Rumi's rooz ō shab

Hello and welcome to Learn Persian with Chai and Conversation! This is the continuation of our getting acquainted with the poem rooz ō shab by Rumi.

For this poem, we’re not going to go out of order- we’re going to learn each line of the poem- 2 lines per week. And because the lines are short, this will give us an opportunity to really delve into the words and phrases that we learn, and cover some variations on the words as well.

So first, let’s begin with the two most obvious words in this selection of the Rumi poem, and that is the words rooz and shab. As we said in the last lesson, rooz simply means day. rooz

(rooz)

And shab means night

(shab)

In the last lesson, we also learned that the Persian language is quite pliable, and that poets often take advantage of this fact to musicality in a poem. So let’s take the first concept of the first line- dar havāyat

(dar havāyat)

The word dar simply means in. There’s nothing tricky about it. dar

(dar)

havā is the word for air. havā

(havā)

havāyat is the shortened version of havāyé tō which means your air. havāyé tō

(havāyé tō)

So in the most conversational version of this, we would say ‘havāt.’ havāt

(havāt)

So that’s in every day Persian speaking. So havāyat is a more poetic version of this shortening. So havāyat

(havāyat)

So we are translating this as your air, but it of course means so much more. In Persian, there is a saying ‘havāt-ō dāram’ which translates literally as ‘I have your air’. havāt-ō dāram

(havāt-ō dāram)

This basically means ‘I have your back’ or I’m there for you. So havā in the Persian context means a lot more than air. It’s kind of like the air around you, the air you breathe, the air you are. It’s interesting to note that in Sufism, there’s nothing more intimate than breath, because what greater intimacy is there than breathing in the air that someone else has breathed out. You can’t get closer to a human being than that. So this phrase ‘dar havāyat’ is conjuring that kind of imagery- of being in a space with someone, breathing the same air, being as intimate as two humans can be. So again, that phrase is havāt-ō dāram

(havāt-ō dāram)

I have your back, I have your air- meaning, I am there for you more as much as another human can be. And in the poem, the phrase is dar havāyat

(dar havāyat)

in your air. So next, he says bee gharār-am. So what is a gharār. First, let’s repeat it, gharār

(gharār)

So gharār literally means a plan, an appointment. gharār

(gharār)

So bee gharār means without a plan. bee gharār

So without anything to do, a person without a plan, or lost. bee gharār

(bee gharār)

So bee gharār-am means I am lost. bee gharār-am

(bee gharār-am)

So what are some other ways we could use this word? Something that comes up in conversation a lot when talking about plans is to refer to them as gharār. So gharār-é beram khooné. The plan is for me to go home. gharār-é beram khooné

(gharār-é beram khooné)

Or gharār-é māhee bokhoram. It’s the plan for me to eat fish. gharār-é māhee bokhoram.

(gharār-é māhee bokhoram.)

If something unexpected happens, it’s common to hear someone start a sentence expressing their dismay by saying ‘gharār nabood’

(gharār nabood)

This comes up a lot in tārof when you’re out eating at a restaurant. Someone will unexpectedly sneakily foot the bill, and then the others will say ‘gharār nabood!’ This wasn’t the plan! gharār nabood!

(gharār nabood!)

Or to say it more completely een kār gharār nabood! Or this thing you did was not in the plans. een kār gharār nabood!

(een kār gharār nabood!)

So getting back to the poem dar havāyat bee gharār-am means around you I am lost. When I’m in your vicinity, breathing your air, I am lost. dar havāyat bee gharār-am

(dar havāyat bee gharār-am)

And the whole line is dar havāyat bee gharār-am rooz ō shab

(dar havāyat bee gharār-am rooz ō shab)

So around you I am lost day and night.

