Part 7

Ah, swerve not from the path of righteousness Though the world lure thee! like a wrinkled crone, Hiding beneath her robe lasciviousness, She plunders them that pause and heed her moan. From Sinai Moses brings thee wealth untold; Bow not thine head before the calf of gold Like Samir, following after wickedness.

From the Shah’s garden blows the wind of Spring, The tulip in her lifted chalice bears A dewy wine of Heaven’s minist’ring; Until Ghiyasuddin, the Sultan, hears, Sing, Hafiz, of thy longing for his face. The breezes whispering round thy dwelling-place Shall carry thy lament unto the King.

XL

The margin of a stream, the willow’s shade, A mind inclined to song, a mistress sweet, A Cup-bearer whose cheek outshines the rose, A friend upon whose heart thy heart is laid: Oh Happy-starred! let not thine hours fleet Unvalued; may each minute as it goes Lay tribute of enjoyment at thy feet, That thou may’st live and know thy life is sweet.

Let every one upon whose heart desire For a fair face lies like a burden sore, That all his hopes may reach their goal unchecked, Throw branches of wild rue upon his fire. My soul is like a bride, with a rich store Of maiden thoughts and jewelled fancies decked, And in Time’s gallery I yet may meet Some picture meant for me, some image sweet.

Give thanks for nights spent in good company, And take the gifts a tranquil mind may bring; No heart is dark when the kind moon doth shine, And grass-grown river-banks are fair to see. The Saki’s radiant eyes, God favouring, Are like a wine-cup brimming o’er with wine, And him my drunken sense goes out to greet, For e’en the pain he leaves behind is sweet.

Hafiz, thy life has sped untouched by care, With me towards the tavern turn thy feet! The fairest robbers thou’lt encounter there, And they will teach thee what to learn is sweet.

XLI

The days of Spring are here! the eglantine, The rose, the tulip from the dust have risen— And thou, why liest thou beneath the dust? Like the full clouds of Spring, these eyes of mine Shall scatter tears upon the grave thy prison, Till thou too from the earth thine head shalt thrust.

XLII

True love has vanished from every heart; What has befallen all lovers fair? When did the bonds of friendship part?— What has befallen the friends that were? Ah, why are the feet of Khizr lingering?— The waters of life are no longer clear, The purple rose has turned pale with fear, And what has befallen the wind of Spring?

None now sayeth: “A love was mine, Loyal and wise, to dispel my care.” None remembers love’s right divine; What has befallen all lovers fair? In the midst of the field, to the players’ feet, The ball of God’s favour and mercy came, But none has leapt forth to renew the game— What has befallen the horsemen fleet?

Roses have bloomed, yet no bird rejoiced, No vibrating throat has rung with the tale; What can have silenced the hundred-voiced? What has befallen the nightingale? Heaven’s music is hushed, and the planets roll In silence; has Zohra broken her lute? There is none to press out the vine’s ripe fruit, And what has befallen the foaming bowl?

A city where kings are but lovers crowned, A land from the dust of which friendship springs— Who has laid waste that enchanted ground? What has befallen the city of kings? Years have passed since a ruby was won From the mine of manhood; they labour in vain, The fleet-footed wind and the quickening rain, And what has befallen the light of the sun?

Hafiz, the secret of God’s dread task No man knoweth, in youth or prime Or in wisest age; of whom would’st thou ask: What has befallen the wheels of Time?

XLIII

Where are the tidings of union? that I may arise— Forth from the dust I will rise up to welcome thee! My soul, like a homing bird, yearning for Paradise, Shall arise and soar, from the snares of the world set free. When the voice of thy love shall call me to be thy slave, I shall rise to a greater far than the mastery Of life and the living, time and the mortal span: Pour down, oh Lord! from the clouds of thy guiding grace, The rain of a mercy that quickeneth on my grave, Before, like dust that the wind bears from place to place, I arise and flee beyond the knowledge of man.

