Hafez's aybé rendān makon

salam bé hamegee and welcome to this final lesson on the poem aybé rendān makon by Hafez! So as we do in every lesson, we’re going to begin by listening to my khālé Farnaz recite the entire poem. While you’re listening, I want you to try to recite the parts that you already know. Hopefully, you’ve been learning it little by little as you’ve listened to these lessons. So listen with that intention in mind. Let’s listen to the whole poem:

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 kenest.

na man az pardéyé taghvā bā dar oftādam ō bas.

pedaram neez beheshté abad az dast behesht.

hāfezā, roozé ajal gar bé kaf āree jāmee,

yek sar az kooyé kharābāt barandat bā behesht.

All right, and today we’re learning those last two lines, so again, let’s hear my aunt Farnaz recite those:

hāfezā, roozé ajal gar bé kaf āree jāmee,

yek sar az kooyé kharābāt barandat bā behesht.

So let’s start with the first line. He starts by saying “hāfezā,” so he’s addressing himself. hāfezā.

hāfezā

So obviously this has that “-ā” sound at the end, which serves to give it a kind of emphasis, like saying ‘o Hafez!’. hāfezā.

hāfezā

And then “roozé ajal.” So the word “rooz” means ‘day’. rooz.

rooz

And “ajal” is ‘death’. ajal.

ajal

Now, this isn’t a word that’s used very much in everyday conversation, but “roozé ajal” means ‘the day of death’. Remember that “-é” sound binds the two words together, so it acts as the ‘of’. roozé ajal.

roozé ajal

Great! So, “roozé ajal gar bé kaf āree jāmee.” So “gar,” we’ve covered before, is short for “agar,” which means ‘if’. gar.

gar

And “bé kaf āree” together means ‘if in your palm’. So “bé kaf” means ‘on your palm’. “bé” means ‘in’ or ‘on’. bé.

bé

And “kaf” is the word for ‘palm’. kaf.

kaf

And finally, “āree” means ‘you have’. āree.

āree

So all together, “bé kaf āree” means ‘in your palm you have’. bé kaf āree.

bé kaf āree

And finally, “jāmee” means ‘a cup’ or ’a chalice’. jāmee.

jāmee

And this is the kind of cup that you drink wine out of specifically. jāmee.

jāmee

So altogether, the line says “hāfezā, roozé ajal gar bé kaf āree jāmee,” meaning ‘o Hafez, on the Day of Death’, so the Day of Judgment, ‘if in your palm you hold a wine cup...’. Let’s repeat it all together bit by bit: hāfezā, roozé ajal .

hāfezā, roozé ajal 

gar bé kaf.

gar bé kaf

āree jāmee.

āree jāmee

And now altogether: “hāfezā, roozé ajal gar bé kaf āree jāmee.”

hāfezā, roozé ajal gar bé kaf āree jāmee

All right! And then the final line: yek sar az kooyé kharābāt barandat bā behesht.

yek sar az kooyé kharābāt barandat bā behesht

Okay, so first, “yek sar,” which is an expression that means ‘immediately’. yek sar.

yek sar

So it’s like ‘directly, immediately, without interruption’. So like if you tell someone “yek saré beeyā khooné,” for example, that means ‘come home immediately; don’t stop off anywhere!’. yek sar.

yek sar

Meaning the same thing, ‘immediately’, and “az kooyé kharābāt”. So “koo” means ‘alley’. koo.

koo

And “kharābāt” means ‘the ruins’. kharābāt.

khārābāt

And it means ‘those back alleys of disrepute’. And again, we have that ezāfé, “kooyé kharābāt,” acting as the ‘of’ here, so ‘the back alleys of ruin’. kooyé kharābāt.

kooyé kharābāt

And then “barandet.” This means ‘they will take you’. barandet.

barandet

And then “bé behesht." “bé” means ‘to’. bé.

bé

And “behesht” is the word for ‘heaven’. behesht.

behesht

So “barandet bé behesht” means ‘they will take you to heaven’. barandet bé behesht.

barandet bé behesht

So the full thing means ‘they will take you immediately from the back alleys of ruin to heaven’. Let’s repeat the full thing bit by bit: yek sar.

yek sar

az kooyé kharābāt.

az kooyé kharābāt

barandet bé behesht.

barandet bé behesht

And now the full line; I’ll repeat it, you repeat it after me: yek sar az kooyé kharābāt barandat bā behesht.

yek sar az kooyé kharābāt barandat bā behesht

And that’s it; that’s the full selection of the poem we’re going to be learning! In a second, we’re going to listen to the full poem read again by my khālé Farnaz, and this time you’ll hopefully be able to make out every single word in the poem. But first, I want to say I’m so curious to hear your thoughts on the poem, how learning and memorizing it has changed your thoughts on the words. I know that as we’ve moved through it, bits and pieces of the poem keep coming up for me in conversations I’m having or in situations I find myself in. There’s just so much hypocrisy and judgment around us everywhere that those first few lines especially keep coming up for me. ʿaybé rendān makon: it’s really such a good reminder for every day!