PREVIOUS BLOGS # 1

TITLE: Tragic Breakfast
DATE: 06/12/2009 22:30:39

What had happened to the dreams of liberation that brought many of us to radical movements in the first place? . . . What had happened to our New Eden, our dreams of building a new society? And what had happened to hope and love in our politics? . . . How do we produce a vision that enables us to see beyond our immediate ordeals? How do we transcend bitterness and cynicism and embrace love, hope, and an all-encompassing dream of freedom, especially in these rough times?
Without new visions we don’t know what to build, only what to knock down. We not only end up confused, rudderless, and cynical, but we forget that making a revolution is not a series of clever maneuvers and tactics but a process that can and must transform us.
We must tap the well of our own collective imaginations, that we do what earlier generations have done: dream.



Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination
By Robin D. G. Kelley


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TITLE: The Owl: Wisdom and Doom
DATE: 05/23/2009 00:27:19

André Breton, Poème-objet (La chouette noire), 1955.

"When philosophy paints its gray on gray, then has a form of life grown old, and with gray on gray it cannot be rejuvenated, but only known; the Owl of Minerva first takes flight with twilight closing in."

-G. W. F. Hegel, "Preface," Philosophy of Right

When I was out shopping for Christmas presents on the high street in December, I was struck by the ubiquity of owl accessories: owl jewellery, owl cushions, owl key rings – owl motifs everywhere:

Brian Barn Owl Ring, Accessorize.

Coral Owl Drop Earrings, Miss Selfridge.

Long Beaded Owl and Acorn Pendant, ASOS.

Darling Owl Overnight Weekend Bag, Bobbypin.

Stone Encrusted Owl Brooch, ASOS.

Owl Pendant, Accessorize.

Coincidence? Or – since design is always a reflection of zeitgeist – sign of a general yearning for wisdom, stoicism and insight in times of crisis?
For the ancient Greeks, the owl, as the attribute of goddess Minerva, indeed represented wisdom, but its nocturnal habits also commonly aroused fear, loathing and ridicule, earning the bird a reputation as an essentially evil creature, a harbinger of doom. Thus ornithologist Jacques Delamain wrote in the Surrealist journal Minotaure in 1935, conflating vernacular myth and scientific explanation in a manner characteristic of the Surrealists:

When it comes to the barn owl, certain individuals are phosphorescent, because tiny particles of the rotten wood they get in touch with in tree cavities remain stuck to their plumage; this explanation is reassuring, but can one contemplate without agitation these luminous phantoms that silently pass over the fields in complete darkness? […] Ought one to be surprised, then, that man’s imagination has created around the owl a network of sinister fables?

Pablo Picasso, Chouette et trois oursins, 1946.

I was also reminded of a funny anecdote I read a while ago: apparently Picasso, who created several owl paintings, drawings and ceramics in the 1940s and 50s, owned a pet owl for some years during this period. It was christened UBU, partly out of assonance with the French word for ‘owl,’ ‘hibou,’ and partly after the obnoxious hero of Alfred Jarry’s play Ubu Roi. This is how the bird found its way into his care:

While Pablo was still working at the Musée d’Antibes, [Michel] Sima had come to us one day with a little owl he had found in the corner of the museum. One of his claws had been injured. We bandaged it and gradually it healed. We bought a cage for him and when we returned to Paris we brought him back with us and put him in the kitchen with the canaries, the pigeons, the turtledoves. We were very nice to him but he only glared at us. Any time we went into the kitchen, the canaries chirped, the pigeons cooed and the turtledoves laughed but the owl remained stolidly silent or, at best, snorted. He smelled awful and ate nothing but mice. [...] Every time the owl snorted at Pablo he would shout, ‘Cochon, Merde,’ and a few other obscenities, just to show the owl that he was even worse mannered than he was. He used to stick his fingers between the bars of the cage and the owl would bite him… Finally the owl would let him scratch his head and gradually he came to perch on his finger instead of biting it, but even so, he still looked very unhappy.

Françoise Gilot, quoted in Neil Cox and Deborah Povey, A Picasso Bestiary.
Via Mapping the Marvellous


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TITLE: FRAMING WARHOL! ...
DATE: 04/11/2009 04:10:52

by Darius KADIVAR

Andy Warhol Exhibit at Paris' Grand Palais highlights Pahlavi Era Portraits amidst 20th Century Icons who inspired the Pop Art Maestro (*)

©Andy Warhol & Photocomposition©DK

"Making money is art, and working is art and good business is the best art."

- Andy Warhol's blunt observation about his Art
 

No other artist is as much identified with Pop Art as Andy Warhol. The media called him the Prince of Pop. Warhol made his way from a Pittsburgh working class family to an American legend. The exhibition "Le grand Monde d'Andy Warhol", at the Grand Palais in Paris, presents a selection of nearly 150 works among the impressive "portraits gallery" made by Andy Warhol from the 60's to his death. The exhibition, which opened last month on March 18^th, has been drawing record crowds of experts, neophytes or simple admirors of the Pope of Pop Art who can see first hand Portraits from Marilyn Monroe and Chairman Mao to Elvis Presely and the Shah of Iran. The array of screen-prints, Polaroids and film footage, which has never been shown together before, will not travel to any other city in the world. Paris hopes the show will add to the city's already record-breaking museum visitor figures this year, which have sparked talk of a "new French renaissance" in the exhibition world.

Warhol's Portrait of Princess Ashraf Pahlavi ( The Shah of Iran's twin Sister)

made the cover of French Art Magazine's March Issue N°40, 2009

©L'Objet D'Art

-->Born in 1928 in Pittsburgh as the son of Slovak immigrants. His original name was Andrew Warhola. His father was as a construction worker and died in an accident when Andy was 13 years old. Andy showed an early talent in drawing and painting. After high school he studied commercial art at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh. Warhol graduated in 1949 and went to New York where he worked as an illustrator for magazines like Vogue and Harpar's Bazaar and for commercial advertising. He soon became one of New York's most sought of and successful commercial illustrators. In 1952 Andy Warhol had his first one-man show exhibition at the Hugo Gallery in New York. In 1956 he had an important group exhibition at the renowned Museum of Modern Art. In the sixties Warhol started painting daily objects of mass production like Campbell Soup cans and Coke bottles. Soon he became a famous figure in the New York art scene. From 1962 on he started making silkscreen prints of famous personalities like Marilyn Monroe or Elizabeth Taylor. The quintessence of Andy Warhol art was to remove the difference between fine arts and the commercial arts used for magazine illustrations, comic books, record albums or advertising campaigns.

Empress Farah of Iran and Former First Lady of France, Bernadette Chirac

Honored the Exhibition with her Presence ©PDV & ©Farah Pahlavi

The pop artist not only depicted mass products but he also wanted to mass produce his own works of pop art. Consequently he founded The Factory in 1962. It was an art studio where he employed in a rather chaotic way "art workers" to mass produce mainly prints and posters but also other items like shoes designed by the artist. The first location of the Factory was in 231 E. 47th Street, 5th Floor (between 1st & 2nd Ave).

Warhol's favorite printmaking technique was silkscreen. It came closest to his idea of proliferation of art. Apart from being an Art Producing Machine, the Factory served as a filmmaking studio. Warhol made over 300 experimental underground films - most rather bizarre and some rather pornographic. His first one was called Sleep and showed nothing else but a man sleeping over six hours.

Film Critic and Iranian Diplomat Fereidoune Hoveyda befriended

Warhol in the 1970's and was an enthusiast Pop Art

Amateur Painter himself (**) ©Fereidoune Hoveyda

In July of 1968 the pop artist was shot two to three times into his chest by a woman named Valerie Solanis. Andy was seriously wounded and only narrowly escaped death. Valerie Solanis had worked occasionally for the artist in the Factory. Solanis had founded a group named SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men) and she was its sole member. When Valerie Solanis was arrested the day after, her words were "He had too much control over my life". Warhol never recovered completely from his wounds and had to wear a bandage around his waist for the rest of his life.

Pahlavi Era Portraits by Andy Warhol are currently exhibited at the Grand Palais, Similar authentic reproductions can be found at the Tehran Museum of Modern Arts

©Andy Warhol

After this assassination attempt the pop artist made a radical turn in his process of producing art. The philosopher of art mass production now spent most of his time making individual portraits of the rich and affluent of his time like Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson or Brigitte Bardot. Warhol's activities became more and more entrepreneurial. He started the magazine Interview and even a night-club. In 1974 the Factory was moved to 860 Broadway. In 1975 Warhol published THE philosophy of Andy Warhol. In this book he describes what art is:

"Making money is art, and working is art and good business is the best art."

Warhol had an ambiguous sexuality which also played a part in his creations. Some close associates and friends even assimilated to being asexual with a slightly bizarre personality. True or false, by the fifties he dyed his hair straw-blond. Later he replaced his real hair by blond and silver-grey wigs.

In the 1960s, 70s and 80s, Warhol produced more than 1,000 portraits, with subjects ranging from Mick Jagger to Princess Caroline of Monaco, Nelson Rockefeller to Queen Elisabeth or Shahbanou Farah of Iran and members of Iran's Royal Family and dignitaries. Warhol's society portraits based on Polaroid snapshots taken during the late '70s were moneymaking machines for the Factory, selling at $25,000 a piece or $40,000 for two. Though Warhol's extraordinary market has recently entered another stratosphere, these debauched, headshot close-ups from the '70s are about as interesting as a Warhol of, say, depraved contemporary subjects like Michael Jackson or O.J. Simpson. The sky-high estimates simply don't compute. Comparisons are elusive in past auction results, thus Warhol's Princess Ashraf Pahlavi dubbed "Portraits of an Iranian Princess" (in two parts) from 1980 sold for £100,150/$152,667 in June 2002. But then again, a well known Iranian American Arts Dealer Tony Shafrazi was hawking a Warhol triptych of the Shah, Empress, and Princess sister Ashraf Pahlavi at Basel a few years ago for the aristocratic asking price of $8 million. So Go figure…


At one stage, Warhol was making $1m a year from such portraits. He painted Lady Diana, commissioned by a bar owner in Hong Kong. He painted Brigitte Bardot for the German millionaire toyboy Gunther Sachs, whose marriage to the actor lasted only two months. His fee was always the same - the portraits were usually made up of a set; the first cost $25,000, the second $15,000.


When in 1972 a dealer encouraged Warhol to paint a world-famous figure such as Albert Einstein, Warhol shocked the art scene by instead producing four giant portraits and wallpaper of the Chinese leader Mao Zedong, based on a photo on the cover of the Little Red Book. It was a reworking of a propaganda image, on which Warhol put lipstick to raise questions about Mao's sexuality.


--> The pop artist loved cats, and images of them can be found on quite a few of his art works. One of Andy's friends described him as a true workaholic. Warhol was obsessed by the ambition to become famous and wealthy. And he knew he could achieve the American dream only by hard work. 

In his later years, Warhol moved beyond the film stars and political icons and turned to religious imagery, including works such as 112 screen-prints of Christ and a portrait of an electric chair - seen by some as a modern crucifix.

©Andy Warhol

In his last years Warhol promoted other artists like Keith Haring or Robert Mapplethorpe.
Andy Warhol died February 22, 1987 from complications after a gall bladder operation. More than 2000 people attended the memorial mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral. A Man of Many Paradoxes, The pop art icon Warhol was also a religious man - a little known fact. The Brilliant Artist may be dead but his visual legacy and enduring influence lives on …

VIVE LA PEINTURE !

