of proper conduct, and in a far more serious way than Hafiz' libertinism.          
I could go on for several paragraphs, but suffice it to say that the overall sentiment motivating these polysemous lines seems to me to be more or less something like this: "I should just be on my way, not sink to the level of the empty, ritualized, superstitious mumbo-jumbo of this well-regarded hypocrite of a preacher. I know this charlatan's material well enough to see through him. I know my scripture and my faith, and I don't need him to tell me what I ought to be doing. Sure, I may be flawed, and maybe I do love wine, boys and song a bit too much. But at least I'm not pretending to be perfect like this pietistic prick. God didn't make me what I am just so I could pretend to be what I'm not."
          



The Original:



برو به کار خود ای واعظ! این چه فریادست؟
مرا فتاد دل از ره، تو را چه افتادست؟
به کام تا نرساند مرا لبش چون نای
نصیحت همه عالم به گوشِ من باد است
میان او که خدا آفریده‌است از هیچ
دقیقه‌ایست که هیچ آفریده نگشادست
گدای کوی تو از هشت خُلدْ مستغنیست
اسیر عشق تو از هر دو عالم آزادست
اگر چه مستیِ عشقم خراب کرد ولی
اساس هستی من زآن خرابْ آبادست
دلا منال ز بیداد و جور یار، که یار
تو را نصیب همین کرد و این از آن دادست
برو فَسانه مخوان و فُسون مدم حافظ!
کز این فسانه و افسون مرا بَسی یادست


Tajik Cyrillic

Бирав ба кори худ, эй воиз, ин чӣ фарёд аст? 
Маро фитод дил аз раҳ, туро чӣ афтодаст? 
Ба ком то нарасонад маро лабаш, чун ной,
Насиҳати ҳама олам ба гӯши ман бод аст.
Миёни ӯ, ки Худо офарида аст аз ҳеҷ, 
Дақиқаест, ки ҳеҷ офарида накшодаст. 
Гадои кӯи ту аз ҳашт хулд мустағнист, 
Асири ишқи ту аз ҳар ду олам озод аст. 
Агарчи мастии ишқам хароб кард, вале 
Асоси ҳастии ман з-он хароб обод аст. 
Дило, манол зи бедоду ҷаври ёр, ки ёр 
Туро насиб ҳамин карду ин аз он дод аст. 
Бирав, фасона махону фусун мадам, Ҳофиз, 
К-аз ин фасонаву афсун маро басе ёд аст. 

Romanization:

Biraw ba kār-i xwad, ay wā'iz, īn či faryād ast?
Marā futād dil az rah, turā či uftād ast?
Ba kām tā narasānad marā labaš čūn nāy,
Nasīhat-i hama 'ālam ba gōš-i man bād ast. 
Miān-i ō, ki xudā āfarīda ast az hēč,
Daqīqaēst, ki hēč āfarīda nagšād ast.
Gadā-i kō-i to az hašt xuld mustaɣnīst,
Asīr-i 'išq-i to az har do 'ālam āzād ast.
Agar či mastī-i 'išqam xarāb kard, walē
Asās-i hastī-i man zān xarāb ābād ast.
Dilā manāl zi bēdād o jawr-i yār, ki yār
Turā nasīb hamīn kard o īn az ān dād ast.
Biraw fasāna maxwān o fusūn madam, hāfiz,
Kaz īn fasāna o afsūn marā basē yād ast.

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