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Faces of Love: Hafez and the Poets of Shiraz
Acclaimed translator Dick Davis breathes new life into the timeless works of three masters of fourteenth-century Persian literature.
Together, Hafez, a giant of world literature; Jahan Malek Khatun, an eloquent princess; and Obayd-e Zakani, a dissolute satirist, represent one of the most remarkable literary flowerings of any era. All three lived in the famed city of Shiraz, a provincial capital of south-central Iran, and all three drew support from arts-loving rulers during a time better known for its violence than its creative brilliance. Here Dick Davis, an award-winning poet widely considered 'our finest translator of Persian poetry' (The Times Literary Supplement), presents a diverse selection of some of the best poems by these world-renowned authors and shows us the spiritual and secular aspects of love, in varieties embracing every aspect of the human heart.
A Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Title for 2013
Dick Davis is a translator, a poet, and a scholar of Persian literature who has published more than twenty books. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has taught at the University of California at Santa Barbara and Ohio State University. He lives in Columbus, Ohio.
Together, Hafez, a giant of world literature; Jahan Malek Khatun, an eloquent princess; and Obayd-e Zakani, a dissolute satirist, represent one of the most remarkable literary flowerings of any era. All three lived in the famed city of Shiraz, a provincial capital of south-central Iran, and all three drew support from arts-loving rulers during a time better known for its violence than its creative brilliance. Here Dick Davis, an award-winning poet widely considered 'our finest translator of Persian poetry' (The Times Literary Supplement), presents a diverse selection of some of the best poems by these world-renowned authors and shows us the spiritual and secular aspects of love, in varieties embracing every aspect of the human heart.
A Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Title for 2013
Dick Davis is a translator, a poet, and a scholar of Persian literature who has published more than twenty books. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has taught at the University of California at Santa Barbara and Ohio State University. He lives in Columbus, Ohio.
285 pages, Paperback
First published September 6, 2012
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About the author
Dick Davis
89 books41 followersDick Davis is an English-American poet, university professor, and translator of verse, who is affiliated with the literary movement known as New Formalism in American poetry.
Born into a working class family in Portsmouth shortly before the end of World War II, Davis grew up in the Yorkshire fishing village of Withernsea during the 1950s, where an experimental school made it possible for Davis to become the first member of his family to attend university.
Shortly before graduating from Cambridge University, Davis was left heartbroken by the suicide of his schizophrenic brother and decided to begin living and teaching abroad.
After teaching in Greece and Italy, in 1970 Davis fell in love with an Iranian woman, Afkham Darbandi, and decided to live permanently in Tehran during the reign of the last Shah. As a result, he taught English at the University of Tehran, and married Afkham Darbandi, about whom he has since written and published many love poems, in 1974.
After the Islamic Revolution turned Dick and Afkham Davis into refugees, first in the United Kingdom and then in the United States, Davis decided to begin translating many of the greatest masterpieces of both ancient and modern Persian poetry into English. Davis is a vocal opponent of the ruling Shia clergy of Iran and has used his talents as a scholar and literary translator to give a voice to critics and foes of Islamic fundamentalism and Sharia Law from throughout the history of Iranian literature. Despite expressing a fondness for Christian music, Davis has said that his experiences during the Iranian Revolution have made him into an Atheist and that he believes that religion does more harm than good.
Davis is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and has been called, by The Times Literary Supplement, "our finest translator from Persian." Davis' original poetry has been just as highly praised.
Born into a working class family in Portsmouth shortly before the end of World War II, Davis grew up in the Yorkshire fishing village of Withernsea during the 1950s, where an experimental school made it possible for Davis to become the first member of his family to attend university.
Shortly before graduating from Cambridge University, Davis was left heartbroken by the suicide of his schizophrenic brother and decided to begin living and teaching abroad.
After teaching in Greece and Italy, in 1970 Davis fell in love with an Iranian woman, Afkham Darbandi, and decided to live permanently in Tehran during the reign of the last Shah. As a result, he taught English at the University of Tehran, and married Afkham Darbandi, about whom he has since written and published many love poems, in 1974.
After the Islamic Revolution turned Dick and Afkham Davis into refugees, first in the United Kingdom and then in the United States, Davis decided to begin translating many of the greatest masterpieces of both ancient and modern Persian poetry into English. Davis is a vocal opponent of the ruling Shia clergy of Iran and has used his talents as a scholar and literary translator to give a voice to critics and foes of Islamic fundamentalism and Sharia Law from throughout the history of Iranian literature. Despite expressing a fondness for Christian music, Davis has said that his experiences during the Iranian Revolution have made him into an Atheist and that he believes that religion does more harm than good.
Davis is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and has been called, by The Times Literary Supplement, "our finest translator from Persian." Davis' original poetry has been just as highly praised.
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November 9, 2023
هر چند پیر و خسته دل و ناتوان شدم
هر گه که یاد روی تو کردم جوان شدم
However old, incapable,
And heart-sick I may be,
The moment I recall your face
My youth’s restored to me;
شب تاریک و بیم موج
کجا دانند حال ما
و گردابی چنین هایل
سبکباران ساحلها
On this dark night, amidst these waves
The whirlpool’s fearsome roar
What can they know of our distress
Who watch us from the shore
خندهٔ جامِ می و زلفِ گرهگیر نگار
ای بسا توبه که چون توبه حافظ بشکست
So take the laughing wine cup, raise it in your hand,
Caress your lover’s curls, and say Hafez has spoken
How many vows of abstinence the world has seen
So fervently affirmed, and - like Hafez’s - broken
من ترک عشق شاهد و ساغر نمیکنم
صد بار توبه کردم و دیگر نمیکنم
To give up wine, and human beauty? And to give up love?
No, I won’t do it.
A hundred times I said I would; what was I thinking of?
No, I won’t do it.
شبِ صحبت غنیمت دان که بعد از روزگارِ ما
بسی گردش کُنَد گردون، بسی لیل و نهار آرد
Talk with your friends, deep in the night,
And see how life fares
Since when we are gone the heavens
Will bring others our cares
دوش وقت سحر از غصه نجاتم دادند
واندر آن ظلمت شب آب حیاتم دادند
بیخود از شعشعه پرتو ذاتم کردند
باده از جام تجلی صفاتم دادند
Last night, at dawn, in my distress, salvation
was given to me
In darkness then, life’s water, libation
was given to me
چو ذره گر چه حقیرم ببین به دولت عشق
که در هوای رخت چون به مهر پیوستم
And even though I’m just a tiny mote
In love’s great kingdom
I’m one now with the sun, before your face
In loving you
زاهد از کوچهٔ رندان به سلامت بگذر
تا خرابت نکند صحبتِ بدنامی چند
Ah, puritan, pass by the street
Of shame, don't let us interrupt you -
Don't linger here with libertines
عیبِ مِی جمله چو گفتی، هنرش نیز بگو
نفیِ حکمت مکن از بهرِ دلِ عامی چند
You've numbered all the faults of wine,
So number all its virtues too;
Don't throw out wisdom for the sake
مَبین حقیر، گدایانِ عشق را کاین قوم
شَهانِ بی کمر و خسروانِ بی کُلَهند
But don't despise the beggars lost
In hopeless love, don't put them down -
They're kings, though this one has no scepter,
Monarchs, though that one has no crown.
جنابِ عشق بلند است همّتی حافظ
که عاشقان، رهِ بیهمّتان به خود ندهند
Love is the nobler task - up then,
Hafez, and seek it while you may,
For lovers will not let the timid
Amble beside them on love's way.
خوش عروسیست جهان از رهِ صورت لیکن
هر که پیوست بدو، عمرِ خودش کاوین داد
The world displays herself to us as such
a charming bride,
But life's the dowry that men pay to lie
at her sweet side.
یاد باد آن که چو یاقوتِ قدح خنده زدی
در میانِ من و لعلِ تو حکایتها بود
May I remember always when
Our goblet laughed with crimson wine -
What tales passed back and forth between
Your ruby lips, my dear, and mine!