Authors Notes:

(*) Open Everyday except Tuesday starting March 18th to 13th of July, 2009 : 10 A.M. to 22 P.M. ( 20 P.M. on thursdays) Ticket Price : 11 euros, Discount : 8 euros.
Official Website of The Grand Palais
Official Website of Andy Warhol Exhibit
(**) Fereydoun Hoveyda (1924-2006): A Class Apart By Darius KADIVAR
Official Websites of Andy Warhol's Museum and Foundation:
Andy Warhol Foundation
Andy Warhol Museum
Art Auctions:
A Shah for Sale:London Bonhams Auction of Nasseredin Shah Portrait sells £260,000 by Darius KADIVAR
Recommended Readings:
Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art By Robert Tait ( The Guardian)
Empress of the Arts
Farah Pahlavi at Maurice Béjart 80th Birthday Party By Darius KADIVAR
Fereydoun Hoveyda (1924-2006): A Class Apart By Darius KADIVAR
FASHION KING YVES SAINT LAURENT DIES IN PARIS : Farah Pahlavi assists to Tribute Funeral by Darius KADIVAR
Rainbow High: Farah Pahlavi at Paris Dior 60^th Anniversary Gala by Darius KADIVAR
Honoring A People's Princess: Shahbanou Farah at Lady Diana's Tribute in Paris by Darius KADIVAR
Persian History Inspires French Comic Book Masters by Darius KADIVAR
Le Charme Persan by Darius KADIVAR
An Axis Of Joy: Monika Jalili & Noorsaaz Band Triumph in Paris by Darius KADIVAR
Musical Ode To Cyrus The Great In Paris by Darius KADIVAR
MAZEH : A Taste of Persia in the Heart of Paris by Darius KADIVAR
The Persian Girl Of Saint-Germain by Darius KADIVAR
A Night at the Comédie Française by Darius KADIVAR
Anicée (ALVINA) Shahmanesh: France's Sex Icon of the 1970's By Darius KADIVAR
Via Peyvand


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TITLE: Unveiled: New Art from the Middle East at Saatchi Gallery
DATE: 02/08/2009 05:07:58

Shadi Ghadirian's work 'Untitled' at the Saatchi Gallery

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Unveiled, the new Saatchi Gallery's second show lays bare the Middle East in all its raw and quirky glory

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Shirin Fakhim, Tehran Prostitutes, 2008

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From The Times

January 27, 2009

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Charles Saatchi clearly enjoys his role as the art world's grand provocateur. His Sensation! show at the Royal Academy was just one of many to have provoked outrage at what might constitute contemporary art. Now he has put together an exhibition of contemporary art from the Middle East which contains elements that could provoke dramatically hostile reactions from Muslim fundamentalist quarters. In our hypersensitive times, after the fatwa condemning Salman Rushdie and the violent reaction to the Danish cartoons of the Prophet, Saatchi might be testing his luck in celebrating homosexual images of cavorting naked Muslim men, and cartoonish sculptures of Tehran prostitutes and transsexuals.

Yet however combustible it may turn out to be, Saatchi has good reason to put on this top-notch survey of Middle Eastern contemporary art. News of the Middle East today is dominated by images and reports of death and destruction, of terrorists and refugees, and the human misery caused by long-held political and religious antagonism. This widespread conflict overshadowing the region has tended to obscure the remarkably vibrant contemporary art scene that is alive and well in the countries of the Middle East and its diaspora.

Young artists in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon and many other nations of the region are graduating from art school, travelling abroad, building perspectives on their own experiences, and turning out art works that speak of what they have grown up with. Some treat their subject matter obliquely, others choose to meet the brutal suffering and the dispiriting politics head on, producing works that are as direct and brutal as the head of an axe.

In its second show since moving to the King's Road, the Saatchi Gallery offers us a major survey of recent Middle Eastern painting, sculpture and installation. Nineteen artists are represented, most of them in their twenties and thirties, from Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon, Syria and Algeria, and their works reveal something of the range of their experiences and of the cultural and historical traditions of their homelands.

These nations have had long and rich visual arts traditions going back several centuries, but in the last hundred years, governments and rulers have invested in building museums and filling them with national collections, establishing art schools and sending young art students to study in beaux arts institutions all over the world, to bring back Western and Far Eastern aesthetics. The legacies of these investments and of the independent art scenes they have spawned are to be seen in this rich and revealing exhibition, which thrums with the ideas and the energies of artists from whom we in the West seldom hear.

This is a large show of almost 90 works, mostly large-scale paintings, with a selection of sculptures and installations. It is noticeable that the installations avoid the tricks and high-tech gimmicks beloved of Western artists. Perhaps their message is too urgent for them to be messing around with strobe lights and computer-generated stuff. Perhaps they cannot get hold of these things, but the poverty of their materials contributes to the direct hit of their concepts.

One of the most arresting pieces is Ghost by Kader Attia, a French Algerian living in an immigrant neighbourhood on the outskirts of Paris. Ghost is a room full of supplicant Muslim women wrapped in silver garments, row upon row of figures kneeling in devotion, 240 of them filling the room to the extent that there is only just space enough to pick your way along one side and get to the front. You expect to hear the murmur, the gentle susurration of prayer, but as you turn at the end of the room you see that these women are hollow figures, vacant shells of tin foil, each with a gaping black hole where the face should be swathed in the veil. Attia's image of emptiness is heavily political, the shrouded, veiled, yet empty, figure of Muslim women presented as the symbol of divergent struggles over decolonisation, nationalism, revolution, Westernisation and anti-Westernisation.

Rokni Haerizadeh, an Iranian from Tehran, paints epic tableaux so vibrant with colour, movement and energy that you expect them to give off their own high-intensity noise and heat. In Typical Iranian Funeral he depicts the scene of the burial with crowds of hired mourners wailing extravagantly and corpses on full display; this is contrasted with the funeral feast, shared between close family and friends, divisively seated at separate tables. In his Typical Iranian Wedding diptych, he describes the business of getting hitched, Iranian style: the men in one room eating, drinking and carousing with abandon, and the women on the other side of a curtain, dressed to the nines for each other but barely eating or drinking.

Haerizadeh's brush is brutal and his satire sharp, but his treatment of his flawed world is broadly sympathetic. Ahmed Alsoudani, on the other hand is more bitterly direct about his life's experience. An Iraqi from Baghdad, he fled to Syria before claiming asylum in America, and now lives in Berlin. His contemporary history paintings come directly from his experiences as a child, depicting the turbulence and the bitter confusion of the atrocities that have taken place in his country. Informed by the works of Goya and George Grosz, these large war canvases are raw and aggressive in their depiction of suicide bombers, of the horrors of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, the carnage and destruction, as well as the fractured nature of daily life in Baghdad.
One of the most deliberately controversial bodies of work is that by Haerizadeh's brother, Ramin, who has also been embraced by Saatchi, and has produced a series of manipulated photographs of two semi-naked men entitled Men of Allah. Based on photographs of the artist, they show two bearded and heavily hirsute men cavorting in fleshy and highly sensuous poses. The images undoubtedly transgress religious, political and gender boundaries and one might fear for the reactions of fundamentalists to the pouting lips and ballooning buttocks of these overtly homosexual images.

Shirin Fakhim, an Iranian living and working in Tehran, is similarly provocative with her series of humorous makeshift sculptures of Tehran prostitutes fashioned from everyday objects and items of clothing. She makes her life-size figures from footballs, torn and patched stockings, exaggeratedly plumped brassieres and cheap market-stall items shoved down stockings, each one finished off with a wig on top and a pair of trademark stiletto boots down below. With their badly stitched-up crotches and wayward hanks of rope revealing pre-op transsexuals, these prostitute dolls become rude jokes, provoking thoughts of cross dressing and the sordid reality of poverty, domestic violence and human trafficking.

I would be prepared to bet that Hayv Kahraman, another Iraqi from Baghdad, has studied early Chinese art and the masterpieces of Renaissance Florence, as well as Islamic miniatures, because her depictions, particularly the diptych, Carrying on Shoulder 1 & Carrying on Shoulder 2 are influenced by the serenity, delicacy and angelic beauty of these periods of explosive artistic riches. All her paintings depict the fable of the sacrifice of the lamb, recorded both in the Koran and the Bible, but she recasts the legend with women taking the men's role. Her exquisite women are depicted two dimensionally on bare canvas, their elongated necks and delicate features cast like angels, and their swaying bodies clothed in loosely flowing fabric beautifully wrought with designs both traditional and contemporary.

There are so many powerful, authoritative and insightful works in this show that I cannot mention them all; but I have at least briefly to include Shadi Ghadirian, whose work has been seen in the UK as part of the Veiling, Representation and Contemporary Art show that toured in 2003. Her humorous photographs take on the subject of women and the veil, her Like Everyday Series showing brightly coloured veils with kitchen utensils held in place of the face. A colander represents a woman who is all mouth, a broom huddles demurely beneath the veil, and a meat cleaver brings to mind the hatchet face.

This is a richly fascinating survey and anyone with an interest in the region, at any level, would do well to take a look at these revelatory views from the inside.
Unveiled: New Art from the Middle East is at the Saatchi Gallery (www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk), Duke of York's HQ, London SW3, from Friday to May 6 

Unveiled: New Art from the Middle East

Diana Al-Hadid
Halim Al-Karim
Ahmed Alsoudani
Kader Attia
Nadia Ayari
Ali Banisadr
Shirin Fakhim
Shadi Ghadirian
Barbad Golshiri
Ramin Haerizadeh
Rokni Haerizadeh
Khaled Hafez
Wafa Hourani
Hayv Kahraman
Jeffar Khaldi
Laleh Khorramian
Farsad Labbauf
Tala Madani
Ahmad Morshedloo
Sara Rahbar
Marwan Rechmaoui

 

 






















 


















 

 

Unveiled: New Art from the Middle East at Saatchi Gallery, The Times

--> Charles Saatchi unveils Middle Eastern works, Sunday Times
The veil is lifted on hidden talent, The Observer
Unveiled: New art from the Middle East, The Independent
Artist of the week 27: Shadi Ghadirian, Guardian
Islam stripped bare, The Sunday Times
Unveiled: New Art from the Middle East at the Saatchi Gallery, Daily Telegraph
Kunst met een sluier, De Standaard Online
Saatchi show unveils vibrant Middle East art scene, Reuters
Unveiled: New Art From The Middle East, Time Out
Images fortes des territoires islamiques, La Libre Belgique
Subversive beauty in Unveiled, Evening Standard
Iranian prostitutes and half-naked men: Saatchi promotes Mideast art, Haaretz
Middle Eastern promise, The First Post
Le Moyen-Orient d��tr��ne la Chine chez Saatchi, collectionneur avis��, Le Monde (France)
London Art: Star Wars meets Middle East in art at the Saatchi gallery's incredible new exhibition, The London Paper
London's Saatchi Galley shows Middle Eastern Art, Washington Post
Saatchi Shows Veiled Women Made of Foil, Iran Sex-Worker Dolls, Bloomberg
Modern Middle Eastern art show opening in London, AFP
Saatchi: la Brit Art non fara storia, Corriere Della Sera (Italy)
Islamic art a 'taboo buster', Brunei Times
London exhibits Middle East art, Press TV
Mideast art challenges common perceptions, The South African Star (South Africa)
London's Saatchi Galley shows Middle Eastern Art, Associated Press
In pictures: Middle East art, BBC
Powerful new art from the Middle East on show in London (Feature), Monsters And Critics
Unveiled: New Art from the Middle East, Spoonfed
Modern Middle Eastern art show opening in London, Middle East Online
Saatchi show unveils vibrant Middle East art scene, MSNBC
Powerful new art from the Middle East on show in London, Khaleej Times
Mideast art challenges common perceptions, Pretoria News (South Africa)
Saatchi-Galerie zeigt moderne Kunst aus Nahost, Mitteldeutsche Zeitung (Germany)
Oriente Medio llegara a la Saatchi de Londres, Informacion (Spain)
Saatchi shows vibrant Middle East art, Spicezee
La nueva Saatchi dedicara su segunda exposicion al arte de Oriente Medio, El Confidencial
Saatchi Show Unveils Vibrant Middle East Art Scene, Iraq Updates
Tin Women: Saatchi Gallery's Newest Installation, Musliman Media Watch
Arte shock per l' Islam senza veli, Corriere della Sera (Italy)
Per Le Nuove Acquisizioni Mr. Saatchi Torna Alle Sue Origini, Arkadja Art Magazine
El arte actual de Oriente Medio ilumina la nueva galeria Saatchi de Londres, Latino MSN
El arte irani levanta el velo, El Pais (Spain)
Saatchis Schocktherapie, Art Magazin (Germany)
Saatchi-Galerie zeigt moderne Kunst aus Nahost, Saarbruecker Zeitung (Germany)
Islam-Kritische Kunst bei Saatchi, Castor & Pollux (Germany)
London's Saatchi Galley shows Middle Eastern Art,Lethbridge Herald (Canada)
Saatchi show unveils vibrant Mideast art ,Zaman Gazetesi (Turkey)
Saatchi dispara a Oriente Medio ,Larazon (Spain)
Llega el arte actual de Oriente Medio a nueva galeria Saatchi ,El Universal
Oriente Medio llegara a la Saatchi de Londres, La Opinion
Unveiled, Evene (France)
Provokateur der Kunstwelt,Der Standard (Austria)
Kunst aus Nahost,Salzburg (Austria)
Mostra "Unveiled" reune nomes da arte contemporanea do Oriente Mdio,UOL Entretenimento (Brazil)
Mostra reune 'a nova arte do Oriente Medio',Estadao (Brazil)

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TITLE: Everyday Cosmopolitanism
DATE: 11/09/2008 09:07:58

Perpetrated by the media and policy circles, the language of clash currently dominates interreligious and intercultural relations, overlooking the more common human practices based upon association and cooperation. It is therefore high time to invoke the notion of “everyday cosmopolitanism” both as a scholarly inquiry and an ethical project.


