Rudaki's shād zee

Roodaki

Leyla: [00:00:00] Learn Persian with Chai and Conversation, shabé she'r with Yara, Rudaki.

Okay, so, hello and welcome everyone to shabé she'r with Yara. This is our very first episode of this. Yara, thank you so much for joining me. 

Yara: Yeah, thanks for having me! I'm really excited to do this! 

Leyla: So the idea behind this series, so shabé she'r is something that's very popular in Iran. People get together and they read poems together, they interpret them, they have lots of chāi. So we thought that we'd make these short and sweet poems a little bit shorter than we usually do in our longer sessions. We'll go over some poems that we... maybe don't really have exposure to otherwise. 

And the [00:01:00] background of this comes from my grandfather, which I've talked about on the podcast a lot. Yeah, we were very close. So when we moved to the United States, I lived in a house with my grandparents, so I grew up with them, and my grandfather, he actually retired before we moved to the United States. 

So he was very young, he was like in his 60s, and then he moved from Tehran, this bustling city, to the suburbs -which you know, Yara, it's like a major culture shock - to the suburbs of Dallas, where there were no Iranians to talk to, no, you know, hamshahrees to talk the same language, nowhere to go, like Target was the only place to go to, you know, the grocery store, just a total culture shock. And so he was very bored often. 

And one of the things that I think saved him is later in his life, like through his 80s and 90s, he started getting back into Persian poetry, which, we got him a calligraphy pen, and he just started spending all this [00:02:00] time in his bedroom writing poems from the great masters. And he, you know, he loved physics, he was a scientist, but for him, poetry was like the savior of mankind, and he would always tell us, he'd say, "If only," you know, "you all read these poems, you'll have a manual for life." And so he made us these books, I'm showing if you are watching this on video. 

Yara: Oh, that's so cute! Oh, wow! 

Leyla: This was, like, his, like, final project. He knew, he was old. He was in his 90s. And he would just spend all this time writing all these poems for us. 

Yara: And that's his, his calligraphy! 

Leyla: Exactly. This is all his calligraphy. And you know, I was in architecture school. And so I started scanning all these and we started going through and, like, fixing them on the computer and Photoshop. And we made all these books for everyone in the family. And he would always tell us, "If you all just read these poems... you will have a manual for life, and you'll be all set." So that was kind of his parting gift to us. 

Yara: Oh my god, that's an amazing, amazing [00:03:00] piece of, yeah, his legacy! 

Leyla: Exactly. And so a lot of them are like snippets of poems, so not the full things. But I've always wanted to, you know, even when he was alive, I'd say, "Okay, let me call you every day, and we'll go through one poem a day or something." but, you know, I was in college, I was hanging out with friends, I just didn't, I didn't do it. So, thank you for coming on this journey with me, Yara. 

Yara: Thank you for inviting me! I'm excited to go through this! 

Leyla: Because, you know, actually, another thing I think about a lot is that this was his, like, dying, like, his project while, as he was, like, getting close to death, and a lot of these poets talk about that a lot, that they're one day going to be gone, but these words will remain.

And hopefully these words will be a guide for all of us for our lives. And so I think that he left this as a legacy, and it was a legacy of the poets, and it's, you know, been handed down from generations, and it's really nice that we can still read these words and understand them. 

Yara: Yeah, and having gone through them, it's just, it's crazy. There's so many words of wisdom that, that come through and things that apply to [00:04:00] our daily lives from this book of poems and their selections from various poets throughout Iranian history. Thank you. Which I find super, super cool. It's just so crazy to think that something from so long ago has so much pertinence in our modern world. Yeah. 

Leyla: Right, and it's, it's a little bit unique to the Persian language, too, because if you read something from Old English, it's very hard to understand. Some of the poems that we're going to be reading are from the 900s, and we still understand the language. It's a little bit antiquated, but we can still go through it and, and understand it. So that's very cool.

Yara: Sweet! All right! 

