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    Delphi Collected Poetical Works of Hafez (Illustrated)
    Delphi Collected Poetical Works of Hafez (Illustrated)
    Delphi Collected Poetical Works of Hafez (Illustrated)
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    Delphi Collected Poetical Works of Hafez (Illustrated)

    By Hafez

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    About this ebook

    The collected works of Hafez, the fourteenth century poet of Shiraz, are regarded as a pinnacle of Persian literature. The extraordinary popularity of Ḥafeẓ’ poetry in all Persian-speaking lands stems from his concise, often colloquial, yet musical language, free from artificial virtuosity. The Delphi Poets Series offers readers the works of the world’s finest poets, with superior formatting. This volume presents Hafez’ collected poetical works, with numerous translations, beautiful illustrations and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1)


    * Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Hafez’ life and works
    * Concise introduction to Hafez’ life and poetry
    * Images of how the poetry books were first printed, giving your eReader a taste of the original texts
    * Excellent formatting of the poems
    * Easily locate the poems you want to read
    * Includes four different translations of Hafez’ poetry - John Haddon Hindley, Herman Bicknell, Gertrude Lowthian Bell and Elizabeth Bridges
    * Features a bonus biography - explore Hafez’ mystical life
    * Scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and literary genres


    Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to see our wide range of poet titles


    CONTENTS:


    The Life and Poetry of Hafez
    BRIEF INTRODUCTION: HAFEZ
    PERSIAN LYRICS
    THE DIVAN
    POEMS FROM THE DIVAN OF HAFIZ
    SONNETS FROM HAFEZ AND OTHER VERSES


    The Biography
    INTRODUCTION TO HAFEZ by Getrude Lowthian Bell


    Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of poetry titles or buy the entire Delphi Poets Series as a Super Set


    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPublishdrive
    Release dateJan 28, 2017
    ISBN9781786562104
    Delphi Collected Poetical Works of Hafez (Illustrated)

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      Delphi Collected Poetical Works of Hafez (Illustrated) - Hafez

      Hafez

      (1325/26–1389/90)

      Contents

      The Life and Poetry of Hafez

      BRIEF INTRODUCTION: HAFEZ

      PERSIAN LYRICS

      THE DIVAN

      POEMS FROM THE DIVAN OF HAFIZ

      SONNETS FROM HAFEZ AND OTHER VERSES

      The Biography

      INTRODUCTION TO HAFEZ by Getrude Lowthian Bell

      The Delphi Classics Catalogue

      © Delphi Classics 2017

      Version 1

      Hafez

      By Delphi Classics, 2017

      COPYRIGHT

      Hafez - Delphi Poets Series

      First published in the United Kingdom in 2017 by Delphi Classics.

      © Delphi Classics, 2017.

      All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

      ISBN: 978 1 78656 210 4

      Delphi Classics

      is an imprint of

      Delphi Publishing Ltd

      Hastings, East Sussex

      United Kingdom

      Contact: sales@delphiclassics.com

      www.delphiclassics.com

      NOTE

      When reading poetry on an eReader, it is advisable to use a small font size and landscape mode, which will allow the lines of poetry to display correctly.

      The Life and Poetry of Hafez

      Shiraz, the sixth most populous city of Iran and one of the oldest cities of ancient Persia — Hafez’ birthplace

      Shiraz in 1681

      BRIEF INTRODUCTION: HAFEZ

      Khwāja Shams-ud-Dīn Muḥammad Ḥāfeẓ-e Shīrāzī, known by his pen name ‘Hafez’, was born in Shiraz, Iran, in c. 1315 and his parents were from Kazerun, Fars Province. Despite his profound effect on Persian life and culture and his enduring popularity and influence, few details of his life have survived. Accounts of his early life rely upon traditional early biographical sketches, which are generally considered unreliable. From an early age, he memorised the Quran and was given the title of Hafez, which he later used as his pen name. The preface of his Divān, an ancient collection of his poems, in which his early life is discussed, was written by an unknown contemporary whose name may have been Moḥammad Golandām.

      Hafez was supported by patronage from several successive local regimes; firstly by Shah Abu Ishaq, who came to power while Hafez was in his teens; then Timur at the end of his life. Though his work flourished mostly during the twenty-seven-year rule of Jalal ud-Din Shah Shuja, it is claimed that Hafez briefly fell out of favour with the ruler for mocking inferior poets. Shah Shuja wrote poetry himself and may have taken the comments personally, forcing Hafez to flee from Shiraz, though no tangible historical evidence can support this.

