Hafez in Farsi: Parsing The Lost Joseph
June 30, 2020 3:59 PM Subscribe
Making a graphic to go with The Lost Joseph in Farsi. How to divide the poem into pieces?
I can neither read nor speak Farsi and have been charged with taking this ghazal and dividing it into pieces and adding images to go with each piece.
I've already done this with an English translation which divides it into five stanzas. Looking at the original ghazal in Farsi, it doesn't seem to be in five stanzas.
Generally, I'd ask friends who speak Farsi for help but they're not available. I'm working to a deadline and it is really important to me that I don't do this poorly because I want to respect the words of Hafez. Asking the people for whom I'm making this would be difficult.
I can neither read nor speak Farsi and have been charged with taking this ghazal and dividing it into pieces and adding images to go with each piece.
I've already done this with an English translation which divides it into five stanzas. Looking at the original ghazal in Farsi, it doesn't seem to be in five stanzas.
Generally, I'd ask friends who speak Farsi for help but they're not available. I'm working to a deadline and it is really important to me that I don't do this poorly because I want to respect the words of Hafez. Asking the people for whom I'm making this would be difficult.
I can speak persian and also live with/know several well-read native speakers -- feel free to MeMail me
posted by shaademaan at 7:54 PM on June 30, 2020
posted by shaademaan at 7:54 PM on June 30, 2020
Best answer: The poem has 10 beyts / lines which are each divided into two hemistiches. You read the line all the way through - so starting with "...یوسف گم گشته" and then "کلبه احزان شود" and then the next beyt starts "ای دل غمدیده " - it looks like 2 columns, but they are not read as columns.
If the English version is in 5 stanzas, then I'd imagine it's taking 2 beyts to make a stanza. Can you post part of the English to verify?
posted by Glier's Goetta at 1:46 AM on July 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
If the English version is in 5 stanzas, then I'd imagine it's taking 2 beyts to make a stanza. Can you post part of the English to verify?
posted by Glier's Goetta at 1:46 AM on July 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I'm typing/drawing on my phone, which is awkward for this (excuse the messy handwriting!). But here's an annotated image from a screenshot of your link:
https://imgur.com/a/RISFtmk
The English version should have a repeated phrase at the end of several lines (this translation uses "do not grieve"-- غم is grief. That phrase at the end of the line (reminder: lines go right to left) is circled in red in the image.
Going in order with that phrase should help you match up the English to the original. It shows up 11 times (the first line/beyt/couplet--bracketed in purple-- has it twice; it shows up at the end of the other 9 beyts). To help you check, some other words have the English next to them (the proper nouns/names mentioned, and a few words here and there if there was no name in that line).
I'd also bet that Gliers Goetta above is correct that your translation's stanzas are probably 5 pairs of lines/beyts. Hope the image helps you confirm (or you could post the English so someone can check for you). Movafagh bashi!
posted by neda at 5:53 AM on July 1, 2020 [2 favorites]
https://imgur.com/a/RISFtmk
The English version should have a repeated phrase at the end of several lines (this translation uses "do not grieve"-- غم is grief. That phrase at the end of the line (reminder: lines go right to left) is circled in red in the image.
Going in order with that phrase should help you match up the English to the original. It shows up 11 times (the first line/beyt/couplet--bracketed in purple-- has it twice; it shows up at the end of the other 9 beyts). To help you check, some other words have the English next to them (the proper nouns/names mentioned, and a few words here and there if there was no name in that line).
I'd also bet that Gliers Goetta above is correct that your translation's stanzas are probably 5 pairs of lines/beyts. Hope the image helps you confirm (or you could post the English so someone can check for you). Movafagh bashi!
posted by neda at 5:53 AM on July 1, 2020 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: The English translation we used is the Gertrude Bell from 1897 .
Personally, I liked this modified Ghiasi version.
But I didn't get to choose the translation and I'm totally not qualified to make a judgement.
posted by sciencegeek at 9:54 AM on July 1, 2020
Personally, I liked this modified Ghiasi version.
But I didn't get to choose the translation and I'm totally not qualified to make a judgement.
posted by sciencegeek at 9:54 AM on July 1, 2020
Best answer: OK, this is interesting. Gertrude's version shifts the order of the lines around (or maybe she was working off of a different version of the poem, who knows).
Here's my stab at it, where each number is the stanza where it can be found in the Gertrude Bell version.
The Ghiasi version you linked is a much more literal translation, and each of the stanzas there matches with the corresponding beyt in the Persian one. So you can refer to that one, if you need to check that images match up with a certain line.
posted by Glier's Goetta at 8:50 AM on July 2, 2020
Here's my stab at it, where each number is the stanza where it can be found in the Gertrude Bell version.
The Ghiasi version you linked is a much more literal translation, and each of the stanzas there matches with the corresponding beyt in the Persian one. So you can refer to that one, if you need to check that images match up with a certain line.
posted by Glier's Goetta at 8:50 AM on July 2, 2020
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by cyndigo at 5:48 PM on June 30, 2020 [1 favorite]