Hafez in Love: A Novel

By Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi and Iraj Pezeshkzad

Shams al-Din Mohammad Hafez is in love. He is in love with a girl, with a city, and with Persian poetry. Despite his enmity with the new and dangerous city leader, the jealousy of his fellow court poets, and the competition for his beloved, Iran’s favorite poet remains unbothered. When his wit and charm are not enough to keep him safe in Shiraz, his friends conspire to keep him out of trouble. But their schemes are unsuccessful. Nothing will chase Hafez from this city of wine and roses.

In Pezeshkzad’s fictional account, Hafez’s life in fourteenth-century Shiraz is a mix of peril and humor. Set in a city that is at once beautiful and cutthroat, the novel includes a cast of historical figures to illuminate this elusive poet of the Persian literary tradition. Shabani-Jadidi and Higgins’s translation brings the beloved poetry of Hafez alive for an English audience and reacquaints readers with the comic wit and original storytelling of Pezeshkzad.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Syracuse University Press
• Release date: May 31, 2021
• ISBN: 9780815655121

Book preview

Preface

We were motivated to undertake the translation of Hafez-e nashenideh pand by the charm of this well-written historical novel authored by Iraj Pezeshkzad, one of Iran’s best-known contemporary authors, and by its interweaving of poetry and prose literature of the era. The book was originally published in Persian in Tehran, Iran, in 2004. Based in fourteenth-century Shiraz—city of wine, roses, nightingales, and poets, and home at that time to Shams al-Din Mohammad Hafez, Iran’s most beloved and best-known poet—the story is told by Mohammad Golandam, purported to be Shams al-Din’s best friend and brother-in-law.

The year is AD 1354 and Shams al-Din is depicted as a carefree and fun-loving young man, already a well-known poet, who refuses to join the court of the city’s new, ostentatiously religious, and ruthless ruler, Amir Mobarez al-Din Mozaffar. Even worse, he persists in composing and openly reciting poetry critical of Mobarez al-Din and his policies. Court poets jealous of Shams al-Din’s talent and fame conspire against him, as does his neighbor who covets his house. He makes another enemy when a young, female poet who is infatuated with his poetry becomes the covert object of his affection, since she is under the protection of an older, powerful man who intends to marry her. As the story unfolds, Shams al-Din’s friends pursue various schemes to get Shams al-Din to leave town for a time—until the city is a safer place for him.

Although Shams al-Din’s situation is presented as precarious and the political climate of the city is grim, overall the novel is lighthearted and often comical. This is expressed in the banter among friends, the narrator’s description of the behavior of various characters, and the jokes told on numerous occasions.

Interwoven throughout the novel are carefully selected pieces of Hafez’s poetry, which are used to illustrate his attitudes about love and life as well as his criticism of hypocrites and hypocrisy. Other poets are quoted as well, especially Sheikh Sa‘di (Mosharref al-Din), the famous thirteenth-century poet of Shiraz, and Hafez’s contemporaries and fellow characters in the novel, ‘Obayd Zakani and Jahan Malek Khatun. Most of the jokes and humorous stories are those of ‘Obayd Zakani, who also composed prose works. The poems are included in the context of poets sharing their creations with one another and citing the works of other poets and literary figures they admire—practices still common today among poets and scholars.

Most of the characters in Hafez in Love are historical personages alive at the time and active in Shiraz, where they could well have been personally acquainted with one another. A variety of other historical personages are also mentioned, all appropriate to the time and place. While the story is fictional, details of the setting and the characters of the historical personages are all consistent with the larger body of literature on this era. We have added a list of characters and other persons mentioned, with a brief identification of each. An asterisk indicates those whose names appear in English-language historical literature on this period; interested readers should be able to learn more about them on the internet.