      Many semi-miraculous mythical tales were woven around Hafez after his death. According to one tradition, before meeting his patron Hajji Zayn al-Attar, Hafez had been working in a bakery, delivering bread to a wealthy quarter of the town. This was when he first saw Shakh-e Nabat, a woman of great beauty, to whom some of his most celebrated love poems are addressed. Captivated by her beauty, but knowing that his love for her would not be requited, he allegedly held his first mystic vigil in his desire to realise the union. Then he encountered a being of surpassing beauty that identified himself as an angel and his further attempts at union became mystic — a pursuit of spiritual union with the divine. The Western literary parallel of Dante and Beatrice would serve as a good example.

      At the age of sixty, Hafez is said to have begun a Chilla-nashini, a forty-day-and-night vigil, conducted by sitting in a circle he had drawn for himself on the ground. On the fortieth day, he once again met with Zayn al-Attar on what is known to be their fortieth anniversary and was offered a cup of wine.

      Hafez was acclaimed throughout the Islamic world during his lifetime, with other Persian poets imitating his work, and he received many offers of patronage from as far as Baghdad to India. His poetry was first translated into English in 1771 by William Jones. The verses would make a lasting impression on such Western writers as Thoreau, Goethe and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

      Hafez is best known for his poems that can be described as antinomian and with the medieval use of the term theosophical, indicating mystical work by authors inspired by holy books. He wrote primarily in the literary genre of lyric poetry that is the ideal style for expressing the ecstasy of divine inspiration in the mystical form of love poems. His poems are composed in the literary form of the ghazal, comprising rhyming couplets and a refrain, each line sharing the same metre. A ghazal may be understood as a poetic expression of both the pain of loss or separation and the beauty of love in spite of that pain. The form originates in Arabic poetry long before the birth of Islam. It is derived from the Arabian panegyric qasida. The structural requirements of the ghazal are similar in stringency to those of the Petrarchan sonnet. In style and content, it is a genre that has proved capable of an extraordinary variety of expression around its central themes of love and separation.

      Themes of Hafez’ ghazals include the beloved, faith and exposing hypocrisy. They often deal with love, wine and scenes in the tavern, all presenting ecstasy and freedom from restraint, whether in actual worldly release or in the voice of the lover speaking of divine love. His influence on the lives of Persian speakers is immense and his poems continue to be employed in Persian traditional music, visual art and calligraphy.

      Hafez manuscript of the Divan, 1584

      Divan of Hafez, Persian miniature, 1585

      A collection of ghazals with illuminated headpiece, University of Pennsylvania

      Doublures inside a nineteenth century copy of the Divān of Hafez. The front doublure shows Hafez offering his work to a patron.

      PERSIAN LYRICS

      OR, SCATTERED POEMS FROM THE DIWAN OF HAFIZ

      Translated by John Haddon Hindley, 1800

      CONTENTS

      PARAPHRASES IN VERSE.

      GAZEL I.

      GAZEL II.

      GAZEL III.

      GAZEL IV.

      GAZEL V.

      GAZEL VI.

      GAZEL VII.

      GAZEL VIII.

      GAZEL IX.

      GAZEL X.

      GAZEL XI.

      PARAPHRASES IN PROSE.

      GAZEL I.

      GAZEL II.

      GAZEL III.

      GAZEL IV.

      GAZEL V.

      GAZEL VI.

      GAZEL VII.

      GAZEL VIII.

      GAZEL IX.

      GAZEL X.

      GAZEL XI.

      APPENDIX.

      ADVERTISEMENT.

      SUPPLEMENT.

      VARIOUS READINGS OF THESE GAZELS FROM FOUR MANUSCRIPTS OF THE DIWAN-I-HAFIZ.

      PARAPHRASES IN VERSE.

      NUNC et ACHÆMENIO

      Perfundi nardo IUVAT, et fide Cyllenea

      Levare diris pectora solicitudinibus.

                                            HORAT. Ep xiii. 8.

      GAZEL I.

      THIS little poem bears strong allusion to the metaphysical theology of the Musselmans. According to the mystical vocabularies on HAFIZ, by wine (mentioned hereafter in one of these stanzas periphrastically as a flaming ruby), the poet invariably means devotion, and, either from contemplating the beauties of nature at sun-rise, or from having been awakened from sleep (there explained to be meditation on the divine perfections), by the fays of the solar light he may here be supposed to be calling on the religious around him to assist in adoring the great Creator. By the breeze, these interpreters say, is meant an illapse of grace; by perfume, the hope of the divine favour; by the tavern or banquet-house, a retired oratory; by its keeper, a sage instructor; by beauty, the perfection of the Supreme Being; and by wantonness, mirth, and ebriety, religious ardour, and disregard of all terrestrial thoughts and objects. (Asiatic Res ii. 02, iii. 170). This Gazel, therefore, may be conceived to open with the poet’s impatience not to lose a moment from elevated abstraction on the Deity, and with his invitation to those who are filled with divine love, to regale themselves and imbibe wine or the devotional spirit, and to those who thirst after wisdom, to offer their vows to Heaven and to give themselves up to the religious enjoyments of celestial and angelical love.

