Forough Farokhzad's fathe bagh

Hello and welcome to lesson 72 of Learn Persian with Chai and Conversation!

In this lesson, we are going to continue our discussion of Forough Farrokhzad’s Fatheh Bagh. If you haven’t heard lesson 69 yet- that’s the introduction to this poem. Start there to get an overview of the poem. But before we go any further, let’s go ahead and listen to what may or may not be Forough Farrokhzad reading the portion of the poem we’ve learned so far.

hamé meetarsand

hamé meetarsand

amā man o tō

bā cherāgh o āb o āyeené payvasteem

va natarseedeem

sokhan az payvandé sosté dō nām

va hamāghdooshee dar orāgheh kohneyé yek daftar neest

sokhan az geesooyeh khoshvakhté manast

bā shaghāyeghhayé sookhteyé booseyé tō

va sameemeeyaté tan hāman, dar tarāree

va derakhsheedané oryāneemān

meslé falsé māheehā dar āb

sokhan az zendegeeyé noghreyeeyé āvāzeest

ke séhar gāhān favareyé koochak meekhānad

All right, so so far we’ve gone over the first two stanza’s. Today we are going to continue. Let’s hear the third stanza in its entirety again. Again, many of these words will be unfamiliar to you, but try to get a feel for the overall rhythm and musicality of it.

va sameemeeyaté tan hāman, dar tarāree

va derakhsheedané oryāneemān

meslé falsé māheehā dar āb

sokhan az zendegeeyé noghreyeeyé āvāzeest

ke séhar gāhān favareyé koochak meekhānad

So this third section begins with the word ‘va’ meaning and. So it’s a continuation of the part that came before, that we covered in the last lesson. So just to summarize the poem so far, she began by saying that everyone is afraid, but that you and I have tied ourselves to traditions of matrimony and we are not afraid. But then she goes on to say that she isn’t talking about traditional marriage, about signing names in a ledger, but rather she’s talking about how happy her locks of hair are, and the burnt anemone of her lovers kiss. So in this third part she continues this path of describing the sensual pleasures between these two people, of what she regards as true love, and not the stale definition of love she’s been handed down. So the next sentence says:

va sameemeeyaté tan hāman, dar tarāree

so a few words we can learn here. The word sameemeeyat means intimacy. Sameemeeyat

sameemeeyat

and is a useful word in Persian because it comes up a lot, especially when describing relationships. For example, if you want to say someone is a very close friend of yours rather than an acquaintance, you would say ‘doosteh sameemee’

doosteh sameemee

So doost means friend and sameemee means close or intimate. Sameemee

sameemee

So then in sameemeeyat means intimacy. Sameemeeyat

sameemeeyat

so then sameemee is intimate and sameemeeyat is initimacy. So then what is she describing the intimacy of? Of tan haman. Tan means body. tan

tan

and tan haman means our bodies. Tan haman

tan haman

So put together, sameemeeyateh tan haman

sameemeeyateh tan haman

the intimacy of our bodies. So as you can see, she is getting pretty explicit here, and again, this is a woman writing in Iran in the beginning of the century. Pretty wild. And the sentence ends with ‘dar tararee’. We’ve learned dar before, it means in. Dar

dar

And tararee means in playfulness, or mischievousness. It’s a light hearted word. Dar tararee

dar tararee

So let’s repeate the full sentence together, va sameemeayateh tan haman, dar tararee

va sameemeeyaté tan hāman, dar tarāree

So this means and the intimacy of our bodies, in playfulness. So again, she’s saying she’s not talking about stale names in a ledger, but rather about these other elements of love, such as the intimacy of two bodies in playfulness. So one more time, va sameemeeyate tan haman dar tararee.

va sameemeeyate tan haman dar tararee.

All right, next sentence:

va derakhsheedané oryāneemān

So again we start this sentence with va, and. va

va

So we are continuing down this path of talking about sensuality and physicality, as the word oryanee means naked. oryanee

oryanee

and this isn’t a word I’ve heard in conversation before, I don’t think it’s very common, at least not in my circles. So oryaneeman means our nakedness. Oryaneeman

oryaneeman

and derakhsheedan means the glowing. Derakhsheedan

derakhsheedan

So derakhsheedaneh oryaneeman means the glowing of our nakedness. Derakhsheedaneh oryaneeman

derakhsheedaneh oryaneeman

So she’s being very explicit here- and again, take this in context. She’s saying she’s not marrying this man, but they are indeed being sexual outside the context of marriage- and again, she’s doing this very unapologetically. So let’s hear these two lines again.

va sameemeeyaté tan hāman, dar tarāree

va derakhsheedané oryāneemān

And the next sentence:

meslé felsé māheehā dar āb

So of course, it’s not poetry without metaphors and similes. So this sentence begins with the word mesle, which means ‘like’. Mesleh

mesleh

the word fels means scales. fels

fels

and mahi means fish. mahi

mahi

you might recognize it from mahi mahi, a type of fish. But in Persian, it simply means fish. Mahi

mahi

And the way to make fish plural in Persian is to say mahiha. Mahiha

mahiha

So felseh mahiha means fish scales. Felseh mahiha

felseh mahiha

Ok, let’s listen to the full sentence again:

meslé felsé māheehā dar āb

And the words dar ab- we’ve learned dar before, it means in. dar

dar

and ab is the word for water. ab

ab

so mesleh felse maheeha dar ab means like the scales of fish in water. Let’s say the full sentence together.

meslé felsé māheehā dar āb

So she’s saying we are glowing in our nakedness like the scales of fish in water.  So let’s listen to this whole part again:

va sameemeeyaté tan hāman, dar tarāree

va derakhsheedané oryāneemān

meslé falsé māheehā dar āb

All right- so this is a pretty explicity part of the poem, as we’ve said. So if you remember the full poem, she was talking about how she’s disconnected from society and gone into the garden. And she is now making a metaphor to nature, that they’re like fish in water- they’ve gone back to the garden of eden with their nakedness, with their intimacy. So they’ve shed the rules of society, and gone back to the basics. 

We’re going to stop the language lesson here for now, and leave the very last part of the poem for next week. Take this opportunity to really learn the parts that we’ve learned so far and commit them to your memory.  In next week’s conclusion we’ll be doing a summary of more parts of the   poem, including the vocabulary for the different birds that are discussed throughout the poem.

Hopefully you’ve been enjoying