Leyla: So what we're going to do is you and I will have this first lesson. These are going to be about 15 to 20 minutes long. Again, there's a video component. If you guys want to watch this on video, you can, and there you'll be able to see the poem on the screen, or you can listen to it as a podcast.

And then there'll be, after this, I'll do a podcast on my own where I'll go through the poems word by word, line by line, and relate them to the modern Persian language, and you can use that to elevate your [00:05:00] speaking Persian. 

So for our first poem, we are going to do a poem by Rudaki, which is one that I, you know, am not very familiar with, I was not familiar with before.

Yara: Neither am I. 

Leyla: But, Yara, you were telling me before we started recording that you heard his name a lot in Iran. Can you tell us what context you would hear it in? 

Yara: Totally. You just kind of see it around, like, maybe a restaurant name or a street name. I think one of the more popular kind of theater venues in Tehran is called, like, tālāré rudaki, and that's one place where I saw a play, you know, by one of Iran's kind of famous playwrights. 

So, it's definitely a name that there may even be a park or part of a park named after this person. So, it's definitely all around you, but I, I really don't know very much about it. I just assumed it was like some important historical figure and, you know, eventually, of course, came around to understanding that it's a poet, so.

Leyla: Right, and that's just for us. I'm sure people in Iran are very familiar with him and know exactly everything, but, you know, if you grew up in the West, you hear Hafez all the time, you hear Rumi all the time. [00:06:00] Rudaki is definitely one you hear a lot less of. 

So I did do a little bit of research into it, and it sounds like he was also known as kind of the Adam of poets. So the first great literary genius of the modern Persian language. So he was active in the 800s to the 900s, which again, is like, you know, centuries before Hafez, Rumi, all of them. Again, it's amazing that we can still go back and understand the language of his, his poetry. 

Yara: Yeah. And it's totally like, as I'm looking through it, honestly, the words, just like slight modifications here and there, and you'll be able to understand what's going on.

Leyla: Exactly. Also, I wanted to mention Rudaki, his name came from, he was born in Rudak, which is a village located in modern-day Tajikistan. Right now we're going to go through, Yara's gonna read the, the Persian version. His poetry reading is really beautiful, by the way. And, and I'm gonna read the English translation, which I've just done a loose translation. 

Yara: [00:07:00] shād zee bā seeyāh cheshmān, shād 

ké jahān neest joz fasāné ō bād. 

zé āmadé tang-del nabāyad bood 

va zé gozashté nakard bāyad yād. 

Leyla: Be glad with the raven-eyed folk, glad,

For this world is nothing but fantasy. 

You mustn't be worried about what has yet to come. 

And you mustn't think too much of the past. 

Yara: So "shād zee bā seeyāh cheshmān, shād." So, I mean, really, the only difference here between modern Persian and this is that "zee," I believe, it means 'living', "zendegee kardan."

Leyla: Right. 

Yara: So, it's "shād..." 'live happily with your happy black eyes'? Or, as the translation that you read said, 'live happily with the raven-eyed folk'? 

Leyla: I think that was just my... 

Yara: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, oh, yes, yes, yes. 

Leyla: My poetic flourishing. 

Yara: Yeah, yeah. 

Leyla: But, but you're saying that this is saying 'with [00:08:00] your own black eyes', right? Not necessarily with other people. 

Yara: Right. Right. 

Leyla: Is that how you interpret it? Okay. 

Yara: When I read it first I saw it that way, but then I, then I saw that translation. I was like "okay, yes! You can also interpret it seeyāh cheshmāné shād, 'the other happy raven-eyed folk'!" 

Leyla: Right, right, right, right. 

Yara: 'Black-eyed folk', yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Leyla: So the word "shād" in general, that's a word that's like 'be joyous', 'be happy'. Maybe more than 'happy', 'live merrily'. How about that? 'Live merrily', either 'with the raven-eyed folk', like 'other raven-eyed folk', or 'with your own raven eyes'. It's written for people in this region who mainly have dark-colored eyes, right? 

