Hafez

“ The son of Oweis, Sultan Ahmed of Baghdad, whose cruelty caused his subjects to call in the aid of Timur against him, was very anxious to induce Hafiz to visit his court; but Hafiz, perhaps with prudence, declined the invitation, saying that he was content with dry bread eaten at home, and had no desire to taste the honey that pilgrims gather by the roadside. He sent to Ahmed a poem in which he loaded his name with extravagant praise. “On Persian soil,” he declared, “the bud of joy has never blown for me. How excellent is the Tigris of Baghdad and the perfumed wine! ”

“ I, a poor man of one robe—dervish signifying in its primary sense, it is hardly necessary to say, poor. I should think that the double meaning is significant. In its mystical sense, the poem describes how Hafiz found consolation in the ecstatic drunkenness of the Sufis, in the minstrel’s song, or divine message, which brought him a word from God; and when finally the last shred of his orthodoxy had been torn from him, when in his desperate struggle with existence he was forced to abandon even his dervish robe, Heaven mercifully showed him a safe refuge in the Sufi doctrines. ”

“ These are the utterances of a great poet, the imaginative interpreter of the heart of man; they are not of one age, or of another, but for all time. Fitz-Gerald knew it when he declared that Hafiz rang true. “Hafiz is the most Persian of the Persians,” he says. “He is the best 53representative of their character, whether his Saki and wine be real or mystical. Their religion and philosophy is soon seen through, and always seems to me cuckooed over like a borrowed thing, which people once having got do not know how to parade enough. ”

“ He lies in the garden of Mosalla outside Shiraz, a garden the praises of which he was never tired of singing, and on the banks of the Ruknabad, where he had so often rested under the shade of cypress-trees. When, some sixty years after the poet’s death, Sultan Baber conquered Shiraz, he erected a monument over the tomb of Hafiz. An oblong block of stone on which are carved two songs from the Divan, marks the grave. At the head of it is inscribed a sentence in Arabic: “God is the enduring, and all else passes away.” ”

“ Dschami says,—
“A friend is he, who, hunted as a foe,
So much the kindlier shows him than before;
Throw stones at him, or ruder javelins throw,
He builds with stone and steel a firmer floor.”
Of the amatory poetry of Hafiz we must be very sparing in our citations, though it forms the staple of the “Divan.” He has run through the whole gamut of passion,—from the sacred to the borders, and over the borders, of the profane. The same confusion of high and low, the celerity of flight and allusion which our colder muses forbid, is habitual to him. ”

“ With Shah Shudja, I would accuse him of mixing up inextricably wine and love and Sufi teaching, and perhaps more besides. To some at least of the innumerable difficulties which assail every man who turns a thoughtful eye upon life and its conditions, Hafiz seems to have accepted the solution presented to him by Sufiism. He understood and sympathised with the bold heresy of Hallaj, “though fools whom God hath not uplifted know not the meaning of him who said, I am God.” ”

“ The sultan gave his adherence to the Act of the Algeciras Conference, but the state of anarchy into which Morocco fell during the latter half of 1906 and the beginning of 1907 showed that the young ruler lacked strength sufficient to make his will respected by his turbulent subjects. In May 1907 the southern tribes invited Mulai Hafid, an elder brother of Abd-el-Aziz, and viceroy at Marrakesh, to become sultan, and in the following August Hafid was proclaimed sovereign there with all the usual formalities. ”

“ Only the foolish are drinking sherbet of rose-water and sugar; the wise are nourished upon their own heart’s blood. The Arabian horse is wounded beneath the saddle, and the ass wears a collar of gold about his neck. Master, take the counsel of Hafiz: ‘Go and do good!’ for I see that this maxim is worth more 28than a treasure-house of jewels.” In several verses he congratulates Mansur upon a victory and a fortunate return to Shiraz, which may perhaps refer to the re-establishment of the Muzaffaride line after Timur’s departure. ”

“ Other poets besides Hafiz have sung to the same tune. Whether or no he lived to witness the overthrow of the race that had sheltered him, he foresaw the troubles that were coming upon it and upon his beloved Shiraz. There is a short poem full of foreboding which is said to have been written after the entry of Timur: “What tumult I see beneath the moon’s orbit, every quarter of the earth is full of evil and wickedness! There is strife among our daughters, and among our mothers contention, and the father is evilly disposed towards his son. ”