      It may be here observed, that, deeply versed as our author appears to have been in these mysterious tenets, he is also recorded to have given public lectures on Muhammadan Theology and Jurisprudence, and even to have composed a commentary on the abstruse and doubtful passages of the Koran. Some of his fragments, or marginal notes, are said to be yet extant. It may be remarked also in this place, that from various passages in his poems, he seems to have indulged a great partiality for a secluded and monastic life. Reviski, indeed, supposes him to have been the senior or prefect of some monastery (monasterii alicukus senior vel praecfectus), though he owns he can produce no positive proof of this (Hoc non ausus sim fidenter asserere). Prooem xxi.

      It is not perhaps improbable that this may be also descriptive of the morning worship of the Persians in adoration of the sun and its vernal effects upon the vegetable creation. We are informed from good authority, that the ancient Persians worshipped three times each day; most likely, when the sun was rising above,. and sinking beneath the horizon, and at its meridian.

      PARAPHRASE.

      In roses veil’d the morn displays

      Her charms, and blushes as we gaze;

      Come, wine, my gay companions, pour

      Observant of the morning hour.

      See, spangling dew-drops trickling chace,

      Adown the tulip’s vermeil face;

      Then come, your thirst with wine allay,

      Attentive to the dawn of day.

      Fresh from the garden scents exhale

      As sweet as Edens fragrant gale:

      Then come, let wine incessant flow

      Obedient to our morning vow.

      While now beneath the bow’r full-blown

      The rose displays her em’rald throne,

      Let wine, like rubies sparkling, gleam

      Refulgent as morns orient beam.

      Come, youths, perform the task assign’d:

      What! in the banquet-house confin’d?

      Unlock the door; why this delay.

      Forgetful of the dawn of day?

      Shall guests at this glad season wait?

      Come, keeper, open quick the gate:

      ’Tis strange to let time pass away.

      Regardless of the dawn of day.

      Ye love-sick youths, come, drain the bowl:

      Thirst ye for wisdom? feast the soul;

      To heaven your morning homage pay

      With hearts that glow like dawn of day.

      Kisses more sweet than luscious wine.

      Like HAFIZ, sip from cheeks divine,

      ‘Mid smiles as heav’nly Peries bright,

      And looks that pierce like orient light.

      GAZEL II.

      IN the following lines the poet calls upon his countrymen to join him in celebrating the Nuruz or vernal season, and alludes to that most favourite fable of Eastern poetry, the Loves of the Rose and the Nightingales. The fondness manifested by the bird to the flower, particularly set its first appearance, seems to have given rise to this elegant allegory, the beauty of which, being founded upon local circumstances and local scenery, cannot certainly in the same manner impress the mind of an who has not, like the Asiatic, been accustomed to witness the curious and interesting feet. The candid reader of these poems will prepare himself to make due allowance for the striking difference of Asiatic manners and opinions, and recollect, that many things which may startle him, were not only countenanced by custom, but sanctioned by religion. The concluding stanza alludes to the prostrate mode of salutation among the Asiatics, touching the dust of the ground with their forehead. Our countryman Herbert, in his account of the diversions at this season, says, that, "at the Nuruz, or spring, they send vests to each other: — then also the gardens are opened for all to walk in. The women likewise, for fourteen days, have liberty to appear in public, and, when loose, like birds enfranchised, lose themselves in a labyrinth of wanton sports. The men also, some riding, some sitting, some walking, are all in one tune, drinking, singing, playing, till the bottles prove empty, songs be spent," &c.  In my life, I never saw people more jocund, nor less quarrelsome. — Herbert’s Travels, p. 130.

      PARAPHRASE.

      Hither bring the wine, boy! hither bring the wine, boy!

      For the season approaches, the season of joy.

      Let us frolic and revel ‘midst gardens and bowers.

      Since the roses now bud, and the season is ours.

      Let the vows of repentance religion has made,

      Be forgotten, and broken beneath the cool shade:

      Let us warble, like nightingales, through the gay grove,

      And, imbedded in roses, here nestle in love.

      Come, replenish, replenish the goblet with wine,

      For of happiness lo! the sweet rose is the sign:

      While she ripens and blows, your enjoyments pursue,

      For anon she will wither and bid us adieu.

      To the shade then where roses embowering twine,

      Come, repair, quick repair, with thy friend, and with wine;

      Let oblivious enjoyment there banish distress,

      Whilst we warble, like nightingales, ‘midst the recess.

      ’Tis from HAFIZ the rose claims her tribute of praise,

      Let him prostrate before her his soul in soft lays,

      Let him bow down his head to the dust at her shrine,

      And in strains like the nightingale’s hail her divine.