There are numerous English translations of many of Hafez’s poems, some quite literal, some rather fanciful; some in styles common to nineteenth-century English poetry, some in styles more popular today. We have chosen to translate the poems included in Hafez in Love in a style that is close to literal and that, while maintaining the couplet structure, makes no attempt to replicate the poem’s rhyme and meter (nor to impose an alternative rhyme or meter). Such a translation, we believe, makes the link between the poem and the story clearer than would some of the more poetic translations of the same poem. We have added as an appendix the first couplet in Persian of each of Hafez’s poems included in their entirety in the novel. With these first couplets, readers familiar with the Persian language will be able to find the full Persian version on the internet or in any collection of Hafez’s poetry.

An interesting feature of the Persian language is that there are few linguistic markers of gender (with the exception of some words borrowed from Arabic, and even there the gender distinctions have often been lost). Even the third-person singular pronoun can mean he or she, depending on context. This means that the beloved described and addressed in so many of the poems included in the novel can be interpreted as a male or a female person—or, indeed, as a divine being. Many, perhaps most, scholars of fourteenth-century Persian poetry believe that when a human beloved was intended in a poem, it was a boy or teenage youth, and that much of the lyric poetry of the era was an expression of homoerotic desires and practices. (See, for example, Dominic Parviz Brookshaw, Hafiz and His Contemporaries: Poetry, Performance, and Patronage in Fourteenth-Century Iran [2019], and Sirous Shamissa, Shahed-bazi dar adabiat-e farsi [Homoeroticism in Persian Literature] [2000]). Nevertheless, we have most often translated the third-person singular in the poems used in Hafez in Love as she, and envisioned the beloved as described and addressed by Hafez as female, given that it is the princess, Jahan Malek Khatun, to whom he is attracted and to whom he seems to be addressing many of his poems in this story.

In regard to the transliteration scheme, we have followed that of the Association for Iranian Studies due to its simplicity, except that we have not distinguished between the long and the short a. To distinguish more clearly between the Persian letters ‘ayn and hamza, we have followed the Encyclopedia Britannica: if it is the letter ‘ayn, it is marked by /‘/, and if it is the letter hamza, it is marked by /’/. For example, ‘Ata’allah. If the Latinized form of a proper personal or place name is commonly used, it is not transliterated here.

We would like to thank Iraj Pezeshkzad, who has given us permission to publish this translation. We are grateful to Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi and Sorour Kasmai, who put us in touch with the author. We also thank Dominic Parviz Brookshaw for reading the final manuscript and writing the foreword. David Emil, Mark Cohen, Marc des Jardins, and two anonymous reviewers provided helpful comments on earlier versions of this translation. Of course, we take responsibility for errors remaining in the translation.

Translators’ Introduction

Shams al-Din Mohammad Hafez lived around AD 1320–90 in the southern Iranian city of Shiraz. Little is known of his life, but he left behind a wonderful corpus of poetry, which continues to be read, recited, and quoted by Persian speakers from all walks of life. Much of his poetry has also been translated into numerous other languages, so his work is truly world-renowned. Among recent English translations are Faces of Love: Hafez and Other Poets of Shiraz by Dick Davis (2013), Hafez: Translations and Interpretations of the Ghazals by Geoffrey Squires (2014), Wine and Prayer: Eighty Ghazals from the Divan of Hafiz by Elizabeth A. Gray and Iraj Anvar (2019), and The Angels Knocking on the Tavern Door: Thirty Poems of Hafez by Robert Bly and Leonard Lewisohn (2008).

In his historical novel Hafez-e nashenideh pand (Hafez, Heedless of Advice), entitled in our translation, Hafez in Love, the well-known contemporary Persian author Iraj Pezeshkzad imagines Hafez as a young man in Shiraz in 1354, just as the Mozaffarid dynasty was replacing that of the Injuids. The personality he evokes for Hafez is based on the topics and tone of Hafez’s poetry, as are many of the social relationships he portrays between Hafez, his friends, fellow contemporary poets, and various Injuid and Mozaffarid rulers. Pezeshkzad interweaves into the text in a culturally realistic way a number of Hafez’s poems, in whole or in part, as well as selections from the works of other poets of his era or earlier.

