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Orient Pearls at Random Strung

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

A. J. Arberry
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Extract

It is scarcely an exaggeration to say, that of the various important contributions made by Sir William Jones to the initiation and development of Persian studies in Europe, none was more felicitous, or more far-reaching in its consequences, than his early labours with the lyrics of Ḥāfiẓ; and of these labours, none bore sweeter fruit than his making of the immortal “Shīrāzī Turk” into A Persian Song.

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Articles
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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 11 , Issue 4 , February 1946 , pp. 699 - 712
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1946

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References

page 699 note 1 Essays and Studies by Members of the English Association, vol. xxviii (1942), pp. 50–1Google Scholar; Asiatic Review, vol. xl, No. 142 (April, 1944), pp. 191–2Google Scholar.

page 699 note 2 It had appeared in his Grammar of the Persian Language in 1771.

page 699 note 3 Letters, viii, p. 170Google Scholar.

page 669 note 4 The Muse Recalled (1781) a poem by Jones in celebration of the marriage of Lord Althorp to Miss Bingham. “I think Mr. Jones's Ode is uncommonly good for the occasion,” Walpole wrote to the Earl of Strafford on 31st August, 1781 (Letters, xii, p. 44Google Scholar); and to the Countess of Upper Ossory he commented, on 4th September, “If the ode is not perfect, still the eighth, ninth, and tenth stanzas have merit enough to shock Dr. Johnson, and such sycophant old nurses, and that is enough for me.” (Letters, xii, p. 44.)Google Scholar

page 700 note 1 In a letter to Miss Berry, Mary, dated 16th August, 1796 (Letters, XV, p. 415)Google Scholar.

page 700 note 2 See Hewitt, R. M. in Essays and Studies by Members of the English Association, vol. xxviii, pp. 52–3Google Scholar.

page 700 note 3 ibid., p. 52.

page 700 note 4 The Poems of Shemseddin Mohammed Hafiz of Shiraz (3 vols.), London (Villon Society), 1901Google Scholar.

page 700 note 5 Versions from Hafiz. London, 1898Google Scholar.

page 700 note 6 Odes from the Divan of Hafiz (London, 1905), p. XVGoogle Scholar.

page 701 note 1 Persian Lyrics (London, 1800), pp. 9–10Google Scholar.

page 701 note 2 Op. cit., p. xiv.

page 701 note 3 Nicholson, R. A., Translations of Eastern Poetry and Prose (Cambridge, 1922), p. viiiGoogle Scholar.

page 702 note 1 Should translators reflect the fashion of the times in which they live, and are their translations any the worse for their doing so? That is another fundamental question, which we cannot discuss in detail here. Jones certainly agreed with Dryden: “I have endeavoured to make Virgil speak such English as he would himself have spoken, if he had been born in England and in this present age. … On the whole matter, I thought fit to steer between the two extremes of paraphrase and literal translation; to keep as near my author as I could, without losing all his graces, the most eminent of which are in the beauty of his words”. Common-sense and experience seem to show that most, if not all, good translations have in them a strong flavour of the age which gave them birth; and that every generation must make its own versions of the great poets.

page 702 note 2 The text here given is that printed in the edition of Mlrzā Muḥammad-i Qazvīnī and Dr. Qāsim Ghanī (Tehran, 1320/1941); it is identically the same as that given by Ḥusain Pezhmān (Tehran, 1318/1939). Jones, who edited the text in his Grammar of the Persian Language, ha3 the following variants: bine 8 is promoted to follow line 4, and is followed by line 5; line 7 is put before line 6; and the first miṣrā' of line 6 is read (with considerable manuscript support) which is a quotation (taḍmīn) from Sa'di, see Muḥammad Furūghī's edition (Tehran, 1318/1939) of the Ghazalīyāt, p. 298, No. 536. Of recent Persian editors, Farzād, Mas'ūd (Chand namūna az matn-i darust-i Ḥafiẓ, Cairo, 1942, p. 4)Google Scholar transposes lines 4 and 5, and accepts the taḍmīn from Sa'dī into his text; while Muḥammad Mu'īn (Tehran, 1319/1940) puts line 8 after line 5, and follows it with line 7, and then line 6, with the taḍmīn. As all students of Ḥāfiẓ know, these variations are very slight in comparison with the general state of the text of the Dīvān. Perhaps the greatest service which could be rendered at the present to Ḥāfiẓ criticism would be the preparation of a variorum edition of the Dīvān, incorporating all the variants from old and representative manuscripts. I understand from my friend Mas'ūd Farzād that he has already collected much material for such an edition; and it is earnestly to be hoped that he will persevere towards its completion.

