Hafiz and I
One day, shortly after noon, I was at the Zoroastrian temple in Los Angeles, facing the fire altar, asking my God what it was that I was to do next.
At that point, my eyes were involuntarily drawn to the windows on either side of the altar, and for the first time I noticed the tall spruce trees — the trees that adorn Hafezieh, his tomb in Shiraz. Immediately something inside me said, "Hafiz…"
The message was loud and clear: I was supposed to translate Hafiz's poetry into English.
I had tried this before, but found his poems painting a simplistic complexity that was impossible to grasp, let alone translate. So at the altar, facing the fire, I made a deal with my God and with Hafiz. I said, "very well, I will do it, but only if two conditions are fulfilled. First that I will need a dictionary, and second, that I should be inspired."
Upon leaving the fire temple, the Zoroastrian priest loaned me a dictionary for two weeks. So the first condition was fulfilled within minutes.
I spent the next three days flipping through Divan-e Hafiz, and every now and again my eyes would be stopped over one ghazal, and a few English verses would start flowing. Over the next two and a half weeks I managed to translate over fifty of his ghazals.
These pages are the sharing of that experience — bringing into English a few pearls of Hafiz's wisdom, while trying to keep intact the imagery, music, and rhythmic lyricism of his genius.
Shahriar
June 28, 1999