حُسنِ بیپایان او چندان که عاشق میکُشد
زمرهٔ دیگر به عشق از غیب سر بَر میکنند
His boundless beauty slays the lover,
and even as he dies,
Out of the darkness, seeking love,
New multitudes arise.
به گِردابی چو میافتادم از غم
به تدبیرش امیدِ ساحلی بود
And if I tumbled in grief's whirlpool
my heart was sure
To give me hope that soon enough
حافظ این خرقه که داری تو ببینی فردا
که چه زُنّار ز زیرش به دَغا بگشایند
Hafez, this Sufi cloak you wear,
tomorrow it won't hide
The heathen underneath, and all
you've claimed will be belied
گفتم غمِ تو دارم گفتا غمت سر آید
گفتم که ماهِ من شو گفتا اگر برآید
گفتم ز مِهرورزان رسمِ وفا بیاموز
گفتا ز خوبرویان این کار کمتر آید
I said, "The grief I feel is all for you";
She said, "Your grief will end";
I said, "Be as the moon to me"; she said
"The moon might rise, my friend."
I said, "Learn faithfulness from those whose love
is trustworthy and true";
She said, "That's something moon-like pretty girls
are rarely know to do."
(review to come in due course)
هر گه که یاد روی تو کردم جوان شدم
However old, incapable,
And heart-sick I may be,
The moment I recall your face
My youth’s restored to me;
شب تاریک و بیم موج
کجا دانند حال ما
و گردابی چنین هایل
سبکباران ساحلها
On this dark night, amidst these waves
The whirlpool’s fearsome roar
What can they know of our distress
Who watch us from the shore
خندهٔ جامِ می و زلفِ گرهگیر نگار
ای بسا توبه که چون توبه حافظ بشکست
So take the laughing wine cup, raise it in your hand,
Caress your lover’s curls, and say Hafez has spoken
How many vows of abstinence the world has seen
So fervently affirmed, and - like Hafez’s - broken
من ترک عشق شاهد و ساغر نمیکنم
صد بار توبه کردم و دیگر نمیکنم
To give up wine, and human beauty? And to give up love?
No, I won’t do it.
A hundred times I said I would; what was I thinking of?
No, I won’t do it.
شبِ صحبت غنیمت دان که بعد از روزگارِ ما
بسی گردش کُنَد گردون، بسی لیل و نهار آرد
Talk with your friends, deep in the night,
And see how life fares
Since when we are gone the heavens
Will bring others our cares
دوش وقت سحر از غصه نجاتم دادند
واندر آن ظلمت شب آب حیاتم دادند
بیخود از شعشعه پرتو ذاتم کردند
باده از جام تجلی صفاتم دادند
Last night, at dawn, in my distress, salvation
was given to me
In darkness then, life’s water, libation
was given to me
چو ذره گر چه حقیرم ببین به دولت عشق
که در هوای رخت چون به مهر پیوستم
And even though I’m just a tiny mote
In love’s great kingdom
I’m one now with the sun, before your face
In loving you
زاهد از کوچهٔ رندان به سلامت بگذر
تا خرابت نکند صحبتِ بدنامی چند
Ah, puritan, pass by the street
Of shame, don't let us interrupt you -
Don't linger here with libertines
عیبِ مِی جمله چو گفتی، هنرش نیز بگو
نفیِ حکمت مکن از بهرِ دلِ عامی چند
You've numbered all the faults of wine,
So number all its virtues too;
Don't throw out wisdom for the sake
مَبین حقیر، گدایانِ عشق را کاین قوم
شَهانِ بی کمر و خسروانِ بی کُلَهند
But don't despise the beggars lost
In hopeless love, don't put them down -
They're kings, though this one has no scepter,
Monarchs, though that one has no crown.
جنابِ عشق بلند است همّتی حافظ
که عاشقان، رهِ بیهمّتان به خود ندهند
Love is the nobler task - up then,
Hafez, and seek it while you may,
For lovers will not let the timid
Amble beside them on love's way.
خوش عروسیست جهان از رهِ صورت لیکن
هر که پیوست بدو، عمرِ خودش کاوین داد
The world displays herself to us as such
a charming bride,
But life's the dowry that men pay to lie
at her sweet side.
یاد باد آن که چو یاقوتِ قدح خنده زدی
در میانِ من و لعلِ تو حکایتها بود
May I remember always when
Our goblet laughed with crimson wine -
What tales passed back and forth between
Your ruby lips, my dear, and mine!
حُسنِ بیپایان او چندان که عاشق میکُشد
زمرهٔ دیگر به عشق از غیب سر بَر میکنند
His boundless beauty slays the lover,
and even as he dies,
Out of the darkness, seeking love,
New multitudes arise.
به گِردابی چو میافتادم از غم
به تدبیرش امیدِ ساحلی بود
And if I tumbled in grief's whirlpool
my heart was sure
To give me hope that soon enough
حافظ این خرقه که داری تو ببینی فردا
که چه زُنّار ز زیرش به دَغا بگشایند
Hafez, this Sufi cloak you wear,
tomorrow it won't hide
The heathen underneath, and all
you've claimed will be belied
گفتم غمِ تو دارم گفتا غمت سر آید
گفتم که ماهِ من شو گفتا اگر برآید
گفتم ز مِهرورزان رسمِ وفا بیاموز
گفتا ز خوبرویان این کار کمتر آید
I said, "The grief I feel is all for you";
She said, "Your grief will end";
I said, "Be as the moon to me"; she said
"The moon might rise, my friend."
I said, "Learn faithfulness from those whose love
is trustworthy and true";
She said, "That's something moon-like pretty girls
are rarely know to do."
(review to come in due course)
December 22, 2014
Beautiful is what I think of this book. In the long introduction the translator muses on what the poets aimed for in their poetry, allegorical or...? In the days of these three poets everyone wrote poetry to read aloud. Their audience were listeners only, no one would rush out to Chapters to buy a copy. How best to reach an audience and please themselves most? By sound. Poetry for many many years was governed by how it sounded and not what message(s) it conveyed. Poetry was dictated on the merits of sound. Poetry could be chanted or poetry could be sung. In the readings or rather chanting of the Q'uran out loud it sounds like singing, however, is called chanting in order to be accepted by the more orthodox Muslims that believe music is forbidden. But in a world where illiteracy is high what better way to reach far and wide than to reach out by the ear? Therefore the quality of the written word is how the tongue forms them. At a time as well when great store was held by oral traditions poetry flourished. Children any where at any social class were taught to behave or conduct themselves by stories told. To advertise businesses orally drew the most people whether it was tales of sea adventures or more military battle or even to know what happened in the kingdom gossip, fabricated stories and other ways kept people informed, rightly or wrongly. The age of Hafez, Jahan Malek Khatun and Obayd-e Zakani wass the age of the Voice. Oscar Wilde believed that poetry was the best when it sounded beautifully, it didn't matter how it looked on the page or what was said in the poem, how it sounded was the important thing. Now we have poetry jams and we still have to speak aloud, but now we focus on image relation more than actual sound. Altho' dub poetry is a sounded related modem it is not the flow of words in relation to each other. But everything evolves and keeps coming round again, and everything is ageless. The poems in this book can fit into any time period and to any kind of audience Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, secular, atheist, whatever. The translator also suggests that the poets are against Sufis, but in these poems don't suggest that. What it does suggest is that Hafez and Jahan Khatun had the same kind of influence and not so for Zakani. Indeed one believes that Dick Davis favoured Hafez most as there are more of his poems than Khatun and Zakani. Out of the three I have no favourites, they are all equally good, altho' Zakani's are coarse in nature.
August 17, 2014
Davis has written a good (extensive but not dull) introduction to the history and the poets, as well as the poetry. There are also end notes giving plenty of further analysis of the poems without interrupting the reading of the poems themselves.