by Asef Bayat


It might sound out of place to speak of, let alone, invoke the idea of cosmopolitanism in the current global conditions that are dominated by the language of “clash” – clash of cultures, civilizations, religions, or ethnicities. The discourse of clash is currently so overwhelming as though it were the central feature of our international, religious, and communal life. The media apart, academia is also inclined to concentrate far more on human “conflict” as a subject of scholarly inquiry than on “cooperation” and “sharing.” Precisely because of this prevalent preoccupation with clash, it becomes morally imperative to underline the other, more common but unnoticed and inaudible processes of human conduct, to show how people belonging to different cultural groupings can transcend their immediate selves by intensely interacting in their life-worlds with members of other ethnic or religious collectives. Would we still imagine today’s Iraq as the “natural” embodiment of sharp ethnic and religious boundaries (because the “nation” was no more than an artificial and imposed construct), if only we knew how the twentieth century Iraq was replete with instances of individuals, families, and neighbourhoods from Sunni, Shii, Jewish, and Christian communities engaged in interactions and shared lives (see pp. 6-7)? The recent upsurge in the literature on cosmopolitanism (even though highly diverse) points to welcome efforts to rectify the discourse of confrontation and mistrust, by resurrecting the ideal of living together. But how do we perceive “cosmopolitanism”?
Cosmopolitanism refers to both social conditions and an ethical project. In the first place, it signifies certain objective processes, such as globalization and international migration, that compel people of diverse communal, national, or racial affiliations to associate, work, and live together. These processes lead to diminishing cultural homogeneity in favour of diversity, variety, and plurality of cultures, religions, and lifestyles. In this sense Dubai, for instance, represents a cosmopolitan city-state in the sense that it juxtaposes individuals and families of diverse national, cultural, and racial belongings, who live and work next to one another within a small geographical space. Indeed modern urbanity per se can potentially contribute to cosmopolitan habitus by facilitating geographies of coexistence between the members of different religious or ethnic groups. But this may be so not just because people of different religions and cultures naturally come to live and interact with each other; after all neighbours might dislike and distrust one another. Rather because proximity and interaction can supply opportunities for divergent parties to experience trust (as well as mistrust) between them.
Cosmopolitanism has also ethical and normative dimensions; it is a project, something to be cherished. In this sense, cosmopolitanism is deployed to challenge the language of separation and antagonism, to confront cultural superiority and ethnocentrism. It further stands opposed to communalism, where the inward-looking and close-knit ethnic or religious collectives espouse narrow, exclusive, and selfish interests. Cosmopolitanism of this sort also overrides the “multiculturalist” paradigm. Because although multiculturalism calls for equal coexistence of different cultures within a national society, it is still preoccupied with cultural boundaries – an outlook that departs from cosmopolitan life-world where intense interaction, mixing, and sharing tend to blur communal boundaries, generating hybrid and “impure” cultural practices. The initiative of the Palestinian-Italian music group, Radiodervish (see pp. 12-13) to create multilingual songs where lyrics range from Italian, Arabic, to English and French, amplifies such a cosmopolitan project of crossing cultural and linguistic boundaries.
But is this lifestyle not the prerogative of the elites as the critiques often claim? Certainly elites are in a better material position to experience cosmopolitan lifestyles; they are the ones who can easily afford frequent travelling, developing taste for different cuisines and alternative modes of life and cultural products. In addition, unlike the poor, the privileged groups need not to rely on exclusive communalistic networks as a venue to secure social protection – something that tends to reinforce more inward-looking communalism. However, the objective possibility to experience mixing, mingling, and sharing is not the same as the subjective desire to do so. The question is how many of those elite expatriates residing in the metropolises of the global South share cultural life with those of the poor of the host society? In a closer look, the cosmopolitan Dubai turns out to be no more than a “city-state of relatively gated communities” (pp. 10-11) marked by sharp communal and spatial boundaries, with labour camps (of south Asian migrants) and the segregated milieu of “parochial jet-setters,” or the “cosmopolitan es” of the Western elite expatriates who remain bounded within the physical safety and cultural purity of their own reclusive collectives.
It is a mistake to limit cosmopolitan exchange solely to the prerogative of the elites. Indeed, there is a serious need to pay scholarly attention to the cosmopolitanism of the ordinary people in their daily lives. Evidence from twentieth century Cairo, Baghdad, or Aleppo suggests how, beyond the elites, the ordinary members of different religious communities – Muslims, Jews, Christians, Shiites, or Sunnis – were engaged in intense inter-communal exchange and shared lives in the localities or at work. In the everyday life, women in particular act as protagonists in initiating cosmopolitan exchanges and association. In mixed neighbourhoods, women generally move easily between houses, chatting, exchanging gossip, and lending or borrowing things from their neighbours. They participate in weddings, funerals, or religious festivals. Children of different confessional affiliations play together in the alleyways while teens befriend and men go on neighbourly visits. All these exemplify what I like to call “everyday cosmopolitanism” of the subaltern.
By everyday cosmopolitanism I mean the idea and practice of transcending self – at the various levels of individual, family, tribe, religion, ethnicity, community, and nation – to associate with agonistic others in everyday life. It describes the ways in which the ordinary members of different ethno-religious and cultural groupings mix, mingle, intensely interact, and share in values and practices – the cultures of food, fashion, language, and symbols – in history and memory. It signifies how such association and sharing affect the meaning of “us” and “them” and its dynamics, which in turn blurs and problematizes the meaning of group boundaries. The “everyday cosmopolitanism” may not go as far as the often abstract and philosophical notions of Stoicist “world citizenship,” but engages in the modest and down-to-earth though highly relevant ways in which ordinary men and women from different communal cosmos manage to engage, associate, and live together at the level of the everyday.


Asef Bayat is Academic Director of ISIM and holds the ISIM Chair at Leiden University.


ISIM R E V I E W 22 / AUTUMN 2008
http://www.isim.nl/

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PREVIOUS BLOGS # 2

TITLE: Teachings of Hafiz
DATE: 10/26/2008 08:35:52

Translated by Gertrude Lowthian Bell

I

ARISE, oh Cup-bearer, rise! and bring
To lips that are thirsting the bowl they praise,
For it seemed that love was an easy thing,
But my feet have fallen on difficult ways.
I have prayed the wind o'er my heart to fling
The fragrance of musk in her hair that sleeps
In the night of her hair-yet no fragrance stays
The tears of my heart's blood my sad heart weeps.
Hear the Tavern-keeper who counsels you:
"With wine, with red wine your prayer carpet dye!"
There was never a traveller like him but knew
The ways of the road and the hostelry.
Where shall I rest, when the still night through,
Beyond thy gateway, oh Heart of my heart,
The bells of the camels lament and cry:
"Bind up thy burden again and depart!"
The waves run high, night is clouded with fears,
And eddying whirlpools clash and roar;
How shall my drowning voice strike their ears
Whose light-freighted vessels have reached the shore?
I sought mine own; the unsparing years
Have brought me mine own, a dishonoured name.
What cloak shall cover my misery o'er
When each jesting mouth has rehearsed my shame!
Oh Hafiz, seeking an end to strife,
Hold fast in thy mind what the wise have writ:
"If at last thou attain the desire of thy life,
Cast the world aside, yea, abandon it!"

II

THE bird of gardens sang unto the rose,
New blown in the clear dawn: "Bow down thy head!
As fair as thou within this garden close,
Many have bloomed and died." She laughed and said
"That I am born to fade grieves not my heart
But never was it a true lover's part
To vex with bitter words his love's repose."
The tavern step shall be thy hostelry,
For Love's diviner breath comes but to those
That suppliant on the dusty threshold lie.
And thou, if thou would'st drink the wine that flows
From Life's bejewelled goblet, ruby red,
Upon thine eyelashes thine eyes shall thread
A thousand tears for this temerity.
Last night when Irem's magic garden slept,
Stirring the hyacinth's purple tresses curled,
The wind of morning through the alleys stept.
"Where is thy cup, the mirror of the world?
Ah, where is Love, thou Throne of Djem?" I cried.
The breezes knew not; but "Alas," they sighed,
"That happiness should sleep so long!" and wept.
Not on the lips of men Love's secret lies,
Remote and unrevealed his dwelling-place.
Oh Saki, come! the idle laughter dies
When thou the feast with heavenly wine dost grace.
Patience and wisdom, Hafiz, in a sea
Of thine own tears are drowned; thy misery
They could not still nor hide from curious eyes.

III

WIND from the east, oh Lapwing of the day,
I send thee to my Lady, though the way
Is far to Saba, where I bid thee fly;
Lest in the dust thy tameless wings should lie,
Broken with grief, I send thee to thy nest,
Fidelity.
Or far or near there is no halting-place
Upon Love's road-absent, I see thy face,
And in thine car my wind-blown greetings sound,
North winds and east waft them where they are bound,
Each morn and eve convoys of greeting fair
I send to thee.
Unto mine eyes a stranger, thou that art
A comrade ever-present to my heart,
What whispered prayers and what full meed of praise
I send to thee.
Lest Sorrow's army waste thy heart's domain,
I send my life to bring thee peace again,
Dear life thy ransom! From thy singers learn
How one that longs for thee may weep and bum
Sonnets and broken words, sweet notes and songs
I send to thee.
Give me the cup! a voice rings in mine cars
Crying: "Bear patiently the bitter years!
For all thine ills, I send thee heavenly grace.
God the Creator mirrored in thy face
Thine eyes shall see, God's image in the glass
I send to thee.
Hafiz, thy praise alone my comrades sing;
Hasten to us, thou that art sorrowing!
A robe of honour and a harnessed steed
I send to thee."

IV

SLEEP on thine eyes, bright as narcissus flowers,
Falls not in vain
And not in vain thy hair's soft radiance showers
Ah, not in vain!
Before the milk upon thy lips was dry,
I said: "Lips where the salt of wit doth lie,
Sweets shall be mingled with thy mockery,
And not in vain!"
Thy mouth the fountain where Life's waters flow,
A dimpled well of tears is set below,
And death lies near to life thy lovers know,
But know in vain!
God send to thee great length of happy days
Lo, not for his own life thy servant prays;
Love's dart in thy bent brows the Archer lays,
Nor shoots in vain.
Art thou with grief afflicted, with the smart
Of absence, and is bitter toil thy part?
Thy lamentations and thy tears, oh Heart,
Are not in vain
Last night the wind from out her village blew,
And wandered all the garden alleys through,
Oh rose, tearing thy bosom's robe in two;
'Twas not in vain!
And Hafiz, though thy heart within thee dies,
Hiding love's agony from curious eyes,
Ah, not in vain thy tears, not vain thy sighs,
Not all in vain

V

OH Turkish maid of Shiraz! in thy hand
If thou'lt take my heart, for the mole on thy cheek
I would barter Bokhara and Samarkand.
Bring, Cup-bearer, all that is left of thy wine!
In the Garden of Paradise vainly thou'lt seek
The lip of the fountain of Ruknabad,
And the bowers of Mosalla where roses twine.
They have filled the city with blood and broil,
Those soft-voiced Lulis for whom we sigh;
As Turkish robbers fall on the spoil,
They have robbed and plundered the peace of my heart.
Dowered is my mistress, a beggar am I;
What shall I bring her? a beautiful face
Needs nor jewel nor mole nor the tiring-maid's art.
Brave tales of singers and wine relate,
The key to the Hidden 'twere vain to seek;
No wisdom of ours has unlocked that gate,
And locked to our wisdom it still shall be.
But of Joseph's beauty the lute shall speak;
And the minstrel knows that Zuleika came forth,
Love parting the curtains of modesty.
When thou spokest ill of thy servant 'twas well--
God pardon thee! for thy words were sweet;
Not unwelcomed the bitterest answer fell
From lips where the ruby and sugar lay.
But, fair Love, let good counsel direct thy feet;
Far dearer to youth than dear life itself
Are the warnings of one grown wise--and grey!
The song is sung and the pearl is strung
Come hither, oh Hafiz, and sing again!
And the listening Heavens above thee hung
Shall loose o'er thy verse the Pleiades' chain.

