Saba in Australia
Individual journey with Hafiz
January 6, 2005
iranian.com
Book Review: Hafiz:
Teachings of the Philosopher of Love, by Haleh Pourafzal
and Roger Montgomery, (Abdol-Hossein Pourafzal, Literary
Consultant) Inner Traditions, Rochester, Vermount,
2004.
At my first dinner-party in Australia, my permanent abode, the host told me that
her eccentric uncle was going to drop in later in the evening. After couple of
hours mingling with her family, and other guests, where our conversations seemed
to go around aimlessly, I started feeling bored, tired and thought to myself
that I might have come to a country where there was not much in common between
me and her peaceful, law abiding citizens.
I was surrounded by plenty of good
food and drinks and a breeze that tantalized my senses beyond any thing. I
turned to my host and said, the breeze is beautiful. She said the
spring weather is
very pleasant in Sydney. What more could you say about a breeze? It's not
easy to be all that creative about just a nice, pleasant, breeze, although
it mesmerizes your senses out of their earthly spheres.
I sat on the balcony and watched the remaining portion of the daylight diminish
into nothing. My eyes caught an old, black, Ponton 220, Mercedes, pulling outside
the house. The car stopped and accidentally shifted into gear again, it jerked
forward and the sound of the engine died in a choke. My host told me that's
her uncle Tim. Uncle Tim lived just the next suburb up, a retired public servant
who had never left Sydney, let alone the country. Later on he confessed that
he never even crossed the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
A slim man in his late 60s got out of his car and waddled across the garden
onto the balcony. My host introduced me to him, and to him that I was born
in Iran.
He stood there with his gray shorts and fading Hawaiian shirt and smiled mildly
at everybody. He got himself a beer and sat next to me.
I first thought to
myself that I might not have much to say to this eccentric uncle who's broken
bridge of his spectacle was held together by a piece of white string. So
I engaged
him in a conversation about his vintage German car, hoping to leave as
soon as I finished my drink. He was very fond of it and said that
it's the only
car he's ever owned and is likely to keep till the rest of his remaining
days, then he contentedly smiled.
All of a sudden, in the middle of our
conversation, he looked as if distracted by something. His befuddled
expression alarmed
me somewhat. My eyes roved around with his, searching for any
apparent anomalies.
Then looking in the northwesterly direction he asked me, "do you feel the
Saba?"
He stretched his head deliberately high, looking
somewhat comical, as if he could see the breeze coming. I said
"yes, it's beautiful
isn't it?"
"The beautiful Saba," he said rhetorically
as if it was nature's greatest gift. The rest of the evening he spoke
to me about Hafiz, introducing me to his poetry.
Teachings of the Philosopher of Love was first published
in 1998 under the title, The Spiritual Wisdom of Hafiz. The book
is a joint venture
between
the couple, one from Iran the other from America, yet both equally
fascinated by Hafiz and his poetry, whom they rank as highly
as Plato, Lao-tzu and
Confucius.
Roger and Haleh both write separately at the beginning
of the book about
their individual journey with the poet. Hafiz seems to have been
playing a central
role in their lives, teaching, instructing and inspiring them. Haleh
refers to him as a "friend", since she has been introduced
to him from an early age by her father and has only grown to love Hafiz
and respect him
more for the
contribution he has made to her life as a philosopher and sage.
Hafiz enters Montgomery's life after he met Haleh when she introduced
him to the great Persian poet with unprecedented philanthropic concerns.
Roger
already an author of Twenty Count: Secret Mathematical system of
the Aztec/Maya, is only
too quick to recognize the genius of Hafiz. He believes Hafiz was
more than just a poet but someone who had a thorough knowledge in "algebra, geometry,
philosophy, history, mythology, astronomy, logic, theology, literature, music
and linguistics." Only a person with such diverse interests, he believes,
can purport to instruct humanity on its destiny, like the Chinese book of
I Ching.
 For Haleh, Hafiz is not only a
friend, but someone through whose eyes she tries to see the world.
Her devotion and reverence of Hafiz
is
one of a
disciple and Master. There are 32 complete ghazals in the book. The
book is divided into four main parts, each part highlighting an important
aspect of human
existence,
for example,
justice, service, compassion and human journey.
Hafiz is more than
aware of the precarious condition of existence and believes that
he has something
to
say about
it. The success of his work could be measured by his
universal popularity. Haleh and Roger successfully make the ghazals
relevant to the contemporary
reader.
Through the fluidity of their prose they help the reader to access
the inner concerns of the ghazals and share in the poet's insight
and consoles.
When Dick Davis was asked by a publisher to do some translation
of Hafiz's work he first accepted but after several attempts
gave up.
He wrote his
reasons in an excellent essay in New England Review Journal (25
no1/2 310-18 2004)
as to why Hafiz is not translatable. He writes, "Certain poets
are held to be untranslatable, in Russian there is Pushkin; in
German, Gothe;
in Persian
Hafiz."
One of the hallmarks of Hafiz's poetry is that he represents
his themes in a highly symbolic and stylized form that almost
makes
it equivocal
in nature. And if he was as untranslatable as Dick Davis makes
him out to
be, he couldn't
have been as popular around the world as he is; both among the
highly educated and lay populace. Hafiz allows people to have
different approaches to his
poetry. And
I think it's quite healthy to have these diverse approaches. For example,
Paul Smith does not even speak Persian and has only read all the other translation
of his poems in English. As if possessed by the spirit of Hafiz, he could not
think about any thing else except writing a new translation of the Divan. He
said, at the start he failed and only a divine intervention made him hopeful
that he could finish the translation. [See: Divine
nostalgia]
Reza Ordboubadian points out, '... any good translation is a new
poem in its own right, composed twice, once by the original poet
and once by the
translator; and every time a poem is read, it is also recreated by the reader-thus,
a poem
is rewritten every time it is read,..." [See: The
clear mirror]
Roger Montgomery writes, there are about six hundred books on Hafiz in Iran
alone. "Perhaps half have been published in the past fifty years." He adds,
"In addition,
at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris and in other public and private libraries,
there are hundreds of books on Hafez in many of the at least twenty-five languages
into which the poet's work has been translated."
Hafiz has composed a masterpiece that refuses to be read and put on the bookshelf
to gather dust. He wanted his poetry to interact with people daily and I believe
he has achieved that. My hunch is that in the years to come there will many
more new study, translation and interpretation of Hafiz's poetical works.
 Haleh and Roger's translation and interpretation of the poet is mixed with
love, devotion, understanding, contemplation and intellectual skills. It is
a great companion to some of the poet's important themes, that are also important
to all human beings.
The breath of West Wind will spray musk in the air;
The old world to its youth again will repair.
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