I especially appreciated Davis’ notes on his translation, with explanations of the challenges (such as recreating the ancient styles of verse used), the things he was able to recreate in English and the things that are lost. I also enjoyed the appendix of three tongue-in-cheek poems Davis wrote about the difficulty of translating Hafez! I learned a lot, for instance that Persian pronouns do not distinguish between male and female, so most of the time it isn’t clear whether the subject of a poem is male or female. (From historical records and those poems that do make it clear – by referencing body parts, for example – we know that it was common for poets of the time to write admiringly of attractive youths of both genders.) It was also common (as with some western poets of a similar era) for references to a person to mean both a flesh-and-blood person and God, or to switch between the two.
Read my full review at: http://www.noseinabook.co.uk/2014/08/...
I especially appreciated Davis’ notes on his translation, with explanations of the challenges (such as recreating the ancient styles of verse used), the things he was able to recreate in English and the things that are lost. I also enjoyed the appendix of three tongue-in-cheek poems Davis wrote about the difficulty of translating Hafez! I learned a lot, for instance that Persian pronouns do not distinguish between male and female, so most of the time it isn’t clear whether the subject of a poem is male or female. (From historical records and those poems that do make it clear – by referencing body parts, for example – we know that it was common for poets of the time to write admiringly of attractive youths of both genders.) It was also common (as with some western poets of a similar era) for references to a person to mean both a flesh-and-blood person and God, or to switch between the two.
Read my full review at: http://www.noseinabook.co.uk/2014/08/...
October 11, 2022
Absolutely beautiful poetry by three poets from the Persian city of Shiraz. All completely different from one another in style, all stunning in their own ways.
And just like that, I know have a thirst and a longing for more Persian poetry.
God bless Iran and its people and deliver them from tyrants.
And just like that, I know have a thirst and a longing for more Persian poetry.
God bless Iran and its people and deliver them from tyrants.
October 25, 2024
Lovely. A book I will return to often. The three poets, while translated by the same man, each maintain a unique voice. I only wish I could read Hafez and the rest in Persian. I feel like I'm getting only 2 of the 3 dimensions, but still I'm grateful for what these poems are and what they say.
September 29, 2021
I previously read another collection of Hafez’s poems, The Gift, in which the translator chose the mystical interpretation of Hafez’s poems over the more secular interpretation chosen by the translator of this collection. It says something about the genius of Hafez that, whatever interpretation one chooses, his poetry is still beautiful, oftentimes moving and quite frequently amusing. The last time I read his poems, I walked away from them feeling like I had somehow made a friend and this was exactly like encountering that friend again, this time in a wine-shop, concerned with more earthly delights, but with the same sense of camaraderie, the same touch of the sublime and the same aching heart.
I was very pleasantly surprised to find the poems of Jahan Malek Khatun, a female poet, included in the collection. I had never heard of her before. Her verses, although using the conventions of Persian poetry at the time, still strike a different chord than those of Hafez and Zakani. And it is always so wonderful to discover how the sentiments written down in an age as far back as the 14th century can still ring so true, expressing the same feelings and longing people experience today.
Obayd-e Zakani meanwhile is hilariously irreverent, mocking poetic conventions and full-heartedly embracing the vulgar with the weariness and enthusiasm of the libertine. I also found it interesting that he was the one who wrote the more serious political poems included in the collection.
Together these three poets represent, just like the title of the book implies, different faces of love and, having been contemporaries, you can’t help but wonder if the three of them ever sat together in Shah Abu Ishaq’s court discussing the nature of love over a cup of wine in the same way their poems do in this collection.
I was very pleasantly surprised to find the poems of Jahan Malek Khatun, a female poet, included in the collection. I had never heard of her before. Her verses, although using the conventions of Persian poetry at the time, still strike a different chord than those of Hafez and Zakani. And it is always so wonderful to discover how the sentiments written down in an age as far back as the 14th century can still ring so true, expressing the same feelings and longing people experience today.
Obayd-e Zakani meanwhile is hilariously irreverent, mocking poetic conventions and full-heartedly embracing the vulgar with the weariness and enthusiasm of the libertine. I also found it interesting that he was the one who wrote the more serious political poems included in the collection.
Together these three poets represent, just like the title of the book implies, different faces of love and, having been contemporaries, you can’t help but wonder if the three of them ever sat together in Shah Abu Ishaq’s court discussing the nature of love over a cup of wine in the same way their poems do in this collection.
Read
April 14, 2019Didn't realize until after I bought it that this is not only a collection of Hafez's poetry in translation, but a collection of Hafez's work and that of two of his contemporaries. Surprisingly, it's the poetry of Jahan Malek Khatun that shines brightest here--her poems are mournful and beautifully painful. Davis made a curious decision in the curation of the Hafez portion, in that the poems he has selected get quite repetitive--either they're praise poems or they're poems denouncing the reign of Mubariz al-Din, who ushered in an Islamic regime at the time. Kind of disappointing, all in all.
July 13, 2020
Favorite bedside book these days. Hafiz has always had a very special place in my heart with those flamboyant hints of Shiraz and his equally incredible celestial metaphors. This translation is very smooth, less befogged than any other available translation in English. Also, this deluxe edition has explored Jahan Malek Khatun and Obayd-e-Zakani as well. There are some essays by Dick Davis in the start discussing poetic traditions. Also, this edition is very beautiful- even the pages are styled as an old age manuscript. Bought it with my first pay, super glad to have done it.
April 14, 2014
There is a long-standing debate about how to interpret Hafez, specifically whether to interpret his talk of wine in figurative terms - as a metaphor for such things as divine love - or literally, so that wine really means wine. I understand that in Iran, the figurative interpretation has been dominant for centuries, and most of the first English translators followed their example. In recent years, translators such as Dick Davies have opted for the literal interpretation, feeling that the poetry is livelier, more honest, more authentic and, quite frankly, more fun if understood this way.
This question of interpretation may explain why some readers have such a hostile view of this book. Davies' approach has the effect of turning conventional wisdom on its head, and making a revered cultural figure seem rather dissolute. (Note that as well as drinking a lot of wine, Hafez talks a lot about his love for young boys).
Davis explains some of these issues very well in his introduction, which by itself is worth buying the book for, I'd say.
For English readers like me, who do not have the baggage of a received interpretation to deal with, I found these poems a joy. I also loved the obscene poems of Obayd-e Zakani which have provoked the ire of some of the other commenters. Irreverent, satirical and very bawdy - rather like Shakespeare.
To sum up, if you are open-minded and interested in a modern take on Persian poetry, I know of no better volume.
This question of interpretation may explain why some readers have such a hostile view of this book. Davies' approach has the effect of turning conventional wisdom on its head, and making a revered cultural figure seem rather dissolute. (Note that as well as drinking a lot of wine, Hafez talks a lot about his love for young boys).
Davis explains some of these issues very well in his introduction, which by itself is worth buying the book for, I'd say.
For English readers like me, who do not have the baggage of a received interpretation to deal with, I found these poems a joy. I also loved the obscene poems of Obayd-e Zakani which have provoked the ire of some of the other commenters. Irreverent, satirical and very bawdy - rather like Shakespeare.
To sum up, if you are open-minded and interested in a modern take on Persian poetry, I know of no better volume.
September 2, 2016
I read and re-read this translation of three poets from Shiraz half a dozen times while on a beach in Cuba--and each time, I loved it more. Dick Davis, a fine poet in his own right, does a wonderful job of the challenging-to-translate Hafez, and he's provided some of my new favourite versions of the Persian master's poems here, as well as introduced me to some pieces I haven't experienced in English before.
The decision to combine the poetry of the masterful Hafez with the virtually unknown Jahan Malek Khatun, and the lesser-known (particularly in the West) Obayd-e-Zakani is interesting... In a way, it is a disservice to the two other poets. Compared to Hafez, they look infantile (that is my prejudice speaking, in part: I think Hafez has no equal--but if you read the poems, and contrast Jahan in particular against Hafez, I think you will agree). Jahan in particular comes off looking weak. Davis addresses his choice in the introduction--which is fantastic--and while I am very grateful for his efforts in introducing me (and some of my Persian friends!) to Jahan Malek Khatun through this work, it does mean that we have one immortal poet flanked by less striking work.