The nearly two hundred years between the fall of the Ilkhanid dynasty in 1335 and the establishment of the Safavid dynasty in 1501—both of which controlled most of the territory of contemporary Iran, plus much of contemporary Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Central Asian republics, and western Turkey—was characterized by instability throughout the region. In Hafez in Love, Shah Sheikh Abu Eshaq Inju, who was driven out of Shiraz just before the story begins, is given the title of shah, or king; Amir Mobarez al-Din Mozaffar, who ruled Shiraz, its province of Fars, and the neighboring provinces of Yazd and Kerman during the several months depicted in the novel, is called amir, or commander; and both are sometimes referred to as sultan. While each of these men aspired to reunify Iran and reestablish a domain at least as large as that of the Ilkhanid dynasty, in reality each only controlled a portion of southern Iran. The novel ends in 1354 or 1355, when Shah Sheikh Abu Eshaq was still attempting to regain control of Shiraz. In fact, he was never able to do so; he was captured by Amir Mobarez al-Din Mozaffar in Isfahan in 1357 and executed in 1358. Only a short time later, however, Amir Mobarez al-Din’s son, Shah Shoja’ (Jalal al-Din Abol Favares, AD 1333–84), also mentioned in the novel, deposed his father and blinded him. Amir Mobarez al-Din Mozaffar died in prison in 1364.

Historical sources confirm that Shah Sheikh Abu Eshaq, as portrayed in Hafez in Love, was a lover and patron of poetry, literature, and the arts, and that he drank excessively, especially during the siege of Shiraz by Amir Mobarez al-Din Mozaffar. Similarly, they show that Amir Mobarez al-Din Mozaffar attempted to establish a much more austere and religious tone to city life, and that he was unusually ruthless in dealing with his enemies. Shah Shoja’ is recognized in the historical literature as less ruthless and less religious, and he appears to have had a more genuine interest in poetry and literature than had his father. While in the novel Hafez is seen as resisting pressures to join the court of Amir Mobarez al-Din Mozaffar, he had benefited from the patronage of Shah Sheikh Abu Eshaq, and he later became a member of the court of Shah Shoja’ and benefited from his patronage for many years. Hafez’s tomb is located in what was Mosalla Garden in Shiraz, an area mentioned often in the novel, and the tomb is the focus of pilgrimages of a sort, as visitors as well as locals congregate there to read Hafez’s poetry and to enjoy the outdoors in an area he so loved.

Many of the main characters in Hafez in Love are actual historical figures living in Shiraz during the time period depicted. ‘Obayd Zakani (AD 1300–1371), while originally from Qazvin, spent much of his life in Shiraz, and, like Hafez, he benefited from the patronage of Shah Sheikh Abu Eshaq. A poet and essayist, he is best known for his satire and ribald stories and poems, a number of which are incorporated into the novel. Similarly, Jahan Malek Khatun (AD ca. 1330–93) was a niece of Shah Sheikh Abu Eshaq, lived in Shiraz in the mid-fourteenth century, and was a poet whose work is still recognized today. (For selections of the poetry and writing of ‘Obayd Zakani and Jahan Malek Khatun as well as Hafez, see Dick Davis, Faces of Love [2013].) We know less about Mohammad Golandam, the narrator of the story, purported to be Hafez’s best friend and his brother-in-law, but this is thought to be the name of the author of a preface or introduction to one of the earliest collections of Hafez’s poetry. Many of the minor characters and other persons mentioned in the novel are also identifiable in the historical literature in the positions ascribed to them here.

While we know little about Hafez’s life, we know a great deal about his poetry, which has been studied, analyzed, and discussed by generations of scholars. (For a recent analysis of the works of Hafez, ‘Obayd Zakani, and Jahan Malek Khatun, see Dominic Parviz Brookshaw, Hafiz and His Contemporaries: Poetry, Performance, and Patronage in Fourteenth-Century Iran [2019], and for an extended and novel analysis of the works of Hafez, see Shahrokh Meskoob, In the Alley of the Friend: On the Poetry of Hafez, translated by M. R. Ghanoonparvar [2018].) Most of Hafez’s poems are ghazals, translated here as lyric poems. They are relatively short poems (typically seven to twelve couplets in length) in which the two lines of the first couplet rhyme, and that rhyme is repeated in the second line of each following couplet. They are usually love poems, and the beloved in question can be understood as a person (male or female) or God or similar spiritual entity. While the lover longs for unity with the beloved, the beloved is portrayed as much above the lover in beauty and status, and also distant, disinterested, often teasing, and sometimes disdainful. Usually each couplet contains a complete idea—a riff, if you will, on the theme of the poem—and the couplets can be, and sometimes are, rearranged without interrupting the flow of the poem. The last couplet of the poem usually includes the poet’s nom de plume.

