Solati, Bahman

Repositorio Documental de la Universidad de Valladolid

The fourteenth-century Persian poet Hafiz was, without a doubt, one ofthe world’s greatest poets of love. His verses brilliantly express desire and pas-sion, both divine and human. He frequently invites his admirers to engage inthe art of loving and caring for others. His advice to mankind is to avoid all butlove, its lament and its madness:Seek not from us anything within the boundaries of sanity,For the Master of our order knew rationality to be sin.(Divān, Khanleri, ed., vol. 1, g 48, v. 4). Hafiz’s genius in the composition of ghazals (love lyrics) overshadowsthat of other giants of Persian poetry such as Rumi, ‘A.t.tār, Khāju¯, and Salmān.In fact, the only composer of ghazals who can be compared to him is Sa’di.Hafiz’s mystical ghazals speak of both divine and worldly love, and the inebri-ating union with the heavenly beloved. Hafiz uses wine as the symbol for intox-© Fatiso Herme¯neus, TI, 17, pp. 351-354Parvin Loloi and William Oxley, Poems from the Divan of Hafiz,Acumen Publications, 6 The Mount, Higher Furzeham, Brixham,South Devon, TQ5 8QY, U.K., 2013, 82pp. Bahman SOLATIUniversity of California, BerkeleyISSN: 1139-7489icating love. More vigorously than most of his contemporaries, Hafiz decriedthe hypocrisy and sham that existed in the society of his time (as it has in allsocieties, ensuring the continuing relevance of this aspect of his work). Hafiz’spopularity and his influence on Persian literature, language, and culture areenormous. Despite the magnitude of his contribution, the historical details weknow of his life are exceptionally vague, and the brief references found intadhkiras (anthologies with biographical sketches) are often unreliable andsometimes even fabricated. This dearth of reliable information has persuadedsome scholars and researchers to use Hafiz’s poetry as a reference for factualdetails about his life and historical milieu, sometimes to an unreasonabledegree. The earliest surviving document about Hafiz is an introduction toHafiz’s Divān (or collection of works) written by one of his contemporaries,who was widely believed to have been named Mu.hammad Gulandām. Howev-er, scholars are still uncertain about the true identity of the author as well as theaccuracy of the text. Most sources do agree about Hafiz’s given name, Shamsal-Din Mu.hammad. They also believe that the pen name “Hafiz”–a title gener-ally bestowed on those who had a vast knowledge of the Qur’ān and had mem-orized it as well as to those who had immense knowledge of music andrhyme–is reasonably correct. The frequent echoes of Qur’ānic expressions andreferences in Hafiz’s poems reflect this deep understanding. Information aboutHafiz’s immediate family either comes from sources written after his death thatare considered unreliable, or is based on speculation derived from often exag-geratedly literal readings of his poetry. One of the foremost challenges Persian poetry poses to the untrainedreader is its mysticism. Mystics realized many centuries ago that they could“describe the indescribable” in poetry far more successfully than in prose. Toescape the limitations of the poetic vocabulary that had built up by that time,they filled every word with mystical significance. What originated as intoxi-cating wine became the “wine of union with the divine beloved” on which themystic is “infinitely love-drunk.” Stunning young sāqīs (cupbearers) withwhom one might like to linger became shāhids (witnesses to the alluring beau-ty of the eternal beloved). After the mystics had thus infused the poetic vocab-ulary, every word developed such profound associated meaning from lyricismand mysticism that the two combined into one. Of course, some poets wrotepoetry that was clearly and distinctly mystical; in fact, it is much more difficultto identify poetry that is not mystical. It is pointless to ask, for instance,whether Hafiz’s poetry is “Sufi poetry” or not. In reality, in the fourteenth cen-352© Fatiso Herme¯neus, TI, 17, pp. 351-354BAHMAN SOLATIPARVIN LOLOI AND WILLIAM OXLEY, POEMS FROM THE DIVAN…tury it was difficult to write a ghazal that did not resonate with mysticalnuances enforced by the poetic vocabulary itself.For centuries, translators and scholars have found Hafiz’s poemsalmost impossible