Rumi's deevané shō

Hello and welcome to part 3 of the study of Rumi’s beautiful poem, ‘deevāné shõ.’ In this lesson, we’ll be going over the next two lines of the poem. Let’s listen to the part we learned last week as well as what we’ll be learning this week now:

'heelat rahā kon āsheghā, deevāné shō deevāné shō

vandar del ātash darā, parvāné shō parvāné shō

ham kheesh rā beegāné kon, ham khāné rā veerāné kon

vāngah beeyā bā āsheghān ham khāné shõ ham khāné shõ'

Wonderful, so you should have completely understood those first two lines, and now we’re going to go over the next two. Let’s listen to those by themselves again:

'ham kheesh rā beegāné kon, ham khāné rā veerāné kon

vāngé beeyā bā āsheghān ham khāné shõ ham khāné shõ'

So first of all, in that first line, it’s the first time we’ve broken away from saying ‘shõ’ as the last word- in this case, we say ‘kon,’ which we’ve heard before. In the very first line of the poem, we hear 'rahā kon,' which meant ‘to free.’ And as we went over, ‘kon’ is short for ‘bokon,’ which is to do in the second person informal command form- so ‘you, informal, do,’ basically. So in this part of the poem, we hear ‘veerāné kon.’ ‘veerāné’ means ‘ruin,’ or ‘dishevel’ or ‘throw into disarray.’ And this is a compound verb that is very common in Persian- ‘kon’ is used with a slew of words to form verbs. So ‘rahā kon’ is ‘to free,’ ‘veerāné kon’ is to ruin. So altogether, veerāné kon

(veerāné kon)

But let’s go back to the beginning. He says ‘ham kheesh rā beegāné kon.' ‘ham’ is the word for ‘also.’ ham

(ham)

And it’s a very versatile word we’ll learn more about in a minute. But ‘ham kheesh,' ‘kheesh’ means ‘yourself.’ ‘kheesh’

‘kheesh’

‘beegāné’ means ‘unfamiliar' or ‘unknown.’ beegāné

(beegāné)

And you can use it to refer to people you don’t know. So unfamiliar people, people that you don’t know, are ‘beegāné’

(beegāné)

so ‘beegāné kon’ means to make something unfamiliar. So in this case, it’s referring to ‘kheesh’ or yourself. So ‘make yourself unknown.’ ‘ham keesh rā beegāné kon.’ Now, we haven’t gone over the word ‘rā’ in there, but it’s a complicated Persian word. ‘rā’ is what we call a direct object marker, and it’s used to refer to a specific object. So in this case, it’s referring to ‘kheesh.’ So what do we need to make unfamiliar? The ‘self,’ the ‘kheesh.’ ‘kheesh rā beegāné kon’

(kheesh rā beegāné kon)

To better demonstrate the word ‘rā,’ let’s see some examples of it in use. You can say something like ‘pizza rā bokhor.’ This means ‘eat the pizza.’ The ‘rā’ in there lets you know that you are saying ‘bokor,’ ‘eat,’ about the object ‘pizza-’ it marks that object- ‘pizza rā bokhor.’ Similar to the word ‘the’- ‘eat the pizza,’ ‘pizza rā bokhor’

(pizzā rā bokhor.)

Ok, so, ‘ham kheesh rā beegāné kon’

(ham kheesh rā beegāné kon)

and the next part is ‘ham khāné rā veerāné kon.’ So ‘khooné’ is the word for ‘house.’ ‘khāné’

(khāné)

And ‘khāné ’is the way its written- when you hear it spoken in conversational Persian, it becomes ‘khooné ’

(khooné)

and the word ‘veerāné,’ like we said earlier, means ruin. So ‘veerāné kon,' ‘ruin ’as a command in the second person informal. So ‘khāné rā veerāné kon’ means ‘ruin the home.’ khāné rā veerāné kon 

(khāné rā veerāné kon )

And that ‘rā’ is in there to direct us to the home. So what should we ruin? The home. khāné rā veerāné kon 

(khāné rā veerāné kon )

but he starts off that part with saying ‘ham,’ ‘ham khāné rā veerāné kon.’ I said in the beginning that means ‘also,’ but you could translate it in this case as meaning both. So both ‘expel the self,’ and ‘ruin the home’- ‘ham’ means ‘also,’ but it could be saying ‘do this AND this'- do both of these things. ‘ham kheesh rā beegāné kon, ham khāné rā veerāné kon’

