Hafez's barafshān

salām bé hamegee and welcome to part 5, our final section for the discussion of Hafez’s poem that we are calling barafshān, and in this section, we’ll finally get to that word, barafshān!

So to begin, let’s start the way we always do, and this time it’s to listen to my khālé Farnaz read the entire selection of the poem that we’ll be learning. Listen along carefully; you should be able to understand almost the entire thing!

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

va gar rasmé fanā khāhee ké az ālam bar andāzee

barafshān tā foroo reezad hezārān jān zé har mooyat!

All right, wonderful! So we have those last two phrases there that we haven’t covered yet, so let’s go over those now. First, let’s listen to Farnaz recite them again:

va gar rasmé fanā khāhee ké az ālam bar andāzee

barafshān tā foroo reezad hezārān jān zé har mooyat!

All right! So let’s begin with that first sentence- va gar rasmé fanā khāhee ké az ālam bar andāzee

Let’s begin with va gar rasmé fanā. There are some words in there that should sound really familiar to you. va is of course the word for and. va

va

a lot of times in conversation, you’ll hear this said as ō. ō

ō

but it’s spelled the same way and just, again, the difference between preference and pronunciation. So in this poem, it’s va

va

and then gar- we’ve had this word before in the poem. Again, it’s a shortened version of agar, which means if. So in the poem, it’s gar

gar

and then rasmé fanā. This is a really evocative imagery here. So rasm is the word for tradition, or culture. rasm

rasm

and fanā is the word for annihilation, basically, or throwing away. I know, annihilation is kind of a dramatic word, but it’s kind of dramatic- it’s like wasting away, throwing away, destroying. so for example, if you want to say you’re throwing away your future, if someone is making bad decisions, you’d say ‘āyandatō fanā kardee’- you threw away your future. So let’s repeat that together, fanā

fanā

so rasmé fanā would mean the tradition of annihilation, of nothingness. Fared, in  his translation, called it ‘mortality’ and I think that’s interesting too, because it’s basically the opposite of being. So it’s like, the tradition of non existence. rasmé fanā

rasmé fanā

All right, so va gar rasmé fanā khāhee. So khāhee means you want. khāhee

khāhee

so this is a funny word because it’s actually a shortened versions of meekhāhee, which is you want in the present tense. But, when this word is spoken in conversational Persian, it actually becomes meekhāy. So a far cry from khāhee, but this is just one of the quirks of spoken versus poetic Persian. So khāhee

khāhee

so va gar rasmé fanā khāhee is literally and if the tradition of nonexistence you want. Let’s repeat it together- va gar rasmé fanā khāhee

va gar rasmé fanā khāhee

and then ké az ālam bar andāzee. ké we’ve heard before, it means that. ké

ké

and then az means from. az

az

ālam means the world, or the universe. ālam

ālam

and then bar andāzee. so bar andakhtan, the infinitive means to throw away, or do away with. so bar andāzee means you do away with. bar andāzee

bar andāzee

So all together, ké az ālam bar andāzee, means to throw away from this world. Ok, so we have a lot of being and not being and throwing away in this phrase. So let’s go over the whole thing again- va gar rasmé fanā khāhee ké az ālam bar andāzee- so and if you want to do away with this tradition of nothingness from this universe. And again, Fared’s translation of this was if you desire 

to remove mortality 

from this world, but in a way, I think fanā is worse than the idea of death, which is what he’s implying there- it’s like nothingness, it’s powerlessness, it’s taking this life that you have and throwing it away. So if you want to do away with that nothingness in this world, basically. I also really like that we have this different word for the world, or that which surrounds us here. Before, we had jahān, which I see more as literally the world. ālam means more like existence. Where we are today. So let’s repeat this all piece by piece together:

va gar rasmé

va gar rasmé

fanā khāhee

fanā khāhee

ké az ālam

ké az ālam

bar andāzee 

bar andāzee 

Great, and now the full thing- I’ll read it very slowly, and you say it along with me.

va gar rasmé fanā khāhee ké az ālam bar andāzee 

Ok great, and now let’s listen to my khālé Farnaz recite this very last triumphant line: 

barafshān tā foroo reezad hezārān jān zé har mooyat

All right, amazing- and we’ve been really been building up to this last line with everything that’s come before it. So let’s begin with that first strong word- barafshān. So this is the word that Fared chose to be the title of the poem when he turned it into a song. Remember, these poems don’t have titles, so usually they’re referred to by the first line, or first few words. But in this case, Fared is calling this poem ‘barafshān’, which means to shake off, like in a triumphant way. barafshān

barafshān

and then tā foroo reezad. tā is the word for so that or until. tā

tā

barafshān tā- shake off so that, foroo reezad. foroo reezad means for it to fall through. So like if you fall through a roof, az poshté boon foroo reekhtam. So gain, foroo reezad

foroo reezad

and then hezārān jān. hezārān means thousands. hezārān

hezārān

and that ān is the way you make words plural. So a thousand is hezār

hezār

and then thousands is hezārān

hezārān

All right, great- and jān is the word for soul. jān

jān

so hezārān jān means a thousand souls. hezārān jān

hezārān jān

and then zé har mooyat. zé is a different way of saying az, which means from. zé

zé

har means every. har 

har 

and mooyat means your hair, or your strand of hair. mooyat

mooyat

so hezārān jān zé har mooyat all together means a thousand souls from each strand of hair. Let’s repeat it together- hezārān jān zé har mooyat

hezārān jān zé har mooyat

Ok, so barafshān, meaning in this context to shake loose, the veil is off, the hair is free, and then tā foroo reezad hezārān jān zé har mooyat, so that it falls, thousands of lives from each strand of hair. So again, going back to Fared’s more interpretive translation, that’s simply rise and break free

shake and scatter your head around

birthing a thousand lives per strand of hair. 

So in this case, we are saying what is the opposite of this nothingness, of annihilation, of ceasing to exist, of rasmé fanā- so the way the world is currently- the opposite is barafshān, and jān- life. 

So that’s it, that’s all the vocabulary and phrases in this poem- there’s so much here to analyze and think about and discover. And like we said in the introductory lesson, there are so many parallels in this poem with what’s going on today in the world- the rasmé fanā seems to be alive and well, and people are struggling to be free, and to birth a thousand lives.

I’ll leave the further analysis up to you though, I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts, and on seeing your videos reciting the poem as well! 

So one last time, let’s listen to my khālé Farnaz recite the entire poem. This time, you should be able to understand all the words and phrases you’ll hear:

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

va gar rasmé fanā khāhee ké az ālam bar andāzee

barafshān tā foroo reezad hezārān jān zé har mooyat!

Beautiful- and that’s another Hafez poem for the books- thank you all for listening, for joining on this wild ride, and until next time- khodāhāfez, from Leyla!