to render into other languages without losing either theirmusic or their profound meaning. Hafiz’s poems are fairly easy to understand,and yet almost every line poses a problem, either of ambiguity or of apparentdisconnection to the line that follows. Such are the difficulties that scholars andtranslators face in writing on and translating Hafiz’s poetry. An additional for-midable obstacle to overcome, for translators of Hafiz (or any other Persianpoet) is the fact that the Persian language has only one pronoun to indicate thethird-person singular.More than most of their predecessors, Parvin Loloi and William Oxleyhave broken through these obstacles in their translations from the Divān ofHafiz. While managing to preserve most of the meaning in their translations,they have also succeeded in giving the poems some rhyme and preserved agood deal of the poetic tempo. Although Loloi and Oxley admit that their trans-lations are far from perfect–quoting James Howell, they humorously and prop-erly compare translation of Persian poetry into English to the act of “presentingthe reverse side of an oriental carpet”– they nonetheless have created animpressively original work. Throughout Poems from the Divan of Hafiz, onesenses the harmony, mutual understanding, and expertise of two translators (ascholar and a poet) combining their talents, skills, and efforts to produce trans-lations that are obviously a work of poetic scholarship in the best and highestsense.Furthermore, while academics will want to compare these translationswith other contemporary and earlier (and often outdated) versions, Poems fromthe Divan of Hafiz will also be a pleasurable read for laypersons unfamiliar withPersian poetry. The poems are well presented and their beautiful ambiguity isto a degree preserved, even if compared to that of the originals, it is inevitablysomewhat reduced.The book is made up of an introduction, a “Note on Translating Hafiz,”ghazals, que.ta’āt, “The Song of the Sāqī” (Sāqī-Nāma), “The Song of the Min-strel” (Mughanī-Nāma), random quatrains (rubāīyāt), and a glossary of propernames.Loloi’s introduction summarizes scholarship concisely and provides aninsight into the poet’s life and times and is followed by Oxley’s short transla-tor’s note. The glossary of proper names comprises pages 79 to 82. Unfortu-353© Fatiso Herme¯neus, TI, 17, pp. 351-354BAHMAN SOLATIPARVIN LOLOI AND WILLIAM OXLEY, POEMS FROM THE DIVAN…nately, the book includes only forty-five randomly selected ghazals, two qa.t’a(fragments, or short poems having no fewer than two lines and rhyming only inthe last hemistichs, as distinguished from the ghazals or qa.sidas, in which thehemistichs of the first line rhyme as well), “The Song of the Sāqī,” “The Songof the Minstrel,” and five random quatrains.This is one of the finest translations I have read. The translation islargely accurate, hewing close to the original Persian poems. Furthermore,while Loloi and Oxley transmit Hafiz’s thematics, his ambiguous poetic struc-ture, and the layers of meaning so typical of Persian ghazals into eloquent andflowing English, unlike some contemporary translations that are more imagi-native than precise, Persian speakers can easily scan the translations against theoriginal verse. What amazes the reader is the beautiful balance between themusic of the poetry and its meaning.To transmit the Persian poetic spirit into another language requires aspectacular talent and a deep knowledge of both languages. A good knowledgeof Persian, however, is something quite different from an understanding ofHafiz’s poetic utterance. Indeed, however much is written about Hafiz, espe-cially by persons well acquainted with and cognizant of the heights and depthsof his verse and his astonishing powers of eloquence, the scholarship aloneremains insufficient. The work of Parvin Loloi and William Oxley, in its col-laboration between a scholar and a poet, represents a huge step forward in thecomprehension of Hafiz’s poetry and in its introduction to other cultures. Forthis we must offer our gratitude and appreciation. 354© Fatiso Herme¯neus, TI, 17, pp. 351-354BAHMAN SOLATIPARVIN LOLOI AND WILLIAM OXLEY, POEMS FROM THE DIVAN…

Parvin Loloi and William Oxley, Poems from the Divan of Hafiz

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