| that here | کاینجا = که اینجا |
| you laugh, [wondering / saying] here...(/ke/ here performs the function of quotations marks without there being an explicit verb "to say" or "to wonder") | خندی کاینجا |
| from what / why does he/she/it cry? | ز چه
می‌گرید = از چه می‌گرید |
| They weep for that eye/those eyes that do(es) not weep here. (In line 7, /bar ... geristan/ may mean both literally "to cry tears upon, i.e., into" or "to cry for, i.e., for the sake of". Here in line 17, however, the literal meaning does not work. Pay attention to the various uses of /bar/ in this work.) | گریند بر آن دیده کاینجا نشود گریان |
| albino;
aged person with white hair, old man, old woman |
زال |
| old woman | پیرزن =
زنِ پیر |
| room, chamber, pronunciation: hojre |
حجره |
| no, not, classical, literary style, pronunciation: /ni/ |
نی |
| The small cottage of this one [the former, at Madāen] is no less [significant] than the oven of the other one [the latter, at Kufah]. /in/ and /ān/ used to mean 'the former' and 'the latter'. | نی حجره‌ٔ تنگ این کمتر ز تنور آن |
|
The "oven" refers to Koran, Ch. 11:40, Hud, "Noah":
حَتَّىٰ إِذَا جَاءَ أَمْرُنَا وَفَارَ التَّنُّورُ till when Our Command came and the oven gushed forth water like fountains from the earth اين وضع همچنان ادامه يافت تا آن زمان كه فرمان ما فرا رسيد، و تنور جوشيدن گرفت; Source | تنور |
| You know
what? | دانی چه |
| face-to-face, opposite, juxtaposed, on the same level; equal | برابر |
| (you) place [them] face-to-face (imperative) < to place face-to-face | برابر نه < برابر نهادن |
| chest, breast | سینه |
| earthen oven, oven built into the ground | تنور |
| storm | طوفان |
| make an oven out of your chest | از سینه تنوری کن |
| and from your eye, request a flood | وز دیده طلب طوفان = و از دیده طلب طوفان |
|
request a flood | طلب طوفان = یک طوفان را طلب کن |
| impression, sketch, picture | نقش |
| face; (in chess: castle, rook), pronunciation: rokh |
رخ |
| people, the populous, the public | مردم |
| the door of it, its door(s), its gate | در او |
| it was, it used to be, it would be. The poetic, classical suffix -i added to verbs is equivalent to functions of the contemporary imperfect tense. This -i is also sometimes added just to supply an extra syllable for the poetic meter. |
بودی = می‌بود |
| wall | دیوار |
| picture gallery, painter's atelier. The suffix -stān denotes 'place'. | نگارستان |
| king; shah is a poetical shortened form of shāh |
شه = شاه |
|
kings | شهان = شاهان = شاه‌ها |
| out of the kings, i.e., from among the [other] kings were servant so-and-so, and domestic so-and-so, meaning "so majestic was this court, that other kings, e.g., the two named in the second part, were mere servants there." | از شهان بودی... |
| that to it, in the way of kings were, which had among its kings [the following]... | کو را ز شهان بودی = که او را از شهان می‌بود... |
| Daylam, a place in northern Iran; slave, servant, domestic |
دیلم |
|
king | ملک |
| Babylon | بابل |
| Hindu; Indian; slave, servant, domestic | هندو |
|
Turkestan, land of the Turks | ترکستان |
| chamber with a vaulted ceiling, pronunciation: soffe | صفّه |
| fear and awe, trepidation, pronunciation: haybat | هیبت |
| the lion of the heavens, Leo of the constellation | شیر فلک |
| it attacked, it used to attack, it would attack < to attack. Classical, poetic suffix -i added to the Simple Past gives the verb certain functions of the contemporary Imperfect tense. The "win" sense of "bordan" is irrelevant here. This verb is used as an auxiliary verb to make the compound verb "hamle bordan" which simply means "attack". There is no sense of "winning" implied here. | حمله بردی =حمله می‌برد < حمله بردن |
| it used to win the attack upon, it used to launch attacks upon | حمله بر ... بردی |