VI

A FLOWER-TINTED cheek, the flowery close
Of the fair earth, these are enough for me
Enough that in the meadow wanes and grows
The shadow of a graceful cypress-tree.
I am no lover of hypocrisy;
Of all the treasures that the earth can boast,
A brimming cup of wine I prize the most--
This is enough for me!
To them that here renowned for virtue live,
A heavenly palace is the meet reward;
To me, the drunkard and the beggar, give
The temple of the grape with red wine stored!
Beside a river seat thee on the sward;
It floweth past-so flows thy life away,
So sweetly, swiftly, fleets our little day--
Swift, but enough for me!
Look upon all the gold in the world's mart,
On all the tears the world hath shed in vain
Shall they not satisfy thy craving heart?
I have enough of loss, enough of gain;
I have my Love, what more can I obtain?
Mine is the joy of her companionship
Whose healing lip is laid upon my lip--
This is enough for me!
I pray thee send not forth my naked soul
From its poor house to seek for Paradise
Though heaven and earth before me God unroll,
Back to thy village still my spirit flies.
And, Hafiz, at the door of Kismet lies
No just complaint-a mind like water clear,
A song that swells and dies upon the ear,
These are enough for thee!

VII

FROM the garden of Heaven a western breeze
Blows through the leaves of my garden of earth;
With a love like a huri I'ld take mine ease,
And wine! bring me wine, the giver of mirth!
To-day the beggar may boast him a king,
His banqueting-hall is the ripening field,
And his tent the shadow that soft clouds fling.
A tale of April the meadows unfold--
Ah, foolish for future credit to slave,
And to leave the cash of the present untold!
Build a fort with wine where thy heart may brave
The assault of the world; when thy fortress falls,
The relentless victor shall knead from thy dust
The bricks that repair its crumbling walls.
Trust not the word of that foe in the fight!
Shall the lamp of the synagogue lend its flame
To set thy monastic torches alight?
Drunken am I, yet place not my name
In the Book of Doom, nor pass judgment on it;
Who knows what the secret finger of Fate
Upon his own white forehead has writ!
And when the spirit of Hafiz has fled,
Follow his bier with a tribute of sighs;
Though the ocean of sin has closed o'er his head,
He may find a place in God's Paradise.

VIII

THF rose has flushed red, the bud has burst,
And drunk with joy is the nightingale
Hail, Sufis! lovers of wine, all hail!
For wine is proclaimed to a world athirst.
Like a rock your repentance seemed to you;
Behold the marvel! of what avail
Was your rock, for a goblet has cleft it in two!
Bring wine for the king and the slave at the gate
Alike for all is the banquet spread,
And drunk and sober are warmed and fed.
When the feast is done and the night grows late,
And the second door of the tavern gapes wide,
The low and. the mighty must bow the head
'Neath the archway of Life, to meet what . . . outside?
Except thy road through affliction pass,
None may reach the halting-station of mirth
God's treaty: Am I not Lord of the earth?
Man sealed with a sigh: Ah yes, alas!
Nor with Is nor Is Not let thy mind contend
Rest assured all perfection of mortal birth
In the great Is Not at the last shall end.
For Assaf's pomp, and the steeds of the wind,
And the speech of birds, down the wind have fled,
And he that was lord of them all is dead;
Of his mastery nothing remains behind.
Shoot not thy feathered arrow astray!
A bow-shot's length through the air it has sped,
And then . . . dropped down in the dusty way.
But to thee, oh Hafiz, to thee, oh Tongue
That speaks through the mouth of the slender reed,
What thanks to thee when thy verses speed
From lip to lip, and the song thou hast sung?

IX

OH Cup-bearer, set my glass afire
With the light of wine! oh minstrel, sing:
The world fulfilleth my heart's desire!
Reflected within the goblet's ring
I see the glow of my Love's red cheek,
And scant of wit, ye who fail to seek
The pleasures that wine alone can bring!
Let not the blandishments be checked
That slender beauties lavish on me,
Until in the grace of the cypress decked,
My Love shall come like a ruddy pine-tree
He cannot perish whose heart doth hold
The life love breathes-though my days are told,
In the Book of the World lives my constancy.
But when the Day of Reckoning is here,
I fancy little will be the gain
That accrues to the Sheikh for his lawful cheer,
Or to me for the draught forbidden I drain.
The drunken eyes of my comrades shine,
And I too, stretching my hand to the wine,
On the neck of drunkenness loosen the rein.
Oh wind, if thou passest the garden close
Of my heart's dear master, carry for me
The message I send to him, wind that blows!
"Why hast thou thrust from thy memory
My hapless name?" breathe low in his ear;
"Knowest thou not that the day is near
When nor thou nor any shall think on me?"
If with tears, oh Hafiz, thine eyes are wet,
Scatter them round thee like grain, and snare
The Bird of joy when it comes to thy net.
As the tulip shrinks from the cold night air,
So shrank my heart and quailed in the shade
Oh Song-bird Fortune, the toils are laid,
When shall thy bright wings lie pinioned there?
The heavens' green sea and the bark therein,
The slender bark of the crescent moon,
Are lost in thy bounty's radiant noon,
Vizir and pilgrim, Kawameddin!

X

SINGER, sweet Singer, fresh notes strew,
Fresh and afresh and new and new!
Heart-gladdening wine thy lips imbrue,
Fresh and afresh and new and new!
Saki, thy radiant feet I hail;
Flush with red wine the goblets pale,
Flush our pale cheeks to drunken hue,
Fresh and afresh and new and new!
Then with thy love to toy with thee,
Rest thee, ah, rest! where none can see
Seek thy delight, for kisses sue,
Fresh and afresh and new and new!
Here round thy life the vine is twined;
Drink I for elsewhere what wine wilt find?
Drink to her name, to hours that flew,
Hours ever fresh and new and new!
She that has stolen my heart from me,
How does she wield her empery?
Paints and adorns and scents her too,
Fresh and afresh and new and new!
Wind of the dawn that passest by,
Swift to the street of my fairy hie,
Whisper the tale of Hafiz true,
Fresh and afresh and new and new!

XI

MIRTH, Spring, to linger in a garden fair,
What more has earth to give? All ye that wait,
Where is the Cup-bearer, the flagon where?
When pleasant hours slip from the hand of Fate,
Reckon each hour as a certain gain;
Who seeks to know the end of mortal care
Shall question his experience in vain.
Thy fettered life hangs on a single thread--
Some comfort for thy present ills devise,
But those that time may bring thou shalt not dread.
Waters of Life and Irem's Paradise--
What meaning do our dreams and pomp convey,
Save that beside a mighty stream, wide-fed,
We sit and sing of wine and go our way!
The modest and the merry shall be seen
To boast their kinship with a single voice;
There are no differences to choose between,
Thou art but flattering thy soul with choice!
Who knows the Curtain's secret? . . . Heaven is mute
And yet with Him who holds the Curtain, e'en
With Him, oh Braggart, thou would'st raise dispute!
Although His thrall shall miss the road and err,
'Tis but to teach him wisdom through distress,
Else Pardon and Compassionate Mercy were
But empty syllables and meaningless.
The Zealot thirsts for draughts of Kausar's wine,
And Hafiz doth an earthly cup prefer--
But what, between the two, is God's design?

XII

WHERE is my ruined life, and where the fame
Of noble deeds?
Look on my long-drawn road, and whence it came,
And where it leads!
Can drunkenness be linked to piety
And good repute?
Where is the preacher's holy monody,
Where is the lute?
From monkish cell and lying garb released,
Oh heart of mine,
Where is the Tavern fane, the Tavern priest,
Where is the wine?
Past days of meeting, let the memory
Of you be sweet!
Where are those glances fled, and where for me
Reproaches meet?
His friend's bright face warms not the enemy
When love is done--
Where is the extinguished lamp that made night day,
Where is the sun?
Balm to mine eyes the dust, my head I bow
Upon thy stair.
Where shall I go, where from thy presence? thou
Art everywhere.
Look not upon the dimple of her chin,
Danger lurks there!
Where wilt thou hide, oh trembling heart, fleeing in
Such mad haste--where?
To steadfastness and patience, friend, ask not
If Hafiz keep--
Patience and steadfastness I have forgot,
And where is sleep?

XIII

LADY that hast my heart within thy hand,
Thou heed'st me not; and if thou turn thine ear
Unto the wise, thou shalt not understand--
Behold the fault is thine, our words were clear.
For all the tumult in my drunken brain
Praise God! who trieth not His slave in vain;
Nor this world nor the next shall make me fear!
My weary heart eternal silence keeps--
I know not who has slipped into my heart;
Though I am silent, one within me weeps.
My soul shall rend the painted veil apart.
Where art thou, Minstrel! touch thy saddest strings
Till clothed in music such as sorrow sings,
My mournful story from thy zither sweeps.
Lo, not at any time I lent mine ear
To hearken to the glories of the earth;
Only thy beauty to mine eyes was dear.
Sleep has forsaken me, and from the birth
Of night till day I weave bright dreams of thee;
Drunk with a hundred nights of revelry,
Where is the tavern that sets forth such cheer!
My heart, sad hermit, stains the cloister floor
With drops of blood, the sweat of anguish dire;
Ah, wash me clean, and o'er my body pour
Love's generous wine! the worshippers of fire
Have bowed them down and magnified my name,
For in my heart there burns a living flame,
Transpiercing Death's impenetrable door.
What instrument through last night's silence rang?
My life into his lay the minstrel wove,
And filled my brain with the sweet song he sang.
It was the proclamation of thy love
That shook the strings of Life's most secret lyre,
And still my breast heaves with last night's desire,
For countless echoes from that music sprang.
And ever, since the time that Hafiz heard
His Lady's voice, as from a rocky hill
Reverberates the softly spoken word,
So echoes of desire his bosom fill.

XIV

THE nightingale with drops of his heart's blood
Had nourished the red rose, then came a wind,
And catching at the boughs in envious mood,
A hundred thorns about his heart entwined.
Like to the parrot crunching sugar, good
Seemed the world to me who could not stay
The wind of Death that swept my hopes away.
Light of mine eyes and harvest of my heart,
And mine at least in changeless memory!
Ah, when he found it easy to depart,
He left the harder pilgrimage to me!
Oh Camel-driver, though the cordage start,
For God's sake help me lift my fallen load,
And Pity be my comrade of the road!
My face is seamed with dust, mine eyes are wet.
Of dust and tears the turquoise firmament
Kneadeth the bricks for joy's abode; and yet . . .
Alas, and weeping yet I make lament!
Because the moon her jealous glances set
Upon the bow-bent eyebrows of my moon,
He sought a lodging in the grave-too soon!
I had not castled, and the time is gone.
What shall I play? Upon the chequered floor
Of Night and Day, Death won the game-forlorn
And careless now, Hafiz can lose no more.

XV

RETURN! that to a heart wounded full sore
Valiance and strength may enter in; return!
And Life shall pause at the deserted door,
The cold dead body breathe again and burn.
Oh come! and touch mine eyes, of thy sweet grace,
For I am blind to all but to thy face.
Open the gates and bid me see once more!
Like to a cruel Ethiopian band,
Sorrow despoiled the kingdom of my heart
Return! glad Lord of Rome, and free the land;
Before thine arms the foe shall break and part.
See now, I hold a mirror to mine eyes,
And nought but thy reflection therein lies;
The glass speaks truth to them that understand.
Night is with child, hast thou not heard men say?
"Night is with child! what will she bring to birth?"
I sit and ask the stars when thou'rt away.
Oh come! and when the nightingale of mirth
Pipes in the Spring-awakened garden ground,
In Hafiz' heart shall ring a sweeter sound,
Diviner nightingales attune their lay.

XVI

WHAT is wrought in the forge of the living and life--
All things are nought! Ho! fill me the bowl,
For nought is the gear of the world and the strife!
One passion has quickened the heart and the soul,
The Beloved's presence alone they have sought--
Love at least exists; yet if Love were not,
Heart and soul would sink to the common lot--
All things are nought!
Like an empty cup is the fate of each,
That each must fill from Life's mighty flood;
Nought thy toil, though to Paradise gate thou reach,
If Another has filled up thy cup with blood;
Neither shade from the sweet-fruited trees could be bought
By thy praying-oh Cypress of Truth, dost not see
That Sidreh and Tuba were nought, and to thee
All then were nought!
The span of thy life is as five little days,
Brief hours and swift in this halting-place;
Rest softly, ah rest! while the Shadow delays,
For Time's self is nought and the dial's face.
On the lip of Oblivion we linger, and short
Is the way from the Lip to the Mouth where we pass
While the moment is thine, fill, oh Saki, the glass
Ere all is nought!
Consider the rose that breaks into flower,
Neither repines though she fade and die--
The powers of the world endure for an hour,
But nought shall remain of their majesty.
Be not too sure of your crown, you who thought
That virtue was easy and recompense yours;
From the monastery to the wine-tavern doors
The way is nought
What though I, too, have tasted the salt of my tears,
Though I, too, have burnt in the fires of grief,
Shall I cry aloud to unheeding ears?
Mourn and be silent! nought brings relief.
Thou, Hafiz, art praised for the songs thou hast wrought,
But bearing a stained or an honoured name,
The lovers of wine shall make light of thy fame--
All things are nought!

