The Gift Read online

  Table of Contents

  ARKANA

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  ONE - Startled by God

  TWO - I Have Learned So Much

  THREE - Removing the Shoe from the Temple

  FOUR - I Hold the Lion’s Paw

  FIVE - Don’t Die Again

  SIX - The Gift

  SEVEN - I Am Really Just a Tambourine

  EIGHT - Get the Blame Straight

  NINE - The Prettiest Mule

  TEN - Tiny Gods

  ELEVEN - Elephant Wondering

  TWELVE - Counting Moles

  THIRTEEN - Reverence

  FOURTEEN - A Cushion for Your Head

  FIFTEEN - Two Giant Fat People

  SIXTEEN - Spiced Manna

  SEVENTEEN - Where Is the Door to the Tavern?

  EIGHTEEN - When the Sun Conceived a Man

  NINETEEN - Lousy at Math

  TWENTY - Cupping My Hands Like a Mountain Valley

  TWENTY-ONE - The God Who Only Knows Four Words

  TWENTY-TWO - Stay with Us

  TWENTY-THREE - A Clever Piece of Mutton

  TWENTY-FOUR - The Silk Mandala

  TWENTY-FIVE - I Know I Was the Water

  ARKANA

  THE GIFT

  HAFIZ, whose given name was Shams-ud-din Muhammad (c. 1320- 1389), is the most beloved poet of Persia. Born in Shiraz, he lived at about the same time as Chaucer in England and about one hundred years after Rumi. He spent nearly all his life in Shiraz, where he became a famous Sufi master. When he died he was thought to have written an estimated 5,000 poems, of which 500 to 700 have survived. His Divan (collected poems) is a classic in the literature of Sufism. The work of Hafiz became known to the West largely through the efforts of Goethe, whose enthusiasm rubbed off on Ralph Waldo Emerson, who translated Hafiz in the nineteenth century. Hafiz’s poems were also admired by such diverse writers as Nietzsche, Pushkin, Turgenev, Carlyle, and García Lorca; even Sher lock Holmes quotes Hafiz in one of the stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. In 1923, Hazrat Inayat Khan, the Indian teacher often credited with bringing Sufism to the West, proclaimed that “the words of Hafiz have won every heart that listens.”

  DANIEL LADINSKY was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. He has attended several colleges, and has traveled many times around the world. For six years he made his home in a spiritual community in western India, where he worked in a rural clinic free to the poor, and lived with the intimate disciples and family of Meher Baba. Daniel has published two volumes of Hafiz’s poetry in translation, The Subject Tonight Is Love and I Heard God Laughing. He now resides in a small town along the South Carolina coast, where he continues his work with Hafiz.

  Also by Daniel Ladinsky

  Love Poems from God

  Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West

  The Subject Tonight Is Love

  60 Wild and Sweet Poems of Hafiz

  I Heard God Laughing

  Renderings of Hafiz

  ARKANA

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England

  Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia

  Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue,

  Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

  Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:

  Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

  First published in Arkana 1999

  Copyright © Daniel Ladinsky, 1999

  All rights reserved

  “A Cushion for Your Head,” “My Eyes So Soft,” and “Only One Rule” first

  appeared, under different titles, in The Subject Tonight Is Love, versions by Daniel

  Ladinsky (Pumpkin House Press, 1996). Copyright © Daniel Ladinsky, 1996.

  Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint “The Life and Work

  of Hafiz” by Henry S. Mindlin appearing in I Heard God Laughing: Renderings of

  Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky. By permission of Sufism Reoriented, Inc.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA

  Hafiz, 14th cent.

  [Divan. English. Selections.]

  The gift : poems by Hafiz / the great Sufi master; translated by

  Daniel James Ladinsky.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-10033-2

  1. Sufi poetry, Persian—Translations into English. I. Ladinsky,

  Daniel James. II. Title.

  PK6465.Z31H34 1999

  891′.5511—dc21 99-10920

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To God’s magnificent masquerade—as us!

