Poems from the Divan of Hafiz

Shemsuddin Mahommad, better known by his poetical surname of Hafiz, was born in Shiraz in the early part of the fourteenth century.[1] His names, being interpreted, signify the Sun of the Faith, the Praiseworthy, and One who can recite the Koran; he is further known to his compatriots under the titles of the Tongue of the Hidden and the Interpreter of Secrets. The better part of his life was spent in Shiraz, and he died in that city towards the close of the century. The exact date either of his birth or of his death is unknown. He fell upon turbulent times. His delicate love-songs were chanted to the rude accompaniment of the clash of arms, and his dreams must have been interrupted often enough by the nip of famine in a beleaguered town, the inrush of conquerors, and the flight of the defeated.

Not all the sum of earthly happiness Is worth the bowed head of a moment’s pain, And if I sell for wine my dervish dress, Worth more than what I sell is what I gain! Land where my Lady dwells, thou holdest me Enchained; else Fars were but a barren soil, Not worth the journey over land and sea, Not worth the toil!

The mystical interpretation of the first few lines is said to be: As the wine glows in the cup like the reflection of a ruddy cheek, so in the goblet of my heart I have seen the reflection of God, the true Beloved.

I sought mine own; the unsparing years Have brought me mine own, a dishonoured name. What cloak shall cover my misery o’er When each jesting mouth has rehearsed my shame!

_Stanza 3._—“Erghwan,” the Syringa Persica or Persian lilac. In the early spring, before it comes into leaf, it is covered with buds of a beautiful reddish-purple colour.

Dr. Johnson’s contribution to this vexed question is perhaps as good as any other: “Sir,” said he to Boswell, “we _know_ the will is free, there’s an end on’t.”

“Add to these the hidden meaning, like eyes half seen through their lashes, that her whole body may be a perfect mystery.”—_“Translation of the Kilidi Afghani,” by T. C. Plowden._

Hast thou forgotten when thy cheek’s dear torch Lighted the beacon of desire in me, And when my heart, like foolish moths that scorch Their wings and yet return, turned all to thee? Within the banquet-hall of Good Repute (Hast thou forgot?) the wine’s self-pressed my suit, And filled the morn with drunken jollity!

_Cf._ St. Paul, who is scarcely more explicit: “Work out your own salvation; for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Phil. ii. 12).

One of Shah Shudja’s vizirs, Hadji Kawameddin Hassan, was also a good friend to Hafiz. In the poems he is frequently alluded to as the second Assaf (the first Assaf having been King Solomon’s vizir, renowned for his wisdom), while Shah Shudja masquerades under the title of Solomon himself. On his return from a journey, probably to Yezd, Hafiz spent some months in the house of the Vizir—induced thereto by a cogent argument. In one of the poems there is a dialogue between himself and a friend, in which the friend says to him, “When after two years’ absence thy destiny has brought thee home, why comest thou not out of thy master’s house?” Hafiz replies that the road in which he walks is not of his choosing: “An officer of my judge stands, like a serpent, in ambush upon the path, and whenever I would pass beyond my master’s threshold he serves me with a summons and hurries me back into my prison.” He goes on to remark that under these painful circumstances he finds his master’s house a sure refuge, and the servants of the Vizir useful allies against the officers of the law. “If any one proffers a demand to me there, I call to my aid the strong arm of one of the Vizir’s dependants, and with a blow I cause his skull to be cleft in two.” A summary manner, one would think, of dealing with the law, and little calculated to incline the heart of his judge towards the offender.

Listen to the advice of an Afghan singer who wrote his _Ars Poetica_ in the mountains south of Peshawar about the middle of the seventeenth century:—

Not one is filled with madness like to mine In all the taverns! my soiled robe lies here, There my neglected book, both pledged for wine. With dust my heart is thick, that should be clear, A glass to mirror forth the Great King’s face; One ray of light from out Thy dwelling-place To pierce my night, oh God! and draw me near.

