بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ
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Saʿdī —Diwan- Ghazals
This ghazal from Saʿdī of Shiraz speaks in the classic language of Persian love—where the beloved is both human and more‑than‑human, and love itself becomes a creed. The poem weaves together famous lovers—Majnūn & Laylā Farhād & Shīrīn, Vāmiq & ʿAzrā—to show that true fidelity is measured not by words at the river’s edge but by the one who is already drowning. Saʿdī turns law and commerce into metaphors for devotion: there is no other “deal,” and any bargain struck without the Beloved is to be canceled. Even the Beloved’s jafā (cruelty) carries the scent of wafā (faithfulness). The closing couplet turns inward: wash the tablet of the heart of every other image; knowledge that does not open a path to the Haqq (the Real) is only ignorance.
مَجْنُونِ عِشْق را دِگَر اِمْروز حالَت اَست
کِه اِسْلام دینِ لِیلی و دِگَر ضَلالَت اَست
Today, Love’s Majnūn is in another state: his Islam is Layla—all else is misguidance.
Layla as “Islam.” Saʿdī makes single‑hearted devotion the lover’s “religion.” He pits dīn (creed) against ḍalālat (straying) to say: anything but Layla is err
فَرْهاد را اَز آنْچِه کِه شِیرین تُرُش کُنَد
این را شَکیب نِیست، گَر آن را مَلالَت اَست
Whatever Shīrīn turns bitter for Farhād, he cannot bear; should she feel the least displeasure, his patience break.
Pronoun play (īn/ān). “This one” (the lover) cannot bear what “that one” (the beloved) frowns upon; the lover’s patience is keyed to her slightest mood.
عُذْرا کِه نانِوِشْتِه بِخوانَد حَدیثِ عِشْق
دانَد کِه آبِ دیدهٔ وامِق، رِسالَت اَست
ʿAzrā—who reads the tale of love before it’s written—knows the water of Wāmiq’s eyes is the very letter.
ʿAzrā reads love before it’s written; resālat is “message/letter,” so Wāmiq’s tears themselves deliver the story.
مُطْرِب، هَمین طَریقِ غَزَلگو نِگاه دار
کِاین رَه کِه بَرگِرِفْت، بِه جایی دَلالَت اَست
Minstrel, keep to this very manner of the ghazal; the path we have taken points to a true destination.
“Keep this way” signals fidelity to the ghazal’s path; here dalālat flips to its other sense, “pointing the way.”
ای مُدَّعی کِه میگُذَری بَر کِنارِ آب
ما را کِه غَرْقَهایم، نَدانِی چِه حالَت اَست
O claimant who strolls along the water’s edge—you cannot know the condition of us who are drowning.
Maddaʿī (“pretender/claimant”) walks safely at the edge; only the drowning know the sea.
زِین دَر کُجا رَویم؟ کِه ما را بِه خاکِ او
و او را بِه خونِ ما کِه بِریزَد، حَوالَت اَست
From this threshold, where could we go? It is decreed that we belong to her dust—and that she should spill our blood.
Lovers belong to the beloved’s dust; her “spilling our blood” is standard hyperbole for total surrender.
گَر سَرِ قَدَم نَمیکُنَمَش پیشِ اَهلِ دِل
سَر بَر نَمیکُنَم، کِه مَقامِ خِجالَت اَست
If before the people of heart I do not make his footprint my crown, I will not raise my head—shame is my station.
Placing the Beloved’s footprint’s dust on one’s head marks reverence; without that, the lover’s proper “station” is shame.
جُز یادِ دوست هَر چِه کُنی، عُمْر ضایِع اَست
جُز سِرِّ عِشْق، هَر چِه بُگویی، بُطالَت اَست
All you do apart from remembering the Friend is a squandered life; all you say apart from love’s secret is vain.
Outside remembrance of the Friend, acts and words waste the years; only the sirr‑e ʿishq (secret of love) matters.
ما را دِگَر مُعامِلِه با هیچکَس نَمانْد
بَیْعی کِه بیحُضورِ تُو کَرْدَم، اِقالَت اَست
We have no dealings left with anyone else; the sale I struck without you present is to be rescinded.
Muʿāmila/bayʿ/iqālat (deal/sale/rescission): any bargain struck without the Beloved present must be undone.
اَز هَر جَفات، بُویِ وَفایی هَمیدِهَد
دَر هَر تَعَنُّتَت، هِزار اِسْتِمالَت اَست
From each of your cruelties there wafts a scent of fidelity; within every harshness of yours lie a thousand coaxings.
Saʿdī hears fidelity inside cruelty; even severity (taʿannut) carries “a thousand coaxings” (istimālāt), the pull hidden in push.
سَعْدی، بِشُوی لَوْحِ دِل اَز نَقْشِ غَیْرِ او
عِلْمی کِه رَه بِه حَقّ نَنمایَد، جَهالَت اَست
Saʿdī, wash the tablet of your heart clean of all but His image; knowledge that shows no path to the Real is ignorance.
Scrub the heart’s tablet of all but Him; knowledge that doesn’t open a path to al‑Ḥaqq (the Real) is only ignorance.
Notes:
Vāmiq o ʿAzrā (وامِق و عَذرا)—“the Ardent Lover and the Virgin”—is an early Persian verse romance (11th c., by ʿUnṣurī of Ghazna) that reworks an older Greek love‑story, Metiochus and Parthenope, most likely via an Arabic intermediary. Only fragments of the Persian poem survive, but the plot can be reconstructed: a brilliant princess (ʿAzrā) and an exiled youth (Vāmiq) meet at a temple, fall in love, are torn apart by politics and war, endure captivity and slavery, and—depending on the version—may or may not reunite.
Vāmiq and ʿAzrā are the medieval “lover and the virgin” whose story—born in Greek fiction, reborn in Persian verse—became shorthand for love that communicates without words.
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