  I am

  A hole in a flute

  That the Christ’s breath moves through—

  Listen to this

  Music.

  —HAFIZ

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A great thanks to a wonderful agent, Thomas Grady; he is a treasure!

  A lasting gratitude to friends and family who have enriched this book with their minds and hearts.

  Kathleen Barker has helped this work to dance higher. Every poem here has been tuned many times by her love, and with the enchanting music her Tibetan instrument and dulcimer sing.

  And thanks to Kathy’s dog, Mashuq, who can whirl as well as any dervish. And the way she retrieves a tennis ball batted two hundred feet into the ocean—leaping over waves—makes God a proud Daddy, I’m sure.

  Thanks to Sufism Reoriented, in Walnut Creek, California, for permission to reprint Henry S. Mindlin’s essay “The Life and Work of Hafiz” from my book I Heard God Laughing: Renderings of Hafiz. That essay appears here as the Introduction.

  Thanks to Pumpkin House Press, in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, for permission to use three poems and a few lines of text from my publication The Subject Tonight Is Love: 60 Wild and Sweet Poems of Hafiz.

  A perennial toast to the many on Hudson Street who believed in this book enough to put their vast talents behind it. A few of those known to me, and who have made significant contributions, are David Stanford, Janet Goldstein, Alexandra Babanskyj, Stephanie Curci, and Leda Scheintaub—you all will be stuck with Christmas cards from me forever.

  And I bow to every hand and eye that comes to hold this book and shares Hafiz’s extraordinary light with others.

  PREFACE

  For centuries, Shams-ud-din Muhammad Hafiz (c. 1320-1389) has been a magnificent friend to the human spirit. To millions throughout the world the poems of Hafiz are not a classical work from the remote past, but cherished love, music, wisdom, and humor from a dear companion. These extraordinary verses bestow a precious knowledge. With a wonderful—at times outrageous—genius Hafiz brings us nearer to God. This Persian master is a profound champion of freedom; he constantly encourages our hearts to dance!

  Though the West is still getting to know Hafiz, his work has had an intriguing influence here for over two hundred years. One of the earliest translations of a Hafiz poem into English was by Sir William Jones, published in 1771. In the 1800s Ralph Waldo Emerson read Hafiz in German and did several translations of his own into English. In his 1858 “Essay on Persian Poetry,” Emerson called Hafiz “a poet for poets” and in his journals wrote: “He fears nothing. He sees too far; he sees throughout; such is the only man I wish to . . . be.” Emerson, it is believed, had first found out about Hafiz in Goethe’s 1819 The West-Eastern Divan. That work contains a section, called “The Book of Hafiz,” in which Goethe enthuses, “In his poetry Hafiz has inscribed undeniable truth indelibly. . . . This
is a madness I know well—Hafiz has no peer.” In “Open Secret,” a poem addressed to Hafiz, Goethe calls him “mystically pure” and at one point calls himself Hafiz’s “twin.”

  Hafiz’s poetry is rooted in the beautiful human need for companionship and in the soul’s innate desire to surrender all experience—except Light. These verses speak on many levels simultaneously, though they are crafted with such a brilliance rarely does one feel left out.

  Hafiz was born and lived in the city of Shiraz. During the preparation of this manuscript I was able to read several of these poems to a Persian friend who comes from generations of Shiraz-born families. She told me, “More copies of the Divan-i-Hafiz (the complete collection of his poems) are now sold in Iran than copies of the Quran.” This is an amazing fact, given the religious and political climate there. The number of authentic poems that Hafiz left is uncertain and still argued about. That number is presumed to be between five hundred and seven hundred—though this is only 10 percent of his estimated output. The vast majority of his work is said to have been destroyed by clerics and rulers who disapproved of the content of his poems. It is disheartening to contemplate the loss of so much beauty and divine intelligence from this world. Hafiz was viewed as a great threat, a spiritual rebel, whose insights emancipate his readers from the clutches of those in power—those who exploit the innocent with insane religious propaganda. For Hafiz reveals a God with a billion I.Q.—a God that would never cripple us with guilt or control us with fear.

