Hafez's payāmé naseem

Hello and welcome to Part 4 of our discussion on Hafez’s payāmé naseem! After this lesson, we’ll be past the halfway point for our poem! And like I said last time, I think that lines 3 and 4 are the most challenging of all the lines, so this week might seem like a breeze to you. So first, let’s listen to my aunt Farnaz recite the first three complete lines of the poem. We’ve covered the first two already, so they should be very familiar to you:

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 ro ké az dāman ghobaré gham beeafshānee

bé golzār āy k’az bolbol ghazal goftan beeyāmoozee

Okay, so like I said, those two first sections should be very clear. Now, let’s listen to the last two lines which we’ll be going over:

bé sahrā ro ké az dāman ghobaré gham beeafshānee

bé golzār āy k’az bolbol ghazal goftan beeyāmoozee

All right, now, I want to start by saying I absolutely love these lines, and now that I know them, I think about them all the time. The message in them in so timeless. So, let’s go over them word by word, phrase by phrase and see what we find out. So, he starts off by saying bé sahrā rō!

bé sahrā rō!

So first, “bé” means ‘to’. bé.

bé

And “sahrā” is the word for ‘desert’. sahrā.

sahrā

That is the same word as the Sahara. “rō” is short for “borō,” which means ‘go’. So first, borō is the full word, ‘go!’, and it’s speaking in second person informal. So it’s a command: ‘you go!’. borō!

borō!

And in the poem, he’s shortened it to rō, but it means the exact same thing: rō!

rō!

So, ‘go to the desert!’. bé sahrā rō!

bé sahrā rō!

Okay, next:

ké az dāman ghobaré gham

First, let’s go over the word “ghobār.” So “ghobār” means ‘dust’, so the dust that you find in the desert. ghobār.

ghobār

And “gham” means ‘sorrow’. gham.

gham

So “ghobāré gham” together means ‘the dust of sorrow’. ghobāré gham.

ghobāré gham

So, what a beautiful image! So in the desert, with some dust of sorrow. So again, the full part is “ké az dāman ghobāré gham.” “dāman” in current conversation means ‘skirt’, and it’s only used for women's clothing, but back in the day, it meant just general clothing. dāman.

dāman

“ké” means ‘that’ or ‘so’. ké.

ké

And “az,” as we’ve covered before, means ‘from’. az.

az

So the full thing, “ké az dāman ghobaré gham,” means ‘so from the skirt, the dust of sorrow’. Let’s repeat this together: ké az dāman ghobaré gham.

ké az dāman ghobaré gham

And then "beeafshānee," and this means ‘to get rid of’ or ‘to beat’. beeafshānee.

beeafshānee

So together, the full sentence is: 

bé sahrā ro ké az dāman ghobaré gham beeafshānee!

So ‘go to the desert so that you may beat the dust of sadness from your clothes!’. Let’s repeat it together: 

bé sahrā ro

bé sahrā ro

ké az dāman

ké az dāman

ghobāré gham

ghobāré gham

beeafshānee!

beeafshānee!

And the full thing: 

bé sahrā ro ké az dāman ghobaré gham beeafshānee!

All right, now the next line: 

bé golzār āy k’az bolbol ghazal goftan beeāmoozee!

Okay, so similar structure, but this time, “golzār” means ‘the meadow’. You might recognize the word ‘flower’ in there: “gol.” “golzār” is a meadow full of flowers. golzār.

golzār

And again, “bé” means ‘to’. bé.

bé

And “āy” means ‘come!’. āy!

āy!

In present conversation we don’t use “āy”; we say “beeyā!” ‘Come!’, beeyā!

beeyā!

And āy!

āy!

So “bé golzār āy!” is ‘come to the meadow of flowers!’. Then:

k’az bolbol ghazal goftan beeāmoozee!

Now, “k’az” is two words put together: ké az, and we’ve covered these individual words before, so you should know them by now. “ké” means ‘so’. ké.

ké

And “az” means ‘from’. az.

az

“k’az” is a way to make this one syllable: k’az, ‘that from’. k’az.

k’az

“bolbol” is the word for a ‘songbird’. bolbol.

bolbol

So ‘from the songbird’: k’az bolbol.

k’az bolbol

And then “ghazal goftan,” so “ghazal” is the word for this kind of poetry that Hafez is famous for, with this type of rhyme and rhythm. ghazal.

ghazal

“goftan” is the infinitive of the verb ‘to say’. goftan.

goftan

So “ghazal goftan” simply means ‘to recite poetry’. ghazal goftan.

ghazal goftan

And “āmookhtan” is the infinitive of the verb ‘to learn’. āmookhtan.

āmookhtan

So “beeāmoozee” is the second person informal version of ‘to learn’ in the present tense. beeāmoozee!

beeāmoozee!

So all together, “ghazal goftan beeāmoozee” is ‘for you to learn how to recite or say poetry’. So although literally, “goftan” is ‘to say’, it’s also a way to talk about writing poetry. So ‘from the songbird, you can learn how to write and recite poetry’. ghazal goftan beeāmoozee!

ghazal goftan beeāmoozee!

So the whole thing:

bé golzār āy

bé golzār āy

k’az bolbol 

k’az bolbol

ghazal goftan beeāmoozee!

ghazal goftan beeāmoozee!

What incredible imagery! So Hafez takes us from the desert to the meadow of flowers; both are equally important, each has its own place and mission. In the desert, we can beat the sorrow from our clothes, and then show up renewed in the meadow of flower and learn how to say poetry. 

In the tradition of Sufi poets, the higher power or God is in everything, so it’s easy to imagine that Hafez is seeing God in these acts: in the act of being human and feeling sorrow, and then the act of learning from nature to do something that it seems like only humans do, reciting poetry, but in fact poetry is also in everything.

I just think that’s incredible, and I do really think about these lines, especially when I hear a bird effortlessly singing, or I think about this physical manifestation of sorrow in dust that you can physically beat from your clothing. So now let’s repeat these two lines bit by bit together:

bé sahrā ro ké az dāman ghobaré gham beeafshānee

bé golzār āy k’az bolbol ghazal goftan beeyāmoozee

And now let’s hear my aunt Farnaz reciting these first three lines of the poem:

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 ro ké az dāman ghobaré gham beeafshānee

bé golzār āy k’az bolbol ghazal goftan beeyāmoozee

And hopefully you got all that! Like I said, we’re now past the halfway mark. Hopefully, this poem has become increasingly less intimidating for you. And we’ll be back next week with the next two lines!

Thank you for listening, and until next time, khodāhāfez from Leyla!