Like the rose each moment in hope of your fragrance,
From head to foot I take off the body’s garments.
The rose saw your body. One would think like a drunk
In a garden, it would shed its many adornments.
The pain of longing for you has mired my soul in troubles,
But how easily the heart succumbed to your advances!
By the enemy’s word you have abandoned the friend;
Who befriends the enemy by reason of such nonsense?
Your body in its robe is like wine in its glass, but
Why is your heart like iron that silver encases?
Drip, O candle, blood-tears from your wounded eye
As your burning heart fills the world with brilliance.
Don’t so act that my liver’s burning sighs leave my chest
And rise from a chimney’s throat like smoky incense!
Don’t break my heart and toss it underfoot because
It makes its home in your curly hair’s extravagance.
Since Hafez has bound his heart with your curly hair,
Do not for this reason trample upon his persistence.
This ghazal is interesting for the sustained insistence of its imagery. In the first beyt, the speaker compares himself to the rose who sheds her petals to reveal her beauty in hope of the beloved. The “body’s garments” refers to gross consciousness. In the second beyt, the speaker repeats the same image and wonders why the rose was not so convinced. In the third beyt, the speaks complains of how easy love was at first…In the fourth beyt, the speaker complains of the enemy or rival (a common trope). But in the fifth beyt, the speaker makes a very witty… Read more »