When to my grave thou turnest thy blessed feet, Wine and the lute thou shalt bring in thine hand to me, Thy voice shall ring through the folds of my winding-sheet, And I will arise and dance to thy minstrelsy. Though I be old, clasp me one night to thy breast, And I, when the dawn shall come to awaken me, With the flush of youth on my cheek from thy bosom will rise. Rise up! let mine eyes delight in thy stately grace! Thou art the goal to which all men’s endeavour has pressed, And thou the idol of Hafiz’ worship; thy face From the world and life shall bid him come forth and arise!

NOTES

I

_Stanza 1._—The first line of this song, the opening poem in the Divan, is borrowed from an Arabic poem by Yezid ibn Moawiyah, the second Khalif of the Ommiad line. This prince was held in abomination by the Persian Shi’ites, both as the head of the Sunnis and because he was the cause of the death of Hussein, the son of Ali, whom the Shi’ites regarded as the rightful successor to the Khalifate. Hafiz was frequently reproached for setting a quotation from the works of the abhorred Yezid at the head of his book, a reproach which he is said to have met with the reply, that it was good policy to steal from the heretics whatsoever they possessed of worth.

“In this country (_i.e._ North-Eastern China) is found the best musk in the world, and I will tell you how it is produced. There exists in that region a kind of wild animal like a gazelle. It has feet and tail like the gazelle’s, a stag’s hair of a very coarse kind, but no horns. It has four tusks, two below and two above, about three inches long, and slender in form, one pair growing downwards and the other upwards. It is a very pretty creature. The musk is found in this way: when the creature has been taken, they find at the navel, between the flesh and the skin, something like an imposthume filled with blood, which they cut out and remove, with all the skin attached to it; and the blood inside this imposthume is the musk that produces that powerful perfume. There is an immense number of these beasts in the country we are speaking of. The flesh is very good to eat. Messer Marco brought the dried head and feet of one of these animals to Venice with him.”—_Travels of Marco Polo._

There is a play of meaning upon the musk which is obtained at the cost of the deer’s life-blood and the tears of blood which the lover weeps for his mistress.

_Stanza 2._—The title which Hafiz gives to the Tavern-keeper is Pir-i-Maghan—literally, the Old Man of the Magians. The history of this title is an epitome of the history of Persian faiths. It indicated primarily the priest of the first of Persian religions, that of Zoroaster. When the Mahommadans invaded Persia, and the preachers of the Prophet supplanted the priests of Zoroaster, their title fell into disrepute, and was degraded so far that it came to mean only the keeper of a tavern or caravanserai. But in this sense it gradually regained the honourable place from which it had fallen; for the keepers of such places of resort were, for the most part, men well acquainted with the “ways of the road and the hostelry.” In their time they may themselves have served travellers upon their journey; they had heard and learnt much from the wayfarers who stopped at their gates, and they were able to guide others upon their journey, sending them forth refreshed and comforted in body. And here the Sufis took up the ancient name and used it to mean that wise old man who supplied weary travellers upon life’s road with the spiritual draught of Sufi doctrine which refreshes and comforts the soul.

II

_Stanza 1._—This poem has been expounded to me as a description of the poet’s quest for love. In an allegory he shows how he looked for it in vain from that image of earthly devotion, the nightingale; he warns men that it comes not but by humiliation and sorrow; he questions the magic garden, but its breezes cannot answer him; finally, he concludes that love is not that which lies upon the lips of men, and calls upon the Cup-bearer to silence their idle talk with the wine of divine knowledge.

_Stanza 2._—The Garden of Irem was planted by the mythical King Shedad, the son of Ad, the grandson of Irem, who was himself the son of Shem. The tribe of Ad settled in the sandy deserts near Aden, where Ad began the building of a great city which his son completed. Round his palace Shedad planted a wonderful garden which was intended to rival in beauty the Garden of Eden. “When it was finished he set out with a great attendance to take a view of it, but when they were come within a day’s journey of the place they were all destroyed by a terrible noise from heaven.... The city, they tell us, is still standing in the deserts of Aden, being preserved by Providence as a monument of divine justice, though it be invisible, unless very rarely, when God permits it to be seen, a favour one Colabah pretended to have received in the reign of the Khalif Moawiyah, who, sending for him to know the truth of the matter, Colabah related his whole adventure: that, as he was seeking a camel he had lost, he found himself on a sudden at the gates of this city, and entering it, saw not one inhabitant, at which being terrified, he stayed no longer than to take with him some fine stones which he showed the Khalif.”—_Sale’s Koran._

Sudi says that Hafiz composed this poem in a beautiful garden belonging to Shah Shudja, and called by him the Bagh-i-Irem, after Shedad’s legendary Paradise.