Shah Shudja was not the only member of the house of Muzaffar who protected Hafiz; the warrior prince Mansur was his staunch friend. He appears to have been absent from Shiraz at the time of Mansur’s accession—perhaps he had accompanied Timur’s retreating army. “The wind has brought me word,” he cries, “that the day of sorrow is overpast; I will return to Shiraz through the favour of my friend. On the banners of the Conqueror (_i.e._ Mansur, of whose name this is the meaning) Hafiz is borne up into heaven; fleeing for refuge, his destiny has set him upon the steps of a throne.” Mansur held the poet in high esteem. There is a tradition that when he appointed one of his sons governor over a province, the young man asked his father to give him his vizir, Jelaleddin, as a counsellor, and Hafiz as a teacher. “What!” replied Mansur, “wouldst thou be King even in thy father’s lifetime, that thou demandest of him the two wisest men in his realm?”

Hafiz, thy life has sped untouched by care, With me towards the tavern turn thy feet! The fairest robbers thou’lt encounter there, And they will teach thee what to learn is sweet.

Where is my ruined life, and where the fame Of noble deeds? Look on my long-drawn road, and whence it came, And where it leads!

_Stanza 1._—Khizr—see Note to the third stanza of Poem XVIII.

Ibn Batuta, the Arab traveller who visited Shiraz about the year 1340, has left a charming description of the native town of Hafiz and of the manners of his contemporaries. “Shiraz,” he says, “is a well-built town of a great size, a wide celebrity, and a high place among cities. It possesses pleasant gardens, far-reaching streams, excellent markets, fine streets, and a numerous population. The town is constructed with taste and admirably arranged; each trade has its own bazaar. The inhabitants are a fine race and well clad. Shiraz lies in a plain; gardens surround it on every side; and five rivers flow through it, amongst them one called Ruknabad, a stream of which the water is excellent to drink, very cold in summer and warm in winter. The principal mosque is called the Old Mosque; it is as spacious and as well built as any one could wish to see. The court of it is vast and paved with marble; in hot weather it is washed with fresh water every night. The wealthy citizens come there every evening to repeat the prayers of sunset and of night. The inhabitants of Shiraz are well-to-do, pious, and chaste; the women in particular are distinguished for their modesty. They go completely veiled, give much in alms, and repair three times a week to the great mosque. Often as many as two thousand are assembled there, sitting with fans in their hands on account of the great heat. Each day in one of the mausoleums the whole Koran is read aloud, and the readers have very beautiful voices. The people bring with them fruits and sweetmeats, and when the congregation has finished eating, the preacher begins his discourse. This takes place between the mid-day and the evening prayers.” Ibn Batuta struck up acquaintance with a Sheikh whom he found seated in a small hermitage at the corner of a mosque. The Sheikh was engaged in reading the Koran. In answer to Ibn Batuta’s questions, he told him that he had founded the mosque himself, and that the hermitage was to be his tomb. Lifting a carpet, he showed him his grave, covered over with planks. “In that box,” he said, pointing to a chest opposite to him, “are my winding-sheet, some spices with which my corpse will be perfumed, and a few pieces of money which I earned by digging a well for a pious man. The money will serve to pay for my burial, and what is left over will be distributed among the poor.” “I admired his conduct,” adds Ibn Batuta. “One of the mausoleums outside the town,” he continues, “contains the tomb of Sheikh Sa’di, the first poet of his time. Close at hand is a hermitage built by Sa’di himself, surrounded by a charming garden. It is situated near the source of the Ruknabad. In the garden Sheikh Sa’di constructed a number of basins for the washing of clothes. The citizens of Shiraz make parties of pleasure to this mausoleum; they eat food prepared in the hermitage, wash their garments in the river, and at sunset return to the town. So did I also. May God have mercy on Shiraz!” he concludes piously.

Saki, thy radiant feet I hail; Flush with red wine the goblets pale, Flush our pale cheeks to drunken hue, Fresh and afresh and new and new!

Let not the blandishments be checked That slender beauties lavish on me, Until in the grace of the cypress decked, My Love shall come like a ruddy pine-tree He cannot perish whose heart doth hold The life love breathes—though my days are told, In the Book of the World lives my constancy.

