Hafez's payāmé naseem

Learn Persian with Chai and Conversation, Hafez, payāmé naseem, part 2

salām bé hamegee! Welcome to the second part of our study of Hafez’s poem, payāmé naseem, a perfect poem for the Nowruz holiday. In the last episode, I talked to musician Fared Shafinury about the overall meaning and message of the poem; if you haven’t had a chance to listen to that episode yet, go back and listen to it before listening to this episode. Now, like we mentioned in the last episode, Fared and I have been working on this poetry project for years- analyzing poems and the language in the poems together, and publishing them on the Chai and Conversation podcast. And even though we’ve covered so many poets from different time periods, this is the first one we’ve done by arguably the most lauded and most revered Iranian poet, Hafez. And I have to admit, of all the poems we’ve done, I find this one the most challenging. Even after my last episode with Fared, I don’t feel I completely have a grip on this poem, but I know that as we go through it, word by word, phrase by phrase, my understanding of the poem will change, and my relationship with it will change as well.

Like we said in the last episode, Hafez’s poems are often used as a kind of fortune telling device- as a way to give advice for life’s greatest questions. And I think as we become more familiar with his poetry, it will become more clear why that is: so many of these poems contain lines of wisdom that can be applied to any situation. And by memorizing these poems, by making these lines a part of your life, you can kind of conjure them up when you have certain questions as well. And I think as you age and grow and experience life more, the lines take on different and perhaps deeper meanings as well. 

So with all that being said, if you found this poem kind of enigmatic and a bit difficult to understand, you’re not alone. I’m right there with you, but I feel as we continue to study it together in these next few weeks, we’ll come to understand it more deeply together. 

With all that being said, let’s go ahead now and listen to my aunt Farnaz read the entire poem from start to finish. Again, don’t worry if you don’t understand all the words; just let them wash over you. Maybe close your eyes as you listen, and try to feel the words. 

zé kooyé yār mee āyad naseemé bādé noroozee

az een bād ar madad khāhee cherāghé del barafroozee

chō gol gar khordeyee dāree khodā rā sarfé eshrat kon

ké ghāroon rā ghalat-hā dād sodāyé zarandoozee

bé sahrā roo ké az dāman ghobaré gham beeafshānee

bé golzār āy k’bolbol ghazal goftan beāmoozee

jodā shod yaré sheereenat konoon tanhā sheen ay sha’am

ké hokm āsemān een ast agar sāzee ō gar soozee

may-ee dāram chō sāfee ō soofee meekonad aybash

khodāyā heech āghel rā mabādā bakht bad roozee

All right, great! So now, let’s listen to the first two lines again. These are the two that we’ll be going over in this lesson. 

zé kooyé yār mee āyad naseemé bādé noroozee

az een bād ar madad khāhee cherāghé del barafroozee

Great. And now let’s go over the individual words in these phrases. Remember, in these lessons, we’re going to learn the individual words and phrases in these poems, and we’ll also learn how to apply them in modern day conversation. So you’ll not only learn a whole poem, but you’ll also add all these words to your vocabulary so you can use them when speaking the Persian language. 

Okay, so now let’s go over the full first line:

zé kooyé yār mee āyad naseemé bādé noroozee

The poem begins with zé kooyé yār. Now, in poetry, we hear this word zé a lot. It’s actually a version of the word az which means 'from'. az.

az

So, when I say a word, I’ll pause, and I want you to repeat it out loud after me. az.

az

Great. So zé is the same word as az, but it’s the way the word is often presented when in poetry. It’s the poetic way of saying az, which means from. zé.

zé

So it’s not necessarily something you would hear in everyday conversation. That would be, again, az. So az and zé. zé.

zé

Great. Next we have kooyé yār. So first, this word yār is really interesting. First let’s repeat it: yār.

yār

Depending on the context, yār could mean a lot of different things. It could be an intimate lover or a sweetheart. But just as easily, it could be a friend. yār.

yār

There’s a famous song yāré dabestāneeyé man, and this means ‘my schoolfriend’ or ‘school buddy’, so a childhood friend. So then you can see the range, from the most intimate relationship to a more platonic one. yār.

yār

So then zé kooyé yār. So kooy in this context means ‘the vicinity’, or ‘the direction of’, or ‘the neighborhood’. kooy.

kooy

And zé kooyé yār means ‘from the direction of the lover’. ze kooyé yār. 

zé kooyé yār

So as you see I’m interpreting the yār as ‘lover’; I think in the context of this poem, that is what makes most sense. So zé kooyé yār.

zé kooyé yār

‘From the direction of the lover’. Next, meeyāyad naseemé bādé noroozee.

So this is the phrase that makes this poem so perfect for this season, which as we’re recording this poem is around springtime, or Nowruz, the Persian New Year, so the word rooz by itself means ‘day’. rooz.

rooz

And now is ‘new’. nō.

nō

So together, norooz literally means ‘new day.’ norooz.

norooz

It’s also the name of the most significant holiday in Iranian culture, the first day of spring, which is the day that Iranians celebrate the new year. So our calendar is based on the seasons, and the new year takes place on the first day of spring, when the entire earth, or at least the entire northern hemisphere, is in renewal. norooz.

norooz

meeyāyad is the verb ‘it comes’ in the continuous present tense, so ‘it is coming’ currently. meeyāyad.

meeyāyad

Now, this is the full word; in conversation, meeyāyad gets shortened to meeyād.

meeyād

But in this case, poetic license, Hafez has chosen to use the full word with all its syllables. meeyāyad.

meeyāyad

And then we have naseemé bādé noroozee. Let’s look at each of these nouns. naseem by itself means a ‘breeze’ or a ‘waft’. naseem.