| body | تن |
| tent, large curtain, (obsolete), pronunciation: shāder-vān/, shādor-vān / shādar-vān. (Note this word has nothing to do with "shād-ravān" meaning "merry" nor with "happy/blessed spirit" when used as a synonym for /marhum/, "the deceased".) | شادروان |
| (you) imagine! (imperative) < to imagine | پندار < پنداشتن |
| that same, that very | همان |
| period, epic, age, era | عهد |
| vision, insight, discernment | بصیرت |
| sight, vision, view, outlook / eye; seen, that which has been observed eye |
دید / دیده |
| (you) see! (imperative) < to see | بین < دیدن |
| splendor, magnificence, imperial authority; (the royal) scepter that would be carried by the royal cortege, or placed over where the king would sit in the palace field, pronunciation: kawkabe | کوکبه |
| field, square | میدان |
| horse | اسب = اسپ |
| (you) get down! dismount! (imperative) < to get down, to dismount | پیاده شو < پیاده شدن |
| a leather table cloth; leather chess "board"; leather mat on which people were beheaded | نطع |
| the ground, i.e., think of the ground as one big nat` mat | نطع زمین |
| lay down your face < to lay one's face down | رخ نه < رخ نهادن |
| foot | پی = پا |
| he was checkmated | شه مات شده |
| bewildered, astonished, frozen, incapacitated, unable to make a move. māt is believed to come from the verb "māndan", to remain [motionless], and gives us the term "checkmate" | مات |
| No`mān III, king of the Lakhmids of al-Hira, was executed by Chosroes II, Parviz, grandson of Chosroes I | نعمان |
|
elephant; bishop (chess piece) According to Persian tradition, chess was
brought to Iran from India by the prime minister of Anushirvan, Buzurjmihr
(Arabic), also known as Bozorgmehr (Persian) and Burzoe (English). (In
Western India, the chess piece known as "bishop" is today called "unt", from
Sanskrit /ushtra/ equivalent of "oshtor" in Persian, meaning "camel",
however, elsewhere, such as Bengal, it is known as "elephant".) Taking the
poet's "lesson" a step further, we see, not only are the names of the chess
pieces subject to change but the very rules of the game! See how this
"truth" is captured and how the British "checkmated" the Indians by imposing
their own rules of chess on them in the film, "The Chess Players" by
Satyajit Ray. | پیل |
| nay, nay, [instead, now, this time] see / realize that the king who threw No`man is being trampled by the elephants, himself, as No`man, was trampled by the elephants of day and night. (Remember No`man himself used to be an "invincible" king." | نی نی که چو نعمان بین |
| elephant-thrower, elephant-throwing. While "pil-afkan" is a very common adjective used to describe the physical strength of warriors in classical works, here, the poet plays with this expression, turning it into "thrower of people under the elephants". | پیل‌افکن |
| See the [erstwhile] elephant-throwing kings [now being the ones trampled by elephants] | بین پیل‌افکن شاهان را = شاهانِ پیل‌افکن را بین |
| after the rotations of the ages, on the heels of the turning of time. The poet has carefully used /pā/ and /pay/ very artfully throughout this work to show the steady, step-like progression of time where each party has its turn as the trampler and the trampled. Remember, for this poet, things FOLLOW one another, they don't MORPH into one another as comes later in Persian literature. | به پی دوران |
| The elephants, day and night have killed him. rā replaced by a personal suffix | پیلان شب و روزش کشته = پیلان شب و روز او را کشته‌اند |
| many, many a | بس |
| that they threw, that they made fall in defeat, that were defeated | کافکند = که افْکنْد |
| place of defeat, position in which one gets checkmated. Suffix -gāh, (or poetically shortened to -gah) meaning "place or time where". |