  One of the reasons for Hafiz’s great popularity is that for centuries he has been considered a living oracle able to impart the most intimate, timely advice. The typical reader of Hafiz’s poems turns to them as one might turn to an astrologer, a horoscope, or a medium. It is said that Queen Victoria used to consult Hafiz in this manner.

  Hafiz’s message is as relevant now as it was when he wrote in the fourteenth century. He continues to offer all seekers a spiritual recovery and intricate help with the heart’s imperative—its destined, glorious unfolding of love. “My spring eyes will still warm faces, and awake verdant earths in your soul.”

  People from many religious traditions share the belief that there are always living persons who are one with God. These rare souls disseminate light upon this earth and entrust the Divine to others. Hafiz is regarded as one who came to live in that sacred union, and sometimes in his poems he speaks directly of that experience.

  Someone once wrote to me, responding to my first two Hafiz publications, “How could anyone ever say they were God?” I answered, “If God exists, if a Real God exists—one of Infinite Power—then there is Nothing that God could not do. That is, the physics become simple: If God wanted, He could give Himself entirely to someone without ever diminishing His own state. And if you were the recipient of that Divine Gift—what would you then know?”

  Rumi, Kabir, Saadi, Shams, Francis of Assisi, Ramakrishna, Nanak, Milarepa, and Lao-tzu are among the many known to have achieved perfection or Union because of their extraordinary romance with the Beloved. They are sometimes called “realized souls” or “Perfect Masters.” As Hafiz wrote:The voice of the river that has emptied into the Ocean

  Now laughs and sings just like God.

  I believe that the adoption of sanctified poetry from one culture to another, such as we are now witnessing on a large scale, heralds the next conscious step of evolution of the adopting language. True art evolves us—opens our arms and weakens our prejudices so that the ever-present seeds of healing and renewal can take root in our soul and sinew, cause joy.

  I began working with these poems by translating from Farsi (Persian) into English, which was remarkably demanding. I was aided by an unexpected gift; a friend in India sent me a complete photocopy of the most respected English translation of Hafiz, that of H. Wilberforce Clarke. Clarke’s work was first published in India in 1891. This was a copy of the rare 1971 Samuel Weiser edition—only five hundred were ever printed. All of the poems in this book are based on Clarke’s translations and his vast footnotes. I also draw on several thousand pages of other material about Hafiz’s life, and on other poems attributed to Hafiz. It is a tremendous venture to translate an “untranslatable” masterpiece such as Hafiz’s verse, with its brilliant whirling synergy of idioms, especially into a language as spiritually young and evolving as English. I believe the ultimate gauge of success is this: Does the text free the reader? Does it contribute to our physical and emotional health? Does it put “golden tools” into our hands that can help excavate the Beloved whom we and society have buried so deep inside?

  Persian poets of Hafiz’s era would often address themselves in their poems, making the poem an intimate conversation. This was also a method of “signing” the poem, as one might sign a letter to a friend, or a painting. It should also be noted that sometimes Hafiz speaks as a seeker, other times as a master and guide.

  Hafiz also has a unique vocabulary of names for God—as one might have endearing pet names for one’s own family members. To Hafiz, God is more than just the Father, the Mother, the Infinite, or a Being beyond comprehension. Hafiz gives God a vast range of names, such as Sweet Uncle, the Generous Merchant, the Problem Giver, the Problem Solver, the Friend, the Beloved. The words Ocean, Sky, Sun, Moon, and Love, among others, when capitalized in these poems, can sometimes be synonyms for God, as it is a Hafiz trait to offer these poems to many levels of interpretation simultaneously. To Hafiz, God is Someone we can meet, enter, and eternally explore.

