The Middle Ages saw an extraordinary flowering of Persian poetry. Though translations began appearing in Europe in the nineteenth century, these remarkable poets—Omar Khayyam, Rumi, Saadi, Sanai, Attar, Hafiz, and Jami—are still being discovered in the West.
The great medieval Persian poets owe much to the mystical Sufi tradition within Islam, which understands life as a journey in search of enlightenment, and, like their European contemporaries, they combine religious and secular themes. While celebrating the beauty of the world in poems about love, wine, and poetry itself, or telling humorous anecdotes of everyday life, they use these subjects to symbolize deeper concerns with wisdom, mortality, salvation, and the quest for God.
Product Details
ISBN-13: 9780375411267
Media Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication Date: 11-14-2000
Pages: 256
Product Dimensions: 4.43(w) x 6.50(h) x 0.70(d)
Series: Everyman's Library Pocket Poets
About the Author
Peter Washington is the editor of many of the Everyman's Library Pocket Poets, including Love Poems, and is the author of Madame Blavatsky's Baboon: A History of the Mystics, Mediums, and Misfits Who Brought Spiritualism to America.
Read an Excerpt
Read an Excerpt
"The True Sufi" by Rumi (translated by R. A. Nicholson)
What makes the Sufi? Purity of heart; Not the patched mantle and the lust perverse Of those vile earth-bound men who steal his name. He in all dregs discerns the essence pure: In hardship ease, in tribulation joy. The phantom sentries, who with batons drawn Guard Beauty's palace-gate and curtained bower, Give way before him, unafraid he passes, And showing the King's arrow, enters in.
"Where Is My Ruined Life?" By Hafiz (translated by Gertrude Bell)
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! Can drunkenness be linked to piety And good repute? Where is the preacher's holy monody, Where is the lute? From monkish cell and lying garb released, Oh heart of mine, Where is the Tavern fane, the Tavern priest, Where is the wine? Past days of meeting, let the memory Of you be sweet! Where are those glances fled, and where for me Reproaches meet? His friend's bright face warms not the enemy When love is done- Where is the extinguished lamp that made night day Where is the sun? Balm to mine eyes the dust, my head I bow Upon thy stair. Where shall I go, where from thy presence? Thou Art everywhere. Look not upon the dimple of her chin, Danger lurks there! Where wilt thou hide, oh trembling heart, fleeing, in Such mad haste—where? To steadfastness and patience, friend, ask not If Hafiz keep— Patience and steadfastness I have forgot, And where is sleep?
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Foreword
OMAR The Ruba’iyat
SANAI The Blind Men and the Elephant From TheWalled Garden of Truth The Wild Rose of Praise EnergeticWork Earthworm Guidance The Puzzle The Time Needed
ATTAR Listening to the Reed Flute Street-Sweeper Looking for Your Own Face From Bird Parliament
RUMI Who SaysWords with My Mouth? A Community of the Spirit The Reed Flute’s Song Sanai A Just-Finishing Candle Only Breath Quatrains (‘Today, like every other . . .’) The Shape of My Tongue Quatrains (‘The Friend comes . . .’) Tending Two Shops Constant Conversation Bonfire at Midnight Quatrains (‘When I am with you . . .’) Someone Digging in the Ground Who Makes These Changes? Chickpea to Cook The Mouse and the Camel Quatrains (‘A craftsman pulled . . .’) New Moon, Hilal The Bird of My Heart Die Now So Drunk am I Aiming at Brotherhood The Assembly is Like a Lamp Talking in the Night Talking through the Door The Parrot of Bagdad Remembered Music The True Sufi Reality and Appearance The Unseen Power Quatrains (‘Time bringeth . . .’) He Comes
SAADI Compassion Beneficence Guardians Jesus and the Sinner I Heard of a Man A Certain Man They Put a Crow in the Cage I Asked a Scholar From The Bostan: The Story of the Dervish and a Fox —In Connection with Humility —A Story in this Connection —An Account of a Pious Person’s Humility
HAFEZ Wine The Ocean of Love A Persian Song The Lesson of the Flowers Lawful Wine Swimming Strife The Beloved Revelation Wild Deer The Bird of Gardens Sleep on Thine Eyes Where is My Ruined Life? The Nightingale Return My Friend Has Fled Oh,Weep No More The Breath of Dawn Absence The Jewel The Dream Forget Not The Vale of Silence The Garden The Gifts The Days of Spring Tidings of Union Ghazal 10 Ghazal 27 Ghazal 29 Ghazal 35 Ghazal 36 Ghazal 49 Ode 44 Ode 105 Ode 147 Ode 173 Ode 487
JAMI Morning Air From Salámán and Absál: Preliminary Invocation The Simple Arab The Birth of Salámán Absál Tempts Salámán The Lovers Flee The Burning of Absál