XVII

LAY not reproach at the drunkard's door
Oh Fanatic, thou that art pure of soul;
Not thine on the page of life to enrol
The faults of others! Or less or more
I have swerved from my path--keep thou to thine own
For every man when he reaches the goal
Shall reap the harvest his hands have sown.
Leave me the hope of a former grace--
Till the curtain is lifted none can tell
Whether in Heaven or deepest Hell,
Fair or vile, shall appear his face.
Alike the drunk and the strict of fare
For his mistress yearns--in the mosque Love doth dwell
And the church, for his lodging is everywhere.
If without the house of devotion I stand,
I am not the first to throw wide the door
My father opened it long before,
The eternal Paradise slipped from his hand.
All you that misconstrue my words' intent,
I lie on the bricks of the tavern floor,
And a brick shall serve me for argument.
Heaven's garden future treasures may yield--
Ah, make the most of earth's treasury!
The flickering shade of the willow-tree,
And the grass-grown lip of the fruitful field.
Trust not in deeds--the Eternal Day
Shall reveal the Creator's sentence on thee;
But till then, what His finger has writ, who can say.
Bring the cup in thine hand to the Judgment-seat;
Thou shalt rise, oh Hafiz, to Heaven's gate
From the tavern where thou hast tarried late.
And if thou hast worshipped wine, thou shalt meet
The reward that the Faithful attain;
If such thy life, then fear not thy fate,
Thou shalt not have lived and worshipped in vain.

XVIII

SLAVES of thy shining eyes are even those
That diadems of might and empire bear;
Drunk with the wine that from thy red lip flows,
Are they that e'en the grape's delight forswear.
Drift, like the wind across a violet bed,
Before thy many lovers, weeping low,
And clad like violets in blue robes of woe,
Who feel thy wind-blown hair and bow the head.
Thy messenger the breath of dawn, and mine
A stream of tears, since lover and beloved
Keep not their secret; through my verses shine,
Though other lays my flower's grace have proved
And countless nightingales have sung thy praise.
When veiled beneath thy curls thou passest, see,
To right and leftward those that welcome thee
Have bartered peace and rest on thee to gaze!
But thou that knowest God by heart, away!
Wine-drunk, love-drunk, we inherit Paradise,
His mercy is for sinners; hence and pray
Where wine thy cheek red as red erghwan dyes,
And leave the cell to faces sinister.
Oh Khizr, whose happy feet bathed in life's fount,
Help one who toils afoot-the horsemen mount
And hasten on their way; I scarce can stir.
Ah, loose me not! ah, set not Hafiz free
From out the bondage of thy gleaming hair!
Safe only those, safe, and at liberty,
That fast enchained in thy linked ringlets are.
But from the image of his dusty cheek
Learn this from Hafiz: proudest heads shall bend,
And dwellers on the threshold of a friend
Be crown��d with the dust that crowns the meek.

XIX

WHAT drunkenness is this that brings me hope--
Who was the Cup-bearer, and whence the wine?
That minstrel singing with full voice divine,
What lay was his? for 'mid the woven rope
Of song, he brought word from my Friend to me
Set to his melody.
The wind itself bore joy to Solomon;
The Lapwing flew from Sheba's garden close,
Bringing good tidings of its queen and rose.
Take thou the cup and go where meadows span
The plain, whither the bird with tuneful throat
Has brought Spring's sweeter note.
Welcome, oh rose, and full-blown eglantine!
The violets their scented gladness fling,
Jasmin breathes purity-art sorrowing
Like an unopened bud, oh heart of mine?
The wind of dawn that sets closed blossoms free
Brings its warm airs to thee.
Saki, thy kiss shall still my bitter cry!
Lift up your grief-bowed heads, all ye that weep,
The Healer brings joy's wine-cup--oh, drink deep!
Disciple of the Tavern-priest am I;
The pious Sheikh may promise future bliss,
He brings me where joy is.
The greedy glances of a Tartar horde
To me seemed kind--my foeman spared me not
Though one poor robe was all that I had got.
But Heaven served Hafiz, as a slave his lord,
And when he fled through regions desolate,
Heaven brought him to thy gate.

XX

FROM out the street of So-and-So,
Oh wind, bring perfumes sweet to me
For I am sick and pale with woe;
Oh bring me rest from misery!
The dust that lies before her door,
Love's long desired elixir, pour
Upon this wasted heart of mine--
Bring me a promise and a sign!
Between the ambush of mine eyes
And my heart's fort there's enmity--
Her eye-brow's bow, the dart that flies,
Beneath her lashes, bring to me!
Sorrow and absence, glances cold,
Before my time have made me old;
A wine-cup from the hand of Youth
Bring me for pity and for ruth!
Then shall all unbelievers taste
A draught or two of that same wine;
But if they like it not, oh haste!
And let joy's flowing cup be mine.
Cup-bearer, seize to-day, nor wait
Until to-morrow!--or from Fate
Some passport to felicity,
Some written surety bring to me!
My heart threw back the veil of woe,
Consoled by Hafiz melody:
From out the street of So-and-So,
Oh wind, bring perfumes sweet to me!

XXI

NOT all the sum of earthly happiness
Is worth the bowed head of a moment's pain,
And if I sell for wine my dervish dress,
Worth more than what I sell is what I gain!
Land where my Lady dwells, thou holdest me
Enchained; else Fars were but a barren soil,
Not worth the journey over land and sea,
Not worth the toil!
Down in the quarter where they sell red wine,
My holy carpet scarce would fetch a cup
How brave a pledge of piety is mine,
Which is not worth a goblet foaming up!
Mine enemy heaped scorn on me and said
"Forth from the tavern gate!" Why am I thrust
From off the threshold? is my fallen head
Not worth the dust?
Wash white that travel-stained sad robe of thine!
Where word and deed alike one colour bear,
The grape's fair purple garment shall outshine
Thy many-coloured rags and tattered gear.
Full easy seemed the sorrow of the sea
Lightened by hope of gain--hope flew too fast
A hundred pearls were poor indemnity,
Not worth the blast.
The Sultan's crown, with priceless jewels set,
Encircles fear of death and constant dread
It is a head-dress much desired--and yet
Art sure 'tis worth the danger to the head?
'Twere best for thee to hide thy face from those
That long for thee; the Conqueror's reward
Is never worth the army's long-drawn woes,
Worth fire and sword.
Ah, seek the treasure of a mind at rest
And store it in the treasury of Ease;
Not worth a loyal heart, a tranquil breast,
Were all the riches of thy lands and seas!
Ah, scorn, like Hafiz, the delights of earth,
Ask not one grain of favour from the base,
Two hundred sacks of jewels were not worth
Thy soul's disgrace

XXII

THE rose is not fair without the beloved's face,
Nor merry the Spring without the sweet laughter of wine;
The path through the fields, and winds from a flower strewn place,
Without her bright check, which glows like a tulip fine,
Nor winds softly blowing, fields deep in corn, are fair.
And lips like to sugar, grace like a flower that sways,
Are nought without kisses many and dalliance sweet;
If thousands of voices sang not the rose's praise,
The joy of the cypress her opening bud to greet,
Nor dancing of boughs nor blossoming rose were fair.
Though limned by most skilful fingers, no pictures please
Unless the beloved's image is drawn therein;
The garden and flowers, and hair flowing loose on the breeze,
Unless to my Lady's side I may strive and win,
Nor garden, nor flowers, nor loose flying curls are fair.
Hast seen at a marriage-feast, when the mirth runs high,
The revellers scatter gold with a careless hand?
The gold of thy heart, oh Hafiz, despised doth lie,
Not worthy thy love to be cast by a drunken band
At the feet of her who is fairer than all that's fair.

XXIII

My lady, that did change this house of mine
Into a heaven when that she dwelt therein,
From head to foot an angel's grace divine
Enwrapped her; pure she was, spotless of sin;
Fair as the moon her countenance, and wise;
Lords of the kind and tender glance, her eyes
With an abounding loveliness did shine.
Then said my heart: Here will I take my rest!
This city breathes her love in every part.
But to a distant bourne was she addressed,
Alas! he knew it not, alas, poor heart!
The influence of some cold malignant star
Has loosed my hand that held her, lone and far
She joumeyeth that lay upon my breast.
Not only did she lift my bosom's veil,
Reveal its inmost secret, but her grace
Drew back the curtain from Heaven's mansions pale,
And gave her there an eternal dwelling-place.
The flower-strewn river lip and meadows fair,
The rose herself but fleeting treasures were,
Regret and Winter follow in their trail.
Dear were the days which perished with my friend--
Ah, what is left of life, now she is dead,
All wisdomless and profitless I spend!
The nightingale his own life's blood doth shed,
When, to the kisses of the wind, the morn
Unveils the rose's splendour-with his torn
And jealous breast he dyes her petals red.
Yet pardon her, oh Heart, for poor wert thou,
A humble dervish on the dusty way;
Crowned with the crown of empire was her brow,
And in the realms of beauty she bore sway.
But all the joy that Hafiz' hand might hold,
Lay in the beads that morn and eve he told,
Worn with God's praise; and see! he holds it now.

XXIV

NOT one is filled with madness like to mine
In all the taverns! my soiled robe lies here,
There my neglected book, both pledged for wine.
With dust my heart is thick, that should be clear,
A glass to mirror forth the Great King's face;
One ray of light from out Thy dwelling-place
To pierce my night, oh God! and draw me near.
From out mine eyes unto my garment's hem
A river flows; perchance my cypress-tree
Beside that stream may rear her lofty stem,
Watering her roots with tears. Ah, bring to me
The wine vessel! since my Love's cheek is hid,
A flood of grief comes from my heart unbid,
And turns mine eyes into a bitter sea!
Nay, by the hand that sells me wine, I vow
No more the brimming cup shall touch my lips,
Until my mistress with her radiant brow
Adorns my feast-until Love's secret slips
From her, as from the candle's tongue of flame,
Though I, the sing��d moth, for very shame,
Dare not extol Love's light without eclipse.
Red wine I worship, and I worship her--
Speak not to me of anything beside,
For nought but these on earth or heaven I care.
What though the proud narcissus flowers defied
Thy shining eyes to prove themselves more bright,
Yet heed them not! those that are clear of sight
Follow not them to whom all light's denied.
Before the tavern door a Christian sang
To sound of pipe and drum, what time the earth
Awaited the white dawn, and gaily rang
Upon mine ear those harbingers of mirth:
"If the True Faith be such as thou dost say,
Alas! my Hafiz, that this sweet To-day
Should bring unknown To-morrow to the birth!"

XXV

THE days of absence and the bitter nights
Of separation, all are at an end!
Where is the influence of the star that blights
My hope? The omen answers: At an end!
Autumn's abundance, creeping Autumn's mirth,
Are ended and forgot when o'er the earth
The wind of Spring with soft warm feet doth wend.
The Day of Hope, hid beneath Sorrow's veil,
Has shown its face--ah, cry that all may hear:
Come forth! the powers of night no more prevail!
Praise be to God, now that the rose is near
With long-desired and flaming coronet,
The cruel stinging thorns all men forget,
The wind of Winter ends its proud career.
The long confusion of the nights that were,
Anguish that dwelt within my heart, is o'er;
'Neath the protection of my lady's hair
Grief nor disquiet come to me no more.
What though her curls wrought all my misery,
My lady's gracious face can comfort me,
And at the end give what I sorrow for.
Light-hearted to the tavern let me go,
Where laughs the pipe, the merry cymbals kiss;
Under the history of all my woe,
My mistress sets her hand and writes: Finis.
Oh, linger not, nor trust the inconstant days
That promised: Where thou art thy lady stays--
The tale of separation ends with this!
Joy's certain path, oh Saki, thou hast shown--
Long may thy cup be full, thy days be fair!
Trouble and sickness from my breast have flown,
Order and health thy wisdom marshals there.
Not one that numbered Hafiz' name among
The great-unnumbered were his tears, unsung;
Praise him that sets an end to endless care!