      ANOTHER, MORE FREE.

      Beds of flow’rs of gayest hue

      Beckon us to joy anew:

      Bring the heart-inspiring wine,

      Let the soul its cares resign;

      Lo! the vernal zephyr blows,

      Scented with the blooming rose.

      Borne on pleasure’s new-fledg’d wing,

      Loud, like nightingales, now sing

      ‘Mid the cool sequester’d shade,

      Nestling in sweet flow’r-beds laid:

      There, like them, with love repose,

      Chanting to the blooming rose.

      In the mirth-enliven’d bower

      Wine, convivial songsters, pour:

      See the garden’s flow’ry guest

      Comes in happiness full-drest,

      Round us joy’s perfum’ry throws,

      Offspring of the blooming rose.

      Hail! sweet flow’r, thy blossom spread,

      Here thy welcome fragrance shed;

      Let us with our friends be gay,

      Mindful of thy transient stay:

      Pass the goblet round; who knows

      When we lose the blooming rose?

      HAFIZ loves, like Philomel,

      With the darling rose to dwell:

      Let his heart a grateful lay

      To her guardian humbly pay,

      Let his life with homage close,

      To the guardian of the rose.

      GAZEL III.

      THE polished Anacreon of Iran now addresses the minstrel or musician. The mirthful and amorous playfulness of this Gazel, is highly characteristic of the gaiety of Asiatic manners, and must be powerfully insinuating to the convivial and voluptuous Persian.

      The learned reader will immediately perceive, that the concluding burthen of every stanza totally baffles all attempts at minuteness of version, and may serve to shew the richness of a dialect which can so elegantly adapt the same simple expression to so many varied meanings. He will also notice, that the last stanza is perhaps more dilated than the original will altogether fully authorize; but, we trust, the annexed Paraphrases in Prose, will compensate, in some degree, for these and similar liberties.

      PARAPHRASE.

      Minstrel, tune some novel lay,

      Ever jocund, ever gay;

      Call for heart-expanding wine,

      Ever sparkling, ever fine.

      Sit remov’d from prying eyes;

      Love the game, the fair thy prize;

      Toying snatch the furtive bliss.

      Eager look, and eager kiss;

      Fresh and fresh repeat the freak.

      Often give, and often take.

      Canst thou feed the hung’ring soul

      Without drinking of the bowl?

      Pour out wine; to her ’tis due:

      Love commands thee — Fill anew;

      Drink her health, repeat her name,

      Often, often do the same.

      Frantic love more frantic grows,

      Love admits of no repose:

      Haste, thou youth with silver feet,

      Haste, the goblet bring, be fleet;

      Fill again the luscious cup,

      Fresh and fresh, come, fill it up.

      See, you angel of my heart

      Forms for me, with witching art,

      Ornaments of varied taste,

      Fresh and graceful, fresh and chaste.

      Gentle Zephyr, should’st thou roam,

      By my lovely charmer’s home,

      Whisper to my dearest dear,

      Whisper, whisper in her ear,

      Tales of HAFIZ; which repeat,

      Whisper’d soft, and whisper’d sweet;

      Whisper tales of love anew,

      Whisper’d whisphers oft renew.

      GAZEL IV.

      THIS Gazel opens with the artless effusion of an extravagant Amoroso. Fancy pictures to him his mistress passing, as it were, in review before him; and Affection seizes the gratifying moment to turn even defects into charms, and to consider the very minutest thing appertaining to her as invaluable: Nay, he goes so far as to declare, that he would barter away even the renowned Bokhara and Samarcand, the capital cities of and Taimur, were they his, for the mere mole on the cheek of his lovely fair one. His favourite and native Shiraz, its cooling fountains and its rosy bowers, the gay and sprightly damsels that sport within and around it, characterised by the poet’s most choice and glowing epithets, who have plundered him of his peace of mind, and whom he compares to Janissaries rushing upon their predatory banquet, seem all to involve him in the happiest of reveries. Yet his powers of praise still fail him. Charms, so all-perfect as these, are too exquisite, too superlative to be described. His love, again, is defective, incomplete, and requires to be ratified by possession. It were just as probable to hope to improve, the finest natural complexion by cosmetics, or the meretricious embellishments of art, as to attempt to heighten such consummate beauty by any thing so feeble as verbal delineation. A change in the tide of his thoughts, therefore, becomes necessary. Accordingly, Epicurean-like, he calls for the minstrel to divert, and for wine to drown his perplexities. He ridicules the casuistry and prophetical folly of prying into the events of futurity, and pronounces it a search always abstruse, presumptuous, and fruitless. Yet all this cannot turn aside the current of his passion: it rather tends to aggravate, than to

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