Hafez also composed qasidas—another major type of Persian poetry discussed in the novel and translated here as laudatory poems. These poems are typically longer, and every line rhymes. These poems lavish often extraordinary praise on a ruler, nobleman, or patron.

Persians are famous for their love of poetry, and the many occasions on which poetry is recited in Hafez in Love is not at all unrealistic. Even today, when there are so many alternative forms of entertainment available, it is not uncommon for Persian-language speakers to hold poetry reading or reciting gatherings, nor is it uncommon for people to intersperse their conversation and reinforce their words with brief quotations from well-known poets. As in the novel, poetry is often sung or recited to the accompaniment of music. Poetry also continues to be used as a vehicle for political and social critique, the poet taking advantage of the ambiguity of words, phrases, and references to make the critique deniable, if necessary. The poems of Hafez, in particular, are renowned as a source of inspiration. People looking for guidance in their lives may open their collection of Hafez’s poetry at random, read the poem thus selected, and contemplate its meaning and applicability to their particular situation.

Other cultural practices and features of daily life depicted in Hafez in Love were also still to be found in twentieth-century Iran, and some are even more pronounced in the twenty-first century. These include sex segregation in public settings and many social gatherings, the restriction of women to largely domestic roles, the recognition of men as heads of household as well as heads of state, arranged marriages, large age differences between spouses, and the acceptability of cousin marriage. Now as then, elite and more well-to-do women have often been able to subvert, to some extent, restrictions placed on them. Similarly, the importance of food and drink (whether alcoholic or not) in social settings, the judgement of social status based in part on one’s extension of hospitality, even the small practice of rising when someone enters the room, are all familiar to contemporary Iranians and anyone visiting Iran for long.

In sum, while Hafez in Love is a novel that we hope will be entertaining and enjoyable to read in English, as it certainly is in Persian, it also provides a window into mid-fourteenth-century Iran and a taste of the poetry and prose of that era and earlier. Like many of the social and cultural customs depicted, that literature is alive and well in Iran today and in other Persian-speaking communities. This translation is one small effort to enhance English-language readers’ appreciation of both contemporary Iranian fiction and classical Persian poetry and prose.

HAFEZ IN LOVE

These last days of spring AH 755 (AD 1354) have been especially memorable ones for me, Mohammad Golandam. After weeks of continuous anxiety and agitation, I can now breathe easily. The danger that arose from a series of events and that had threatened the precious life of my dearest friend and relative, Shams al-Din Mohammad, has been removed, at least for the moment. Although conditions in our Fars Province are darker and more unstable these days than one can hope to see in the long term, I cherish the removal of this immediate danger, and I give thanks to God Almighty.

For a long time I have thought of writing a biography of Shams al-Din Mohammad Hafez, who, in my opinion, is not only the greatest poet but also the greatest human being of all time, and to whom God has granted me the blessing of closeness and friendship. Various problems and obstacles have prevented me from doing this, however. Now, because of these events, I have decided to record this momentous episode by itself, as part of the story of his life. Later, if a period of stability comes about while I am still alive, I can go on to complete a biography worthy of this great poet.

But first I must briefly describe the atmosphere of today’s Shiraz.

Shiraz and Its Extraordinary Qualities

A new ruler has governed our Fars Province for the past several months. After a long siege, Amir (commander) Mobarez al-Din Mohammad Mozaffar conquered Shiraz in the month of Shawwal and caused the previous sultan, Sheikh Abu Eshaq Inju, to flee the city.