“Il y avait jadis en Perse un grand roi nommé Djem ou Djemshid. Il régna sept cents ans; je ne saurai vous dire à quelle date au juste, mais ‘tant qu’il régna, il n’y eut dans son empire ni mort, ni maladie, ni vieillesse, et tous les hommes marchaient dans la taille de jouvenceaux de quinze ans; il n’y avait ni chaleur, ni froideur, et jamais ne se desséchaient les eaux ni les plantes.’ Mais le pauvre Djem n’avait point la tête solide, et, comme il faisait des immortels, il se crut Dieu et voulut être adoré. Aussitôt, le Fari Yazdan, c’est-à-dire la gloire royale qui vient de Dieu, l’abandonna; un serpent à trois têtes, nommé Zohab, vint de l’Arabie et lui prit son trône; il s’enfuit dans l’Inde et y resta chaché mille ans durant; puis un beau jour, s’étant aventuré hors de sa retraite, il fut livré au serpent, qui le scia en deux avec une arête de poisson. Entre autres splendeurs, le roi Djemshid, au temps de sa splendeur, possédait une coupe magique où il voyait tout l’univers et tout ce qui s’y passe. Certains savants prétendent que cette coupe était le soleil qui voit toute chose; d’autres, que c’était un globe terrestre mis au courant, et il me souvient qu’il y a deux ans, prenant le thé dans un café de Stamboul avec un sage d’Isfahan, nommé Habib, la conversation tomba de la tasse de thé à la coupe de Djemshid, et Habib, me mettant le doigt au front, me dit: Djam-i-Djemshid, dil-i-agah: “la coupe de Djemshid c’est le cœur de l’homme de science.””—_Darmsteter_, “_Lettres sur l’Inde_.”

A few miles from Peshawar, Darmsteter goes on to relate, there is a dried-up pond called the Talab i Djemshid, into which the King is said to have cast his magic cup. The head man of the village told the French traveller that a knife had been discovered there bearing this inscription: “This pond was dug by me, Djemshid, five hundred years before the Hejra.” “Elle n’a pas été retrouvée, la coupe de Djemshid,” adds Darmsteter, “non plus que la coupe du roi de Thulé, c’est pour ça qu’il n’y a plus parmi les hommes ni science, ni amour.”

Djemshid is supposed to have built Persepolis. There is a legend that his cup was found buried in its foundations, and that it was formed of an enormous turquoise. It is said that he was the first to drink wine, and that he recommended it to his subjects as a health-giving beverage. He, too, was the father of chemistry and the possessor of the philosopher’s stone.

III

_Stanza 1._—King Solomon sent the lapwing or hoopoe as his messenger to Bilkis, Queen of Sheba. The story is told thus by Al Ta’labi, in his Stories of the Prophets. (The lapwing had already made a journey on his own account, and had brought Solomon news of the great Queen, and told him that she was not a worshipper of the true God.) “Then Solomon wrote a letter saying: From the servant of God, Solomon, son of David, to Bilkis, Queen of Saba, in the name of God the Merciful, the Compassionate, peace be upon him who follows the right road. After which he said: Behave not insolently towards me, but come unto me humbled. And he strewed musk upon it and sealed it with his seal. Then he said to the lapwing: Fly with this letter and deliver it unto them, then turn away, but remain near them and hear what answer they make. And the lapwing took the letter and flew with it to Bilkis. And she was in the land which is called Marib, at a distance of three days’ journey, and she had entered into her castle, and the gates of it were shut. For when she slept she was wont to shut the gates and to take the key and lay it beneath her head. So the lapwing came unto her, and she was asleep, lying upon her back; and he laid the letter upon her breast. Wahb ibn Manabbih says that there was a window opposite to the sun so that the sunbeams fell through it at dawn, and when she saw the sun she was wont to bow down and worship it. And the lapwing went to this window and blocked it up with his wings. And the sun rose, but she knew it not. And she thought that the sun was late, and stood up to look for it. Then the lapwing threw a leaf upon her face. And they say that Bilkis took the letter and she was able to read the writing. But when she saw the seal she trembled and bowed down, because of the power of Solomon that was in his seal. For she knew that the power of him who had sent the letter was greater than hers, and she said: Lo, here is a king whose messengers are the birds; verily he is a mighty king.”

