Poetry /
Nezami Ganjavi's sokhanee chand dar eshgh (A Few Words on Love)
In this fourth part of the discussion of Nizami Ganjavi's sokhanee chand dar eshgh, we cover the next two lines in detail, regarding the indispensability of love.
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View audio version of the lessonGREETINGS:
hello
سَلام
how are you?
چِطوری؟
Note: In Persian, as in many other languages, there is a formal and an informal way of speaking. We will be covering this in more detail in later lessons. For now, however, chetor-ee is the informal way of asking someone how they are, so it should only be used with people that you are familiar with. hālé shomā chetor-é is the formal expression for ‘how are you.’
Spelling note: In written Persian, words are not capitalized. For this reason, we do not capitalize Persian words written in phonetic English in the guides.
ANSWERS:
I’m well
خوبَم
Pronunciation tip: kh is one of two unique sounds in the Persian language that is not used in the English language. It should be repeated daily until mastered, as it is essential to successfully speak Persian. Listen to the podcast for more information on how to make the sound.
| Persian | English |
|---|---|
| salām | hello |
| chetor-ee | how are you? |
| khoobam | I’m well |
| merci | thank you |
| khayli | very |
| khayli khoobam | I’m very well |
| khoob neestam | I’m not well |
| man | me/I |
| bad neestam | I’m not bad |
| ālee | great |
| chetor-een? | how are you? (formal) |
| hālé shomā chetor-é? | how are you? (formal) |
| hālet chetor-é? | how are you? (informal) |
| khoob-ee? | are you well? (informal) |
| mamnoonam | thank you |
| chetor peesh meeré? | how’s it going? |
| ché khabar? | what’s the news? (what’s up?) |
| testeeeee |
Learn Persian with Chai and Conversation Nezami’s A Few Words on Love, an excerpt from the romance of Khosrow and Shirin, Part 4.
salām bé hamegee, dorood, and welcome to the fourth part of this wonderful discussion about our excerpt from the epic tale of khosrō va shirin! Let’s start off by listening to my khālé Farnaz recite the entire first part of the poem: what we’ve learned in the last two lessons and the two lines we’ll be learning today.
marā k'az eshgh beh nāyad sho'āree.
mabādā tā zeeyam joz eshgh kāree.
falak joz eshgh mehrābee nadārad.
jahān bee khāké eshgh ābee nadārad.
gholāmé eshgh shō k'andeeshé een ast!
hamé sāhebdelān-rā peeshé een ast.
jahān eshgh-ast ō deegar zargh-sāzee.
hamé bāzee-st elā eshgh-bāzee.
agar bee eshgh boodee jāné ālam
ké boodee zendé dar dorāné ālam?
kasee k'az eshgh khālee shod fesord-ast.
garash sad jān bovad bee eshgh mord-ast.
All right, wonderful! Hopefully, you recognized those first four lines, and now, let’s go over the last two! First, let’s listen to my aunt read the first line that we’ll be learning today:
agar bee eshgh boodee jāné ālam
ké boodee zendé dar dorāné ālam?
We begin with “agar bee eshgh boodee.” First, “agar” means ‘if’. agar.
“bee” means ‘without’. bee.
“eshgh,” of course, is the word for ‘love’. eshgh.
And finally, “boodee” means ‘was’. boodee.
In modern Persian, this actually means ‘you were’, but in this context, it’s just an archaic “-ee.” boodee.
So “agar bee eshgh boodee” means ‘if you were without love’. agar bee eshgh boodee.
Then “jāné ālam,” the word “jān” means ‘soul’. jān.
That’s a word that’s very common in conversational Persian. We use it all the time. jān.
And “ālam” means ‘world’. ālam.
So “jāné ālam,” ‘the soul of the world’. jāné ālam.
All together, “agar bee eshgh boodee,” ‘if it was without love’, “jāné ālam,” the soul of the world, or as Sahba translated it, ‘if the world’s existence was bereft of love’. Let’s repeat this together: agar bee eshgh boodee…
jāné ālam.
Okay, great, and then next, “ké boodee zendé dar dorāné ālam?” Let’s start with that last part, “dorāné ālam.” “dorān” literally means ‘a cycle’, but here, “dorāné ālam” means something along the lines of ‘in the cycles of the world’ or ‘in the era of the world’, 'in the time'. Let’s repeat this together: dorāné ālam.
So ‘the cycles of the world’ and then “ké boodee zendé dar dorāné ālam?” “ké” here is actually “kee,” which means ‘who’, so in modern conversational Persian, it would be “kee,” but here, in this poem, ‘who’ is “ké.” “boodee," again, means ‘was’. ké boodee?
‘Who was?’ Then “zendé,” meaning ‘alive’. zendé.