With the rule of Amir Mobarez, an insecure and unstable period has begun in our city, a period in which no one can trust his own future. After the usual killing and plundering of the victorious soldiers, pursuit of the courtiers and allies of the runaway sultan, along with an outpouring of people’s long-standing grudges, has led to some bloody settling of accounts. Of course, such disturbances are not that new for us residents of Fars. Since the beginning of the present century, and especially since the death of Abu Sa‘id, the last of the Ilkhanid shahs, a different governor has raised the flag of independence and monarchy in every town. Our Shiraz has passed from hand to hand many times, frequently with the same killing and slaughter. To the best of my memory, Amir Mobarez is the fifth sultan that I, at twenty-three years of age, have seen on the throne in Fars.

But this time a new problem has been added to the usual disasters of conquest. Since Amir Mobarez, who now rules Fars, Yazd, and Kerman, lays claim to the whole breadth of the Ilkhanid realm of Iran, he has come up with a plan to achieve this aim. First, he has sworn an oath of allegiance to the Abbasid caliph of Egypt, Al-Mo‘tazed Bellah al-Mosta‘sami. He has minted a coin and given sermons in his name, and he considers himself a deputy of the caliph. Through force and threats, the oath has been confirmed by some of the elite men and religious leaders of Fars, but it has incited the opposition and anger of a number of others. This is because everyone knows that, since the decline of the original Abbasids, the Abbasid caliphs of Egypt have neither real position nor real power, but only a nominal caliphate under Turkish and Arab rule.

Second, after a life of drinking, wenching, and decadence during his rule in Yazd, two years ago Amir Mobarez outwardly repented for the second time. In order to wipe from memory his very ugly past and his previous breaking of vows of repentance, he has made ostentatious displays of piety and of fighting religiously prohibited actions. This includes banning the teaching and learning of medicine, philosophy, astronomy, and mathematics and dispersing the high-ranking teachers of these disciplines. As religious censor, he has also ordered the cleansing and burning of books related to these topics. Ignorant officials’ lack of discernment has led to the destruction of many exquisite books. It is an ugly, distressing deed that—according to Shams al-Din—is a crime against humanity.

In addition, in order to please the Abbasid caliph, during his several-month rule in Shiraz, Amir Mobarez has beheaded by his own hands dozens of Jewish, Christian, Zoroastrian, and Shi‘a Muslim individuals based on the weak and unjust accusation of believing in the wrong religion.

One time Shams al-Din and I stood among the crowds to see Amir Mobarez as he went to the mosque on foot to demonstrate his piety. We saw him as he passed between two lines of guards with drawn swords. He is a strongly built and powerful man. He has a pockmarked face and a frightening—in Shams al-Din’s words, fiendish—appearance. They say he is very foul-mouthed and verbally abusive. When he becomes angry, he comes out with insults that even mule drivers are ashamed of using.

In the past, the distinguished and elite men of the city, following the lifestyle of the frivolous and pleasure-seeking Shah Sheikh, did not refrain from drinking and wenching themselves. But now, because of the new atmosphere and the new sultan’s hypocritical affectations, in imitation of him and to please him and protect their material resources, they have become such outwardly pious and virtuous men overnight that they can no longer be recognized. Until yesterday, they shouted their blessings and praise of the generosity and virtue of Shah Sheikh Abu Eshaq, but today, while taunting and cursing Shah Sheikh, they praise the newly devout Amir Mobarez al-Din as Sultan of the Pious.

Because of the succession of wars, killing, and plunder, ordinary people are living from day to day in extreme poverty. Just like the elite and the wealthy, who do anything regardless of moral principles, the ordinary people do anything in order to continue living. As a result, a type of instability and insecurity has governed our Shiraz that makes it far from the heaven on earth that Sheikh Sa‘di said, will bring security aplenty, rather than the oppression of famine and need.

In such an insecure atmosphere, Shams al-Din has refused to accept the advice of some of his acquaintances that he bow down before the new sultan for the sake of retaining his position; rather, he has kept himself far away from the court. Furthermore, ignoring the listening ears of tale-bearing enemies, he makes dangerous, sarcastic remarks in public about the fake repentance and the hypocritical asceticism of the elite. This, in fact, offends Amir Mobarez most of all.

