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Divan-e Shams · G4 · 5 beyts

غزل شمارهٔ ۴

The speaker addresses a beautiful, powerful beloved—like Joseph—who has shattered their world and broken their traps. They plead for this beloved to intensify their spiritual intoxication and witness the effects of the passion they've ignited. Stuck and overwhelmed, the speaker offers up their very soul, lamenting the state this ecstatic love has created.

This ghazal is a direct, ecstatic address to the divine Beloved, who is invoked through a cascade of powerful epithets. The poem begins by comparing the beloved to Joseph, a figure of supreme beauty, whose appearance on the 'rooftop' of perception has shattered the speaker's ordinary reality and torn apart their conceptual 'traps' (beyt 1). This disruptive presence is then asked to intensify the spiritual ferment within the speaker's soul, transforming the raw 'grapes' of potential into the finished 'wine' of ecstasy (beyt 2). The beloved is identified as the ultimate object of devotion, an idol who has set the speaker's very being (the 'aloeswood') on fire, and is now invited to watch the 'smoke' of their annihilation rise (beyt 3). In a turn towards intimacy, the beloved is called a 'trickster' friend who has ensnared the speaker's intoxicated heart, and is begged not to withdraw, but to take even their 'turban'—a symbol of piety and status—as a pledge of devotion (beyt 4). The ghazal concludes with an image of utter helplessness: the speaker's heart is stuck in the mud, its passion a consuming fire, culminating in a final, collective cry of beautiful despair for both the heart and the self (beyt 5).

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Open any couplet for its own page — rendering, commentary, hard words.

  1. G4:1 اِی یوسفِ خوش‌نام ما، خوش می‌روی بر بامِ ماای دَرشکسته جامِ ما، ای بردَریده دامِ ما O our Joseph of beautiful name, you walk so gracefully on our roof,O you who have shattered our cup, O you who have torn open our trap.You, our beautiful beloved, have appeared and overwhelmed us, shattering our composure and freeing us from our own limitations.
  2. G4:2 ای نورِ ما، ای سورِ ما، ای دولتِ منصورِ ماجوشی بِنِه در شورِ ما؛ تا مِی شَوَد انگورِ ما O our light, O our celebration, O our triumphant fortune,set a boiling in our شور so that our grapes may become wine.You are our spiritual illumination and joy; intensify our ecstatic state until our raw potential is transformed into spiritual intoxication.
  3. G4:3 ای دلبر و مقصودِ ما، ای قبله و معبودِ ماآتش زدی در عودِ ما؛ نَظّاره کُن در دودِ ما O our beloved and our goal, O our qibla and our god,you set fire to our aloeswood; gaze now upon our smoke.You are the sole focus of our devotion; having ignited our beings with love, now witness our complete, prayer-like consumption.
  4. G4:4 ای یارِ ما، عَیَّارِ ما، دامِ دلِ خَمّارِ ماپا وامَکش از کارِ ما؛ بِستان گِرو دَستارِ ما O our friend, our beautiful trickster, trap of our wine-drunk heart,do not pull your foot from our affair; take our turban as a pledge.O cunning beloved who has captured my intoxicated heart, do not abandon me now—I will wager my public piety and identity to keep you engaged.
  5. G4:5 در گِل بِمانده پایِ دل؛ جان می‌دهم چه جایِ دلوَز آتشِ سودایِ دل، ای وایِ دل، ای وایِ ما The foot of the heart is left stuck in the mud; I am giving my soul, what place for the heart?And from the fire of the heart's obsession—alas for the heart, alas for us!My heart is hopelessly trapped, but I am sacrificing my entire soul, which is far more significant. This passion is a fire that consumes me, and I can only cry out in this state of beautiful agony.

ganjoor: sh4 · public domain