  My editor felt that a few words needed to be said about the general architecture of this book, specifically, why so many chapters? Well, would it make sense if I said that I felt Hafiz didn’t want anything to get sore. That is, some honeymooners could benefit with a room-service waiter knocking now and then, or a phone call from Mom, causing a pause in the action, an intermission, a moment to contemplate and digest.

  I might also mention here that once in a while I may seem to have taken the liberty to play a few of these lines through a late-night jazz sax instead of from a morning temple drum or lyre. To some readers a few expressions in this book may appear too contemporary for this work. To that I say—nothing doing. The word translation comes from the Latin for “to bring across.” My goal is to bring across, right into your lap, the wondrous spirit of Hafiz that lifts the corners of the mouth. I view this goal as a primary, no-holds-barred task. And I apologize for any language that may stop the beguine and not let the reader remain in Hafiz’s tender strong embrace.

  An interesting trait of Hafiz that should be noted is that he occasionally “sells” himself, as it were. I have come to feel that this is his response to the spiritual marketplace’s sometimes becoming filled with sham teachers who lace their bread with harmful additives. He knows that a lot of what is sold with God’s name on it isn’t organic. Thus Hafiz may be trying to safeguard us, draw us near, when he says things like, “My words nourish even the sun’s body. Look at the smile on the earth’s lips this morning, she laid with me again last night.” “The sublime amorous ghazals of Hafiz,” García Lorca once said.

  I have been intensely involved with these poems for several years; for the last three years I have averaged some sixty hours per week with some facet of them. My work with Hafiz began in the fall of 1992, on an early morning walk in the countryside of western India, on a beautiful tree-lined road that leads to the former residence of Meher Baba, who passed away in 1969. I was walking with an elderly Zoroastrian man, someone whom I have known for twenty years, have lived close to and consider a teacher, a brother, a cherished friend. I would say that it is because of this man’s and his master’s (Meher Baba) profound respect for Hafiz that this book now appears. I feel my relationship with Hafiz defies reason and is really an attempt to do the impossible: to translate Light into words—to make the luminous resonance of God tangible to our finite senses. About six months into this work I had an astounding dream in which I saw Hafiz as an Infinite Fountaining Sun (I saw him as God), who sang hundreds o
f lines of his poetry to me in English, asking me to give that message to his “artists and seekers.”

  Every line of Hafiz that I have wept over—and there have been many—increased my desire to impart his remarkable qualities: an audacious encouragement, his outrageous onslaught of love, a transforming knowledge and generosity, his sweet-playful exuberant genius that is unparalleled in world literature. There is a mystical dimension in his poetry that heals and bestows “The Gift.” There is dulcet language that rises from his reed-soul, the voice of one “startled by God.” His words are a music that comforts, empowers, enlightens.

  Hafiz is one of the greatest spiritual friends, lovers, and guides that humankind has ever known. For centuries he has been called the Tongue of the Invisible, for he continues to sing beautiful and wild love songs from God. He invites us to join him in his fantastic applause of life. I vote to inscribe these words of Hafiz on every flag, church bell, temple, mosque, and politician’s brain:Dear ones, let’s anoint this earth with dance!

  Daniel Ladinsky

  January 31, 1999

  INTRODUCTION:

  T he Life and Work of Hafiz

  HENRY S. MINDLIN

  Despite the popularity of Hafiz in the East, reliable information about the details of his life is sketchy. Scholars do not even agree about his dates of birth and death. He was probably born about 1320 and died about 1389, roughly the same dates as the first great poet who wrote in English, Geoffrey Chaucer. His given name was Shams-ud-din Muhammad. He chose the name Hafiz (“memo rizer”) as a pen name when he began to write poetry; it is a title given to someone who knows the entire Quran by heart, as he apparently did. Hafiz was born in Shiraz, a beautiful city in southern Persia that escaped the ravages of the Mongol and Tartar invasions during this violent and chaotic period of history. He spent nearly all of his life in this cultured garden city.