Poetry
The Divan-i-Hafiz
دیوان حافظ
Hafez · 1410
Synopsis
Nearly five hundred ghazals, with a few qasidas, quatrains and short pieces. The speaker moves there from the tavern to the mosque and from wine to prayer, and mocks the town's preacher and the morals officer, whose piety is only a facade. The beloved at times has a face, at times merges with God, and the poet watches for the beloved's return at festivities, in gardens and in the streets of Shiraz. One ghazal laments the happy reign of a vanished prince, who shone for a time and then passed away.
Context
Hafez did not gather his work himself, and the idea that he gave an edition of it in 1368 is supported by nothing: an early preface, attributed to his contemporary Mohammad Golandam, says that his scattered ghazals were collected after his death, a compilation dated to 1410. The oldest dated manuscripts are from the fifteenth century, and the number of ghazals in them ranges from fewer than five hundred to more than six hundred; the edition of Parviz Natel-Khanlari retains 486. Charles-Henri de Fouchécour gave in 2006 the first complete French translation, which received the Nelly Sachs prize.
Who it is for
A volume of short ghazals, in Persian, in which each couplet can be read on its own. It should be known that the text varies from one edition to another, and that serious translations come with long commentaries.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as one of the summits of Persian lyric poetry, by a poet whose imprint on the life and culture of Iran equals or exceeds that of Ferdowsi, Saadi and Rumi.