So this is saying ‘make the self be unfamiliar-’ so ‘lose yourself, lose your ego and also put your house in the state of ruin’- so ‘destroy your home.’ So this sentiment is all about letting go- of ego and of the sense of belonging and of having a home. So let’s say the full thing together- 

ham kheesh rā beegāné kon, ham khāné rā veerāné kon

(ham kheesh rā beegāné kon, ham khāné rā veerāné kon)

So again, the poet continues to give commands- it’s all in command form of second person informal- ‘deevāné shō,’ ‘parvāné shõ,’ ‘beegāné kon,’ ‘veerāné kon.’ Let’s listen to the next sentence:

vāngah beeyā bā āsheghān ham khāné shõ ham khāné shõ

So let’s start again at the end of the phrase, and that is ‘ham khāné shõ.’ So these are both words we’ve heard before, but arranged in a way where they have a completely different meaning. So ‘khāné’ as we said it the written version of ‘home,’ easy enough. But then we have the word ‘ham’ which we learned before means ‘also’- but that it means other things as well. So ‘ham’ can also be translated to ‘both’ as we said, but also to ‘same,’ or ‘equal.’ In this case, ‘ham khāné’ means ‘someone who shares a house with you.’ So you could say literally ‘also house,’ ‘same house,’ meaning a ‘roommate’ or ‘companion.’ ham khāné

(ham khāné)

This word ‘ham’ in combination with other words can lead you to really beautiful discoveries, like the word ‘ham safar,’ meaning ‘same journey’ literally, but being used as ‘soulmate,’ or ‘someone who is on the journey of life with you.’ So ‘ham khāné shõ’ means ‘become of the same house with,' or ‘become a companion of.’ So ‘vāngah’ is an old-fashioned poetic word that means ‘and then.’ In present day conversation, the word ‘oonvakht’ is used. oonvakht

(oonvakht)

and that literally means ‘at the time’, so ‘and then’ ‘vāngah beeyā.’ ‘beeyā ’ is a command word and means ‘come.’ ‘beeyā’

(beeyā)

‘vāngah beeyā bā āsheghān-’ so the word ‘bā ’means ‘with.’ bā

(bā)

and ‘āsheghān’ is similar to what we learned in the very first sentence- and it means the same thing- ‘lovers.’ āsheghān

(āsheghān)

So ‘those who are in love.’ Again, this certain class of people who have lost the ego and are just pure love. So ‘vāngah beeyā bā āsheghān’ means ‘and then, come with the lovers,’ and the command is ‘ham khāné shõ-’ so ‘become companions with' or ‘become one with’- so ‘join the lovers.’ So after you’ve lost the ego and you’ve lost your sense of place, then you can regain a sense of place, become part of the same house as, the lovers. So beautiful. So let’s repeat these two sentences again, one by one:

‘ham kheesh rā beegāné kon, ham khāné rā veerāné kon’

(ham kheesh rā beegāné kon, ham khāné rā veerāné kon)

‘vāngé beeyā bā āsheghān ham khāné shõ ham khāné shõ’

(vāngé beeyā bā āsheghān ham khāné shõ ham khāné shõ)

So I love this section so much and really feel like it’s the meat of the poem. I love how he plays with that word ‘ham’ so that it means two different things- first it’s being used to present two different possibilities- to let go of both the self and home, and then it’s used in a different way- ‘ham khāné’ to mean ‘same,’ ‘the same house.’ I love that little play on words!

Ok, one more time, let’s hear these two sentences read by Fared:

'ham kheesh rā beegāné kon, ham khāné rā veerāné kon

vāngé beeyā bā āsheghān ham khāné shõ ham khāné shõ'

All right! And now let’s listen to the full selection we’ve learned so far- hopefully now you can understand this part of the poem very well:

ham kheesh rā beegāné kon, ham khāné rā veerāné kon

vāngé beeyā bā āsheghān ham khāné shõ ham khāné shõ

And that brings us to the end of this lesson! Thank you so much for joining us- remember, each week, it’s important that you attempt to memorize the section of the poem we are going over. You’ll be memoriing the entire poem in no time!

And that’s it for this week. Again, thank you for listening, and tune in next time for the riveting part 4 of this poetry series on Rumi’s ‘deevāné shõ.’ Thank you for listening, and until next time,

khodāhafez,

from Leyla