ماتگه = ماتگه |
| frustration, disappointment, pronunciation: hermān | حرمان |
| related
to chess but here: chess-player, chess-master |
شطرنجی |
| chess-master of fate. (It is crucial to understand that /shatranji-ye taqdir/ is one construct, if you group /shatranji/ with the previous construct, /shah-pili/, you will fail to understand this line. That is a trap to avoid in reading this qasida!) | شطرنجی تقدیر |
|
fate | تقدیر |
| "shah-pili" [king-elephant-ic] refers to a certain strategy or move in the game of chess involving the king, the bishop [elephant], and the rook. | شه پیلی |
| drunk, inebriated | مست |
| land, ground, earth, soil | زمین |
| because | زیرا |
| it has drunk < to eat, to drink |
خورده است < خوردن |
| in place of, instead of, pronunciation: be-jā-ye | بجای = به‌جای |
| wine | می |
| cup, bowl | کاس = کاسه |
| Nushervān, poetic, short form of Anushirvān (Chosroes I or Khosraw I) | نوشروان = انوشیروان |
| Hormoz, Hormizd IV, son of Chosroes I, was killed by supporters of Chosroes II, Khosraw Parviz, grandson of Chosroes I. | هرمز |
| cup made from the skull of Hormoz (Hormizd IV was executed by supporters of Chosroes II, Khosraw Parviz) | کاس سر هرمز |
| new is. Some versions of this text elide the initial alef in the spelling (making it a bit harder to read). This is a matter of style and both are correct. | نو است = نوست |
| then, at that time | آنگه = آنگاه |
| crown | تاج |
| visible | پیدا |
| hidden | پنهان |
|
brain, core, kernel | مغز |
| kasrā, Arabicized version of "khosraw" , it was first the name of one Sassanian king, Chosroes I, or Khosraw Anushirvān and then it became the term for "Sassanian king" and then later, it was loosely used for "king", "lord", etc and the equivalent of "caesar, " Kaiser", "tsar". Note that the scholarly convention is to spell this word as /khosraw/, however, in modern-day Iran, the regions to the East tend to pronounce it as /khosrow/ while in Tehran, the diphthong has been lost completely: /khosro/. | کسریٰ = خشرو |
| citron, pronunciation: toranj | ترنج |
|
gold | زر |
| golden | زرین |
| quince, a kind of fruit, pronunciation: beh | به |
| gone with
the wind, destroyed | بر باد شده |
| straight, completely, all | یکسر |
| as one, identical, suffix -sān meaning "like", "as" | یکسان |
| to each
feast, to whatever feast | به هر خوانی |
| table laid out with food, table with food for a feast |
خوان |
| fresh fruit and vegetables; leek | تره |
| golden fruits | زرین تره |
| He brought, he used to bring, he would bring. Poetic, classical -i suffix is added to the simple past giving the same funciton as the contemporary imperfect tense. | آوردی = می‌آورد |
| He did, he used to do, he would do. Poetic, classical -i suffix is added to the simple past giving the same funciton as the contemporary imperfect tense. | کردی =
می‌کرد |
| spread out cloth, area with items on display, items laid out, items on display | بساط |
| garden, orchard | بستان |
| you know, you laugh, it arrives, ...These may appear to be in the subjunctive mode (without the prefix -be) but in fact, they are present indicative, only missing the mi- as was the classical style. There are very few subjunctives in this qasida, the majority of verbs either being in present indicative or imperative. | دانی، خندی، رسد، دهد، بینی |
| He did. Be careful that the suffix -i is a feature of classical style added to [here] the simple past tense to add a "continuous" aspect. Often it is added only to add an extra syllable for the sake of the poetic meter and does not really add to the meaning. | کردی |
| spread out cloth, area with items on display, items laid out, items on display | بساط |