Rumi's rooz ō shab

Hello and welcome! This is the third part in our series on Rumi’s poem “rooz ō shab.” We’re going to start off this lesson by hearing my aunt, Farnaz, recite the full poem. Hopefully, after last week’s lesson, you’ll understand the beginning of it, at least.

dar havāyat bee gharār-am rooz ō shab.

sar zé pāyat bar nadāram rooz ō shab.

rooz ō shab-rā hamchō khod majnoon konam!

rooz ō shab-rā kay gozāram rooz ō shab?

jān ō del-rā meekhāstand az āsheghān.

jān ō del-rā meesepāram rooz ō shab.

This week, we are going to focus on the middle two lines. Like we said, we're going in order this time. Let’s hear my aunt reading these two lines only:

rooz ō shab-rā hamchō khod majnoon konam!

rooz ō shab-rā kay gozāram rooz ō shab?

These two lines begin again with the repetition of the words “rooz” and “shab,” which, by now, should be completely understandable to you. What does “rooz” mean? ‘Day’. rooz.

And what is the meaning of “shab”? ‘Night’. shab.

One thing we didn’t cover last week is that word “ō” in the middle of “rooz” and “shab.” “ō” simply means ‘and’. ō.

And ō is actually a conversational version of the longer word “va,” which also means ‘and’. va.

In conversation, “va” often is replaced by “ō,” as it is in the poem. ō.

rooz ō shab…

…could also be “rooz va shab.” rooz va shab…

…versus rooz ō shab…

…which flows a lot better in the context of this poem. Now let’s go over the most important part of this first line, and that is the word “majnoon.” majnoon.

The concept of majnoon is a very important one in Persian culture, and also obviously in Persian poetry. There’s not a great translation of it, but it’s something along the lines of crazy. Crazy doesn’t quite have the gravity that majnoon has, however. A person who is majnoon is a madman, an insane person, a crazy person. The best example of majnoon is in the story Leyli and Majnoon which is actually where my name comes from. This story was popularized in the 12th century in Iran, in a lyric poem by a Persian poet named  Nezami Ganjavi. And basically, the story is that this couple meets when they are very young and fall madly in love. The young man writes love poetry for Leyla to the point where they call him majnoon, or crazy. When they come of age to marry, Leyla’s father marries her off to a rich nobleman, and majnoon is forced to wander the desert for the rest of his life in search of his love. So it’s the story of unfulfillable longing. But this concept of majnoon also has these mystical implications- it’s the concept of losing yourself to love, to the point of madness. And again, as we say, in all these Sufi poems, you can take them to mean earthly love, like this love of majnoon for Leyla, but they can also be taken on the metaphorical level, the love of a person for the creator, whatever that may be. So again, in this poem, we are talking about all these different levels of love, and we are talking about love to the point of madness, majnoon

(majnoon)

So what does hamchō khod majnoon konam mean. The word khod is the word for self. khod

(khod)

That is simple enough. konam is a shortened version of bokonam or the first person conjugation of to do, to make. bokonam

(bokonam)

So bokonam basically means I am going to do. konam is simply a shortened conversational version of this. konam

(konam)

So you’ll say this in conversation often, especially when referring to things you intend to do. So meekhām hamoom konam, means I want  or I intend to take a bath. meekhām is I want to and hamoom is bath. So meekhām hamoom konam

(meekhām hamoom konam)

Or if we’re translating it more word by word it’s actually I want to do a bath, which is how we say take a bath. meekhām hamoom konam

(meekhām hamoom konam)

So then khod majnoon konam directly translates to I am going to make myself crazy. khod majnoon konam

(khod majnoon konam)

And now the word hamchō, which is a bit more difficult to translate. hamchō is a shortened version of hamchenoon, which means something along the lines of such, or thusly. I think actually that’s the best way to say it- thusly! hamchenoon

(hamchenoon)

Which in the poem is shortened to hamchō

(hamchō)

So basically, now the full thing is hamchō khod majnoon konam

(hamchō khod majnoon konam)

which basically means thusly I am going to make myself crazy, I am going to become a madman. hamchō khod majnoon konam.

And again, things get lost if you translate them word by word. The meaning of this is more like ‘I am going to lose myself’, like I said. ‘I am going to cease to exist because of this love’. hamchō khod majnoon konam.