naseem

bād means more literally ‘wind’.

bād

So naseemé bādé noroozee means ‘the waft of the winds of Nowruz’, or the winds of this change, this new day, new year, new beginning. naseemé bādé noroozee.

naseemé bādé noroozee

That é sound that we hear after naseem and bād is actually something called an ezāfé, and it’s a way of tying those words together. And at the end, when we say noroozee, that ee sound means that the wind that is being described has an essence of norooz; norooz is the describing word for the wind. So the wind is a Nowruz type of wind, not just any wind. It’s similar to adding an "-y" sound to English word: It’s a Nowruz-y kind of wind. So, naseemé bādé noroozee.

naseemé bādé noroozee

So let’s look at that complete first line: 

zé kooyé yār mee āyad 

zé kooyé yār mee āyad 

naseemé bādé noroozee

naseemé bādé noroozee

So in essence, this means from the direction of the lover comes the breeze of the wind of a new beginning. So in the tradition of mystics like Hafez, really, the most intimate thing is breath because breath is how we connect to the beloved, how we connect to one another. The breath we breathe is the same that all other humans also breathe. So if you can just imagine, this gentle breeze has touched the lover and has come towards the direction of the poet, who is now breathing in this new fresh air, the air of a new day or new beginning. It’s just such a breathtaking image. So let’s repeat the full thing again together:

zé kooyé yār mee āyad naseemé bādé noroozee

zé kooyé yār mee āyad naseemé bādé noroozee

All right, wonderful. Now hear my aunt read the next sentence:

az een bād ar madād khāhee cherāghé del barafroozee

All right, lots of good essential vocabulary in here. So first we have az, which, like we said in the last part, means ‘from’. az.

az

So in the first part he uses zé, and this time az, which has the same meaning. az.

az

een means ‘this’. een.

een

And bād again means ‘wind’. bād.

bād

So all together, az een bād means simply ‘from this wind’. az een bād.

az een bād

Next, let's look at cherāghé del:

cherāghé del

So, del is the word for ‘heart’. del.

del

And cherāgh is the word for ‘light’. cherāgh.

cherāgh

Just like we said with naseemé bādé noroozee, the -é sound is called an ezāfé and ties two words together. In this case, it’s tying light and heart together, and making it light of the heart. cherāghé del.

cherāghé del

Okay, let’s look at the full sentence again: az een bād ar madad khāhee cherāghé del barafroozee.

So now, az een bād ar madad khāhee. We’ve covered az een bād, ‘from this wind’. az een bād.

ar is actually just a shortened version of agar, which means ‘if’. agar.

agar

And in the poem, it’s ar. ar.

ar

So this wouldn’t be the way you’d say it in conversation; you would say the full "agar":

agar

Next: madad.

madad

And this means ‘help’. madad.

madad

You see this word in present conversation in words like madad kāré ejtemāyee, which means a social worker, or someone who helps people, like a case worker. madad kāré ejtemāyee.

madad kāré ejtemāyee

In this case, it’s just madad.

madad

and khāhee is ‘you want’, in the informal sense. khāhee.

khāhee

So the subjunctive of the verb ‘to want’ is khāstan.

khāstan

And ‘you want (informal)' is khāhee.

khāhee

So, ar madad khāhee together is ‘if you want help’. ar madad khāhee.

ar madad khāhee

So this wouldn’t be the way you would say it in just informal everyday conversation. Instead of madad, you would use the more common word for ‘help’, which is komak.

komak

And of course, instead of ar, you would say agar.

agar

But of course, this is poetry, so the phrase is ar madad khāhee.

ar madad khāhee

So now, let’s say this full first part together: az een bād ar madad khāhee .

az een bād ar madad khāhee 

And it ends with cherāghé del barafroozee. We’ve covered cherāghé del; it means ‘the light of the heart’. cherāghé del.

cherāghé del

And barafrooz means ‘ignite’ or ‘fire up’. barafrooz.

barafrooz

And by adding an -ee at the end, it makes it a command in the ‘you’ informal, so ‘you ignite!’ barafroozee.

barafroozee

So it’s saying, ‘you must ignite the light of the heart’. cherāghé del barafroozee.

cherāghé del barafroozee

So the full line means ‘from this wind, if you need help, you must ignite the fire of the heart’. So if you’re asking for help from the wind of change that came from the vicinity of the lover, which we talked about in the first line- if you’re looking to that wind for answers, you have to first ignite the fire in your own heart. So let’s listen to the full first two lines again as read by my aunt:

zé kooyé yār mee āyad naseemé bādé noroozee

az een bād ar madad khāhee cherāghé del barafroozee

And now let’s repeat both of these together, bit by bit. Repeat after me:

zé kooyé yār mee āyad

zé kooyé yār mee āyad

naseemé bādé noroozee

naseemé bādé noroozee

az een bād ar madad khāhee

cherāghé del barafroozee

I just love the rhyme and rhythm of these first two lines, and hope you’re experiencing them as well- noroozee, barafroozee. Wonderful.

And hopefully you got a bit of a grasp on those first two lines. Like we’ve said, Hafez is so dense! We’re going to cover this poem just two lines at a time, otherwise it might feel overwhelming. I urge you to listen to these lessons at a nice and slow pace- just one a week, and memorize and repeat as you go along. Remember that at the end of the lessons on these poems, I’ll ask you to memorize the poem and send us your video of reciting it in a beautiful location. We’ll have a link to videos submitted by all the students on the lesson page for this lesson; you can find this and so much more on the show notes for this episode!

And we’ll leave it at that for now. As always, thanks so much for listening. Until next time,

khodahāfez from Leyla!