I translated these chosen poems of "Saib Tabrizi" one of the old Persian poets to English a few months ago. Of course these are just a few of his short poems while he has a lot of long poems as well. Let me I reflect a part of his biography in the first: "Saib Tabrizi" was a Persia poet and one of the greatest masters of a form of classical Arabic and Persian lyric poetry characterized by rhymed couplets, known as the ghazal. He was born in 1601 in Isfahan, however his ancestors were from Tabriz. His family was one of a thousand families who had migrated from Tabriz to Isfahan. Saib Tabrizi's “Indian style” verses reveal an elegant wit, a gift for the aphorism and the proverb, and a keen appreciation of philosophical and intellectual exercise. I hope I could translate the poems correctly and based on its actual meanings. Of course the origin poems are rhythmic but after translating them to English their rhythms lost. Love first takes unable men to their destination Sea waves take the sticks sooner to the shore The buddies went but their sorrow didn’t go from my heart When a convey move from a place just a fire remains in the place Hey love! Don’t leave me alone with myself more Because lack of sadness makes me like the common people The sensational love was created before heaven The host first brings saltshaker on the table! The name of songbird is known because of its love to flower And if not; what came up from a mass of feathers You can vacate your heart from issues, just with a sigh! A courier is enough for hundred letters! Wishing in old is more than young At autumn, every leaf gets several colors! His love took me out from religions When sun appears, stars hide Talking is an opportunity, when we meet each other. Because it is not clear, when we will meet each other again, like the driftwoods? Although the sweet sleep is because of telling a tale But our sleep lost because of the sweetness of love story! The light of the moon, stars and sun is one for me The one who illuminates these mirrors is one
This is good stuff. You should become a translator and translate some of the lesser known Persian poets. I'm sure there are a lot of gems we Westerners don't know about.
Thank you thirdwind I am glad you liked the poems. Of course I don't know if there is any error in my translation?
Without knowing the original I can't tell where one poem ends and another begins. Is this one poem or several? But still, this reads pretty well @Mans. Perhaps separating them by number, if this is more than one poem? I'll treat this as several poems from here on. There are a few grammatical errors that I can see, but again I wouldn't feel comfortable doing anything more than highlighting the English without knowing Persian. The most noticeable thing I saw is this couplet: Now obviously I don't know the original, but I suspected this might have read: I would need to know the Persian before I comment on this fully however. Another line sort of stuck out as off to me, this first one: The first line doesn't quite make sense, but I think I know what you mean to say. 'Wishing old age is more than youth'? I quoted that second line too because it is ... staggeringly beautiful. Actually, all the poems are beautiful. You've done very well with this poem, @Mans, and the magic of poetry is shining through. There are some really beautiful lines, like the one I quoted above. And you've captured well, as you say, the 'Indian' aphoristic style. You can see a lot of the philosophy too, I certainly do see hints to Aristotle. I'm not sure if you are familiar with Aristotle, but I know he ('the philosopher') had a lot of sway in the Arabic world, and it's wonderful to see that. I remember your last set of translations too, your English is improving. Some lines I love: These are wonderful. Keep going with these, please. I love reading them. Could you do me a favor? Post the original text of these poems? I'd love to see how this compares. If it's in a non-Latin alphabet, would you mind also providing the pronunciations too?
Hi Lemex I am glad to see you again Thank you for your good comment. It was a display of my work. I mean your comment was like a mirror that I could assess the level of my ability in English (translation) in that. Apparently it was acceptable in English and there were not many errors. This makes me encourage to translate the old Persian poems more. I remember that I promised you already to translate some Persian poems and send them to WF but I think it took long. Lemex I have a question: What is difference between : When a convey move from a place and When conveyed, moved from a place, While I did mean " a convey" ( based on the origin poem) as a plural noun and I think " conveyed" is singular pronoun. Also the tense is present while you turned it into past. In the second hint, at first I was going to use "old" and "youth" but then I thought " young" is more proper, while now I understood that " young" and "old" are mostly adjective and "old age" and "youth" are correct. As you pointed, the poems are separate and are not one. Saib had hundreds of such amazing short poems that I chose a few of them. As I myself am a poet and also have studied a lot of the old Persian poems, usually I don't mistake in the right meanings of them, therefore as you observed, I tried to retain the beauties of the origin poems in English but sadly a part of the beauties lost because of losing their rhythms. Persian language alphabets are basically different with Latin and it is not possible that someone be able to read such as philosophy Persian poems, unless he knows a little Farsi, at least. But trust the translation, it is according to the origin poems.
Cool, nice to see you remember me. Ah, I see. This is an instance of Persian and English being structured different grammatically. English as a language has a very weak sense of present tense compared to other languages, and a lot of the time, things happening in the present are expressed in the past tense. 'A convey move' just isn't grammatically how people speak, 'convey' and 'move' here mean the same thing, and so in English one is redundant. And 'convey' is not a definite article, so it does not have the determiner 'a'. Little rules and quirks in English like this are what makes the language so frustrating. You can convey something, which means to communicate something to someone else, or you can have something conveyed (or moved) from one place to another. Both can refer to things happening in the present, but as you say, one is technically speaking in the past tense while the other is not. This is one of the reasons why English is so hard to learn, especially for people working in different systems of grammar. If you are looking for a plural noun, do you mean 'convoy'? Cool, I'm glad I can help. You can also have 'Wishing in age, age is more than young' but it's up to you I guess. Ah, I see. You'll have to forgive my ignorance of Saib I don't know anything at all about Persian poetry. It might be worth numbering them, just for ignoramuses like me. I perfectly understand. I like to translate poems too, and Latin poems are impossible to capture in their full, original flavor. There is so much to something like Catullus 85 that is frankly untranslatable, and that poem is only two lines. But the beauty of the meaning of the words you've captured very well, and honestly in the translation game that's the best you can hope for. 'The light of the moon, sun and stars is one for me', 'At autumn, every leaf gets several colors' and 'When sun appears, stars hide' are staggeringly beautiful, I can't think off the top of my head of many aphorisms or lines in English poetry that are their equal. There is something so very Sappho about them (Oh god I'm showing my Euro-centrism here, aren't I?) Yeah, I thought the Persian and Latin alphabets would be so far removed. That's fine. It's also an almost entirely different philosophical tradition to the one I know. Are you still thinking of publishing your translations?