With all his treasury of literary, artistic, and general knowledge, this youth—who, like me, is now twenty-three years old—sometimes thinks and acts with the simplicity and innocence of a schoolchild. He imagines his wishes to be reality. He lives in an ideal world of which, in this day and age, there is no real sign. Sometimes he continues along this path until his head hits a brick wall. Unfortunately, we are now living in a period in which hitting one’s head on a brick wall very often means being beheaded.

A little over a year ago, Shams al-Din found a way into the court and assembly of Shah Sheikh Abu Eshaq through Molana (our master) ‘Obayd Zakani. Since then, Shams al-Din has stimulated so much jealousy and spite from the other court poets that they have all come to thirst for his blood. Today these same poets have migrated to the audience hall of the new sultan. Although Shams al-Din, with his shunning of the new court, has left an open arena for their ostentatious displays, they are still worried about the fame of his poetry, and they fear the likelihood that he will eventually enter the court of the shah, even if it is unwillingly. There is much evidence that the court poets are constantly awaiting an opportunity to remove Shams al-Din from their path forever—with help from others who have been injured by his sharp tongue.

It was in this atmosphere that unexpected incidents, aided by the conspiracy and intrigue of enemies, placed Shams al-Din in serious danger, even to the extent of death at the sword of the bloodshedding ruler or at the hands of ruffians instigated by his enemies. It is a danger that today, with his departure from Shiraz, has been lessened, but has not been entirely eliminated.

All these problems began the night of Kolu (neighborhood chief) Fakhr al-Din’s party. For this reason, I have no choice

