Hafez's payāmé naseem

salām bé hamegee, hello and welcome to Part 3 of our discussion of Hafez’s poem, payāmé naseem! So we’ve included a link to Shajarian’s version of this poem, which Fared based our discussion around. It’s on the show notes for this lesson and on the lesson page on our website. I encourage you to listen to that version every day while we’re learning the poem. Listening to it really gives me a different understanding of the poem and the meaning and feeling of it, and I’m sure it will do the same for you. And it’ll help so much in the memorization at the end as well.

But for now, let’s listen to my aunt Farnaz recite the entire poem:

zé kooyé yār mee āyad naseemé bādé noroozee

az een bād ar madad khāhee cherāghé del barafroozee

chō gol gar khordeyee dāree khodā rā sarfé eshrat kon

ké ghāroon rā ghalat-hā dād sodāyé zarandoozee

bé sahrā roo ké az dāman ghobaré gham beeafshānee

bé golzār āy k’bolbol ghazal goftan beāmoozee

jodā shod yaré sheereenat konoon tanhā sheen ay sha’am

ké hokm āsemān een ast agar sāzee ō gar soozee

may-ee dāram chō sāfee ō soofee meekonad aybash

khodāyā heech āghel rā mabādā bakht bad roozee

So, last week, we went over the first two lines of the poem. Now, we’re going to go over the next two, the third and fourth lines. Now, I have to admit, for me, these are the two most challenging lines, because they have the most words I’m not completely familiar with and don’t use in everyday conversation. So if you’re feeling challenged, don’t worry, I’m right there with you. Okay, so now, let’s listen to Farnaz reading the first four lines together. 

zé kooyé yār mee āyad naseemé bādé noroozee

az een bād ar madad khāhee cherāghé del barafroozee

chō gol gar khordeyee dāree khodā rā sarfé eshrat kon

ké ghāroon rā ghalat-hā dād sodāyé zarandoozee

So let’s look at that first part: 

chō gol gar khordeyee dāree khodā rā sarfé eshrat kon

So let’s start with the easy parts. The word gol means flower. gol.

gol

And chō is short for chon ké which means 'like', so chō.

chō

And in conversation, you would say “meslé.”

meslé

And this is used all the time in conversation. "meslé gol," ‘like the flower’. meslé gol.

meslé gol

But then in poetic Persian, this gets changed to chō gol.

chō gol

So, ‘like the flower’. chō gol.

chō gol

And you know in poems, there are always similes and metaphors, so this is a metaphor. 'Like the flower', chō gol.

chō gol

Next, “gar” in the poem is short for “agar,” which means ‘if’. agar.

agar

Again, this would be how we say it in conversation: agar.

agar

But in the poem, because of the rhyme and rhythm, it gets shortened to “gar”:

gar

Next, khordeyee dāree. So khordeyee in conversational Persian would be khoordeyee, and this means ‘a little bit’. khoordeyee.

khoordeyee

Or in written formal Persian, “khordeyee.” khordeyee.

khordeyee

So khordeyee dāree. “dāree” means ‘you have’, and it's in the informal tense. dāree.

dāree

So khordeyee dāree means ‘you have a little’. khordeyee dāree.

So, chō gol gar khordeyee dāree means ‘like a flower, if you have a little’. Let’s repeat this together: chō gol gar khordeyee dāree.

chō gol gar khordeyee dāree

So flowers have very little time on this Earth. So if, like a flower, you just have little, and we can assume that he’s referring to time, you just have a bit: chō gol gar khordeyee dāree…

chō gol gar khordeyee dāree

Then, khodā rā sarfé eshrat kon. So khodā rā is like the expression tō rō bé khodā, which means something along the lines of ‘by God!’, or ‘come on!’, or ‘please!’. This is a really common expression in spoken Persian. If you want someone to do something and you’re pleading, you go “tō rō bé khodā!”

tō rō bé khodā

So this is the same khodā rā.

khodā rā

And finally, sarfé eshrat kon. So together, this means ‘spend it on joy’ or ‘spend it on pleasure’ or ‘having fun’. So, eshrat is the word for ‘pleasure’ or ‘a good time’. eshrat.

eshrat

And sarf kardan is the infinitive of the verb ‘to spend’. sarf kon.

sarf kon

So like a lot of Persian verbs, it’s a compound verb. So it can be translated to ‘do spend’, for example. So what should we spend on? On eshrat: sarfé eshrat kon. ‘Do spend it on pleasure’. sarfé eshrat kon.

