Hafez's barafshān

salām bé hamegee, and welcome to part 4 of our discussion on Hafez’s poem barafshān! As always, let’s listen to my khālé Farnaz recite the whole point up to the lines we’ll be learning in this lesson:

modāmam mast meedārad naseemé ja’adé geesooyat.

kharābam meekonad har dam, fareebé chashmé jādooyat.

pas az chandeen shakeebāyee shabee yārab tavān deedan

ké sham’é deedé afroozeem dar mehrābé abrooyat

tō gar khāhee ké jāveedān jahān yeksar beeyār āyee,

sabā rā goo ké bar dārad zamānee borghé az rooyat!

All right, and those first four lines were from the previous weeks, and hopefully you understood those first four lines. Now let’s listen again to the lines we will be covering in today’s lesson:

tō gar khāhee ké jāveedān jahān yeksar beeyār āyee,

sabā rā goo ké bar dārad zamānee borghé az rooyat!

Great, so again, that first line is “tō gar khāhee ké jāveedān jahān yeksar beeyār āyee.” Let’s start with “tō gar khāhee.” First, tō is the first person informal word for you. So it’s the version of ‘you’ you use if you know someone well- they’re your peer or friend, or someone you’re familiar with. tō

tō

And then gar khāhee. gar is a short version of the word agar, which means if. agar

agar

and so in this poem, because of the rhyme structure, it’s shortened to gar. gar

gar

So in Persian poetry, you really have a lot of leeway to do something like that, to shorten a word and make it work in the structure of the sentence. So then khāhee means you want. So it’s the informal you conjugation of to want. khāhee

khāhee

So we’ve gone over this before, that the conjugation is contained within the word, so gar khāham for example would mean if I want, whereas gar khāhee means if you want. gar khāhee

gar khāhee

So let’s repeat the whole thing now, tō gar khāhee, if you want, tõ gar khāhee

to gar khāhee

and then ké jāveedān jahān. so ké is the word for that. ké

ké

very common word, heard all the time in conversation. ké

ké

and jahān is the word for world. jahān

jahān

and jāveedān is a bit more of a formal word you won’t hear too much in conversation. But it means forever. jāveedān

jāveedān

So tō gar khāhee, if you want, ké jāveedān jahān, that forever the world. ké jāveedān jahān

ké jāveedān jahān

and then yeksar beeyār āyee. so first the word yeksar means immediately or at once. yeksar

yeksar

and this is a very common word in conversation- in fact, if you want for example, to tell your kid to come here right now, you’d say, yeksar beeyā eenjā! That’s super useful, let’s repeat- yeksar beeyā eenjā!

yeksar beeyā eenjā!

So it’s immediately, at once, right now, yeksar

yeksar

and beeyār āyee is a really nice word- it means to groom or to beautify. It’s to bring to its highest form. beeyār means to bring, but the full phrase, beeyār āyee means for you, informal, to bring the world to its highest form. beeyār āyee

beeyār āyee

so yeksar beeyār āyee means to immediately bring it to its highest form. yeksar beeyār āyee

yeksar beeyār āyee

so to improve the world, to make it better, to make it the best that it can be. Let’s see the full meaning then of the phrase, and repeat it together bit by bit. so first, tō gar khāhee, if you want, tō gar khāhee

tō gar khāhee

ké jāveedān jahān, means to forever the world. ké jāveedān jahān

ké javeedān jahān

and finally yeksar beeyār āyee, to bring it immediately to its best form, yeksar beeyār āyee

yeksar beeyār āyee

so if you want to immediately bring the world forever and immediately to its highest form, or as Fared’s translation says, if you desire to beautify this world for all of eternity. So let’s repeat the full line together: tō gar khāhee ké jāveedān jahān yeksar beeyār āyee.

tō gar khāhee ké jāveedān jahān yeksar beeyār āyee.

Wonderful! And now let’s listen to my khalé Farnaz read the next line:

sabā-rā goo ké bar dārad zamānee borghé az rooyat!