Reviews for Hafez in Love

[richardderus · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Real Rating: 4.75* of five, rounded up because it's a beautiful story beautifully translatedThe Publisher Says: Shams al-Din Mohammad Hafez is in love. He is in love with a girl, with a city, and with Persian poetry. Despite his enmity with the new and dangerous city leader, the jealousy of his fellow court poets, and the competition for his beloved, Iran's favorite poet remains unbothered. When his wit and charm are not enough to keep him safe in Shiraz, his friends conspire to keep him out of trouble. But their schemes are unsuccessful. Nothing will chase Hafez from this city of wine and roses.In Pezeshkzad's fictional account, Hafez's life in fourteenth-century Shiraz is a mix of peril and humor. Set in a city that is at once beautiful and cutthroat, the novel includes a cast of historical figures to illuminate this elusive poet of the Persian literary tradition. Shabani-Jadidi and Higgins's translation brings the beloved poetry of Hafez alive for an English audience and reacquaints readers with the comic wit and original storytelling of Pezeshkzad.Iraj Pezeshkzad was born in Tehran in 1928 and educated in Iran and then France, where he received his law degree. He was a retired diplomat, journalist, and writer. He was the author of several plays, short stories, and novels, including My Uncle Napoleon. He died on 12 January 2022 in Los Angeles.Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi is senior lecturer of Persian language and linguistics at the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University.Patricia J. Higgins is a University Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, Emerita at the State University of New York, Plattsburgh.I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.My Review: First, read this:He agrees with everyone's opinion, from black to white. With his constant refrain, "We are all children of this land," he recognizes both sides: he who believes it is night, and he who believes it is day.–and–"O light of my eyes, don't forget that until a few months ago you and I were among the court favorites of the then-shah. If some of these 'many' {whom Hafez claims will hide him from pursuit} enjoyed our poetry, it was because the poetry pleased the shah. The power and honor of the shah was behind our poetry. Now our poetry is just poetry. And perhaps in the eyes of these 'many,' it is not even poetry. Perhaps some of the men who praised the poems of Shams al-Din Hafez without hearing them will come to agree with His Honor, the police chief, and consider them dirty."This seems to me to represent the tone and tenor of the book's translation...I think it also gives a flavor of the world in which we're spending a few hours. The court of an insecure, unworthy ruler, whose jobs are done for him not by workers or even lackeys, but by henchmen, is a fertile place to set a love story. Especially when the lovers are unable to come together because the obstacle to them getting their love consummated is one of the aforementioned henchmen.Our narrator, Mohammad Golandam, is Hafez's brother-in-law and long-time best friend. He's a sensible sort; we can not say the same for Shams al-Din...he who will become, in the fullness of time, Hafez; the two men are only twenty-three at the time of this story. It's easy to see why Golandam, as Hafez (let's use his famous, and short, handle from here on) addresses him, is anxious and on needles and pins. Hafez has made many a sarcastic, cutting remark in his poetry about the new power-wielder Mobarez al-Din Mohammad Mozaffar. This self-installed prince is a "...blood-shedding creature of God {who} understands neither literature nor poetry. He is one of those dull-hearted people who, in the words of Shams Qeis Razi, don't 'distinguish between the sound of music and the braying of an ass.' His source of pleasure and happiness is cutting off heads," entirely enough to strike poor Golandam with near-lethal agita given Hafez's indiscreet, but truthful and honest, characterizations of him:To get his aversion to him off his chest, {Hafez} had used this phrase extremely carelessly in a lyric poem about repentance after a life of drinking and wenching:The morality officer became a pious sheikh and forgot his debauchery.It is my story that remained throughout the bazaar. It's not too hard to imagine a thin-skinned leader whose response to verbal disrespect shown by those less powerful than he is being, um, disproportionate, is it. The problems are, of course, many in a world run by incompetent and malicious people. The story's not complete without wild schemes and convoluted plots and hilarious misinformation campaigns...there are no better stories, in my never-humble opinion, than the ones about True Love Thwarted!And True Love it very much is. This poem is what Hafez writes for his morning glory Jahan while he was imprisoned by his oft-insulted rival for her affections, and while she was scheming to get him out by pretending to agree to marry his captor, and while Golandam and Hafez's honorary father schemed to get her out of the unwanted marriage and back into Hafez's arms:I swear on the life of the belovèd that if I could reach my soul,That would be the least of the gifts to her by her slave.If my heart was not bound to a strand of her hair,How would I have been at peace in this dark vessel made of dust?Your face is like the sun in the sky, unique in the heavens;If only your heart were a bit more kind.You said to me, "What is the worth of the dust under her feet,If the precious life were eternal?"I wish you would emerge through my door like a beam of light,That divine fate would shine on my eyes.The cypress would acknowledge its lowliness compared to her statureIf it had ten tongues like the wild lily.You wouldn't fall out of tune with Hafez's melody,If you weren't the companion of the morning songbirds.Okay, I don't understand one damn word of that, but I know yearning and longing and sheer miserable wretched being-in-loveness when it smacks me across six or seven centuries. There's plenty of this poetical stuff peppered around the story. There are many readers who will see that as a plus; I want, therefore, to be clear that you will be reading a lot of poetry when you read this novel. (And the clever-clogs blog readers will now be recalling my stance on poetry, and looking at this review's star rating, and drawing some brow-knitting conclusions.)So why am I praising this book, this poetry-laden book about a poet in love with a woman? Because it's such a delight to read. Because Hafez, every time someone talks sense to him, says "mm hmm" and carries right on being In Love with Jahan and acting as if by sheer force of his will, backed by the spiritual power generated by the huge dynamo of his adoration for Jahan, Things Will Come Out Right.But I won't tell you if they do or they don't because some things you need to find out for yourownself.The book concludes with a Dramatis Personae, and a Glossary; both are very handy. The Dramatis Personae include markers for characters based on historical personages, meaning those not marked are invented; though the names and actions of historical people are used, they're probably all best seen as fictional. It's worth noting that, even though Hafez's love object in this story is Jahan, a woman, there's no way in Farsi or in Persian poetry's conventions for that to be certain. It's a feature of the language that pronouns aren't gendered. While Hafez is in love with a woman in twenty-first century Iran, there's absolutely no reason for that to be the case in fourteenth-century Shiraz. I merely note this fact, quite firmly stated by the translators, as a datum of some interest to some readers.