page 703 note 1 , Jones, Collected Works, ii, p. 334Google Scholar.

page 703 note 2 J. H. Hindley came nearest to doing so: “If we attend only to the time, the place, the object, the intention, and the imagery of each Gazel, the ideas for the most part appear to flow naturally, and without any absurd or harsh transition”. (Op. cit., p. 11.)

page 704 note 1 W. Leaf, Versions from Hafiz, pp. 5–6. Even J. H. Hindley, otherwise remarkable for the sanity of his approach to Ḥāfiẓ' style, could not resist the temptation to speak of poetic intoxication. “The Translator will only have to allow our Author … the liberty of glancing with the frenzied eye of inspiration from earth to heaven, from heaven to earth, in search of objects adapted to the subject of his composition. …” (Persian Lyrics, p. 12.)

page 704 note 2 Browne, K. G., Literary History of Persia, ii, p. 84Google Scholar.

page 705 note 1 Chahár Maqála (tr. Browne, E G.), pp. 49–50Google Scholar.

page 705 note 2 The idea behind such an anthology is valuable; for if the research were ever carried out thoroughly and scientifically, we should no doubt be enabled to trace the origins and evolution of themes in Persian poetry.

page 706 note 1 For Ḥāfiẓ' use of taḍmln, see Browne, E. G., Literary History of Persia, ii, pp. 536–9Google Scholar; iii, pp. 293–8; and Qazvīnī, Mīrzā Muḥammad-i in Yādgār, vol. i: No. 5, pp. 67–72Google Scholar; No. 6, pp. 62–71; No. 8, pp. 60–71; No. 9, pp. 65–78. What we are here attempting to demonstrate is not of course taḍmīn, but a far more extensive phenomenon.

page 706 note 2 It would be useful and instructive to compile an index of themes to the Dīvān of Ḥāfiẓ: such a compilation would assist greatly in establishing the correct interpretation of many difficult passages, and would also help in the work of textual criticism.

page 707 note 1 Compare the following parallels to this elegant close:-

page 707 note 2 References are to the edition (Tehran, 1318/1939) of Muḥammád 'Alī Furūghī, in which Sa'dī's love-poems (as distinct from those ethical, satirical, panegyric and obscene) are collected together from the various dīvāns

page 708 note 1 Note the pun on (the tribe Yaghmā: plunder). On the Yaghmā, see V. Minorsky, Ḥudūd al-'ālam, pp. 95–6, 277–80. Cf. also Sa'dī, Ghazalīyāt, No. 510 (p. 284), variant to line 11:

page 709 note 1 The Literature of Persia (a Lecture delivered to the Persia Society on 26th April, 1912).

page 709 note 2 Literary History of Persia, ii, pp. 27–8Google Scholar.

page 709 note 3 Poems from the Divan of Hafiz (2nd ed., 1928), p. 90. Hermann Bicknell also gave a versetranslation of this poem in his Ḥáfiẓ of Shiráz (London, 1875). Various versions in prose have been made, and of course the poem has bsen rendered into a number of other European languages.

page 710 note 1 Renderiṅgs from the Dewan of Khwaja Shamsu'ddin Muhammad Hafiz Shirazi (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1937)Google Scholar.