The tavern step shall be thy hostelry, For Love’s diviner breath comes but to those That suppliant on the dusty threshold lie. And thou, if thou would’st drink the wine that flows From Life’s bejewelled goblet, ruby red, Upon thine eyelashes thine eyes shall thread A thousand tears for this temerity.

Give me the cup! a voice rings in mine ears Crying: “Bear patiently the bitter years! For all thine ills, I send thee heavenly grace. God the Creator mirrored in thy face Thine eyes shall see, God’s image in the glass I send to thee.

Not all the changes that thy days unfold Shall rouse thy wonder; Time’s revolving sphere Over a thousand lives like thine has rolled. That cup within thy fingers, dost not hear The voices of dead kings speak through the clay? Kobad, Bahman, Djemshid, their dust is here, “Gently upon me set thy lips!” they say.

_Journal des Savants_ for 1821 and 1822.

There is a play of meaning upon the musk which is obtained at the cost of the deer’s life-blood and the tears of blood which the lover weeps for his mistress.

But some of us will feel that the apparent indifference of Hafiz lends to his philosophy a quality which that of Dante does not possess. The Italian is bound down within the limits of his own realism, his theory of the universe is essentially of his own age, and what to him was so acutely real is to many of us merely a beautiful or a terrible image. The picture that Hafiz drew represents a wider landscape, though the immediate foreground may not be so distinct. It is as if his mental eye, endowed with wonderful acuteness of vision, had penetrated into those provinces of thought which we of a later age were destined to inhabit. We can forgive him for leaving to us so indistinct a representation of his own time, and of the life of the individual in it, when we find him formulating ideas as profound as the warning that there is no musician to whose music both the drunk and the sober can dance.

Hallaj lived in the ninth century. He was believed by some to be a sorcerer, and by others a holy worker of miracles. He was condemned to death with horrible tortures by the Khalif of Baghdad in 919, and his ashes were thrown into the Tigris. It is said that a Sufi once asked God why he suffered his servant Hallaj to fall into the Khalif’s hands, and was answered, “Thus the revealers of secrets are punished.”

’Twixt Jafrabad and Mosalla’s close Flies the north wind laden with ambergris— Oh, come to Shiraz when the north wind blows! There abideth the angel Gabriel’s peace With him who is lord of its treasures; the fame Of the sugar of Egypt shall fade and cease, For the breath of our beauties has put it to shame.

From the Shah’s garden blows the wind of Spring, The tulip in her lifted chalice bears A dewy wine of Heaven’s minist’ring; Until Ghiyasuddin, the Sultan, hears, Sing, Hafiz, of thy longing for his face. The breezes whispering round thy dwelling-place Shall carry thy lament unto the King.

Not on the lips of men Love’s secret lies, Remote and unrevealed his dwelling-place. Oh Saki, come! the idle laughter dies When thou the feast with heavenly wine dost grace. Patience and wisdom, Hafiz, in a sea Of thine own tears are drowned; thy misery They could not still nor hide from curious eyes.

Hafiz belonged to the great sect from which so many of the most famous among Persian writers have sprung. Like Sa’di and Jami and Jelaleddin Rumi and a score of others, he was a Sufi. The history of Sufiism has yet to be written, the sources from which it arose are uncertain, and that it should have found a home in Mahommadanism, the least mystical of all religions, is still unexplained. Some have supposed that Sufiism was imported from India after the time of Mahommad; some that it was a development of the doctrines of Zoroaster which the Prophet’s successors silenced but did not destroy. In reply to the first theory it has been objected that there is no historic proof of relations between India and Mahommadan countries after the Mahommadan era and before the rise of Sufiism, by which the doctrines of the Indian mystics could have been propagated; and as for the second, it seems improbable that Sufiism, of which the essential doctrine is unity, could have borrowed much from a religion as sharply opposed to it as that of Zoroaster, whose creed is founded upon a dualism. A third theory is that the origins of Sufiism are to be looked for in the philosophy of the Greeks, strangely distorted by the Eastern mind, and in the influence of Christianity; but though the works of Plato are frequently quoted by mystical writers, and though it seems certain that they owe something both to the Neo-Platonic school of Alexandria and to the Christian religion, this would not be enough to account for the great perversion of Mahommad’s teaching.

