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Palace of Madāen by Khāqāni |
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"Upon passing through Madāen and seeing the Tāq-e Kasrā",
a
qasida by
Afzal al-Din
Badil ibn `Ali ibn `Osmān Najjār Khāqāni (1127-1186/1199 CE) |
هنگام عبور از مداین و دیدن طاق کسری از افضل الدین بدیل بن علی بن عثمان نجّار خاقانی |
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AUDIO All |
Go to the VOCABULARY &
EXERCISES for this poem! |
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Text & Translation |
<<Part 1
Part 2 Part 3 >> |
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17
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You laugh at my eyes [wondering] why they weep here?
They weep for those eyes that do not turn weeping here!
(See line 7 for another usage of /bar...geristan/.)
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بر دیده‌ٔ من خندی کاینجا ز چه می‌گرید
گریند بر آن دیده کاینجا نشود گریان |
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18
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The white-haired [woman] of Madāen is no less
[significant] than the old woman of
Kufah
(The old woman of Madāen” refers to
the celebrated old woman of Persian tradition who refused to sell her humble cottage to King Anushiravān, who needed her parcel of land as part of his
palace. Anushiravān did not force her out, and her home
remained as an incongruent eyesore and inconvenience adjacent to
the king’s palace. The contrast of the ugliness of her humble
abode against the beauty of its surrounding palace has been
praised as an evidence of the king’s justness, and cited as one
of the reasons for his moniker, The Just. The “old woman of
Kufah” refers to Noah’s wife; see below.))
This one’s small cottage is no less
[significant] than the oven of the other one.
(According to Islamic tradition, the
land on which the city of Kufah was later built was the location
of Noah's home. Noah was told by God that he would know
when the flood
was coming when water would be seen gushing out of the earthen oven in which Noah’s wife baked bread. God’s designation of
this old woman and her oven as the herald of the impending doom,
obviously, makes them both very important.)
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نی زال مدائن کم از پیرزن کوفه
نی حجره‌ٔ تنگ این کمتر ز تنور آن |
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19
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You know what? Juxtapose Madāen with Kufeh
Make an oven out of your chest, and beseech a flood from your
eyes.
(Feel the heat of the injustice conjured
up by this juxtaposition in your chest, and let that “oven”
become the herald of a flood from your eyes to submerge this
unjust world.)
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دانی چه مدائن را با کوفه برابر نه
از سینه تنوری کن وز دیده طلب طوفان |
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20
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This is that same palace that from the impression of the faces of
people
The soil at the sills of its gates, resembled the wall of an
art-gallery.
(refers to the masses of people who used
to prostrate in respect at the gates of the palace, a side
effect of which would be leaving impressions of their faces on soil, at least metaphorically.) |
این است همان ایوان کز نقش رخ مردم
خاک در او بودی دیوار نگارستان |
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21
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This is the same court that out of the kings it had
As servant, the Emperor of Babylon, as domestic, the King of
Turkistan
(“daylam” designates the mountainous
region of the province of Gilan by the Caspian, or its natives;
“hendu” literally means “Indian [Hindu]”. The poet plays on the
other, now obsolete meaning of "daylam" and "hendu" which is
"slave", "servant", "domestic". The poet chooses these
particular words because they not only mean servant and
domestic, but also refer to lands and places, which mixes quite
well with names of other two lands, Babylon and Turkestan.) |
این است همان درگه کو را ز شهان بودی
دیلم ملک بابل، هندو شه ترکستان |
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22
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This is the same chamber that by its majesty mounted
At the Lion of Heavens, attack, the lion on its curtain
(“Lion of Heavens” = constellation Leo.
The lion of the curtain in its chamber was more majestic than
the constellation Leo.)
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این است همان صفه کز هیبت او بردی
بر شیر فلک حمله، شیر تن شادروان |
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23
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Imagine it is the same era, see with your inner eye
By the chain of the court, at the scepter in the [palace] field
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پندار همان عهد است از دید بصیرت بین
در سلسله‌ٔ درگه، در کوکبه‌ٔ میدان |
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24
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Dismount your steed, lay [your] face on the mat of the ground
Under the feet of its elephants, see checkmated No’man
(“nat’e” means leather mat; the mat spread
on the ground to sit on, or serve food on; the “chess board”
because this game used to be played on leather mats, not solid
boards; the leather mat on which the condemned would be seated
for execution by decapitation. No’man is “No`man bin Monzar”
who ruled over Arabia. Supporters of the Sassanian king,
as the story goes, executed No`man by having elephants
trample him to death. “shah-māt” is the original Persian term
in the game of chess, from which the English word “checkmate” is
derived, and literally means “king-motionless” or “king-unable
to move”.