Still, with all of that, I give the book five stars. Because, Hafez. Because, the translations are good. Because Obayd is hilarious. And Jahan is a woman poet, writing in the already-Islamic, very patriarchal medieval Iran.
The decision to combine the poetry of the masterful Hafez with the virtually unknown Jahan Malek Khatun, and the lesser-known (particularly in the West) Obayd-e-Zakani is interesting... In a way, it is a disservice to the two other poets. Compared to Hafez, they look infantile (that is my prejudice speaking, in part: I think Hafez has no equal--but if you read the poems, and contrast Jahan in particular against Hafez, I think you will agree). Jahan in particular comes off looking weak. Davis addresses his choice in the introduction--which is fantastic--and while I am very grateful for his efforts in introducing me (and some of my Persian friends!) to Jahan Malek Khatun through this work, it does mean that we have one immortal poet flanked by less striking work.
Still, with all of that, I give the book five stars. Because, Hafez. Because, the translations are good. Because Obayd is hilarious. And Jahan is a woman poet, writing in the already-Islamic, very patriarchal medieval Iran.
Read
October 3, 2015"I didn't know my value then, when I
Was young, so long ago;
And now that I have played my part out here,
What is it that I know?
I know that, now that both of them have gone,
Life's good and bad passed by
As quickly in my youth as dawn's first breeze
Forsakes the morning sky.
How many ardent birds of longing then
Were lured down from the air
By my two ringlets' curls and coils, to be
Held trapped and helpless there!
And in youth's lovely orchard then I raised
My head as prettily,
As gracefully, above the greensward there,
As any cypress tree;
Until, with charming partners to oppose me,
I took up lovers' chess,
And lost so many of love's pieces to
My partners' handsomeness --
And then how often on the spacious field
Of beauty I urged on
My hopeful heart's untiring steed, always
Pursuing what was gone.
Now, as no shoots or leaves remain to me
From youth, and youth's delight,
I fit myself in my old age to face
The darkness of the night."
--Jahan Malek Khatun
Feels directly related to all the YA I read.
Was young, so long ago;
And now that I have played my part out here,
What is it that I know?
I know that, now that both of them have gone,
Life's good and bad passed by
As quickly in my youth as dawn's first breeze
Forsakes the morning sky.
How many ardent birds of longing then
Were lured down from the air
By my two ringlets' curls and coils, to be
Held trapped and helpless there!
And in youth's lovely orchard then I raised
My head as prettily,
As gracefully, above the greensward there,
As any cypress tree;
Until, with charming partners to oppose me,
I took up lovers' chess,
And lost so many of love's pieces to
My partners' handsomeness --
And then how often on the spacious field
Of beauty I urged on
My hopeful heart's untiring steed, always
Pursuing what was gone.
Now, as no shoots or leaves remain to me
From youth, and youth's delight,
I fit myself in my old age to face
The darkness of the night."
--Jahan Malek Khatun
Feels directly related to all the YA I read.
Want to read
February 28, 2020
January 12, 2019
The intro is well-written and informative, and I loved Jahan Khatun’s poems, but Hafez and Obayd-e Zakani’s poems were on the whole not to my taste. Maybe it’s just the subject matters of the latter two weren’t very interesting to me. I also tired of repetitive language in the former and vulgar language in the latter. I probably can’t fully appreciate these poems given the limitations of translation. Jahan Khatun’s poems, however, are eloquently written and translated. While repetitive in the beginning, they become increasingly innovative and imagistic as she continued to write. Her poems also beautifully capture the sentiment behind heartbreak, longing, and suffering from loneliness.
April 18, 2023
This translator is really, really good at writing introductions and end notes. I have never before enjoyed the notes and intros more than the actual poems of a book! Yet here we are!
These poems are in the same tradition as the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam—in form and content and general atmosphere. Some of then reminded me of the poems in Megan Whalen Turner’s Thick as Thieves, where a rhyming line also has a repeating tag refrain.
Of the three Persian poets here, the princess Jahan Malek Khatun is my favorite. I had never heard of her, and it turns out that is because her complete works were lost for 500 years and only just rediscovered. So that’s very cool.
I don’t like Hafez as much as the translator does, but I’m willing to give it another shot. Hafez loves to dwell on forbidden-by-Islam loves (Wine! Lovers!! WINE SERVERS!) and write technically brilliant and super ambiguous poems.
Obeyd was a contemporary of the other two, and I would describe him as satirical and sexually explicit. Apparently he had a habit of annoying courts and getting himself kicked out and moving on to work for the next lord, and I wouldn’t want him at my court either.
I want this book for my permanent collection, as least partly for the great summary of Persian history at the beginning. In case it wasn’t clear, this is not for children. So much the content warnings.
These poems are in the same tradition as the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam—in form and content and general atmosphere. Some of then reminded me of the poems in Megan Whalen Turner’s Thick as Thieves, where a rhyming line also has a repeating tag refrain.
Of the three Persian poets here, the princess Jahan Malek Khatun is my favorite. I had never heard of her, and it turns out that is because her complete works were lost for 500 years and only just rediscovered. So that’s very cool.
I don’t like Hafez as much as the translator does, but I’m willing to give it another shot. Hafez loves to dwell on forbidden-by-Islam loves (Wine! Lovers!! WINE SERVERS!) and write technically brilliant and super ambiguous poems.
Obeyd was a contemporary of the other two, and I would describe him as satirical and sexually explicit. Apparently he had a habit of annoying courts and getting himself kicked out and moving on to work for the next lord, and I wouldn’t want him at my court either.
I want this book for my permanent collection, as least partly for the great summary of Persian history at the beginning. In case it wasn’t clear, this is not for children. So much the content warnings.
Read
April 1, 2025so the yearners’ parade in the beginning was just a preface for the freakfest at the end…
June 4, 2024
Faces of Love is a collection of poetry mostly from the Sufi poet, Hafez of Shiraz. The translator is Dick Davis who, from what I learned after reading, can translate the poems literally while still keeping their poeticness. Unlike other translators like Daniel Ladinsky, Davis doesn’t change the meaning of the words drastically or invent his own poems and label them as Hafez’s. Obviously, translating thousand-year-old poems isn’t easy and the meter is altered or even abandoned in some of the poems. Still, their beauty is undeniable; the translations hold up surprisingly well and the original meaning is preserved. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised and I would strongly recommend this book.
November 16, 2021
I think this collection was a bit uneven in terms of quality, with the Hafez translations easily being the best. I notice some goodreads reviewers found the poems by Jahan to be the more engaging ones, but to me a large majority of those came across as a bit juvenile in tone for some reason. The introduction by Davis is helpful in framing the context for the poems and "the poets of Shiraz" with particularly helpful observations about form and meter in Persian medieval poetry.
February 3, 2014
The emphasis on vulgarity and pederasty is unnecessary except if one understands that perhaps the author has an agenda. The Hafez poems were tolerable, but not remarkable, the poems of Jahan Malek Khatun were the best of the group, and the poems of Obayd-e-Zakani in his translation and perhaps the orginal were completely obscene, talking of "pussies" and "fucking" boys (his words).
He calls into question the idea that Hafez was a Sufi poet, undermines him as a religious figure, tries to portray him as have literal (not figurative) relationships with wine-drinking, boys, etc. He portrays him (and he says this repeatedly) as being against Sufis and having rejected it. He just gathers much which is foul to buttress his own claims and interests. And his own poetry has some moments but others are just horrible. The last poet should not have been included. His poetry, tells whatever boy or whore he addresses to make a pilgrimage not to the Kaaba, but to his "prick" and that will be a better ride and fulfill his/her religious need. It's that perverse.
If you are looking for Sufi poetry, look elsewhere. I can't recommend this book. Huge letdown, especially after watching an interview with the author and reading the publisher's blurbs.