Arise, oh Cup-bearer, rise! and bring To lips that are thirsting the bowl they praise, For it seemed that love was an easy thing, But my feet have fallen on difficult ways. I have prayed the wind o’er my heart to fling The fragrance of musk in her hair that sleeps— In the night of her hair—yet no fragrance stays The tears of my heart’s blood my sad heart weeps.

Forget not loyal lovers long since dead, Though faith and loyalty should be forgot, Though the earth cover the enamoured head, And in the dust wisdom and passion rot. My friends have thrust me from their memory; Vainly a thousand thousand times I cry: Forget me not!

My heart, sad hermit, stains the cloister floor With drops of blood, the sweat of anguish dire; Ah, wash me clean, and o’er my body pour Love’s generous wine! the worshippers of fire Have bowed them down and magnified my name, For in my heart there burns a living flame, Transpiercing Death’s impenetrable door.

Lo, not at any time I lent mine ear To hearken to the glories of the earth; Only thy beauty to mine eyes was dear. Sleep has forsaken me, and from the birth Of night till day I weave bright dreams of thee; Drunk with a hundred nights of revelry, Where is the tavern that sets forth such cheer!

_Stanza 1._—The second line of this poem is as often quoted as any, perhaps, in the Divan: “Yàd bàd an ruz-i-gàràn, yàd bàd!” A man will set it upon a letter to an absent friend, even when he is not particularly anxious that days gone by should be preserved from oblivion; and how often must the simple little line have been used by those to whom its very simplicity made it more poignant than pages of sentiment!

Ah, loose me not! ah, set not Hafiz free From out the bondage of thy gleaming hair! Safe only those, safe, and at liberty, That fast enchained in thy linked ringlets are. But from the image of his dusty cheek Learn this from Hafiz: proudest heads shall bend, And dwellers on the threshold of a friend Be crownèd with the dust that crowns the meek.

Last night I dreamed that angels stood without The tavern door, and knocked in vain, and wept; They took the clay of Adam, and, methought, Moulded a cup therewith while all men slept. Oh dwellers in the halls of Chastity! You brought Love’s passionate red wine to me, Down to the dust I am, your bright feet stept.

Oh, weep no more! for once again Life’s Spring Shall throne her in the meadows green, and o’er Her head the minstrel of the night shall fling A canopy of rose leaves, score on score. The secret of the world thou shalt not learn, And yet behind the veil Love’s fire may burn— Weep’st thou? let hope return and weep no more!

Sorrow has made her lair in my breast, And undisturbed she lies—forget them not That drove her forth like to a hunted beast! Hafiz, thou and thy tears shall be forgot, Lock fast the gates of thy sad heart! But those That held the key to thine unspoken woes— Forget them not!

Numberless beautiful images are used to describe the union of God and man. Jelaleddin Rumi points the same moral in the following exquisite apologue: “There came one and knocked at the door of the Beloved. And a voice answered and said, ‘Who is there?’ The lover replied, ‘It is I.’ ‘Go hence,’ returned the voice; ‘there is no room within for thee and me.’ Then came the lover a second time and knocked, and again the voice demanded, ‘Who is there?’ He answered, ‘It is thou.’ ‘Enter,’ said the voice, ‘for I am within.’”

My heart was all too narrow for my woe, And tears of blood my weeping eyes have shed, A crimson stream across the desert sped, Rising from out my sad heart’s overflow. She knew not what Love’s meanest slave can tell: “’Tis sweet to serve!” but threw me a Farewell, Kissing my threshold, turned, and cried “I go!”

_Stanza 3._—“Concerning the forbidden fruit,” says Sale in a note to the second chapter of the Koran, “the Mohammadans, as well as the Christians, have different opinions. Some say it was an ear of wheat, some will have it to have been a fig-tree, and others a vine.”

Down in the quarter where they sell red wine, My holy carpet scarce would fetch a cup— How brave a pledge of piety is mine, Which is not worth a goblet foaming up! Mine enemy heaped scorn on me and said: “Forth from the tavern gate!” Why am I thrust From off the threshold? is my fallen head Not worth the dust?