The next line has two different ways of saying it. Fared likes one version which we covered in the last poem, but we will be covering the more common version, and then we’ll go over the version we learned with Fared, because I think that version is even more poetic, and to me, perhaps even more in line with the feelings of the poem. So the next line is sar zé pāyat bar nadāram rooz ō shab. This is an example of a sentence that you wouldn’t say in conversation, but we can understand it poetically. So first a few vocabulary words. sar means head. sar

(sar)

And pā means foot. pā

(pā)

So simple enough head and foot. So in the phrase, sar is used by itself, sar zé pāyat, but pā is pāyat. pāyat

(pāyat)

And this means your foot. So in conversation, this would actually just be said at ‘pāt’ and this is a shortened version of pāyé tō, your foot. pāyé tō

(pāyé tō)

Which in conversation would be said ‘pāt’

(pāt)

Now, why pāyat then? That is the more literary way of saying this, and it makes more sense in the context of the poem. So your foot, pāyat

(pāyat)

It’s easy to play around with Persian to make it the number of syllables you need as you can see. So pāyé tō, the full version of the meaning ‘your foot’  would have three syllables. pāyé tō

(pāyé tō)

The most shortened conversational version, pāt, would only have one syllable. pāt

(pāt)

And the version that Rumi uses, pāyat has two syllables. pāyat

(pāyat)

Which is the perfect amount for the rhythm he’s trying to achieve. So then sar zé pāyat- zé is actually a different way to say az which means from. az

(az)

So you could say sar az pāyat

(sar az pāyat)

But due to the liberties of the Persian language, it becomes ‘sar zé pāyat’

(sar zé pāyat)

So, again, if we were going to say this in normal conversation, we’d just say ‘sar az pāt’

(sar az pāt)

But in this poem it’s ‘sar zé pāyat’

(sar zé pāyat)

And this is something that becomes easier to spot as you become more familiar with Persian poetry- there’s a lot of this shifting of language that happens, and it’s like unlocking a puzzle. So eventually, it will become very easy to recognize the meanings of these phrases. sar zé pāyat

(sar pāyat)

So then the word bar nadāram. This means not to lift, not to take. bar nadāram

(bar nadāram)

So in this context, it means not to take away. bar nadāram

The opposite of this would be bardāram.

(bardāram)

Or, to take. bardāram vs bar nadāram

So sar zé pāyat bar nadāram means I will not lift my head from your feet. sar zé pāyat bar nadāram

(sar zé pāyat bar nadāram)

So he’s saying he’s there with his head at the lover’s feet, and he can’t take that head away, he’s so in love. sar zé pāyat bar nadāram

(sar zé pāyat bar nadāram)

And of course he ends it by saying rooz ō shab. Day and night, I can’t take my head away from your feet. sar zé pāyat bar nadāram rooz ō shab

(sar zé pāyat bar nadāram rooz ō shab)

So I’m there with my head at your feet day and night. sar zé pāyat bar nadāram rooz ō shab

(sar zé pāyat bar nadāram rooz ō shab)

And now, the phrase that Fared actually used for this section was sar zé kooyat bar nadāram rooz ō shab. So just one word was different in this version. So remember that these poems are very old, and they appear in different versions in different places, so we don’t know which is more correct, or even if one is more correct than the other. But kooy is the word for a small area within a city- you can also translate it as an alley. So not a major street or a major city. But, in the past, for example, large cities had little areas in them that would be called ‘kooys’- almost like a tiny suburb of a big city today. The word isn’t used very often in conversation now, but you will hear it in literary Persian or poetry, so let’s learn it now. kooy

(kooy)

So sar zé kooyat bar nadāram rooz ō shab is just saying I won’t lift my head from where the area where you are. sar zé kooyat bar nadāram rooz ō shab

(sar zé kooyat bar nadāram rooz ō shab)

All right, and there we go, we’ve now gone over the first two lines of the poem. Let’s listen to my aunt reciting them.

dar havāyat bee gharār-am rooz ō shab

sar zé pāyat bar nadāram rooz ō shab

Now, remember as we said, the best way to learn these poems and all the vocabulary and phrases that come along with them is to memorize them and recite them. We had an amazing student video that we emailed out a couple weeks ago- if you’re on the mailing list you will have received this. Please please do email us with videos of yourself reciting these poems- it’s so inspiring to us and to other people who are on this language learning journey!

For now, we will end this lesson here. Thanks so much for listening, and please join us next time as we continue learning Rumi’s poem, rooz ō shab.