sarfé eshrat kon

So like Khayyam and so many other classic Iranian poets, Hafez has a very “carpe diem” message. So he’s saying, okay, like the flower, you have very little, so the little that you do have, spend it on joy! So let’s repeat it together, piece by piece. chō gol gar khordeyee dāree…

chō gol gar khordeyee dāree

khodā rā sarfé eshrat kon.

khodā rā sarfé eshrat kon

All right! Next line: 

ké ghāroon-rā ghalat-hā dād sowdāyé zar-andoozee

So the first line was referring to the gol, the flower. So you are like the flower. This next line is referring to ghāroon.

ghāroon

And ghāroon is a Biblical figure from the story ganjé ghāroon, or ‘treasure chest of ghāroon’. And he was someone who amassed a large fortune, so kind of the stereotypical rich man who amassed a lot of wealth at the detriment of all else. So when Hafez mentions ghāroon, it’s in that negative context. ghāroon.

ghāroon

So, ké ghāroon-rā ghalat-hā dād. So “ghalat” is the word for ‘wrong’, ‘incorrect’. ghalat.

ghalat

Or ‘mistake’, even, and it’s used in a disparaging context. It’s not just wrong; it’s, like, abhorrent! So you can tell someone in conversation ghalat kardee, and that’s a pretty bad insult. While it literally means something like ‘you made a mistake’, it’s like ‘you messed up’: ghalat kardee.

ghalat kardee

And this is a pretty common insult. So “ghalat-hā” is the plural of ghalat, so ‘mistakes’: ghalat-hā. 

ghalat-hā

And ghalat-hā dād. dād means ‘gave’. dād.

dād

So ghalat-hā dād means ‘gave us mistakes’, ‘gave us the wrong thing’, meaning ‘told us lies’. ghalat-hā dād.

ghalat-hā dād

Or gave us the wrong advice. So let’s look at that full first part: ké ghalat-hā rā dād. “ké” means ‘that’. ké.

ké

And “rā” is just a direct object marker, showing us that we’re talking about the ghāroon specifically. So, “ké ghāroon rā ghalat-hā dād” all together means that the rich man gave us wrong, or did us wrong, and then “sowdāyé zar-andoozee.” “sowdāyé” comes from the verb “sood bordan,” which means ‘to benefit from’. sood bordan.

sood bordan

And “zar-andoozee” means ‘the act of collecting gold’. zar-andoozee.

zar-andoozee

So sowdāyé zar-andoozee together means ‘the benefits of collecting gold’. sowdāyé zar-andoozee.

sowdāyé zar-andoozee

So basically, it’s saying the rich man did us wrong by touting the benefits of collecting gold. So the rich man told us to go after the wrong thing. Let’s repeat the whole thing again: 

ké ghāroon rā ghalat-hā dād

ké ghāroon rā ghalat-hā dād

sowdāyé zarandoozee

sowdāyé zarandoozee

Okay, so now, looking at the full thing, both lines together: 

chō gol gar khordeyee dāree khodā-rā sarfé eshrat kon

ké ghāroon-rā ghalat-hā dād sowdāyé zar-andoozee

Now we can see how both concepts play together. So, because you are like the flower, you have only a bit to spend, so spend it on pleasure and joy, because the rich man has deceived us in directing us to the benefit of gold. So let’s repeat this bit by bit together:

chō gol gar khordeyee dāree

chō gol gar khordeyee dāree

khodā-rā sarfé eshrat kon

khodā-rā sarfé eshrat kon

ké ghāroon-rā ghalat-hā dād

ké ghāroon-rā ghalat-hā dād

sowdāyé zar-andoozee

sowdāyé zar-andoozee

All right, wonderful, and now let’s listen to Farnaz read those first two parts together

zé kooyé yār mee āyad naseemé bādé noroozee

az een bād ar madad khāhee cherāghé del barafroozee

chō gol gar khordeyee dāree khodā rā sarfé eshrat kon

ké ghāroon rā ghalat-hā dād sowdāyé zar-andoozee

All right, and now hopefully you understood all of that! This week focus on getting all of that memorized, and we’ll be back next week with the next section. This is going to be really easy if we do it together, a little bit at a time! Looking forward to exploring the rest of the poem with you all. Until next time, khodāhāfez from Leyla!