Hafez's aybé rendān makon

Hello and welcome to Part 4 of our discussion on Hafez’s aybé rendān makon! Let’s start off the lesson by listening to my khālé Farnaz saying the first four lines that we’ve already covered in addition to the two lines we’re learning today:

ʿaybé rendān makon, ay zāhedé pākeezé seresht,

ké gonāhé deegarān bar tu nakhāhand nevesht!

man agar neekam ō gar bad, tō borō, khod rā bāsh!

har kasee ān deravad ʿāghebaté kār ké kesht.

hamé kas tālebé yār-and, ché hoshyār ō ché mast.

hamé jā khānayé ʿeshgh ast, ché masjed ché kenesht.

All right, perfect! So hopefully, you completely understood those first four lines, and today, we’re going to cover those last two. Let’s listen to them one more time: 

hamé kas tālebé yār-and, ché hoshyār ō ché mast.

hamé jā khānayé ʿeshgh ast, ché masjed ché kenesht.

I love the repetition we have in these couple lines; it definitely makes learning them a bit easier and more enjoyable! So, first, we have the line “hamé kas tālebé yār-and, ché hoshyār ō ché mast.”

So, “hamé kas.” We had that word “kas” in the last lesson, where we learned “har kasee,” ‘any person’. So this time, we have “hamé kas.” “har” means ‘any’; “hamé” means ‘all’ or ‘every’. So “hamé kas,” every person. hamé kas.

hamé kas

And ‘every’ by itself: hamé.

hamé

You can use hamé or ‘every’ with objects, too, not just people. So ‘everything’ is “hamé cheez.”

hamé cheez

‘Everywhere’, hamé jā.

hamé jā

Okay, and again, in the poem, “hamé kas,” ‘everyone’. hamé kas.

hamé kas

So then “hamé kas tālebé yār-and." “tāleb” is the word for ‘student’. tāleb.

tāleb

And “yār,” as we mentioned in the introduction of the poem, is such an incredibly rich word. It can mean a whole slew of these, which allows us to interpret this poem in so many different ways. First, let’s repeat it together: yār.

yār

So on one level, it could mean ‘friend’. You might have heard of the song “yāré dabestāneeyé man,” which is a revolution song in Iran. It means ‘my childhood school friend’, or ‘my classmate’, for instance. yāré dabestāneeyé man.

yāré dabestāneeyé man

Or it could mean, on a different level, a lover, a soulmate. yār.

yār

Or, even on a different level, it could be God, or a connection to God. So again, yār.

yār

So “hamé tālebé yār-and” all together means ‘everyone is a student of the lover’ or ‘searching for the lover’. hamé tālebé yār-and.

hamé tālebé yār-and

And that “-and” ending we have on yār, and again, this is a grammar detail, indicates that we’re talking about third person plural. So they all are in search of the lover, “hamé tālebé yār-and,” or, more accurately, ‘everyone, they are in search of the lover’. Let’s repeat all of that again together: hamé tālebé yār-and.

hamé tālebé yār-and

And next, the line says, “ché hoshyār ō ché mast.” So “ché” means ‘whether’. ché.

ché

“hoshyār” means ‘conscious’. hoshyār.

hoshyār

So ‘conscious’ or ‘with it’, or ‘purposefully'. hoshyār.

hoshyār

And “mast” means ‘drunk’. mast.

mast

And “ō,” we’ve learned before, means ‘or’. ō.

ō

So “ché hoshyār ō ché mast” means ‘whether consciously or whether drunk’. ché hoshyār ō ché mast.

ché hoshyār ō ché mast

So the full line: hamé kas tālebé yār-and, ché hoshyār ō ché mast.

Meaning ‘everyone has the same goall everyone is in search of the lover, whether they know or not, whether they’re with it or out of it, whether they’re consciously doing it or drunk’. So let’s repeat the whole thing together, first bit by bit, and then all together: hamé kas tālebé yār-and. 

hamé kas tālebé yār-and

ché hoshyār ō ché mast.

ché hoshyār ō ché mast

And all together: hamé kas tālebé yār-and, ché hoshyār ō ché mast.

hamé kas tālebé yār-and, ché hoshyār ō ché mast

All right, wonderful! Now the next line:

hamé jā khānayé ʿeshgh ast, ché masjed ché kenesht.

So you see he repeats the exact structure here, which makes it much easier for us. “jā” means ‘place’. jā.

jā

So “hamé jā” is ‘everyplace’ or ‘everywhere’. hamé jā.

hamé jā

And I love, love, love this next part: “khānayé ʿeshgh ast”! Let’s just cover this. First of all, the word “khāné” means ‘house’. khāné.

khāné

And “ʿeshgh” means ‘love’. ʿeshgh.

ʿeshgh

Now, it’s really unfortunate that this is one of the most difficult words to pronounce because it’s such an incredibly important word and gets used so often, but it has two consonants right next to each other and the difficult sound “gh.” So first, lets just say that together: gh.

gh 

gh gh gh.

gh gh gh

And then the full word: ʿeshgh.

ʿeshgh

And “khānayé ʿeshgh” means ‘house of love’. khānayé ʿeshgh.

khānayé ʿeshgh

And this is a concept that’s brought up a lot in Iranian culture or Persian history: “khānayé ʿeshgh,” so ‘a place of love’, ‘a house of love’. In a religious context, it could mean, you know, a house of worship, a house of God, but in a secular meaning also, it’s simply a house of love. So let’s say it one more time: khānayé ʿeshgh.

khānayé ʿeshgh

And “ast” quite simply means ‘is’. ast.

ast

So “hamé jā khānayé ʿeshgh ast” means ‘everywhere is the house of love’. hamé jā khānayé ʿeshgh ast.

hamé jā khānayé ʿeshgh ast

And again, the first line has that same structure: “hamé kas tālebé yār-and,” and then here, we have “hamé jā khānayé ʿeshgh ast.” So again, let’s say: hamé jā khānayé ʿeshgh ast.

hamé jā khānayé ʿeshgh ast

And then “ché masjed ché kenesht.” So again, we have “ché,” which means ‘whether’. ché.

ché

And “masjed” is the word for ‘mosque’. masjed.

masjed

And “kenesht” is the word for a different type of house of worship, so not the kind of standard mosque. kenesht.

kenesht

So a synagogue or church or just sanctuary, any of these is kenesht.

kenesht

So everywhere is a house of love, whether it’s a mosque or something else, basically. So let’s repeat this all bit by bit: hamé jā khānayé ʿeshgh ast.

hamé jā khānayé ʿeshgh ast

ché masjed ché kenesht.

ché masjed ché kenesht

And all together: hamé jā khānayé ʿeshgh ast, ché masjed ché kenesht.

hamé jā khānayé ʿeshgh ast, ché masjed ché kenesht

All right, wonderful! Let’s hear my aunt Farnaz say these two lines again: 

hamé kas tālebé yār-and, ché hoshyār ō ché mast.

hamé jā khāna-yé ʿeshgh ast, ché masjed ché kenesht.

So hopefully, you understood all of that this time around. Again, hopefully, these words are coming into clearer focus as we move through this poem. These lines are particularly sweet because there’s this sense of repetition in there, both in the structure and the words used, and that’s really helpful both when reciting the poem, and when learning the words!

And that’s it for this week. We’ll be back with Part 5 next week! Until then, khodāhāfez from Leyla!