Jahan Malek Khatun (#WITMonth)

 

Come Here A Moment

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 the world's delight, tonight.

-Jahan Malek Khatun (tr. Dick Davis)

I read that volume Faces of Love, with translations of three Shirazi poets earlier in the summer and quite liked it. I quoted some by Jahan Malek Khatun (1324-1393, approximately) earlier, but saved this one for Women in Translation month.

Rubaiyat of Jahan Malek Khatun

 

Four Rubaiyat

I feel so heartsick. Should my doctor hear,

He'll sigh and groan and want to interfere;

Come on now dearest, heal me, you know how

To make my doctor's headache disappear.

You wandered through my garden, naked and alone

(The roses blenched to see their beauty overthrown).

My cheeky love, your body is the Fount of Youth

(But in your silver breast your heart is like a stone).

I swore I'd never look at him again,

I'd be a Sufi, deaf to sin's temptations;

I saw my nature wouldn't stand for it--

From now on I renounce renunciations.

The roses have all gone; "Goodbye," we say; we must;

And I shall leave the busy world one day; I must.

My little room, my books, my love, my sips of wine--

All these are dear to me; they'll pass away; they must.  

-Jahan Malek Khatun (tr. Dick Davis)

These were among the rubaiyat that sent me back last week to reread the ones by Omar Khayyam and translated into English by Edward FitzGerald. They're by Jahan Malek Khatun (1324-1393, approximately). She was the niece of Abu Ishaq, the Injuid king of the area around Shiraz in what is now southwest Iran, at least until his overthrow in 1353.

The ruba'i is a four-line form that rhymes AABA. The third one quoted is thus technically not a ruba'i, and either Khatun or Dick Davis the translator is being a little slack. I didn't mind... 😉

Hafez (Wine, Boys, and Song)

 

My Love Has Sent No Letter

My love has sent no letter for

  A long time now--I've heard

No salutations from him, no

  Inquiries, not one word;

I've written him a hundred times,

  But that hard-riding king

Has sent no emissary back,

  No message, not a thing!

I'm wild with waiting, crazy, but

  He's sent no envoy here--

No strutting partridge has turned up,

  No graceful, skittish deer.

He knows my heart must now be like

  A fluttering bird, but he

Has yet to send one sinuous line

  To lure and capture me.

Damn him, that sweet-lipped serving boy

  Knows very well that I

Need wine now, but he pours me none

  Although my glass is dry.

How much I boasted of his favors,

  The kindnesses we share--

And now I've no idea at all

  Of how he is, or where.

But this is no surprise, Hafez;

  Calm yourself, and behave!

A king can't be expected to

  Write letters to a slave.

-Hafez (tr. Dick Davis)

Hafez (1325-1390, roughly) was a Persian poet, largely based in Shiraz. He enjoyed the patronage of Abu Es'haq (transliterations vary) of the Inju dynasty who ruled in southwestern Iran until Abu Es'haq was deposed in 1353. Abu Es'haq tolerated wine, liked poetry, but his replacement Mobarez al-Din was a more conventional Muslim, and Hafez was forced into exile, at least until Mobarez al-Din was subsequently overthrown a year later.

I've read other translations of Hafez (Robert Bly, others), but I've been quite taken with Dick Davis', which was done for Penguin. There are two other Shirazi poets in the volume--Jahan Malek Khatun, the niece of Abu Es'haq, and Obayd-e Zakani, but I haven't gotten to them yet. Given Hafez' reputation, I felt a glass of wine should stand by his side.

But wine, women (or boys), and song isn't all there is to Hafez. He's sometimes read as if he were writing drinking songs, and sometimes read as if he were a mystic. Davis is insistent that both interpretations are valid, and neither be dismissed, and this poem struck me as a good example of one that could be read either way. It was apparently a convention of Persian poetry of the time to treat one's lover as royalty and one's self as base, so it's not certain that the king mentioned is actually kingly. But it is equally possible that Hafez is thinking of someone altogether more Lordly, who's not responding to Hafez' entreaties.