And finally, “dar” meaning ‘in’. dar.
“ké boodee zendé dar…?” ‘who was alive in...?’. Again, “ké boodee zendé dar…?"
“dorāné ālam,” ‘in the time of existence’. dorāné ālam.
So altogether, it means ‘if the world’s existence was bereft of love, how would any have lived throughout all of the world’s cycles?’ so who would then even be alive? Let’s repeat all this together slowly: agar bee eshgh boodee…
jāné ālam…
ké boodee zendé…
dar dorāné ālam?
Okay, great, and now the next part:
kasee k'az eshgh khālee shod fesord-ast.
garash sad jān bovad bee eshgh mord-ast.
Okay, first, “kasee.” The word “kas” actually means ‘one’; “kasee,” ‘anyone’. kasee.
Again, “k'az” is a combination of “ké” and “az,” meaning ‘that from’. k'az.
Then “eshgh khālee shod,” “khālee” is the word for ‘empty’. khālee.
“shod” is ‘became’. shod.
So “khālee shod,” ‘became empty’. khālee shod.
And. of course, “eshgh” is the word for ‘love’. eshgh.
We’ve repeated that a hundred times at this point, so hopefully it’s very easy for you! “kasee k'az eshgh khālee shod” means ‘anyone that from love has become empty’. kasee k'az eshgh…
khālee shod…
Then “fesord-ast,” this means ‘is depressed’. fesord-ast.
And in modern conversational Persian, we use the word “afsordé” for depressed. afsordé.
So “afsordé hastam” means ‘I am depressed’. afsordé hastam.
But the poetic version is “fesord-ast.”
So “kasee k'az eshgh khālee shod fesord-ast” means ‘one who from love has become empty, is depressed’, or, as Sahba translates it, ‘he who is devoid of love is hard-hearted’.
Great, so now our final line for today: garash sad jān bovad bee eshgh mord-ast.
I absolutely love this line! “garash” is an interesting poetic word. “gar” comes from the word “agar,” or ‘if’. gar.
And “-ash” means ‘to him or her’, so ‘if to him or her’, garash.
Then “sad jān,” “sad” means ‘a hundred’. sad.
And “jān,” as we said before, means ‘soul’, but it can also mean ‘life’, so ‘soul’ or ‘life’, jān.
“bovad” is another poetic term that means ‘to be, to have’. bovad.
So ‘even if to him or her a hundred lives were had’, and then “bee eshgh mord-ast” This is so simple and easy! “bee eshgh,” as we’ve learned before, means ‘without love’. bee eshgh.
And “mord-ast” is, quite simply, ‘he or she is dead’. mord-ast.
So “bee eshgh mord-ast,” ‘without love, he or she is dead’. bee eshgh mord-ast.
Altogether, it’s “garash sad jān bovad bee eshgh mord-ast,” ‘if he/she is granted a hundred lives, without love, he or she is dead’, or, as Sahba translates it, ‘even if he has a hundred lives, without love, he is dead’. Let’s say it all together now: garash sad…
jān bovad…
bee eshgh mord-ast.
Okay, perfect! These two lines really help us to weave our story here and really raise the stakes! Okay, let’s repeat these two lines again together, bit by bit:
agar bee eshgh boodee jāné ālam
ké boodee zendé dar dorāné ālam?
kasee k'az eshgh khālee shod fesord-ast.
garash sad jān bovad bee eshgh mord-ast.
Let’s listen to my khālé Farnaz read these two lines again:
agar bee eshgh boodee jāné ālam
ké boodee zendé dar dorāné ālam?
kasee k'az eshgh khālee shod fesord-ast.
garash sad jān bovad bee eshgh mord-ast.
The language of this section might be a bit more complicated that in the other lessons, but hopefully, this time around, you were able to understand all of the parts of this selection. We have two more parts for this poem, because we’re taking it very nice and slowly. Let’s listen to the full poem now as read by my khālé Farnaz, and see how much we can understand at this point!
marā k'az eshgh beh nāyad sho'āree.
mabādā tā zeeyam joz eshgh kāree.
falak joz eshgh mehrābee nadārad.
jahān bee khāké eshgh ābee nadārad.
gholāmé eshgh shō k'andeeshé een ast!
hamé sāhebdelān-rā peeshé een ast.
jahān eshgh-ast ō deegar zargh-sāzee.
hamé bāzee-st elā eshgh-bāzee.
agar bee eshgh boodee jāné ālam
ké boodee zendé dar dorāné ālam?
kasee k'az eshgh khālee shod fesord-ast.
garash sad jān bovad bee eshgh mord-ast.
All right, and hopefully, you understood more of the poem at this point. We’ll be back next week for Part 5 of this series! Until then, khodāhāfez from Leyla!