XXVI

THE secret draught of wine and love repressed
Are joys foundationless--then come whate'er
May come, slave to the grape I stand confessed!
Unloose, oh friend, the knot of thy heart's care,
Despite the warning that the Heavens reveal!
For all his thought, never astronomer
That loosed the knot of Fate those Heavens conceal!
Not all the changes that thy days unfold
Shall rouse thy wonder; Time's revolving sphere
Over a thousand lives like thine has rolled.
That cup within thy fingers, dost not hear
The voices of dead kings speak through the clay
Kobad, Bahman, Djemshid, their dust is here,
"Gently upon me set thy lips!" they say.
What man can tell where Kaus and Kai have gone?
Who knows where even now the restless wind
Scatters the dust of Djem's imperial throne?
And where the tulip, following close behind
The feet of Spring, her scarlet chalice rears,
There Ferhad for the love of Shirin pined,
Dyeing the desert red with his heart's tears.
Bring, bring the cup! drink we while yet we may
To our soul's ruin the forbidden draught
Perhaps a treasure-trove is hid away
Among those ruins where the wine has laughed!--
Perhaps the tulip knows the fickleness
Of Fortune's smile, for on her stalk's green shaft
She bears a wine-cup through the wilderness.
The murmuring stream of Ruknabad, the breeze
That blows from out Mosalla's fair pleasaunce,
Summon me back when I would seek heart's ease,
Travelling afar; what though Love's countenance
Be turned full harsh and sorrowful on me,
I care not so that Time's unfriendly glance
Still from my Lady's beauty turned be.
Like Hafiz, drain the goblet cheerfully
While minstrels touch the lute and sweetly sing,
For all that makes thy heart rejoice in thee
Hangs of Life's single, slender, silken string.

XXVII

My friend has fled! alas, my friend has fled,
And left me nought but tears and pain behind!
Like smoke above a flame caught by the wind,
So rose she from my breast and forth she sped.
Drunk with desire, I seized Love's cup divine,
But she that held it poured the bitter wine
Of Separation into it and fled.
The hunter she, and I the helpless prey;
Wounded and sick, round me her toils she drew,
My heart into a sea of sorrow threw,
Bound up her camel loads and fled away.
Fain had I laid an ambush for her soul,
She saw and vanished, and the timid foal,
Good Fortune, slipped the rein and would not stay.
My heart was all too narrow for my woe,
And tears of blood my weeping eyes have shed,
A crimson stream across the desert sped,
Rising from out my sad heart's overflow.
She knew not what Love's meanest slave can tell:
"'Tis sweet to serve!" but threw me a Farewell,
Kissing my threshold, turned, and cried "I go!"
In the clear dawn, before the east was red,
Before the rose had torn her veil in two,
A nightingale through Hafiz' garden flew,
Stayed but to fill its song with tears, and fled.

XXVIII

HAST thou forgotten when thy stolen glance
Was turned to me, when on my happy face
Clearly thy love was writ, which doth enhance
All happiness? or when my sore disgrace
(Hast thou forgot?) drew from thine eyes reproof,
And made thee hold thy sweet red lips aloof,
Dowered, like Jesus's breath, with healing grace?
Hast thou forgotten how the glorious
Swift nights flew past, the cup of dawn brimmed high?
My love and I alone, God favouring us!
Andwhen she like a waning moon did lie,
And Steep had drawn his coif about her brow,
Hast thou forgot? Heaven's crescent moon would bow
The head, and in her service pace the sky!
Hast thou forgotten, when a sojourner
Within the tavern gates and drunk with wine,
I found Love's passionate wisdom hidden there,
Which in the mosque none even now divine?
The goblet's carbuncle (hast thou forgot?)
Laughed out aloud, and speech flew hot
And fast between thy ruby lips and mine!
Hast thou forgotten when thy cheek's dear torch
Lighted the beacon of desire in me,
And when my heart, like foolish moths that scorch
Their wings and yet return, turned all to thee?
Within the banquet-hall of Good Repute
(Hast thou forgot?) the wine's self-pressed my suit,
And filled the morn with drunken jollity!
Hast thou forgotten when thou laid'st aright
The uncut gems of Hafiz' inmost thought,
And side by side thy sweet care strung the bright
Array of verse on verse-hast thou forgot?

XXIX

FROM Canaan Joseph shall return, whose face
A little time was hidden: weep no more--
Oh, weep no more! in sorrow's dwelling-place
The roses yet shall spring from the bare floor!
And heart bowed down beneath a secret pain--
Oh stricken heart! joy shall return again,
Peace to the love-tossed brain--oh, weep no more!
Oh, weep no more! for once again Life's Spring
Shall throne her in the meadows green, and o'er
Her head the minstrel of the night shall fling
A canopy of rose leaves, score on score.
The secret of the world thou shalt not learn,
And yet behind the veil Love's fire may burn--
Weep'st thou? let hope return and weep no more!
To-day may pass, to-morrow pass, before
The turning wheel give me my heart's desire;
Heaven's self shall change, and turn not evermore
The universal wheel of Fate in ire.
Oh Pilgr'm nearing Mecca's holy fane,
The thorny maghilan wounds thee in vain,
The desert blooms again--oh, weep no more!
What though the river of mortality
Round the unstable house of Life doth roar,
Weep not, oh heart, Noah shall pilot thee,
And guide thine ark to the desir��d shore!
The goal lies far, and perilous is thy road,
Yet every path leads to that same abode
Where thou shalt drop thy load--oh, weep no more!
Mine enemies have persecuted me,
My Love has turned and fled from out my door--
God counts our tears and knows our misery;
Ah, weep not! He has heard thy weeping sore.
And chained in poverty and plunged in night,
Oh Hafiz, take thy Koran and recite
Litanies infinite, and weep no more!

XXX

ALL hail, Shiraz, hail! oh site without peer!
May God be the Watchman before thy gate,
That the feet of Misfortune enter not here!
Lest my Ruknabad be left desolate,
A hundred times, "God forbid!" I pray;
Its limpid stream where the shadows wait
Like the fount of Khizr giveth life for aye.
'Twixt Jafrabad and Mosalla's close
Flies the north wind laden with ambergris--
Oh, come to Shiraz when the north wind blows!
There abideth the angel Gabriel's peace
With him who is lord of its treasures; the fame
Of the sugar of Egypt shall fade and cease,
For the breath of our beauties has put it to shame.
Oh wind that blows from the sun-rising,
What news of the maid with the drunken eyes,
What news of the lovely maid dost thou bring?
Bid me not wake from my dream and arise,
In dreams I have rested my head at her feet--
When stillness unbroken around me lies,
The vision of her makes my solitude sweet.
If for wine the Cup-bearer pour forth my blood,
As the milk from a mother's bosom flows,
At his word let my heart yield its crimson flood.
But, Hafiz, Hafiz! thou art of those
For ever fearing lest absence be near;
For the days when thou held'st the Beloved close,
Why rise not thy thanks so that all may hear?

XXXI

THE breath of Dawn's musk-strewing wind shall blow,
The ancient world shall turn to youth again,
And other wines from out Spring's chalice flow;
Wine-red, the judas-tree shall set before
The pure white jessamine a brimming cup,
And wind flowers lift their scarlet chalice up
For the star-pale narcissus to adore.
The long-drawn tyranny of grief shall pass,
Parting shall end in meeting, the lament
Of the sad bird that sang "Alas, alas!"
Shall reach the rose in her red-curtained tent.
Forth from the mosque! the tavern calls to me!
Would'st hinder us? The preacher's homily
Is long, but life will soon be spent!
Ah, foolish Heart! the pleasures of To-day,
If thou abandon, will To-morrow stand
Thy surety for the gold thou'st thrown away?
In Sha'aban the troops of Grief disband,
And crown the hours with wine's red coronet--
The sun of merriment ere long will set,
And meagre Ramazan is close at hand!
Dear is the rose--now, now her sweets proclaim,
While yet the purple petals blush and blow;
Hither adown the path of Spring she came,
And by the path of Autumn she will go.
Now, while we listen, Minstrel, tune thy lay!
Thyself hast said: "The Present steals away
The Future comes, and bringing--what? Dost know?"
Summoned by thy melody did Hafiz rise
Out of the darkness near thy lips to dwell;
Back to the dark again his pathway lies--
Sing out, sing clear, and singing cry: Farewell!

XXXII

UPON a branch of the straight cypress-tree
Once more the patient nightingale doth rest:
"Oh Rose!" he cries, "evil be turned from thee!
I sing thee all men's thanks; thou blossomest
And hope springs up in every joyless heart--
Let not the nightingale lament apart,
Nor with thy proud thorns wound his faithful breast."
I will not mourn my woeful banishment,
He that has hungered for his lady's face
Shall, when she cometh, know a great content.
The Zealot seeks a heavenly dwelling-place,
Huris to welcome him in Paradise;
Here at the tavern gate my heaven lies,
I need no welcome but my lady's grace.
Better to drink red wine than tears, say I,
While the lute sings; and if one bid thee cease,
"God is the merciful!" thou shalt reply.
To some, life brings but joy and endless ease;
Ah, let them laugh although the jest be vain!
For me the source of pleasure lay in pain,
And weeping for my lady I found peace.
Hafiz, why art thou ever telling o'er
The tale of absence and of sorrow's night?
Knowest thou not that parting goes before
All meeting, and from darkness comes the light!

XXXIII

THE jewel of the secret treasury
Is still the same as once it was; the seal
Upon Love's treasure casket, and the key,
Are still what thieves can neither break nor steal;
Still among lovers loyalty is found,
And therefore faithful eyes still strew the ground
With the same pearls that mine once strewed for thee.
Question the wandering winds and thou shalt know
That from the dusk until the dawn doth break,
My consolation is that still they blow
The perfume of thy curls across my cheek.
A dart from thy bent brows has wounded me--
Ah, come! my heart still waiteth helplessly,
Has waited ever, till thou heal its pain.
If seekers after rubies there were none,
Still to the dark mines where the gems had lain
Would pierce, as he was wont, the radiant sun,
Setting the stones ablaze. Would'st hide the stain
Of my heart's blood? Blood-red the ruby glows
(And whence it came my wounded bosom knows)
Upon thy lips to show what thou hast done.
Let not thy curls waylay my pilgrim soul,
As robbers use, and plunder me no more!
Years join dead year, but thine extortionate rule
Is still the same, merciless as before.
Sing, Hafiz, sing again of eyes that weep!
For still the fountain of our tears is deep
As once it was, and still with tears is full.

XXXIV

LAST night I dreamed that angels stood without
The tavern door, and knocked in vain, and wept;
They took the clay of Adam, and, methought,
Moulded a cup therewith while all men slept.
Oh dwellers in the halls of Chastity!
You brought Love's passionate red wine to me,
Down to the dust I am, your bright feet stept.
For Heaven's self was all too weak to bear
The burden of His love God laid on it,
He turned to seek a messenger elsewhere,
And in the Book of Fate my name was writ.
Between my Lord and me such concord lies.
As makes the Huris glad in Paradise,
With songs of praise through the green glades they flit.
A hundred dreams of Fancy's garnered store
Assail me--Father Adam went astray
Tempted by one poor grain of corn! Wherefore
Absolve and pardon him that turns away
Though the soft breath of Truth reaches his ears,
For two-and-seventy jangling creeds he hears,
And loud-voiced Fable calls him ceaselessly.
That, that is not the flame of Love's true fire
Which makes the torchlight shadows dance in rings,
But where the radiance draws the moth's desire
And send him forth with scorched and drooping wings.
The heart of one who dwells retired shall break,
Rememb'ring a black mole and a red cheek,
And his life ebb, sapped at its secret springs.
Yet since the earliest time that man has sought
To comb the locks of Speech, his goodly bride,
Not one, like Hafiz, from the face of Thought
Has torn the veil of Ignorance aside.

XXXV

FORGET not when dear friend to friend returned,
Forget not days gone by, forget them not!
My mouth has tasted bitterness, and learned
To drink the envenomed cup of mortal lot;
Forget not when a sweeter draught was mine,
Loud rose the songs of them that drank that wine--
Forget them not!
Forget not loyal lovers long since dead,
Though faith and loyalty should be forgot,
Though the earth cover the enamoured head,
And in the dust wisdom and passion rot.
My friends have thrust me from their memory;
Vainly a thousand thousand times I cry:
Forget me not!
Weary I turn me to my bonds again.
Once there were hands strong to deliver me,
Forget not when they broke a poor slave's chain!
Though from mine eyes tears flow unceasingly,
I think on them whose rose gardens are set
Beside the Zindeh Rud, and I forget
Life's misery.
Sorrow has made her lair in my breast,
And undisturbed she lies--forget them not
That drove her forth like to a hunted beast!
Hafiz, thou and thy tears shall be forgot,
Lock fast the gates of thy sad heart! But those
That held the key to thine unspoken woes--
Forget them not!