All right, wonderful. So this line begins with “sabā-rā goo.” Okay, so first, the word “sabā,” and this is a very specific type of wind, the gentle breeze, a morning breeze. sabā

sabā

So we’ve had two different types of wind in this poem so far, naseem, which was the light breeze that went through the curly locks of the beloved, and now the sabā. So again, let’s repeat that together, sabā

sabā

and then sabā rā goo- we talked about that word rā before too- it’s a direct object marker, meaning that it makes it so that the sabā we are talking about is a specific breeze. rā

rā

and this is one of those kind of words that you have to experience in the language to know when it gets used and when it doesn’t get used. So for now, let’s just understand it in its context which is that the next word is goo, and this is short for begoo which means you informal tell. begoo

begoo

and in this poem it’s shortened to goo

goo

so sabā rā goo, means tell the wind. sabā rā goo

sabā rā goo

tell that wind. sabā rā goo

sabā rā goo

and then ké bar dārad. we have the word ké in there again, it means that. ké

ké

and then bar dārad together means take off, or to remove. bar dārad

bar dārad

and this is one of those compound verbs that has two words- very common in persian. The infinitive is bar dāshtan

bar dāshtan

so bar dārad is the third person infinitive conjugation of the verb, so for it to remove. bar dārad

bar dārad

so it’s saying sabā rā goo ké bar dārad- tell that wind to remove. sabā rā goo ké bar dārad

sabā rā goo ké bar dārad

and then zamānee. zamān is the word for time. zamān

zamān

and zamānee means some time. zamānee

zamānee

and finally borghé az rooyat. so borghé is the word for a special kind of hejab that you see most often in Afghanistan, it’s the kind of hejab that covers your face as well. borghé

borghé

and az means from- az

az

and rooyat means your face. rooyat

rooyat

so roo is the word for face, and rooyat makes it your face. rooyat

rooyat

so borghé az rooyat, means the borghé from your face. borghé az rooyat

borghé az rooyat

So the full thing piece by piece is sabā rā goo, tell the wind, sabā rā goo

sabā rā goo

ké bar dārad, to remove. ké bar dārad

ké bar dārad

zamānee means some time. zamānee

zamānee

and finally borghé az rooyat, the borghé from your face. borghé az rooyat

borghé az rooyat. So this is interesting to me, because that word zamānee in there makes it a bit more casual- it’s not this call to arms, it’s just asking this gentle breeze to sometime remove this covering from your face. I like how Fared translates it as simply ask the morning wind to take off your veil - we don’t have the literal word simply in there, but I think he was trying to express the zamānee with that word, the sometime. Like, the wind of change is your friend, and you’re just asking for a bit of help from your friend. So I think also for the discussion of this sentence, Hafez isn’t saying, take off your veil- he’s telling the beloved to ask the wind to take that veil off. So it’s changing the agency from the person to something just naturally happening, sometime.

So, let’s repeat these two sentences together. I’ll say it slowly and I want you to say it with me:

tō gar khāhee ké jāveedān jahān yeksar beeyār āyee

sabā rā goo ké bar dārad zamānee borghé az rooyat

Okay, wonderful! And now, let’s listen to my khālé Farnaz read the entire poem up to this part together. See if you can make out all the words so far:

modāmam mast meedārad naseemé ja’adé geesooyat.

kharābam meekonad har dam, fareebé chashmé jādooyat.

pas az chandeen shakeebāyee shabee yārab tavān deedan

ké sham’é deedé afroozeem dar mehrābé abrooyat

tō gar khāhee ké jāveedān jahān yeksar beeyār āyee,

sabā rā goo ké bar dārad zamānee borghé az rooyat!

All right, wonderful, and hopefully, you understood all of that at this point! Next week, we’re going to be back with the final portion of the poem that we’ll be learning. We’ll leave it here for now, this is a short and sweet episode, and until next time, khodāhāfez from Leyla!