Divan of Hafez — Hafez
Poems from the Divan of Hafiz | Project Gutenberg You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org . If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title : Poems from the Divan of Hafiz Author : active 14th century Ḥāfiẓ Translator : Gertrude Lowthian Bell Release date : December 12, 2024 [eBook #74883] Language : English Original publication : London: Heinemann, 1897 Other information and formats : www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/74883 Credits : Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) *** START OF POEMS FROM THE DIVAN OF HAFIZ TRANSLATED BY GERTRUDE LOWTHIAN BELL LONDON WILLIAM HEINEMANN 1897 All rights reserved Poems from the Divan of Hafiz | Project Gutenberg TO HAFIZ OF SHIRAZ قضا دستيست پنج انگشت دارد چه خواهد از کسي کامي برآرد دو بر چشمش نهد ديگر دو بر گوش يکي بر لب نهد گويد که خاموش Thus said the Poet: “When Death comes to you, All ye whose life-sand through the hour-glass slips, He lays two fingers on your ears, and two Upon your eyes he lays, one on your lips, Whispering: Silence!” Although deaf thine ear, Thine eye, my Hafiz, suffer Time’s eclipse, The songs thou sangest still all men may hear. Songs of dead laughter, songs of love once hot, Songs of a cup once flushed rose-red with wine, Songs of a rose whose beauty is forgot, A nightingale that piped hushed lays divine: And still a graver music runs beneath The tender love notes of those songs of thine, Oh, Seeker of the keys of Life and Death! While thou wert singing, the soft summer wind That o’er Mosalla’s garden blew, the stream Of Ruknabad flowing where roses twined, Carried thy voice farther than thou could’st dream. To Isfahan and Baghdad’s Tartar horde, O’er waste and sea to Yezd and distant Ind; Yea, to the sun-setting they bore thy word. Behold we laugh, we warm us at Love’s fire, We thirst and scarce dare tell what wine we crave, We lift our voices in Grief’s dark-robed choir; Sing thou the wisdom joy and sorrow gave! If my poor rhymes held aught of the heart’s lore, Fresh wreaths were theirs to lay upon thy grave— Master and Poet, all was thine before! Poems from the Divan of Hafiz | Project Gutenberg INTRODUCTION Shemsuddin Mahommad, better known by his poetical surname of Hafiz, was born in Shiraz in the early part of the fourteenth century. [1] His names, being interpreted, signify the Sun of the Faith, the Praiseworthy, and One who can recite the Koran; he is further known to his compatriots under the titles of the Tongue of the Hidden and the Interpreter of Secrets. The better part of his life was spent in Shiraz, and he died in that city towards the close of the century. The exact date either of his birth or of his death is unknown. He fell upon turbulent times. His delicate love-songs were chanted to the rude accompaniment of the clash of arms, and his dreams must have been interrupted often enough by the nip of famine in a beleaguered town, the inrush of conquerors, and the flight of the defeated. The history of Persia in the fourteenth century is exceedingly confused. Beyond a succession of wars and turmoils, there is little to be learnt concerning the political conditions under which Hafiz lived. Fifty years before the birth of the poet, Hulagu, a grandson of the great Tartar invader Chinghis Khan, had conquered Baghdad, putting to death the last of the Abbaside Khalifs and extinguishing the direct line of the race that had ruled over Persia since 750. For the next 200 years there is indeed a branch of the family of Abbas living in Cairo, members of which were set up as Khalifs by the Mamluk Sultans of Egypt; but they were destitute of any real authority, and their position was that of dependants in the Mamluk court. The sons and grandsons of Hulagu succeeded him as lords of Persia and Mesopotamia, paying a nominal allegiance to the Great Khan of the Mongols in Cambalec or Pekin, but for all practical purposes independent, and the different provinces of their empire were administered by governors in their name. About the time of the birth of Hafiz, that is to say in the beginning of the fourteenth century, a certain Mahmud Shah Inju was governing the province of Fars, of which Shiraz is the capital, in the name of Abu Said, the last of the direct descendants of Hulagu. On the death of Mahmud Shah, Abu Said appointed Sheikh Hussein ibn Juban to the governorship of Fars, a lucrative and much-coveted post. Sheikh Hussein took the precaution of ordering the three sons of Mahmud Shah to be seized and imprisoned; but while they were passing through the streets of Shiraz in the hands of their captors, their mother, who accompanied them, lifted her veil and made a touching appeal to the people, calling upon them to remember the benefits they had received from their late ruler, the father of the three boys. Her words took instant effect; the inhabitants rose, released her and her sons, and drove Sheikh Hussein into exile. He, however, returned with an army supplied by Abu Said, and induced Shiraz to submit again to his rule. In 1335, a year or two after these events, Abu Said died, and the power of the house of Hulagu crumbled away. There followed a long period of anarchy, which was brought to an end when Oweis, another descendant of Hulagu, seized the throne. He and his son Ahmed reigned in Baghdad until Ahmed was driven out by the invading army of Timur. But during the years of anarchy the authority of the Sultan of Baghdad had been considerably curtailed. On Abu Said’s death, Abu Ishac, one of the three sons of Mahmud Shah Inju who had so narrowly escaped from the hands of Sheikh Hussein, took possession of Shiraz and Isfahan, finally ousting his old enemy, while Mahommad ibn Muzaffar, who had earned