“ There is another Khawameddin who is frequently mentioned, the Vizir of Sultan Oweis of Baghdad. He founded in Shiraz a college for Hafiz, in which the poet gave lectures on the Koran, and read out his own verses, and whither his fame drew a great number of pupils. We find Hafiz asking his benefactor for money to support this school in the following terms: “Oh discreet friend (my poem) , in some retired spot to which even the wind is a stranger, come to the ear of the master, and between jest and earnest place the pointed saying, that his heart may consent unto it ”

“ A loan was forthcoming but no military assistance save that some of ‛Abd-el-‛Azīz’s troops were taken by a French warship to Mazagan. While desultory fighting between the supporters of the rival brothers was proceeding Hafid was proclaimed sultan at Fez on the 4th of January 1908; Hafid now sought support from France, Germany, and other powers, and moving from Marrākesh passed the French lines in the Shawia country, entered Mequinez in May and Fez in June 1908. At length ‛Abd-el-‛Azīz made an effort to reassert his authority and with a force numbering 4000 he left Rabat in July for Marrākesh. ”

“ As we turned back through the tunnel-like entrance that pierced the thick wall and entered a cafe just off the suk Tala, Hafid began his tale.
"Old Fez—for we are now in the quarter of Fez el-Bali—has had a long and eventful history. Following the sultans of the Idris family came the Almoravide dynasty, and after them the Almohades, Merinides and others. As the city was ever a stronghold of the Faith, of wisdom, literature and art, it towered in its glory above other cities, occasionally declining somewhat only to rise again to greater heights than before. ”

“ Men looked this way and that to carry out the command of the king, but Hafela was gone. Already he was upon the hillside, running as a man has rarely run before—his face set towards that fastness in the mountains where he could find refuge among his mother’s tribesmen and the regiments which he commanded. Of late they had been sent thither by the king that they might be far from the Great Place when their prince was disinherited. ”

“ The fame of thy goodness has conquered the four quarters of the earth; may it be for all time a guardian unto thee!”
One of Shah Shudja’s vizirs, Hadji Kawameddin Hassan, was also a good friend to Hafiz. In the poems he is frequently alluded to as the second Assaf (the first Assaf having been King Solomon’s vizir, renowned for his wisdom) , while Shah Shudja masquerades under the title of Solomon himself. On his return from a journey, probably to Yezd, Hafiz spent some months in the house of the Vizir—induced thereto by a cogent argument. ”

“ Shah Shudja was not the only member of the house of Muzaffar who protected Hafiz; the warrior prince Mansur was his staunch friend. He appears to have been absent from Shiraz at the time of Mansur’s accession—perhaps he had accompanied Timur’s retreating army. “The wind has brought me word,” he cries, “that the day of sorrow is overpast; I will return to Shiraz through the favour of my friend. On the banners of the Conqueror (i.e. Mansur, of whose name this is the meaning) Hafiz is borne up into heaven; fleeing for refuge, his destiny has set him upon the steps of a throne.” ”

“ As soon as the mosque was full, the doors were closed, and the announcement of the Sultan’s death made known, together with the proclamation of the accession of his son. As the letter was concluded, the Basha of the town rose and said, “If any one has anything to say, let him speak.” Not a word was uttered, and in perfect silence the lawyers drew up a document to be forwarded to Mulai Abdul Aziz announcing the readiness of Fez to accept him as their sovereign. Intense indignation reigned amongst the audience in the mosque. ”

“ Stanza 3.—Joseph is the Oriental type of perfect beauty. The story of his relations with Zuleikha, Potiphar’s wife, is one of the famous love stories of the East; Jami made it the theme of a long metaphysical poem. The part played by Zuleikha in Persian tales is far more creditable than that which is assigned to her either in the Bible or the Koran.
Every translator of Hafiz has tried his hand upon this song, which is one of the most famous in the Divan. It is only right to inform the reader that the original is of great beauty. ”

“ It must be remembered that Hāfiz was a professed dervish and Sūfi, and that his ghazals were in all probability published from a takia, and arranged with at least a view to Sufiistic interpretation. At the same time it is ridiculous to suppose that the glowing imagery, the gorgeous and often tender descriptions of natural beauties, the fervent love passages, and the roystering drinking songs were composed in cool blood or with deliberate ascetic purpose. The beauty of Hāfiz’s poetry is that it is natural. ”