XXXVI

BELOVED, who has bid thee ask no more
How fares my life? to play the enemy
And ask not where he dwells that was thy friend?
Thou art the breath of mercy passing o'er
The whole wide world, and the offender I
Ah, let the rift my tears have channelled end,
Question the past no more!
If thou would'st know the secret of Love's fire,
It shall be manifest unto thine eyes:
Question the torch flame burning steadfastly,
But ask no more the sweet wind's wayward choir.
Ask me of faith and love that never dies;
Darius, Alexander's sovereignty,
I sing of these no more.
Ask not the monk to give thee Truth's pure gold,
He hides no riches 'neath his lying guise;
And ask not him to teach thee alchemy
Whose treasure-house is bare, his hearth-stone cold.
Ask to what goal the wandering dervish hies,
They knew not his desire who counselled thee:
Question his rags no more!
And in their learned books thou'lt seek in vain
The key to Love's locked gateway; Heart grown wise
In pain and sorrow, ask no remedy!
But when the time of roses comes again,
Take what it gives, oh Hafiz, ere it flies,
And ask not why the hour has brought it thee,
And wherefore ask no more!

XXXVII

ARISE! and fill a golden goblet up
Until the wine of pleasure overflow,
Before into thy skull's pale empty cup
A grimmer Cup-bearer the dust shall throw.
Yea, to the Vale of Silence we must come;
Yet shall the flagon laugh and Heaven's dome
Thrill with an answering echo ere we go!
Thou knowest that the riches of this field
Make no abiding, let the goblet's fire
Consume the fleeting harvest Earth may yield!
Oh Cypress-tree! green home of Love's sweet choir,
When I unto the dust I am have passed,
Forget thy former wantonness, and cast
Thy shadow o'er the dust of my desire.
Flow, bitter tears, and wash me clean! for they
Whose feet are set upon the road that lies
'Twixt Earth and Heaven Thou shalt be pure," they say,
"Before unto the pure thou lift thine eyes."
Seeing but himself, the Zealot sees but sin;
Grief to the mirror of his soul let in,
Oh Lord, and cloud it with the breath of sighs!
No tainted eye shall gaze upon her face,
No glass but that of an unsullied heart
Shall dare reflect my Lady's perfect grace.
Though like to snakes that from the herbage start,
Thy curling locks have wounded me full sore,
Thy red lips hold the power of the bezoar--
Ah, touch and heat me where I lie apart!
And when from her the wind blows perfume sweet,
Tear, Hafiz, like the rose, thy robe in two,
And cast thy rags beneath her flying feet,
To deck the place thy mistress passes through.

XXXVIII

I CEASE not from desire till my desire
Is satisfied; or let my mouth attain
My love's red mouth, or let my soul expire,
Sighed from those lips that sought her lips in vain.
Others may find another love as fair;
Upon her threshold I have laid my head,
The dust shall cover me, still lying there,
When from my body life and love have fled.
My soul is on my lips ready to fly,
But grief beats in my heart and will not cease,
Because not once, not once before I die,
Will her sweet lips give all my longing peace.
My breath is narrowed down to one long sigh
For a red mouth that burns my thoughts like fire;
When will that mouth draw near and make reply
To one whose life is straitened with desire?
When I am dead, open my grave and see
The cloud of smoke that rises round thy feet:
In my dead heart the fire still burns for thee;
Yea, the smoke rises from my winding-sheet!
Ah, come, Beloved! for the meadows wait
Thy coming, and the thorn bears flowers instead
Of thorns, the cypress fruit, and desolate
Bare winter from before thy steps has fled.
Hoping within some garden ground to find
A red rose soft and sweet as thy soft cheek,
Through every meadow blows the western wind,
Through every garden he is fain to seek.
Reveal thy face! that the whole world may be
Bewildered by thy radiant loveliness;
The cry of man and woman comes to thee,
Open thy lips and comfort their distress!
Each curling lock of thy luxuriant hair
Breaks into barb��d hooks to catch my heart,
My broken heart is wounded everywhere
With countless wounds from which the red drops start.
Yet when sad lovers meet and tell their sighs,
Not without praise shall Hafiz' name be said,
Not without tears, in those pale companies
Where joy has been forgot and hope has fled.

XXXIX

CYPRESS and Tulip and sweet Eglantine,
Of these the tale from lip to lip is sent;
Washed by three cups, oh Saki, of thy wine,
My song shall turn upon this argument.
Spring, bride of all the meadows, rises up,
Clothed in her ripest beauty: fill the cup!
Of Spring's handmaidens runs this song of mine.
The sugar-loving birds of distant Ind,
Except a Persian sweetmeat that was brought
To fair Bengal, have found nought to their mind.
See how my song, that in one night was wrought,
Defies the limits set by space and time!
O'er plains and mountain-tops my fearless rhyme,
Child of a night, its year-long road shall find.
And thou whose sense is dimmed with piety,
Thou too shalt learn the magic of her eyes;
Forth comes the caravan of sorcery
When from those gates the blue-veined curtains rise.
And when she walks the flowery meadows through,
Upon the jasmine's sham��d cheek the dew
Gathers like sweat, she is so fair to see!
Ah, swerve not from the path of righteousness
Though the world lure thee! like a wrinkled crone,
Hiding beneath her robe lasciviousness,
She plunders them that pause and heed her moan.
From Sinai Moses brings thee wealth untold;
Bow not thine head before the calf of gold
Like Samir, following after wickedness.
From the Shah's garden blows the wind of Spring,
The tulip in her lifted chalice bears
A dewy wine of Heaven's minist'ring
Until Ghiyasuddin, the Sultan, hears,
Sing, Hafiz, of thy longing for his face.
The breezes whispering round thy dwelling-place
Shall carry thy lament unto the King.

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TITLE: The Song of the Reed
DATE: 07/13/2008 15:54:42

Listen to the song of the reed,
How it wails with the pain of separation:

"Ever since I was taken from my reed bed
My woeful song has caused men and women to weep.
I seek out those whose hearts are torn by separation
For only they understand the pain of this longing.
Whoever is taken away from his homeland
Yearns for the day he will return.
In every gathering, among those who are happy or sad,
I cry with the same lament.
Everyone hears according to his own understanding,
None has searched for the secrets within me.
My secret is found in my lament
But an eye or ear without light cannot know it . . ."

The sound of the reed comes from fire, not wind
What use is one's life without this fire?
It is the fire of love that brings music to the reed.
It is the ferment of love that gives taste to the wine.
The song of the reed soothes the pain of lost love.
Its melody sweeps the veils from the heart.
Can there be a poison so bitter or a sugar so sweet
As the song of the reed?
To hear the song of the reed
everything you have ever known must be left behind.

-- Version by Jonathan Star
"Rumi - In the Arms of the Beloved"
Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, New York 1997

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Listen
as this reed
pipes its plaint
unfolds its tale
of separations:
Cut from my reedy bed
my crying
ever since
makes men and women
weep
I like to keep my breast
carved with loss
to convey
the pain of longing ---
Once severed
from the root
thirst for union
with the source
endures

I raise my plaint
in any kind of crowd
in front of both
the blessed and the bad
For what they think they hear me say, they love me --
None gaze in me my secrets to discern
My secret is not separate from my cry
But ears and eyes lack light to see it.

Not soul from flesh
nor flesh from soul are veiled
yet none is granted leave to see the soul.
Fire, not breath, makes music through that pipe --
Let all who lack that fire be blown away.
It is love's fire that inspires the reed
It's love's ferment that bubbles in the wine
The reed, soother to all sundered lovers --
its piercing modes reveal our hidden pain:
(What's like the reed, both poison and physic,
Soothing as it pines and yearns away?)
The reed tells the tale of a blood-stained quest
singing legends of love's mad obsessions

Only the swooning know such awareness
only the ear can comprehend the tongue

In our sadness time slides listlessly by
the days searing inside us as they pass.

But so what if the days may slip away?
so long as you, Uniquely Pure, abide.

Within this sea drown all who drink but fish
If lived by bread alone, the day seems long
No raw soul ever kens the cooked one's state
So let talk of it be brief; go in piece.

Break off your chains
My son, be free!
How long enslaved
by silver, gold?
Pour the ocean
in a pitcher,
can it hold more
than one day's store?
The jug, like a greedy eye,
never gets its fill
only the contented oyster holds the pearl

The one run ragged by love and haggard
gets purged of all his faults and greeds
Welcome, Love!
sweet salutary suffering
and healer of our maladies!

cure of our pride
of our conceits,
our Plato,
Our Galen!
By Love
our earthly flesh
borne to heaven
our mountains
made supple
moved to dance

Love moved Mount Sinai, my love,
and it made Moses swoon. [K7:143]

Let me touch those harmonious lips
and I, reed-like, will tell what may be told

A man may know a myriad of songs
but cut from those who know his tongue, he's dumb.
Once the rose wilts and the garden fades
the nightingale will no more sing his tune.

The Beloved is everything -- the lover, a veil
The Beloved's alive -- the lover carrion.
Unsuccored by love, the poor lover is
a plucked bird
Without the Beloved's
surrounding illumination
how perceive what's ahead
and what's gone by?

Love commands these words appear
if no mirror reflects them
in whom lies the fault?
The dross obscures your face
and makes your mirror
unable to reflect

-- Mathnawi I: 1 - 34
Translation by Professor Franklin D. Lewis
"Rumi -- Past and Present, East and West"
Oneworld, Oxford, 2000

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Song of the Reed
Mathnawi I: 1-18


Listen* to the reed (flute),* how it is complaining!* It is
telling about separations,*
(Saying), "Ever since I was severed from the reed field,* men and
women have lamented in (the presence of) my shrill cries.*
"(But) I want a heart (which is) torn, torn from separation, so
that I may explain* the pain of yearning."*
"Anyone one who has remained far from his roots,* seeks a return
(to the) time of his union.*
"I lamented in every gathering; I associated with those in bad or
happy circumstances.
"(But) everyone became my friend from his (own) opinion; he did
not seek my secrets* from within me.
"My secret is not far from my lament, but eyes and ears do not
have the light* (to sense it).
"The body is not hidden from the soul, nor the soul from the body;
but seeing the soul is not permitted."*
The reed's cry is fire* -- it's not wind! Whoever doesn't have
this fire, may he be nothing!*
It is the fire of Love that fell into the reeds. (And) it is the
ferment of Love that fell into the wine.*
The reed (is) the companion of anyone who was severed from a
friend; its melodies tore our veils.*
Who has seen a poison and a remedy like the reed? Who has seen
a harmonious companion and a yearning friend like the reed?
The reed is telling the story of the path full of blood;* it is
telling stories of Majnoon's (crazed) love.*
There is no confidant (of) this understanding* except the senseless!
* There is no purchaser of that tongue* except the ear [of the
mystic.]
In our longing,* the days became (like) evenings;* the days
became fellow-travellers with burning fevers.
If the days have passed, tell (them to) go, (and) don't worry.
(But) You remain!* -- O You, whom no one resembles in Purity!
Everyone becomes satiated by water,* except the fish. (And)
everyone who is without daily food [finds that] his days become
long.*
None (who is) "raw" can understand the state of the "ripe."*
Therefore, (this) speech must be shortened. So farewell!*

-- From "The Mathnaw��-y�� Ma`naw��" [Rhymed
Couplets of Deep Spiritual Meaning] of
Jalaluddin Rumi.
Translated from the Persian by Ibrahim Gamard
(with grateful acknowledgement of R.A. Nicholson's
1926 translation)
(c) Ibrahim Gamard (translation, footnotes, and
transliteration)




*Listen: states of spiritual ecstasy were induced in sufi gatherings by listening to mystical poetry and music. During such a "mystical concert" [samâ`-- literally, "audition" or "hearing" session] some dervishes would enter a spiritual state of consciousness and spontaneously begin to move. Sometimes they would stand up and dance or whirl. They would listen to the poetry or music as if they were hearing the voice of God, the Beloved. Such gatherings were controversial, were criticized by orthodox Muslim leaders, and were practiced by very few sufi orders-- usually with restrictions and high standards for participants.