_Stanzas 5 and 6._—The accepted explanation of these lines is that by the glass Hafiz means his own heart, which he sends to his mistress that she may see that her own image is reflected in it; but I prefer here (and indeed for the whole poem) a mystical interpretation. The heavenly voice tells him to seek for comfort in Sufiism, and bids him look upon the mirror, for he shall see God himself reflected in it—which is only another way of putting the doctrine that man and God are one. The poet’s reputation has gained him admittance into the company of the Sufis, let him hasten to them, for they shall give him that for which he seeks.

A horse and robe is the Eastern gift of honour. Lane in one of his notes to the “Arabian Nights” quotes a significant story concerning these gifts: “A person chancing to look at a register kept by one of the officers of Harun al Rashid, saw in it the following entry: ‘400,000 pieces of gold, the price of a dress of honour for Jafar ibn Yahya, the Vizir.’ A few days after he saw beneath this written: ‘Ten kerits, the price of naphtha and reeds for burning the body of Jafar ibn Yahya.’ (The kerit of Baghdad was worth a twentieth part of a gold piece.)

Put not your trust in Eastern princes!

IV

_Verse 3._—The Persians describe the dimple in the chin of their mistress as a dangerous well filled with her lover’s tears, into which, when he approaches her mouth, he may fall and be drowned.

_Verse 6._—“Oh rose, tearing thy robe in two”: that is, bursting into flower beneath the warm breath of the wind that blows from where thou art.

V

_Stanza 1._—When the conqueror Timur entered Shiraz it is related that he summoned Hafiz before him and said: “Of all my empire, Bokhara and Samarkand are the fairest jewels; how comes it that in thy song thou hast declared that thou would’st exchange them against the black mole on the cheek of thy mistress?” Hafiz replied: “It is because of such generosity that I am now as poor as thou seest.” The Emperor was not to be outdone in repartee: he sent the poet away a richer man by some hundreds of gold pieces.

“C’est du Molière renversé,” says Darmsteter of these lines, and quotes:—

“Si le roi m’avait donné Paris sa grande ville, Et qu’il me fallût quitter L’amour de ma mie, Je dirais au roi Henri: Reprenez votre Paris, J’aime mieux ma mie, ô gué, J’aime mieux ma mie!”

In the garden of Mosalla, Hafiz lies buried; the stream Ruknabad flows near at hand.

_Stanza 2._—The Luli or gipsies, as they were contemptuously called, were a people of the tribe of Keredj, of Indian origin, who inhabited the country between Shiraz and Isfahan. Their young men and maidens were famous for their beauty and musical accomplishments, and furnished minstrels and dancing girls to the wealthy inhabitants of Shiraz. Sir Henry Layard met with a similar tribe near Baghdad. “They bear,” he says, “a very bad reputation on the score of morality, and according to general report lead very dissolute lives. The dancing boys and girls who frequent Baghdad, and are notoriously of evil fame, come principally from this district. Whilst we were resting at the caravanserai a party of them came to perform their indecent dances before us, as they were in the habit of doing on the arrival of travellers.”—_Early Adventures._

In Turkestan there was formerly an institution called the Feast of Plunder. When the pay-day of the soldiers came round, dishes of rice and great quantities of cooked food were prepared and set out on the ground. The soldiers then rode up, armed as if for battle, and carried off the food with mimic violence. Thus they made reparation to their conscience for accepting a pay lawfully earned, and reminded themselves that rapine was their true profession.