He calls into question the idea that Hafez was a Sufi poet, undermines him as a religious figure, tries to portray him as have literal (not figurative) relationships with wine-drinking, boys, etc. He portrays him (and he says this repeatedly) as being against Sufis and having rejected it. He just gathers much which is foul to buttress his own claims and interests. And his own poetry has some moments but others are just horrible. The last poet should not have been included. His poetry, tells whatever boy or whore he addresses to make a pilgrimage not to the Kaaba, but to his "prick" and that will be a better ride and fulfill his/her religious need. It's that perverse.
If you are looking for Sufi poetry, look elsewhere. I can't recommend this book. Huge letdown, especially after watching an interview with the author and reading the publisher's blurbs.
January 18, 2015
An uneven collection of poems of three different Medieval poets from Shiraz in Iran. The translator Dick Davis argues in the long introduction that Hafez is not all about God but about love and wine just as the poems say they are. Davis substantiates this reading by including the two other inferior but much more directly sexual and in some cases lavatorial poets in the collection. Uneven but interesting for the very reason of including those two less known poets and making no bones about the mundane imagery.
June 6, 2022
Faces of Love is a anthology of poetry from three Persian poets from the city of Shiraz in the 14th century - Hafez, Jahan Khatun and Obayd. Hafez, a poet of world renown, makes up the bulk of the collection but the other two are not overshadowed by his fame, each offering something different and worthwhile. The book is prefaced by a very good introduction which gives a brief overview of the historical and political context before outlining the thematic and stylistic tendencies of each poet. It's an enlightening text, putting the poems into a context, exploring some of their intricacies and drawing comparisons and connections between the three as well as to Western figures for the benefit and interest of the target audience. What is immediately striking is the intense lyricism of these works and it was not surprising to find out that they might have been put to music or performed in court as poems of praise. They are ceremonial and formal (mostly) and provide an insight into the intrigues and subtleties of court life in Shiraz. Hafez's ambiguous fame links neatly with Jahan Khatun's regal, female perspective and Obayd crude directness.
It's interesting that Dick Davis, at some point in the introduction, compares Hafez to Bob Dylan. I would say that one can see echoes (going the wrong direction in time) in many modern rock lyricists. Dylan is a good example because he combines ambiguous romance with crackling political diatribes. But much of the 80s romanticism can be found in Hafez's sumptuous one-liners. He is the most beautiful of the three, his poems full of sweeping romance and difficult allegories. All three share some of the same themes - romance/seduction, wine/festivities, religious fever, political repression. Davis highlights the difficulty and the fascination of the original, gender-less pronouns, including some disorientating switches in address and perspective, which mean it's often difficult to know who Hafez is writing to/for, the lines between male/female (and therefore sexual preference) as blurred as the space between religious praise and erotic love. There are, perhaps, too many poems here and reading them in sequence can be rather exhausting. Some are rather monotonous elegies of beauty and nature, held together by tight rhyme schemes (the translation of which is, in itself, an enormous achievement) and mantra-like repetitions. However, when it comes together, Hafez's poetry is a thing of loveliness.
I particularly liked the poems that celebrate wine because they contain within them a protest against repression that has repeated itself for centuries since. Hafez, quietly, offers a cry to break free and, in that, he also has another thing in common with twentieth century rock and roll. He often has a deeply, unavoidably mocking tone when he speaks about religion; wine and romance provide the antidote to that stricture. However, for all their skill and beauty, I preferred the surprising poetry of Jahan Khatun and the bawdy hilarity of Obayd. I read the introduction last and didn't realise she was a woman - that revelation lends weight and surprise to her poetry, especially coming from a royal perspective. My favourite (I often tend towards short, impactful poems) was this little bomb: "Last night, my love, you lay with me / I grasped your pretty chin, I fondled it / And then I bit, and bit, your sweet lips till / I woke...It was my fingertip I bit". It is such a tactile, obscure image, implying much and, perhaps, meaning little. In combination with the other poems, these little rhymes build a character that is mocking, humorous, cutting, sometimes mean and angry, romantic and freedom loving.
Obayd is the easiest to enjoy because he is the most blatant, obvious and unsubtle. His poems are shockingly explicit, much more so that equivalent European poetry. He is the uncomfortable comic at the party, reveling in words and themes that embarrass the host. The obvious sexually imagery clashes intriguingly with the confusion of address - who these poems are for is a mystery and, while Obayd is much less subtle that the other two poets here, they still retain a level of intrigue and sexually obscurity. All those contrasts are perhaps summed up in this short poem: "I'm off to stroll through the bazaar - and there / I'll see what can be flushed out from its lair / I'll lure a rent-boy home here, or a whore / One of the two - either will do - I don't care." When Obayd steers away from love and desire, however, he can offer up little piece of brash wisdom: "After forty your sprightly days are done / After fifty your weaknesses have won / After sixty don't hope for happiness / And after seventy your health has gone." Still, he's at his best when he's playing the bawd. The rollicking lyric that ends with the delightful line, "It's shameful that my prick's so impolite" encapsulates this entertaining character, impossibly raucous at around 700 years of age.
The collection ends with Obayd's intriguing fable, Cat and Mouse. There is plenty to dig into here, backed up by a detailed introduction and obviously skillful translations. For the casual reader, you don't need to read them all but it's a fascinating collection of three very different, yet thematical, historically and politically linked poets from a time and place so disconnected yet voiced here through the same troubles and joys as today.
It's interesting that Dick Davis, at some point in the introduction, compares Hafez to Bob Dylan. I would say that one can see echoes (going the wrong direction in time) in many modern rock lyricists. Dylan is a good example because he combines ambiguous romance with crackling political diatribes. But much of the 80s romanticism can be found in Hafez's sumptuous one-liners. He is the most beautiful of the three, his poems full of sweeping romance and difficult allegories. All three share some of the same themes - romance/seduction, wine/festivities, religious fever, political repression. Davis highlights the difficulty and the fascination of the original, gender-less pronouns, including some disorientating switches in address and perspective, which mean it's often difficult to know who Hafez is writing to/for, the lines between male/female (and therefore sexual preference) as blurred as the space between religious praise and erotic love. There are, perhaps, too many poems here and reading them in sequence can be rather exhausting. Some are rather monotonous elegies of beauty and nature, held together by tight rhyme schemes (the translation of which is, in itself, an enormous achievement) and mantra-like repetitions. However, when it comes together, Hafez's poetry is a thing of loveliness.
I particularly liked the poems that celebrate wine because they contain within them a protest against repression that has repeated itself for centuries since. Hafez, quietly, offers a cry to break free and, in that, he also has another thing in common with twentieth century rock and roll. He often has a deeply, unavoidably mocking tone when he speaks about religion; wine and romance provide the antidote to that stricture. However, for all their skill and beauty, I preferred the surprising poetry of Jahan Khatun and the bawdy hilarity of Obayd. I read the introduction last and didn't realise she was a woman - that revelation lends weight and surprise to her poetry, especially coming from a royal perspective. My favourite (I often tend towards short, impactful poems) was this little bomb: "Last night, my love, you lay with me / I grasped your pretty chin, I fondled it / And then I bit, and bit, your sweet lips till / I woke...It was my fingertip I bit". It is such a tactile, obscure image, implying much and, perhaps, meaning little. In combination with the other poems, these little rhymes build a character that is mocking, humorous, cutting, sometimes mean and angry, romantic and freedom loving.
Obayd is the easiest to enjoy because he is the most blatant, obvious and unsubtle. His poems are shockingly explicit, much more so that equivalent European poetry. He is the uncomfortable comic at the party, reveling in words and themes that embarrass the host. The obvious sexually imagery clashes intriguingly with the confusion of address - who these poems are for is a mystery and, while Obayd is much less subtle that the other two poets here, they still retain a level of intrigue and sexually obscurity. All those contrasts are perhaps summed up in this short poem: "I'm off to stroll through the bazaar - and there / I'll see what can be flushed out from its lair / I'll lure a rent-boy home here, or a whore / One of the two - either will do - I don't care." When Obayd steers away from love and desire, however, he can offer up little piece of brash wisdom: "After forty your sprightly days are done / After fifty your weaknesses have won / After sixty don't hope for happiness / And after seventy your health has gone." Still, he's at his best when he's playing the bawd. The rollicking lyric that ends with the delightful line, "It's shameful that my prick's so impolite" encapsulates this entertaining character, impossibly raucous at around 700 years of age.