Oh wind that blows from the sun-rising, What news of the maid with the drunken eyes, What news of the lovely maid dost thou bring? Bid me not wake from my dream and arise, In dreams I have rested my head at her feet— When stillness unbroken around me lies, The vision of her makes my solitude sweet.

And in their learned books thou’lt seek in vain The key to Love’s locked gateway; Heart grown wise In pain and sorrow, ask no remedy! But when the time of roses comes again, Take what it gives, oh Hafiz, ere it flies, And ask not why the hour has brought it thee, And wherefore ask no more!

It has been well said that all religious teachers who have honestly tried to construct a working formula, have found that one of their greatest difficulties lay in reconciling the all-powerfulness of God with man’s consciousness of his will being free; for on the one hand it is impossible to conceive a God worth the name who shall be less than omnipotent and omniscient, and on the other it is essential to lay upon man some responsibility for his actions.[5] Mahommad more especially, as Count Gobineau points out in his excellent little book,[6] found himself confronted with this difficulty, since his primary object was to exalt the divine personality, and to lift it out of the pantheism into which it had fallen among the pre-Islamitic Arabs; but if he did not succeed in indicating a satisfactory way out of the dilemma, it is at least unjust to accuse him of having failed to recognise it. He insisted that man is responsible for his own salvation: “Whosoever chooseth the life to come, their desire shall be acceptable unto God.”[7] There is a tradition that when some of his disciples were disputing over predestination, he said to them: “Why do you not imitate Omar? For when one came to him and asked him, ‘What is predestination?’ he answered, ‘It is a deep sea.’ And a second time he replied, ‘It is a dark road.’ And a third time, ‘It is a secret which I will not declare since God has seen fit to conceal it.’” The Sufis were obliged to abandon free will: it was impossible to attach any responsibility to the reflection in the mirror. But here, again, they did not venture to give expression to their real opinions, and their statements are therefore both confused and contradictory. “A man may say,” remarks the author of the Dabistan, “that his actions are his own, and with equal truth that they are God’s.” In the Gulshen-i-Raz, a poem written in the year 1317, and therefore contemporary with Hafiz, it is distinctly laid down that God will take men’s actions into account: “After that moment (_i.e._ the Day of Judgment) he will question them concerning good and evil.” But such expressions as these are in direct opposition to the rest of Sufi teaching. There is neither good nor evil, since both alike flow from God, from whom all flows. Some go so far as to prefer Pharaoh to Moses, Nimrod to Abraham, because they say that though Pharaoh and Nimrod were in apparent revolt against the Divinity, in reality they knew their own nothingness and accepted the part that the divine wisdom had imposed upon them. There is neither reward nor punishment; Paradise is the beauty, Hell the glory of God, and when it is said that those in Hell are wretched, it is meant that the dwellers in Heaven would be wretched in their place.[8] And finally, there is no distinction between God and man; the soul is but an emanation from God, and a man is therefore justified in saying with the fanatic Hallaj, “I am God.” Though Hallaj paid with his life for venturing to give voice to his opinion, he was only repeating aloud what all Sufis believe to be true.[9] “It is permitted to a tree to say, ‘I am God,’” writes the author of the Gulshen-i-Raz (the allusion is to the burning bush that spoke to Moses); “why then may not a man say it?” And again: “In God there is no distinction of quality; in his divine majesty I, thou, and we shall not be found. I, thou, we, and he bear the same meaning, for in unity there is no division. Every man who has annihilated the body and is entirely separated from himself, hears within his heart a voice that crieth, ‘I am God.’”

She that has stolen my heart from me, How does she wield her empery? Paints and adorns and scents her too, Fresh and afresh and new and new!

The moon, according to Persian superstition, has a baneful influence upon human life.

And Hafiz, though thy heart within thee dies, Hiding love’s agony from curious eyes, Ah, not in vain thy tears, not vain thy sighs, Not all in vain!

Dear were the days which perished with my friend— Ah, what is left of life, now she is dead, All wisdomless and profitless I spend! The nightingale his own life’s blood doth shed, When, to the kisses of the wind, the morn Unveils the rose’s splendour—with his torn And jealous breast he dyes her petals red.