*the reed [nay]: a flute made by cutting a length of a naturally hollow reed cane and adding finger holes. "The nay or reed-flute as the poet's favourite musical instrument and has always been associated with the religious services of the Mawlawí ["Whirling Dervish"] Order, in which music and dancing are prominent features." (Nicholson, Commentary). The reed flute symbolizes the soul which is emptied of ego-centered desires and preoccupations and is filled with a spiritual passion to return to its original nearness to God. Rumi said, "The world (is) like a reed pipe [sornây], and He blows into every hole of it; every wail it has (is) certainly from those two lips like sugar. See how He blows into every (piece of) clay (and) into every heart; He gives a need and He gives a love which raises up a lament about misfortune." (Ghazal 532, lines 5664-5665) Rumi also said, "We have all been part of Adam (and ) we have heard those melodies in Paradise. Although (bodily) water and clay have cast skepticism upon us, something of those (melodies) comes (back) to our memory.... Therefore, the mystical concert has become the food of the lovers (of God) for in it is the image of (heavenly) reunion." (Mathnawî IV: 736-737, 742)

*separations: "The point is that while self-conscious lovers complain of separation from the beloved one, and reproach her for her cruelty, the mystic's complaint (shikáyat) is really no more than the tale (hikákat) of his infinite longing for God-- a tale which God inspires him to tell." (Nicholson, Commentary). Rumi said: "I'm complaining [shikâyat mê-kon-am] about the Soul of the soul; but I am not a complainer [shâkê] -- I'm relating words [rawâyat mê-kon-am]. (My) heart keeps saying, 'I'm afflicted by Him!' And I have been laughing at (its) feeble pretense." (Mathnawî I: 1781-82). "Be empty of stomach and cry out, in neediness (neyâz), like the reed flute! Be empty of stomach and tell secrets like the reed pen!" (Divan: Ghazal 1739, line 18239). "Lovers (are) lamenting like the reed flute [nây], and Love is like the Flutist. So, what things will this Love breathe into the reed pipe [sôr-nây] of the body?! The reed pipe is visible, but the pipe-player is hidden. In short, my reed pipe became drunk from the wine of His lips. Sometimes He caresses the reed pipe, sometimes he bites it. (Such) a sigh, because of this sweet-songed reed-breaking Flutist!" (Divan: Ghazal 1936, lines 20374-20376) Nicholson later changed his translation, based on the earliest manuscripts of the Mathnawi, to "Listen to this reed how it complains: it is telling a tale of separations" (from, "Listen to the reed how it tells a tale, complaining of separations." This is what the earliest known manuscript has. (This is the "Konya Manuscript," completed five years after Rumi died, and written by Muhammad ibn Abdullâh Qûnyawî, a disciple of Rumi's son, Sultân Walad, under his supervision together with Husâmuddîn Chelabî -- who was present with Rumi during the dictation of every verse of the Mathnawi.) All manuscripts and editions after the 13th century adopted a changed (and "improved") version of this line: "Listen from the nay, how it tells a story... [be-sh'naw az nay chûn Hikâyat mê-kon-ad / az jodâ'îy-hâ shikâyat mê-kon-ad].

*the reed field [nay-estân]: lit., "place of reeds." A symbol for the original homeland of the soul, when it existed harmoniously in the presence of God. "... referring to the descent of the soul from the sphere of Pure Being and Absolute Unity, to which it belongs and
would fain return." (Nicholson, Commentary)

*in (the presence of) my shrill cries: Nicholson later changed his translation, based on the earliest manuscript, to: "man and woman have moaned in (unison) with my lament" [dar nafîr-am] (from, "my lament hath caused [az nafîr-am] man and woman to moan").

*explain: a pun on the two meanings of the same word [sharH], "explanation" and "torn."

*the pain of yearning: The longing of love is painful, because of separation-- yet also sweet. This is because the longing brings remembrance of the beloved's beauty. Longing for nearness to a human beloved, such as a spiritual master, is a means for the spiritual disciple to increase his longing for nearness to God, the only Beloved. Rumi said: "If thought of (longing) sorrow is highway-robbing (your) joy, (yet) it is working out a means to provide joy.... It is scattering the yellow leaves from the branch of the heart so that continual green leaves may grow.... Whatever (longing) sorrow sheds or takes from the heart, truly it will bring better in exchange." (Mathnawi V:3678, 3680, 3683)

*roots: also means foundation, source, origin.

*union: also means being joined.

*my secrets: "The Perfect Man (prophet or saint) is a stranger in the world, unable to communicate his sorrows or share his mystic knowledge except with one of his own kind; he converses with all sorts of people, worldly and spiritual alike, but cannot win from them the heartfelt sympathy and real understanding which he craves. This is the obvious sense of the passage, and adequate so far as it goes, but behind it lies a far-reaching doctrine concerning the spiritual "Descent of Man.' .... The whole series of planes forms the so-called 'Circle of Existence', which begins in God and ends in God and is traversed by the soul in its downward journey through the Intelligences, the Spheres, and the Elements and then upward again, stage by stage-- mineral, vegetable, animal, and man-- till as Perfect man it completes its evolution and is re-united with the Divine Soul..." (Nicholson, Commentary)

*the light: refers to the ancient Greek theory of Galen, that vision is caused by an "inner light" within the eye. Similarly, the faculty of hearing was believed to be caused by an "inner air" within the ear.

*not permitted: "As the vital spirit, though united with the body, is invisible, so the inmost ground of words issuing from an inspired saint cannot be perceived by the physical senses." (Nicholson, Commentary) The reed flute's speech ends here, and Rumi's commentary begins next.

*The reed's cry is fire: Nicholson, in his Commentary, quotes Rumi's verse (Divan, Ghazal 2994, line 31831): "The flute is all afire and the world is wrapped in smoke; / For fiery is the call of Love that issues from the flute."

*may he be nothing [nêst bâd]: a pun on another meaning of these words -- "it's not wind." It means, "May he experience absence of self so that he may burn with yearning love for the presence of the Beloved." Nicholson interpreted that this means, "The Mathnawí is not mere words; its inspiration comes from God, whose essence is Love. May those yet untouched by the Divine flame be naughted, i.e. die to self!" He said that the words here [nêst bâd] "should not be taken as an imprecation [== a cursing]; the poet, I think, prays that by Divine grace his hearers may be enraptured and lose themselves in God." (Commentary)

*into the wine: "i.e. Love kindles rapture in the heart and makes it like a cup of foaming wine." (Nicholson, Commentary)

*tore our veils [parda-hâ]: a pun on the two meanings of this word, "veils" and "melodies." The meaning of this line is that the sounds of pure yearning from the reed flute tore through the veils covering up the inward spiritual yearning of listening mystics -- the sufis, who have had the capacity to understand the meaning of the reed flute's melodious wails. This is a reference to the "mystical concert"[samâ`] of the Mevlevi ("Whirling") dervishes in which the reed flute is prominent.

*the path full of blood: "the thorny path of Love, strewn with(Díwán, SP, XLIV, 6) 'with thousands slain of desire who manfully yielded up their lives'; for Love 'consumes everything else but the Beloved' (Math. V 588)." (Nicholson, Commentary)

*Majnoon's crazed love: "Majnún: the mad lover of Laylà: in Súfí literature, a type of mystical self-abandonment." Nicholson, Commentary). Majnoon (lit., "jinn-possessed") was a legendary Arab lover whose love for the beautiful Laylà [lit., "of the night"] made him crazy. Majnoon's love for Layla also symbolizes the perception of spiritual realities seen only by mystics, as in Rumi's lines: "The Caliph said to Layla, Are you the one by whom Majnoon became disturbed and led astray? You are not more (beautiful) than other fair ones. She said, Be silent, since you are not Majnoon!"(Mathnawi I: 407-08; see also V:1999-2019, 3286-99) This "craziness" of being an ecstatic mystic lover of God is quite different from the craziness of being psychotic or mentally ill.

*this understanding: "the spiritual or universal reason (`aql-i ma`ád) and transcendental consciousness of those who have escaped from the bondage of the carnal or discursive reason (`aql-i ma`ásh)."(Nicholson, Commentary)

*the senseless [bê-hôsh]: a play on "understanding" (hôsh), and also means devoid of understanding lacking reason, swooned and insensible. The meaning is that no one can understand mystical understanding except one who is able to transcend the intellect.

*that tongue: an idiom for language. The meaning is that only a mystic who is capable of passing beyond the senses and ordinary mind has an "ear" which can understand the "tongue" or language of the heart. Nicholson explained: "i.e. every one desires to hear what is suitable to his understanding; hence the mysteries of Divine Love cannot be communicated to the vulgar" [== ordinary people].(Commentary)

*longing [gham]: lit., "grief." An idiom here, meaning the suffering of longing love.

*evenings [bê-gâh]: An idiom meaning "evening." Means that the days became quickly used-up. Nicholson (1926) erred in translating this idiom too literally as "untimely." (I am indebted to Dr. Ravan Farhadi, an Afghan scholar, for this understanding of the idiom.)

*but You remain: 26. God is addressed directly as "Thou," or perhaps indirectly as "Love." "The meaning is: 'What matter though our lives pass away in the tribulation of love, so long as the Beloved remains?'" (Nicholson, Commentary)

*water (âbash): Nicholson later corrected his translation to, "except the fish, every one becomes sated with water" (from, "Whoever is not a fish becomes sated with His water"). As Nicholson pointed out, the word for "water" here [âbash] is a noun (as in III: 1960-- Commentary). It therefore does not mean "his water" or "water for him" [âb-ash]. Nicholson also explained: "The infinite Divine grace is to the gnostic [== mystic knower] what water is to the fish, but his thirst can never be quenched." (Commentary)

*become long: Nicholson mentions this as "alluding to the proverb, harkih bí-sír-ast rúz-ash dír-ast" [The day are long for whoever is without satisfaction] (Commentary)

*the state of the ripe [pokhta]: refers to the spiriual state of the spiritually mature, experienced, refined. This contrasts to the state of the raw [khâm]-- the unripe, immature, inexperienced, uncooked, the one who bears no fruit. Rumi has been quoted as saying, "The result of my life is no more than three words: I was raw [khâm], I became cooked [pokhta], I was burnt [sokht]." However, this is not supported by the earliest manuscripts (collected by Faruzanfar), only one of which contains the following: "The result for me is no more than these three words: I am burnt, I am burnt, I am burnt (or: I am inflamed, burned, and consumed-- Divan, Ghazal 1768, line 18521). In Rumi's famous story of the man who knocked on the door of a friend, the visitor was asked who he was and he answered, "Me." He was told to go, for he was too "raw" [khâm]. The man was then "cooked" by the fire of separation and returned a year later. Asked who he was, he answered, "Only you are at the door, O beloved." His spiritual friend then said, "Now, since you are me, O me, come in. There isn't any room for two me's in the house!" (Mathnawi I: 3056-63)

*farewell: Here, Rumi's famous first eighteen verses end. Rumi's close disciple, Husamuddin Chelebi had asked him one night: "'The collections of odes [ghazalîyât] have become plentiful.... But) if there could be a book with the quality of (the sufi poet Sana'i's) 'Book of the Divine,' yet in the (mathnawi) meter of (the sufi poet Attar's) 'Speech of the Birds,' so that it might be memorized among the knowers and be the intimate companion of the souls of the lovers ... so that they would occupy themselves with nothing else...' At that moment, from the top of his blessed turban, he [Rumi] put into Chelebi Husamuddin's hand a portion (of verses), which was the Explainer of the secrets of Universals and particulars. And in there were the eighteen verses of the beginning of the Mathnawi: 'Listen to this reed, how it tells a tale...." (Aflaki, pp. 739-741) After that, Husamuddin was present with Rumi for every verse he composed of the Mathnawi during the next twelve years until Rumi's death. The number eighteen has been considered sacred in the Mevlevi tradition ever since.

tinyurl.com/2yl7pg

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TITLE: Dream of Colours
DATE: 05/14/2008 09:45:06

Dream of Colours

30 May 2008 / 18.00

The John Thaw Studio Theatre – Martin Harris Centre

Once upon a time she had a colourful dream. First there wasn’t; then there was…! She had a dream of becoming free from all the known and unknown…(b)orders…

Everyone is welcome to the performance, as it is FREE!

!…BUT

:Warning

Please don’t see this show if you have no dreams; if you know exactly what you want in your life, or if you think everything is alright! If you are fanatic about anything, please don’t show up: Not because you are not invited….! !…BUT because we give you the ‘freedom’ of not seeing, hearing, thinking and feeling in a way you wouldn’t like. We don’t want you to suffer, and protect you from something you wouldn’t enjoy! We respect your likings, and love you even in your ‘a(b)sence’!

We are dreamers. Our apologies if we cannot ‘change’ anything in the real world!

This is all we can offer:

The Freedom of Presence

Please don’t Come and See the show!

Performer: Aida Foroutan

Performance time: 18.00 pm

Running time: 50 mins

Admission Price: £3.00

How to find us

'If you come to visit us,
You will find us behind the realm of naught.
Behind naught there is a place
Where the veins of the air is full of dandelions
Who bring the happy tidings of flowers blossoming at the farthest bush.
Over the sands also you can see the delicate footsteps of the horseman who mounted the anemone hill of ascension at morning.
Beyond the realm of naught, the umbrella of desire has been spread
So that the breeze of thirst can run into the root of the leave,
The siren of the rain resounds.
Some are lonely here,
And in this loneliness the shade of an elm tree stretches to eternity.
If you come to visit us,
Come gently and slowly lest the fragile china
of our solitude cracks.'[1]

Address:

Martin Harris Centre for Music and Drama
University of Manchester
Bridgeford St, Manchester
GB, M13 9PL

Related Link:


Dream of Colours

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[1] The general idea of the poem is taken from Sohrab Sepehri’s poem called: An Oasis in the Moment.

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