Observe how the “mat of the ground” you are invited to put your
face on turns into the chess board of a game in which King No`man is checkmated by
Khosraw Parviz using elephants, which
turns it into the executioner's
leather mat. Realizing that, and having put your face down on
it, closes the circle: you share the humbling experience of
No`man. The chess game
metaphor continues into the next two verses.) |
از اسب پیاده شو، بر نطع زمین رخ نه
زیر پی پیلش بین شه مات شده نعمان |
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25
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Nay, nay, instead, see the king-under-elephant-thrower
[himself] as No’man
The elephants of day and night [having him] killed by the
passage of time.
(The chess piece called “bishop” in
English is called “elephant” in Persian, and the “elephants
of day and night” are the white and black bishops in the
chess game wherein the conqueror king himself is checkmated
by the passage of time.)
(Observe the vivid, almost movie-scenario-like, flow of the
poem, which particularly picks up from verse 19 and
crescendos in verse 23. “This is the same palace …”; “This
is the same court …”; “This is the same chamber …”; “Imagine
it is the same era …”; “Dismount your steed …” at those key
locations, lay your face down on the mat of the ground; *see* in
flashbacks, from the ground perspective, checkmated No’man
being trampled by the King’s elephants; Nay, nay, pan out and broaden
your perspective and see the King himself checkmated by the
white-day and black-night elephants of that ultimate check
master of Time! The account then continues more reflectively
from here on.) |
نی نی که چو نعمان بین پیل‌افکن شاهان را
پیلان شب و روزش کشته به پی دوران |
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26
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Oh, so plenty an [under-]elephant-thrower king who was felled in [a] king-elephant-ic [move]
("shah-pili"
[king-elephant-ic move] refers to a certain
strategy in the game of chess involving the king, the bishop
[elephant], and the rook.)
By the chess master of fate, into the mate-state of
destitution |
ای بس شه پیل‌افکن کافکند به شه پیلی
شطرنجی تقدیرش در ماتگه حرمان |
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27
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Inebriated is [this] soil! For instead of wine it has drunk
In the bowl of the head of Hormoz, the heart-blood of
Nushervaan [Anushiravan]
(Hormoz and Anushiravān are two of
the Sassanid kings.) |
مست است زمین زیرا خورده است بجای می
در کاس سر هرمز خون دل نوشروان |
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28
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So many homilies that then were visible on the crown on his
head
Hundred new homilies are now hidden in the core of his head
(According to Persian tradition,
King Hormoz had homilies inscribed on
his crown. In this context, “maghz” does *not* mean brain,
it means the inner core, the middle. There are hundred new
lessons to be learned from the core of the head of this
king, in its/his current state.) |
بس پند که بود آنگه در تاج سرش پیدا
صد پند نو است اکنون در مغز سرش پنهان |
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29
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Kasraa and the gold citrus, Parviz and the golden quince
(“kasrā” is a title of the Sassanid
kings that often more specifically refers to Anushiravān.
The Sassanians are well-known for their ornamental fruits and herbs
made out of gold, silver, and jewels to decorate their
feasts.)
Gone straight/all with the wind, [have] become identical
with dust |
کسری و ترنج زر، پرویز و به زرین
بر باد شده یکسر، با خاک شده یکسان |
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30
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Parviz used to bring golden produce to each feast
By golden wares, he would make a garden out of the golden
produce. |
پرویز به هر خوانی زرین تره آوردی
کردی ز بساط زر زرین تره را بستان |
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<<Part 1
Part 2 Part 3 >> |
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Returning from his second pilgrimage to Mecca, in 1168,
Khāqāni visited the ruins of the Sassanid capital, Madāen (Tisfun
in Persian; Ctesiphon in English) palace and wept for the
grandeur of ancient Iran and the glory of the Sassanid
Empire, which inspired him to compose this Qasida.
Khāqāni may have been motivated to visit the ruins of
Madāen by the poems of Khayyām, who on his own pilgrimage to
Mecca visited Madāen and composed the following two
quatrains: Coo-Coo
Gur & Gur. Further reading,
E.G. Browne, A Literary History of Persian, v. 2, pp.
391-399 PDF. Also,
Encyclopædia Iranica: ḴĀQĀNI ŠERVĀNI by Anna Livia Beelaert.
On Anushirvān,
Richard Frye, History of Ancient Iran |
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