And again, in a mystical sense, being “majnoon” is about the loss of ego, so losing your mind, losing the ego, becoming a part of the whole. It's all an important part of Sufism. “majnoon” is this concept of letting go of yourself, becoming crazy, becoming part of the whole. Again, let's hear my aunt Farnaz read this whole first line again!

‘Day and night, I am thusly in the process of losing my mind’. There's one word in there that we didn't go over individually, and that is the word “-rā.” That's because it's a difficult word to translate, and it doesn't have a direct translation in English. Rather, it's described in grammar as a "direct object marker." It's just a way to say, “This is what we're talking about!” In this instance, we say, “rooz ō shab-rā hamchō khod majnoon konam!” Again, it's a difficult thing to explain, and the use of “-rā” really becomes clear with practice. In this context, “-rā” is serving a few purposes: It's adding to the rhythm that we're trying to enshape in this poem: rooz ō shab-rā hamchō khod majnoon konam! It adds to the musicality. It's also separating the subject of the sentence, “rooz ō shab," from what's going on. We're talking about “rooz ō shab,” ‘day and night’: rooz ō shab-rā hamchō khod majnoon konam! It's saying ‘day and night', these things happen, and “-rā” is the connector, so again, no direct translation but to say it's an object marker connecting these two ideas, the idea of ‘day and night' with making oneself crazy. Let's repeat this one last time together: rooz ō shab-rā hamchō khod majnoon konam!

Now, let's move on to the next one:

rooz ō shab-rā kay gozāram rooz ō shab?

Okay, now, in this next line, we have “rooz ō shab” repeated twice. Again, here, we hear the word “-rā”: rooz ō shab-rā kay gozāram rooz ō shab? It's connecting the subject of “rooz ō shab” with the rest of the idea of the sentence, so what does “kay gozāram” mean? “kay” means ‘when?’. kay.

“gozāram” is the first person conjugation of ‘to put’, so ‘I put’. gozāram.

“kay gozāram?” means ‘where should I put?'. kay gozāram? ‘When should I put?'. “kay gozāram?” means ‘when should I put?'. kay gozāram?

So “rooz ō shab-rā kay gozāram rooz ō shab?” just means ‘day and night, when should I put this concept of “day and night”?'. He's basically asking for an orientation. The idea is that day and night are running into each other, and he's saying ‘help me orient myself! Where am I supposed to place these two concepts that have become foreign to me, that of day and night?’ because he's so lost, everything is running together. There's no longer a “day” and no longer a “night.” He's asking ‘where am I supposed to put these things? When is…what’s “day”? What's “night"?'. Let's repeat this together: rooz ō shab-rā kay gozāram?

Again, we have that “-rā” in there, saying “rooz ō shab” is the concept, subject, and “kay gozāram?” is referring to “rooz ō shab." Is that more clear here? If you think of the direct object marker, “rooz ō shab” is the object, and “-rā” is the word marking that we're talking about that object. “rooz ō shab-rā kay gozāram?” ‘where should I place day and night?’. rooz ō shab-rā kay gozāram?

Of course, he ends this verse by repeating “rooz ō shab,” so ‘day and night, where should I place day and night?'. rooz ō shab-rā kay gozāram rooz ō shab?

You know, this poem is…this circular idea, “rooz ō shab," keeps getting repeated because rooz turns into shab turns into rooz turns into shab. Repeating these words reminds you of that, of the movement of time. Like we said in the Intro lesson, it's a kind of “zekr." “zekr” is a mantra that you repeat that makes you lose your ego. That's what you do in Sufism. You do these chants, and it makes you lose yourself, become majnoon, and become connected to the Creator. That's what we're doing here; we're repeating this mantra “rooz ō shab, rooz ō shab.” Again, let's listen to my aunt read these two sentences:

rooz ō shab-rā hamchō khod majnoon konam!

rooz ō shab-rā kay gozāram rooz ō shab?

Hopefully, you got all that; remember, the best way to learn these poems is to memorize them! We're adding to our collection of student-memorized poems. Like Fared said in the Intro lesson, use your smartphone to record yourself reading this poem from memory in a beautiful location, and email it to us at info@chaiandconversation.com, with “chai” spelled C-H-A-I! It's super-easy to do, and we love receiving your videos.

And with that, we come to the end of this lesson; one more lesson to go on this series on Rumi's “rooz ō shab.” Thank you for joining us, and looking forward to analyzing the rest of this poem with you!