The collection ends with Obayd's intriguing fable, Cat and Mouse. There is plenty to dig into here, backed up by a detailed introduction and obviously skillful translations. For the casual reader, you don't need to read them all but it's a fascinating collection of three very different, yet thematical, historically and politically linked poets from a time and place so disconnected yet voiced here through the same troubles and joys as today.
July 29, 2016
I was searching for a good English translation of Hafez and this author was recommended both for his poetic judgement and his knowledge of Persian. It was an additional benefit that the two other Persian poets were included. I enjoyed the contrast between them all and found the beginning discussion on translation challenges fascinating.
April 7, 2015
گفتم غم تو دارم گفتا غمت سر آید
July 19, 2021
I wish to remember the poem below by Hafez. Reminded me of another one of Maya Angelou's.
WHERE IS THE NEWS WE’LL MEET, THAT FROM
This life to greet you there
I may arise?
I am a bird from paradise,
And from this world’s cruel snare
I will arise.
Now by my love for you, I swear
That if you summon me
To be your slave, from all existence
And its sovereignty
I will arise.
O Lord, make rain fall from Your cloud
Sent to us as a guide,
Send it before, like scattered dust
That’s wind-blown far and wide,
I will arise.
Sit by my dust with wine and music:
From my imprisonment
Beneath the ground, within my grave,
Dancing, drawn by your scent,
I will arise.
Rise now, my love, display your stature,
Your sweetness, and I’ll be,
Like Hafez, from the world itself
And from my soul set free…
I will arise.
And though I’m old, if you’ll embrace
Me tightly in your arms all night,
Then from your side, as dawn appears, Young in the morning light,
I will arise.
---
WITH WINE BESIDE A GENTLY FLOWING BROOK – THIS IS BEST;
Withdrawn from sorrow in some quiet nook – this is best;
Our life is like a flower’s that blooms for ten short days,
Bright laughing lips, a friendly fresh-faced look – this is best.
---
A pretty (and rather sad) one from Jahan.
HEART, IN HIS BEAUTY’S GARDEN, I –
Like nightingales – complain,
And of his roses now for me
Only the thorns remain;
My friends have gathered flowers, but I,
Because of all his harshness,
Can find no flowers to gather here
And search for them in vain.
My heart is filled with suffering;
And all my doctor says is,
“Sugar from him, and nothing else,
Will lessen your heart’s pain.”
I’ve filled the world with love for him,
So why do I receive
Such cruelty from my dearest love,
Again, and yet again?
My free will’s gone from me, so how
Can my poor ears accept
All the advice my clever tutor’s
Homilies contain?
No, in the pre-dawn darkness, I
Am like the nightingale
That in the orchards sings the rose
Its old love-sick refrain.
I hear it’s strangers whom you welcome,
Whom you make much of now;
Let me then be a stranger in
The kingdom where you reign.
---
COME HERE A MOMENT, SIT WITH ME, DON’T SLEEP TONIGHT,
Consider well my heart’s unhappy plight, tonight;
And let your face’s presence lighten me, and give
The loveliness of moonlight to the night, tonight.
Be kind now to this stranger, and don’t imitate
Life as it leaves me in its headlong flight, tonight.
Be sweet to me now as your eyes are sweet; don’t twist
Away now like your curls, to left and right, tonight;
Don’t sweep me from you like the dust before your door;
Dowse all the flames of longing you ignite, tonight.
Why do you treat me with such cruelty now, my friend,
So that my tears obliterate my sight, tonight?
If, for a moment, I could see you in my dreams,
I’d know the sum of all this world’s delight, tonight.
---
A PICNIC AT THE DESERT’S EDGE, WITH WITTY FRIENDS,
And tambourines, and harps, and lutes, is very sweet.
And if my lover, for a moment, should drop by,
I’ll grill his liver with my body’s fiery heat.
---
MY ENEMIES’ GLIB LIES ARE NEVER DONE –
How long will their cruel calumnies go on?
I’m like the wretched wolf (who’d done no harm)
Accused of killing Joseph, Jacob’s son.
---
SHIRAZ WHEN SPRING IS HERE – WHAT PLEASURE EQUALS THIS?
With streams to sit by, wine to drink, and lips to kiss,
With mingled sounds of drums and lutes and harps and flutes;
Then, with a nice young lover near, Shiraz is bliss.
---
Obayd is a funny fucker lol
MY PRETTY DEAR, YOU’RE STILL TOO YOUNG TO MAKE
The pilgrimage to Mecca and repent,
But if you feel the need to be a pilgrim,
Take my advice, my dear, it’s kindly meant:
Straddle my prick and ride it – that can be
Your thousand-pilgrimage equivalent.
---
I loved the translator's sense of humor. He is such a precious boi.
WHERE IS THE NEWS WE’LL MEET, THAT FROM
This life to greet you there
I may arise?
I am a bird from paradise,
And from this world’s cruel snare
I will arise.
Now by my love for you, I swear
That if you summon me
To be your slave, from all existence
And its sovereignty
I will arise.
O Lord, make rain fall from Your cloud
Sent to us as a guide,
Send it before, like scattered dust
That’s wind-blown far and wide,
I will arise.
Sit by my dust with wine and music:
From my imprisonment
Beneath the ground, within my grave,
Dancing, drawn by your scent,
I will arise.
Rise now, my love, display your stature,
Your sweetness, and I’ll be,
Like Hafez, from the world itself
And from my soul set free…
I will arise.
And though I’m old, if you’ll embrace
Me tightly in your arms all night,
Then from your side, as dawn appears, Young in the morning light,
I will arise.
---
WITH WINE BESIDE A GENTLY FLOWING BROOK – THIS IS BEST;
Withdrawn from sorrow in some quiet nook – this is best;
Our life is like a flower’s that blooms for ten short days,
Bright laughing lips, a friendly fresh-faced look – this is best.
---
A pretty (and rather sad) one from Jahan.
HEART, IN HIS BEAUTY’S GARDEN, I –
Like nightingales – complain,
And of his roses now for me
Only the thorns remain;
My friends have gathered flowers, but I,
Because of all his harshness,
Can find no flowers to gather here
And search for them in vain.
My heart is filled with suffering;
And all my doctor says is,
“Sugar from him, and nothing else,
Will lessen your heart’s pain.”
I’ve filled the world with love for him,
So why do I receive
Such cruelty from my dearest love,
Again, and yet again?
My free will’s gone from me, so how
Can my poor ears accept
All the advice my clever tutor’s
Homilies contain?
No, in the pre-dawn darkness, I
Am like the nightingale
That in the orchards sings the rose
Its old love-sick refrain.
I hear it’s strangers whom you welcome,
Whom you make much of now;
Let me then be a stranger in
The kingdom where you reign.
---
COME HERE A MOMENT, SIT WITH ME, DON’T SLEEP TONIGHT,
Consider well my heart’s unhappy plight, tonight;
And let your face’s presence lighten me, and give
The loveliness of moonlight to the night, tonight.
Be kind now to this stranger, and don’t imitate
Life as it leaves me in its headlong flight, tonight.
Be sweet to me now as your eyes are sweet; don’t twist
Away now like your curls, to left and right, tonight;
Don’t sweep me from you like the dust before your door;
Dowse all the flames of longing you ignite, tonight.
Why do you treat me with such cruelty now, my friend,
So that my tears obliterate my sight, tonight?
If, for a moment, I could see you in my dreams,
I’d know the sum of all this world’s delight, tonight.