Yara: Yes, yes. Okay, yeah, totally. And then, "ké jahān neest joz fasāné ō bād."

Leyla: I love this. So, "jahān," what does "jahān" mean? 

Yara: 'World', right? So, 'the world is nothing but myths and wind'? 

Leyla: That's right. So, "bād," "bād" is like 'nothing'. It's 'wind'. It's just air. So, "fasāné" is 'fantasy'. So it's just made up. This world is [00:09:00] just made up. It's nothing. 

Yara: Right, right. 'The world is nothing but fantasy and, and', yeah, 'wind', just, yeah, 'this is what it is'. And then let's go on to the next one. "zé āmadé tang-del nabāyad bood." 'Don't get stressed about what is to come', or 'don't be worried about what has yet to come', I guess, something like that. 

Leyla: Right, so "āmadan" means 'to come'. And then "tang-del," so this is a really beautiful concept in, in Persian. So "tang-del" literally means a 'tight heart'. So when you're "tang-del", you miss something, your heart has constrained because you miss something so much, or you're so... 

Yara: Yes. So your heart is tight. Okay. "va zé gozashté nakard bāyad yād." And yes, that's, and then it's the inverse of the previous, right? So it's like 'don't be stressed or worried about what's to come', "zé āmadé." And "zé gozashté," 'from the past', 'let's not think about too much', 'let's not think too much about the past'.

Leyla: So, "gozashté," yeah, 'the past', and then "yād" is 'to [00:10:00] think, to remember'. And this theme comes up all the time in Persian poetry, and in any poetry really. It's just 'live in the moment', and, you know, putting it in the context of, like, this was written in the 900s, that's so... It's so funny. It's like, it's true. Like, that, that life was just like... Just a moment in time, and it was gone, and, you know, what, this person might have been worried about their bills or something, but...

Yara: Right, right, right, right. 

Leyla: What difference did it make in this, like, long history of time? 

Yara: Totally, totally. I mean, it's a recurring theme throughout so much work, poetry, art, you know, film, you know, nowadays, of course. Yeah, it's just living, yeah, living in the moment, carpe diem, seize the moment, whatever. Various cultures have their own way of saying this. Don't dwell on what hurts from the past, don't dwell on... the stressors of what might come. "Oh my God, I have this big project, this deadline. I have a date that I'm worried about," whatever. So yeah, definitely a tried and true kind of thing that applies to all of our lives.

Leyla: So, perfect! So that was [00:11:00] very simple. Like we said, these are going to be very short and sweet. A little shabé she'r, a little thing to listen to on, in an evening. And then in the next episode, I'm going to come back and I'm going to go through each of these words.

We can learn a lot about modern speaking. One thing I want to say, like, the "tang-del," like, like we can talk about different expressions that come with that, like "delam barāt tang shodé." It means, like, 'I miss you', so 'my heart has become tight for you'. That's how we tell someone that we miss them, and that's a really nice thing about, about the Persian language.

Yara: Totally. Like, very visual, like, I don't want to say it, not the word "graphic," because that involves like blood or whatever.

Leyla: You almost want to say "poetic!"

Yara: Poetic, yeah, there it goes! Yeah, visual, poetic, yeah.

Leyla: I mean, a lot of this is, like, you just, like, reading this poem, you get such visuals of, like, these, like, raven-eyed, like, just be happy, like, we're all having a joyous time together. 

Yara: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. 

Leyla: And then, and then like the constricted [00:12:00] heart and the "fasāné," like the fantasy. 

Yara: Yeah. 

Leyla: Just very vivid imagery. Okay, so we'll leave it at that. That's our very first shabé she'r. Thank you all for listening and we'll be back in the next episode with the individual words and phrases. So thank you, Yara! 

Yara: Thank you!

Leyla: Until next time. 

Yara: Until next time.