After the Fire

As soon as my heart was set ablaze by your love,

Everything I owned turned to ash but love for you.

Learning, lessons, books, all of it put on a high shelf,

For I became open to poetry and the music of words. 

A free translation of Rūmī’s quatrain #616, Foruzanfar, ed.; 

pg 36 in Houshmand’s Moon and Sun; 

quatrain #2 in Gamard’s The Quatrains of Rumi.

 

تـا در دل مــن عشق تو افروختــه شــد

جز عشق تو هر چه داشتم سوخته شد

عـقل و سـبـق و کـــتاب بــر طاق نــهاد

شـعـر و غـزل و دوبــیتــی آموختـــه شد

Tā dar del-e man eshq-e to afrūxta shod,

joz eshq-e to har che dāshtam sūxta shod.

Aqal ō sabaq ō ketāb bar tāq nehād.

She’r ō ghaz(z)al ō do bētī āmūxta shod.

A literal translation:

Since in my heart love for you blazed up,

Except for love for you everything I had was burned.

It put intelligence and lessons and books away.

Poems and odes and quatrains were learned.

For the past several weeks I have translated Rūmī’s quatrains into Latin. There were two reasons—maybe three: I wanted to show how Latin poetry was like Persian poetry, I wanted to see if I could do it, and finally I thought it would be fun. 

Well, it has been fun, but it has been time-consuming. I am no poet in Latin. So, for the time being, I’ll continue translating Rūmī’s quatrains—but into English.

Although the translating was time-consuming, I did learn a lot about Latin and Persian poetry. More than that, I learned how I might go about appreciating Latin poetry. In other words, having attempted to Latinē canere, I have a better feel for what Horace or Virgil or Catullus did. This may sound odd from one who started a blog about Horace’s odes over thirteen years ago, but it shouldn’t. Thirteen years ago was the start of this journey, and translating the quatrains has been one more step in the direction of understanding the beauty of Latin poetry.

Poetry, as I have said over the many blog postings, is probably one of the most difficult art forms to appreciate, especially if the poetry is not from your native language. It doesn’t matter where a painting comes from or a piece of music or a sculpture. One can appreciate it with little training. But poetry in a foreign language requires hours of study and throws up huge barriers, impenetrable but to the stalwart willing to ascend the steepest of all learning curves: competence in a foreign language.

But now, let me say a few words about today’s quatrain. It’s not difficult to understand. All Rūmī is saying that once he has the love of his friend, nothing else matters. His life changes and he sees it as a lyrical passing of the days: books have no meaning, but the music of poets speaks to his heart.

I will mention that Houshmand has a different first line. Instead of afrūxta shod [افروخته شد] “was kindled or blazed up,” she has andūxta shod  [اندوخته شد] “was filled up.” It seems that Houshmand used a different text, one that is reflected on the website ganjoor.net. 

Finally the third line doesn’t have a clear subject. Gamard says that it is the heart that put book-learning aside. Houshmand turns the sentence into the passive voice and mentions no subject. Perhaps, it is what happened in the first two lines that is the subject of the third line.