Nezami Ganjavi's sokhanee chand dar eshgh (A Few Words on Love)

Learn Persian with Chai and Conversation, Nezami’s A Few Words on Love, an excerpt from the Romance of Khosrow and Shirin, Part 3

salām bé hamegee, hello and welcome to Part 3 of our discussion on this excerpt form the Romance of Khosrow and Shirin by Nezami! Like I said in the last episode, the story of these two lovers is quite convoluted and twisted. I hope you’ve had a chance to check it out. I’m excited to learn more in the future about how this excerpt fits into the context of that full story, but for now, we’re just looking at this one piece, and analyzing it as its own selection, which is quite meaningful in its own way.

Before we get started, let’s listen to my khālé Farnaz recite the first four lines of the poem. You should be able to understand the first two, as we covered them in last week’s lesson. 

marā k'az eshgh beh nāyad sho'āree.

mabādā tā zeeyam joz eshgh kāree.

falak joz eshgh mehrābee nadārad.

jahān bee khāké eshgh ābee nadārad.

gholāmé eshgh shō k'andeeshé een ast!

hamé sāhebdelān-rā peeshé een ast.

jahān eshgh-ast ō deegar zargh-sāzee.

hamé bāzee-st elā eshgh-bāzee.

Okay, first, “gholāmé eshgh shō,” the word “gholām” means slave, so “gholāmé eshgh” means ‘a slave of love’. Remember when we have that “é” sound between two words, it connects them together, so gholāmé eshgh, the slave of love. First, let’s repeat gholām…

…and then gholāmé eshgh…

…and then “shō.” “shō” is actually a shortened version of the word “beshō,” which means ‘become!’ in command form, so ‘you become!’. beshō!

Actually, opposite of what you might assume, when you shorten it like that, it actually becomes more poetic: “shō!”

So “gholāmé eshgh shō!” means ‘become the slave of love!’. gholāmé eshgh shō!

And then “k’andeeshé een ast,” “k’andeeshé” is actually a combination of the words “ké” and “andeeshé.” “ké” means ‘that’ or ‘for’. ké.

And “andeeshé” means ‘thought’. andeeshé.

“een” means ‘this’. een.

And finally, “ast” means ‘is’. ast.

So “k’andeeshé een ast” means ‘for thought is this’. k’andeeshé een ast.

So the full thing together is “gholāmé eshgh shō!” ‘become the slave of love!’, “k’andeeshé een ast,” ‘for love is this’, so let’s repeat this together: gholāmé eshgh shō!

k’andeeshé een ast.

‘For this is love, or for love is this’ or, as Sahba translated it, ‘tend wholly to love, for wisdom lies in this’, meaning ‘this is the wise way to think, this is the right thought, to become a slave to love’. I want to point out how clear this is. Nezami is giving a command here: become a slave to love! It’s as simple as that. gholāmé eshgh shō!

‘Because this is the right way to think, this is what thought is’, “k’andeeshé een ast.”

Then he says, “hamé sāhebdelān-rā peeshé een ast.” First, the first “hamé” simply means ‘all’ or ‘every’. hamé.

“sahebdelān" is such a beautiful phrase! “sāheb” means ‘owner’. sāheb.

And “del” is the word for ‘heart’. del.

Together, “sāhebdelān” means ‘those with a heart, those who possess a heart’. By adding the “-ān,” we make it plural, meaning we are talking about a group of people: those people that possess a heart. sāhebdelān.

Perfect, so “hamé sāhebdelān,” ‘all those who possess a heart’. hamé sāhebdelān.

And this actually means ‘those who are enlightened’. hamé sāhebdelān.

Then “-rā peeshé een ast.” “peeshé” means profession. peeshé.

And it’s more than just work. It’s like a very serious life's work, again, a profession. peeshé.

We heard in the last line, too, “een ast,” ‘this is’. een ast.

So “-rā peeshé een ast,”in this case, the “-rā” has a classical use. It’s a possessive word that makes the phrase something along the lines of ‘to all the enlightened ones, the work is this’. So let’s repeat that again: hamé sahebdelān-rā…

peeshé een ast.

All right! And now, one of my absolute favorite lines of the whole selection, what Sahba called the "shāh bayt" or ‘the king’s line', let’s hear it read by my khālé Farnaz:

jahān eshgh-ast ō deegar zargh-sāzee.

hamé bāzee-st elā eshgh-bāzee.

All right, first, “jahān eshgh-ast.” We’ve heard “jahān” a couple times before. It means ‘the world’. jahān.

And you should know what “eshgh-ast” means at this point. “eshgh” is love. eshgh.

And “ast” is ‘is’. ast.

So ‘the world love is’, meaning ‘the world is love’. jahān eshgh-ast.

And then “ō deegar zargh-sāzee,” “ō” means ‘and’. ō.

“deegar” means ‘other’. deegar.

And “zargh-sāzee” means ‘embellishment’. zargh-sāzee.

In Modern Persian, we see the word “zargh” when we want to say ‘gaudy’ or ‘shiny’: “zargh ō bargh.”

For example, when we’re describing gaudy jewelry or a shiny new car, just shiny new embellished things: zargh-sāzee.

So he’s saying “jahān eshgh-ast ō deegar zargh-sāzee,” meaning ‘the world is love, and all else is just embellishment’. jahān eshgh-ast…

ō deegar zargh-sāzee.

And next, “hamé bāzee-st elā eshgh-bāzee.” Okay, let’s break down this amazing play on words! “bāzee” is the word for ‘play’. bāzee.

And “bāzee-st” is a combination of “bāzee ast,” meaning ‘is play’. bāzee-st.

Again, “hamé” means ‘all’. hamé.

“hamé bāzee-st,” ‘all is play’. hamé bāzee-st.

and then elā eshgh bāzee. ooh, this is so good it gives me chills. so elā means other than, besides. elā

elā

and eshgh bāzee means something along the lines of the game of love, love play. We don’t really have an equivalent of it in English, but it translates to something along the lines of romance. In Persian, we call romance eshgh bāzee. Like being in love, romancing someone, infatuation, making love- it’s all included in this one phrase- eshgh bāzee. In fact, this is how it’s defined in the dictionary- love making. So as you can see, it’s a kind of serious word even though it has that word play in it. eshgh bāzee

eshgh bāzee

So hamé bāzeest elā eshgh bāzee means it’s all play, save for the game of love. I absolutely love this line so much. Let’s repeat it together. hamé bāzeest

hamé bāzeest

elā eshgh bāzee

ela eshgh bāzee

Ok wonderful! Now let’s repeat these two lines together bit by bit: 

gholāmé eshgh shō k’andeeshé een ast, hamé saheb delān rā peeshé een ast

Tend wholly to love, for wisdom lies in this;

This has forever been the work of the enlightened.

جهان عشقست و دیگر زرق‌سازی     همه بازیست الّا عشقبازی

jahān eshghast ō deegar zarghsāzee, hamé bāzeest elā eshgh bāzee

Ok wonderful! And now let’s listen to my khālé Farnaz recite the entire selection of what we’ve learned today.

Perfect! And hopefully you understood all the words at this point! So far, the poem has such a nice cast of words and phrases that are repeated, and hopefully this is helping you both to understand, and to follow along with it! The word eshgh keeps coming up, as does the word jahān, and a host of others!

And that’s it for this week’s lesson on A Few Words on Love. We’ll be back next week with the next two lines. And for now, khodāhafez from Leyla!