---
A PICNIC AT THE DESERT’S EDGE, WITH WITTY FRIENDS,
And tambourines, and harps, and lutes, is very sweet.
And if my lover, for a moment, should drop by,
I’ll grill his liver with my body’s fiery heat.
---
MY ENEMIES’ GLIB LIES ARE NEVER DONE –
How long will their cruel calumnies go on?
I’m like the wretched wolf (who’d done no harm)
Accused of killing Joseph, Jacob’s son.
---
SHIRAZ WHEN SPRING IS HERE – WHAT PLEASURE EQUALS THIS?
With streams to sit by, wine to drink, and lips to kiss,
With mingled sounds of drums and lutes and harps and flutes;
Then, with a nice young lover near, Shiraz is bliss.
---
Obayd is a funny fucker lol
MY PRETTY DEAR, YOU’RE STILL TOO YOUNG TO MAKE
The pilgrimage to Mecca and repent,
But if you feel the need to be a pilgrim,
Take my advice, my dear, it’s kindly meant:
Straddle my prick and ride it – that can be
Your thousand-pilgrimage equivalent.
---
I loved the translator's sense of humor. He is such a precious boi.
January 30, 2024
Hafez is a wily, polyphonous poet, starting a poem speaking of one thing and then, all of a sudden, speaking of another before the reader realizes what has happened. Often these digressions bring a new angle to the last line. One can see why he’s so well known and beloved because I imagine the energy would be sort of like Shakespeare in English, where the energy contained within each line can seem infinite.
There are two or three Hafez poems in this that I think are simply great poetry in English. One, “I see no love in anyone” is plainspoken and heartbreaking, another, “For years my heart inquired of me,” is transcendent and mystical. Both are rhythmic and intricate as well as confessional, like Keats maybe, or Burns, but the language is not flowery but direct and plainspoken. They gallop along, they can be easily memorized, you might find lines from them echoing in your mind months later. “I see no love in anyone” is a particularly extraordinary bit of artistic union across time and space because it seems to be Hafez lamenting the deposition of his patron, the cosmopolitan Abu E’shaq, by the dour fundamentalist Mobarez al-Din, and at the same time Davis lamenting the Islamic revolution in Iran, from which he had to flee.
Many others are well translated (as far as I can tell) but run up against the limits of the form —the subject matter is pretty repetitious: wine, nature, beguiling young seducers (of both sexes), the hypocrisy of priests, sprinklings of religious questing. It’s a nice world to hang out in, all those perfumed gardens and long, wine-soaked nights, but it gets tiring eventually and many of them are simpler than the two discussed. There are also forms that I’m sure work better in Arabic, such as the ones where each line ends with the same phrase, such as “that isn’t good” or “do not despair,” a call and response that brings to mind an American Protestant church service more than 14th century Persia.
The meaty introduction contextualizing and describing the poets is also very informative and entertaining — if he wrote an entire book on medieval Persian poetry, I would happily read it. There are many differing readings of Hafez, with many commentaries reading him as esoteric and mystical and others making a case for his earthiness and epicureanism - in other words, the wine he talks about could be just wine or it could be the knowledge of God. Davis is firmly on the “just wine” side, as he states in his introduction. One can agree or disagree, but I’m glad he lays it out instead of advancing an interpretation while concealing that it’s highly contested.
Anyway, this is a great book and the sense of kinship you get reading words from such a different place and time is one of the best things about being human.
There are two or three Hafez poems in this that I think are simply great poetry in English. One, “I see no love in anyone” is plainspoken and heartbreaking, another, “For years my heart inquired of me,” is transcendent and mystical. Both are rhythmic and intricate as well as confessional, like Keats maybe, or Burns, but the language is not flowery but direct and plainspoken. They gallop along, they can be easily memorized, you might find lines from them echoing in your mind months later. “I see no love in anyone” is a particularly extraordinary bit of artistic union across time and space because it seems to be Hafez lamenting the deposition of his patron, the cosmopolitan Abu E’shaq, by the dour fundamentalist Mobarez al-Din, and at the same time Davis lamenting the Islamic revolution in Iran, from which he had to flee.
Many others are well translated (as far as I can tell) but run up against the limits of the form —the subject matter is pretty repetitious: wine, nature, beguiling young seducers (of both sexes), the hypocrisy of priests, sprinklings of religious questing. It’s a nice world to hang out in, all those perfumed gardens and long, wine-soaked nights, but it gets tiring eventually and many of them are simpler than the two discussed. There are also forms that I’m sure work better in Arabic, such as the ones where each line ends with the same phrase, such as “that isn’t good” or “do not despair,” a call and response that brings to mind an American Protestant church service more than 14th century Persia.
The meaty introduction contextualizing and describing the poets is also very informative and entertaining — if he wrote an entire book on medieval Persian poetry, I would happily read it. There are many differing readings of Hafez, with many commentaries reading him as esoteric and mystical and others making a case for his earthiness and epicureanism - in other words, the wine he talks about could be just wine or it could be the knowledge of God. Davis is firmly on the “just wine” side, as he states in his introduction. One can agree or disagree, but I’m glad he lays it out instead of advancing an interpretation while concealing that it’s highly contested.
Anyway, this is a great book and the sense of kinship you get reading words from such a different place and time is one of the best things about being human.
December 26, 2024
Like all of Dick Davis’ translated works, this one is a real delight that gives much more than you’d expect - with its joy to be found in the translation, compilation and explanatory introduction/notes as much as in the text itself.
I’d been really keen to read Hafez since participating in a Fal-e Hafez (or ‘Divination by Hafez’, of which Davis speaks in the Appendix) at a Shab-e Yalda celebration last year. This book gave me that - Hafez’s poems are displayed in all their beauty, with Davis providing an expert guide to their intricacies and ambiguities (through which he wisely attempts to provide guidance rather than resolution; I appreciated his attempts to preserve a deliberate mutability in Persian that cannot wholly be recreated in English). I’d read many Davis translations of narrative verse, but none of conventional poems; despite the fact that I don’t have the ability to counterpose his translations against the Persian originals, I nevertheless felt that he strove hard to recreate the formal requirements of the ghazal in English and to convey each poem’s sense of feeling as well as its literal meaning. To me, that felt vital.
Having come for Hafez, I was intrigued to discover that his output was less prodigious than that of his peers (most notably Rumi) - and that, for the purposes of this volume, he’d been agglomerated with two other fourteenth century Shirazi poets. I really enjoyed the works of both Jahan Malek Khatun (in particular) and Obayd-e Zakani (whose irreverence and directness even made me laugh aloud at points), and I eagerly followed the ways in which the courtly power struggles which Davis adumbrated in the introduction played out in their works. I was also fascinated by Jahan’s background as an Inju princess lucky to survive Mobarez al-din’s murderous usurpation of her father, who nevertheless carved out for herself a niche as a poet in a time and place in which female poets were still relatively rare. I was entirely unfamiliar with each of these prior to this book (I gather that Jahan in particular is a relatively recent ‘discovery’, and so part of this text’s value is in bringing her writings to a wider audience), and discovering them both was a joy. Both sit perfectly credibly in the company of Hafez.
A real pleasure to read.
I’d been really keen to read Hafez since participating in a Fal-e Hafez (or ‘Divination by Hafez’, of which Davis speaks in the Appendix) at a Shab-e Yalda celebration last year. This book gave me that - Hafez’s poems are displayed in all their beauty, with Davis providing an expert guide to their intricacies and ambiguities (through which he wisely attempts to provide guidance rather than resolution; I appreciated his attempts to preserve a deliberate mutability in Persian that cannot wholly be recreated in English). I’d read many Davis translations of narrative verse, but none of conventional poems; despite the fact that I don’t have the ability to counterpose his translations against the Persian originals, I nevertheless felt that he strove hard to recreate the formal requirements of the ghazal in English and to convey each poem’s sense of feeling as well as its literal meaning. To me, that felt vital.