Thank you Lemex, your explanations and teaching was useful for me At present, I just have focused on testing my ability in English. So the translation was one of the tests. Before publishing any translation I want to know where I am? Am I capable to translate the hard contexts from English to Farsi or conversely, to be certifiable by professors of the both languages (such contexts may be very sensitive because of their accurate meanings)? A lot of old Persian poems are philosophic and theosophic with the so many secretly metaphors and phrases that their appearance is rather than their meanings. Before any interpretation , the translator must be an expert discoverer or a person with high knowledge and experience in that context to be able to translate the poems into other languages. The second problem is finding the similar philosophic and theosophic words and phrases in the second language that sometimes actually don't exist and the expert translator have to use somethings to replace, without the accurate meaning and beauties of the poem not change. I am capable to translate such old persian poems, because as I told before, I myself am a poet that can verse the philosophic or theosophic Persian poem a little. This makes me able to realize the poems of the famous old Iranian poets. This is a theosophic poem of Molavi ( I think you have studied some of his poems) that I tried to translate it to English a few days ago. I had to seek for some English words to replace them with origin words but I don't know how much I were succeed. Also I tried to turn it into a simple English text to be more understandable poem, because as you pointed, the philosophy and theosophy of old Persian poems is different with what you know in the west. I say once again, I don't know how much I was succeed to translate the poem in English, but I hope you enjoy reading that X and Y were two name (as the metaphors) of the ancient lands in the middle east that you don't know them so I used X and Y instead. I am drunk and you are unconscious Who will take us to our home? How many time I told you, quaff goblet of wine less? I don’t see anyone conscious in the town Each one is absentminded and subconscious worse than other My soul! Come to the tavern To touch the joy of spirit What joy is in the world without talk of beloved? Everywhere is a drunk that is calling The drunk cupbearer with the imperial goblets Hey drunk lyre player Whether you are drunker or me? My drunkenness is like a tale Against the drunk like you I went out of the house I met a plastered that was Inattention to every garden and flower farm He careened to the left and right like a ship without anchor and a mass of sages, Seemed to be lifeless, because of feeling his state! I said to him, "be my friend!" Because I am familiar with you He said, I can’t recognize the strangers from kinsmen I said, where are you from? He replied, the half of me is from X and the other half from Y The half of me is from water and soil And the half from heart and soul The half of me is in the beach The half of me from pearl quite I am unconscious, without hat of honor in the wine house I have a lot of words Whether I explain or not? You are devotion of tavern Your income is wine and your expense is wine Be warned; don’t give the attendant even a goblet
Thank you Lemex, your explanations and teaching was useful for me At present, I just have focused on testing my ability in English. So the translation was one of the tests. Before publishing any translation I want to know where I am? Am I capable to translate the hard contexts from English to Farsi or conversely, to be certifiable by professors of the both languages (such contexts may be very sensitive because of their accurate meanings)? A lot of old Persian poems are philosophic and theosophic with the so many secretly metaphors and phrases that their appearance is rather than their meanings. Before any interpretation , the translator must be an expert discoverer or a person with high knowledge and experience in that context to be able to translate the poems into other languages. The second problem is finding the similar philosophic and theosophic words and phrases in the second language that sometimes actually don't exist and the expert translator have to use somethings to replace, without the accurate meaning and beauties of the poem not change. I am capable to translate such old persian poems, because as I told before, I myself am a poet that can verse the philosophic or theosophic Persian poem a little. This makes me able to realize the poems of the famous old Iranian poets. This is a theosophic poem of Molavi ( I think you have studied some of his poems) that I tried to translate it to English a few days ago. I had to seek for some English words to replace them with origin words but I don't know how much I were succeed. Also I tried to turn it into a simple English text to be more understandable poem, because as you pointed, the philosophy and theosophy of old Persian poems is different with what you know in the west. I say once again, I don't know how much I was succeed to translate the poem in English, but I hope you enjoy reading that X and Y were two name (as the metaphors) of the ancient lands in the middle east that you don't know them so I used X and Y instead. I am drunk and you are unconscious Who will take us to our home? How many time I told you, quaff goblet of wine less? I don’t see anyone conscious in the town Each one is absentminded and subconscious worse than other My soul! Come to the tavern To touch the joy of spirit What joy is in the world without talk of beloved? Everywhere is a drunk that is calling The drunk cupbearer with the imperial goblets Hey drunk lyre player Whether you are drunker or me? My drunkenness is like a tale Against the drunk like you I went out of the house I met a plastered that was Inattention to every garden and flower farm He careened to the left and right like a ship without anchor and a mass of sages, Seemed to be lifeless, because of feeling his state! I said to him, "be my friend!" Because I am familiar with you He said, I can’t recognize the strangers from kinsmen I said, where are you from? He replied, the half of me is from X and the other half from Y The half of me is from water and soil And the half from heart and soul The half of me is in the beach The half of me from pearl quite I am unconscious, without hat of honor in the wine house I have a lot of words Whether I explain or not? You are devotion of tavern Your income is wine and your expense is wine Be warned; don’t give the attendant even a goblet