“ The fires of hatred were blazing up against Mulai Hafid, the new Sultan, as they had three years before against Abd-el-Aziz. And for the same reason. He had sold himself and his country to the Christians. Throughout the town there was excitement and unrest. A movement must be made forward and this time to Fez. Rumour had it that the Sultan was actually beleaguered there. And somewhere out in the wild, fierce country Paul Ravenel was wandering.
“Let us hurry!” said Gerard de Montignac. ”

“ You would make me queen?
HAFIZ
Indeed, before all my wives, before all women, over all Shaldomir, named the elect.
MIRALDA
O, well, Hafiz; then you may kiss me. [HAFIZ does so ad lib.]
Hafiz, the Shereef has irked me.
HAFIZ
Lady, O singing star, to all men is the hour.
MIRALDA
The appointed hour?
HAFIZ
Even the appointed hour, the last, leading to darkness.
MIRALDA
Is it written, think you, that the Shereef's hour is soon?
HAFIZ
Lady, O dawn's delight, let there be a banquet. Let the great ones of Shaldomir be bidden there. ”

“ He is not there, master.
HAFIZ
Not there? Not there? Why, there is no door beyond. He must needs be there, and his chief spy with him.
SHEIK [off]
He is not here.
MIRALDA [turning round and clawing the wall]
O, I was weary of him. I was weary of him.
HAFIZ
Be comforted, pearl of the morning; he is gone.
MIRALDA
When I am weary of a man he must die.
[He embraces her knees.]
ZAGBOOLA [who has come on with a little crowd that followed the BISHAREENS. She is blind.]
Lead me to Hafiz. I am the mother of Hafiz. Lead me to Hafiz. [They lead her near.] Hafiz! Hafiz! ”

“ A journey to such a place is always attended with danger; and were the Sultan to escape, he would find, on his return, the whole country in revolt.
Regarding these royal cities, we sum up our observations. The destinies of Fez and Mequinez are inseparable. United, they contain one hundred thousand inhabitants, the most polished and learned in the Empire. Fez is the city of arts and learning, that is of what remains of the once famous and profound Moorish doctors of Spain. Mequinez is the strong place of the Empire, an emporium of arms and imperial Cretsures. Fez is the rival of Morocco. ”

“ If the Oriental suffers or is unfortunate he takes his reverses as the unalterable fiat of Destiny, and falls back upon the strength of his own resources without any increase of depression, sensitiveness, or vexation of spirit. In the poetry of Hafis we hear often enough of the lover's woes and laments [71] , as of many another kind, but our poet persists through grief, no less than in happiness, as free of care as ever. ”

“ This has Al-Hafi told me long ago:
With transport adding then—how nobly Nathan
Bestows what he esteems it not a meanness
By prudent industry to have justly earned—
How free from prejudice his lofty soul—
His heart to every virtue how unlocked—
With every lovely feeling how familiar.
SALADIN.
Yet Hafi spake just now so coldly of him.
SITTAH.
Not coldly; but with awkwardness, confusion,
As if he thought it dangerous to praise him,
And yet knew not to blame him undeserving,
Or can it really be that e’en the best
Among a people cannot quite escape
The tinges of the tribe ”

“ It was Hatsu who replied: “It is well,” she said slowly, “that we have one among us so keen [Pg 75] for the welfare and interest of his brother the King and for the little Prince, the King that is to be, and while all the words that thou hast spoken are wise, the King shall, in his own good time, say HIS royal will.” It was at this juncture that the child spoke.
“My mother,” he said, “how can the Israelites do good work for Egypt when they are being famished and beaten? and why do you, my good uncle, wish to bring suffering upon our dear Miriam, for Miriam is an Israelite? ”

“ Stanzas 5 and 6.—The accepted explanation of these lines is that by the glass Hafiz means his own heart, which he sends to his mistress that she may see that her own image is reflected in it; but I prefer here (and indeed for the whole poem) a mystical interpretation. The heavenly voice tells him to seek for comfort in Sufiism, and bids him look upon the mirror, for he shall see God himself reflected in it—which is only another way of putting the doctrine that man and God are one. ”