Having come for Hafez, I was intrigued to discover that his output was less prodigious than that of his peers (most notably Rumi) - and that, for the purposes of this volume, he’d been agglomerated with two other fourteenth century Shirazi poets. I really enjoyed the works of both Jahan Malek Khatun (in particular) and Obayd-e Zakani (whose irreverence and directness even made me laugh aloud at points), and I eagerly followed the ways in which the courtly power struggles which Davis adumbrated in the introduction played out in their works. I was also fascinated by Jahan’s background as an Inju princess lucky to survive Mobarez al-din’s murderous usurpation of her father, who nevertheless carved out for herself a niche as a poet in a time and place in which female poets were still relatively rare. I was entirely unfamiliar with each of these prior to this book (I gather that Jahan in particular is a relatively recent ‘discovery’, and so part of this text’s value is in bringing her writings to a wider audience), and discovering them both was a joy. Both sit perfectly credibly in the company of Hafez.
A real pleasure to read.
March 11, 2025
Dick Davis is the GOAT for his translations from Persian/Farsi. He translates the preeminent works from medieval (and modern times) so that if I ever see his name, I know it is a stamp of great and important literature. (Kind of like when I see Donald Keene’s name on a work of Japanese translation or non-fiction.)
This sampling of three ‘political’ voices from Shiraz in Fars (Southern Iran today) includes Hafez, the princess Jahan Malek Khatun, and Obayd-e Zakani. In a way the sampling feels like a progression from Sophocles to Euripides to Aristophanes, as Zakani does indeed practice a kind of crude Old Comedy in his poetry. The other two are no angels, and the references to wine take on, according to Davis, a more literal meaning than some figurative religious readings might have suggested. Indeed, the celebration of pleasure in wine and love reflect practices we today can hardly understand, yet can connect to in a poetry that is imbued with many meanings. Pronouns ‘he’ and ‘you’ can be read as a lover, the patron or ruler, or God. It is in the openness that particularly Hafez stand out. His ghazals retain some form of their structure and I think without knowing any Farsi that Dick Davis makes intelligent decisions about structure, line, and rhyme that teach much about poetic form in medieval Persia. Jahal is a breath of fresh are for the change in literary tropes, as well as a development in the commentary on the political transformation of Shiraz in the years these three poets wrote.
Hafez is the third major Persian poet I have read translated by Davis, and can say these poems were as enjoyable as Nizami’s Layli and Majnun and Gorgani’s Vis and Ramen even as Hafez’s poetry is lyrical and non-narrative. I have Davis’s translation of the Shahnameh and look forward to the day I tackle that tome.
This sampling of three ‘political’ voices from Shiraz in Fars (Southern Iran today) includes Hafez, the princess Jahan Malek Khatun, and Obayd-e Zakani. In a way the sampling feels like a progression from Sophocles to Euripides to Aristophanes, as Zakani does indeed practice a kind of crude Old Comedy in his poetry. The other two are no angels, and the references to wine take on, according to Davis, a more literal meaning than some figurative religious readings might have suggested. Indeed, the celebration of pleasure in wine and love reflect practices we today can hardly understand, yet can connect to in a poetry that is imbued with many meanings. Pronouns ‘he’ and ‘you’ can be read as a lover, the patron or ruler, or God. It is in the openness that particularly Hafez stand out. His ghazals retain some form of their structure and I think without knowing any Farsi that Dick Davis makes intelligent decisions about structure, line, and rhyme that teach much about poetic form in medieval Persia. Jahal is a breath of fresh are for the change in literary tropes, as well as a development in the commentary on the political transformation of Shiraz in the years these three poets wrote.
Hafez is the third major Persian poet I have read translated by Davis, and can say these poems were as enjoyable as Nizami’s Layli and Majnun and Gorgani’s Vis and Ramen even as Hafez’s poetry is lyrical and non-narrative. I have Davis’s translation of the Shahnameh and look forward to the day I tackle that tome.
June 25, 2025
A beautiful collection of 14th century Persian poetry.
Hafez writes of lust, wine and the limitations of piousness with such passion and bluntness it is just ends up being gorgeous
"I would rather see a ripped shirt worn by someone blessed with beauty than see a thousand Sufi coats
All abstinence and duty"
"Come tell what what i have gained
from loving you
Apart from losing all the faith i had
and knowledge to"
Jahan Malek khatun, honestly a bit whiney for me, just needs to get a grip
"I swore id never look at him again,
Id be a Sufim deaf to sin;s temptations
I saw my nature wouldnt stand for it and
now i renounce reunciations"
Obayd-e Zakani is just filth!
“In arts and sciences, don’t try to be a master,
Unless you want to be, like me, a big disaster;
To catch the eye of princes, just suck up to them,
Sing silly songs, fuck boys – and you’ll get on much faster.”
Hafez writes of lust, wine and the limitations of piousness with such passion and bluntness it is just ends up being gorgeous
"I would rather see a ripped shirt worn by someone blessed with beauty than see a thousand Sufi coats
All abstinence and duty"
"Come tell what what i have gained
from loving you
Apart from losing all the faith i had
and knowledge to"
Jahan Malek khatun, honestly a bit whiney for me, just needs to get a grip
"I swore id never look at him again,
Id be a Sufim deaf to sin;s temptations
I saw my nature wouldnt stand for it and
now i renounce reunciations"
Obayd-e Zakani is just filth!
“In arts and sciences, don’t try to be a master,
Unless you want to be, like me, a big disaster;
To catch the eye of princes, just suck up to them,
Sing silly songs, fuck boys – and you’ll get on much faster.”
Read
July 20, 2023The heavens give the ignorant their head,
Desire's the only bridle they acknowledge —
Your fault is that you're clever and accomplished,
And this same sin of knowledge ... is all you need.
Before reading, I'd heard that Hafez is even more untranslatable than your average old, foreign-language poet, and this book really confirms that point while still being very enjoyable. The real shame and drawback is that strictly metered rhyme — an important part of Medieval Persian poetry, which Davis could hardly just ignore — always comes across as goofy and childish in English, which is of course nothing more than a function of linguistics and history. I listened to a few recitation of Hafez on Youtube, and the sing-songey childishness disappears and replaces with a real musicality.
Love that Zakani can't stop writing about his dick.
Desire's the only bridle they acknowledge —
Your fault is that you're clever and accomplished,
And this same sin of knowledge ... is all you need.
Before reading, I'd heard that Hafez is even more untranslatable than your average old, foreign-language poet, and this book really confirms that point while still being very enjoyable. The real shame and drawback is that strictly metered rhyme — an important part of Medieval Persian poetry, which Davis could hardly just ignore — always comes across as goofy and childish in English, which is of course nothing more than a function of linguistics and history. I listened to a few recitation of Hafez on Youtube, and the sing-songey childishness disappears and replaces with a real musicality.
Love that Zakani can't stop writing about his dick.
April 7, 2018
Three very different poets in one volume, which works as an exploration of time and place, but maybe less well thematically. Having the same, talented, translator also proves disconcerting, as elements of the style seem eerily similar even though the styles are quite different. Hafez' mannered, opaque love poetry, the melancholic anger or lament of Jahan, and the in-the-face satire of Obeyd-e.
I enjoyed all three poets, and the introduction is informative and thought-provoking. But there's just ... limitations to poetry in translation. I'm glad I got a taste, but it doesn't feel like really understanding.
I enjoyed all three poets, and the introduction is informative and thought-provoking. But there's just ... limitations to poetry in translation. I'm glad I got a taste, but it doesn't feel like really understanding.
October 22, 2024
Rarely do I give a book 5 stars but this was just amazing from beginning, middle and end. I enjoyed the historical background at the start - what a world they came from, I enjoyed the lines of Hafiz, Jahan(female poet) and then Zakani’s satirical lines at the end. His cat and mouse satire poem was extremely powerful and I think it needs more attention. It does reflect the reality of Muslim politics on the ground. Jahans poetry as a woman was refreshing and Hafiz had that lyrical skill. This was truly one of my favourite books to read this year and jt took me a while but I’m sad that it’s ended.
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