_Stanza 3._—Joseph is the Oriental type of perfect beauty. The story of his relations with Zuleikha, Potiphar’s wife, is one of the famous love stories of the East; Jami made it the theme of a long metaphysical poem. The part played by Zuleikha in Persian tales is far more creditable than that which is assigned to her either in the Bible or the Koran.

Every translator of Hafiz has tried his hand upon this song, which is one of the most famous in the Divan. It is only right to inform the reader that the original is of great beauty.

The whole poem has received a mystical interpretation which seems to me to add but little to its value or to its intelligibility; but in case any one should wish to gather the higher wisdom from it, I may mention that the mole, powder, and paint, of which a beautiful face does not stand in need, represent the ink, colour, dots, and lines of the Koran; and this is the explanation given to the couplet concerning Joseph and Zuleikha by a thorough-going Western mystic: “By reason of that beauty daily increasing that Joseph (the absolute existence, the real beloved, God) had, I (the first day) knew that love for him would bring Zuleikha (us, things possible) forth from the screen of chastity (the pure existence of God).” The learned translator seems to have felt that his version presented some difficulties, and he adds for the use of his weaker brethren the following comment: “In the world of non-existence and possibility, when I beheld the splendour of true beauty with different qualities, I knew for certain that Love would take us out of the ambush.” This makes everything clear.

VII

_Stanza 1._—Those who have seen a Persian garden will not find it difficult to understand why it should play so large a part in Persian poetry. Often enough you may pass with one step out of a barren desert of dust and stones into one of these green and fertile spots, full of violets in the spring, and of roses and lilies in the early summer; and from the blinding glare of a Persian sun into a cool and shadowy retreat planted with great plane-trees. The water which flows in numberless streams through the garden, and leaps in countless fountains, has worked all the miracle. The change from desert to flowery paradise is one of those strong contrasts so common in the East which take hold of the imagination of all who see them.

_Stanza 3._—That is, do not attempt to light the torches of a Mahommadan monastery from the lamp of a Jewish synagogue. One of the most famous of the Prophet’s sayings is: there is no monasticism in Islam. Nevertheless, from the time of Abu Bekr and Ali onwards, such religious associations grew up and flourished. Nearly all the celebrated doctors of whom the Sufis boast in the first six hundred years after the Hejra belonged to them.

“Verily our messengers write down that which ye deceitfully devise,” says the Koran (chap. x.). Two guardian angels attend every man and write down his actions; they are changed daily and a fresh pair takes their place. The books which they have written shall be produced on the Day of Judgment.

_Stanza 4._—It was this verse which decided the right of Hafiz to receive honourable burial.

VIII

_Stanza 3._—When God had created man and made him wiser than the angels, he bound him to himself by a solemn treaty. “Am I not thy Lord who has created thee?” he demanded, and man answered “Yes.” But the Arabic word _bala_, which signifies assent, means also sorrow, and they say that the first of our fathers knew full well what a terrible gift was that life which he had received from his Lord, and sealed the treaty with a seal of grief. Therefore since the earliest day, life and sorrow have gone hand in hand, bound together by the first great pact between God and man.

_Stanza 4._—Compare François Villon’s rough and powerful treatment of the same theme:—

“Où sont de Vienne et de Grenobles Le Dauphin, les preux, les senés? Où de Dijon, Sallin et Dolles, Les sires et les fils aînés? Où autant de leurs gens privés, Hérauts, trompettes, poursuivants? Ont-ils bien bouté sous le nez?... Autant en emporte le vent!”

Solomon, the type of human greatness, is the King whose mastery has left nothing behind. He harnessed the wind as a steed to his chariot, he spoke with the birds in their own tongue, and the wise and magnificent Assaf was his minister. Upon his seal was engraved the name of God which is unknown to men and before which the Jinn and the Angels must bow down. It was with this seal that he fastened up the bottles in which he imprisoned the Jinn—those bottles which the fishermen in the “Arabian Nights” pull up in their nets.

IX