PERSIAN STUDIES

"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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31

Parviz is now lost, say less about that lost one
Where is the golden produce at the feast, go recite [the] “kam tarakoo” [verses of the Koran] (“kam tarakoo” [what they have left behind] refers to verses 24-27 of the Sura 44 [al-dokhān = smoke], of Koran, which roughly says “plenty left behind orchards and well-springs, and plantations, …. and we bestowed them as inheritance to another group.”)

پرویز کنون گم شد، زان گمشده کمتر گو
زرین تره کو برخوان؟ روکم ترکوا برخوان

32

Did you ask [say]: Where did they go to now, those crowned-ones?
With them, the belly of earth is eternally pregnant

گفتی که کجا رفتند آن تاجوران اینک
ز ایشان شکم خاک است آبستن جاویدان

33

Quite late gives birth the pregnant earth, indeed
Giving birth is difficult, obtaining [an] embryo is easy (“notfeh setodan” or “… setadan” means “to obtain an embryo” as in a woman who becomes pregnant through intercourse. For the earth, that consumes their bodies, the death of people is an easy, brief event, with short-lived instant gratification, like intercourse that makes an embryo. The earth then keeps their bodies, as embryos, in its belly, like an eternally pregnant woman, to “give birth” to them at the end of time, when they are resurrected.)

بس دیر همی زاید آبستن خاک آری
دشوار بود زادن، نطفه ستدن آسان

34

It is the heart-blood of Shirin, the wine that the vine yields (Shirin is the famous Armenian princess who was at the center of an epic love triangle involving the Sassanid King Khosrow [Parviz], and the stone carver Farhad.)
Of the water-and-clay of Parviz is [made] the vessel that the peasant sets (“aab-o-gel” [water-and-clay] is an expression which means “physical essence”)

خون دل شیرین است آن می که دهد رزبن
ز آب و گل پرویز است آن خم که نهد دهقان

35

Plenty a body of the mighty that this soil has consumed
This avaricious [beast] is [still] not satiated with them in the end.
(“gorosne-chashm” which is pronounced “gorsene-chashm” here for rhyming, literally translates into “hungry-eye[d]” and means avaricious.)

چندین تن جباران کاین خاک فرو خورده است
این گرسنه‌چشم آخر هم سیر نشد ز ایشان

36

Of the heart-blood of children, mixes facial rouge
This white-eyebrowed albino, this black-bosomed mother (The earth, this hag with white eyebrows and shriveled black breasts is so callous as to destroy families frivolously as if just to obtain make-up for her face! The "facial rouge" refers to the red makeup of the red flowers that cover the face of the earth, and more generally alludes to the "makeup" of all the flora that give the face of this old hag it apparent beauty. The poet reminds us that this old hag makes this makeup for her face, callously, out of the heart-blood of children. Beware, that behind every bit of the beauty you see on the face of this old avaricious beast, lie the suffering and the consumed bodies of millions of mighty people, families, and children! See Khayyām quatrain on the Venus-faced beaty)

از خون دل طفلان سرخاب رخ آمیزد
این زال سپید ابرو وین مام سیه پستان

37

Khāqāni, solicit admonition from this court
So that afterwards, Khāqān shall solicit at your door. (Khāqān was the Mongolian and Turkic title of Emperors in a number of dynasties. Here, it refers specifically to the ruler at the Shervānshāh court where he served as poet, and received royal permission to call himself after Emperor’s title. He reminds himself to take lessons from his experience of visiting Madāen, so as to have precious insights that even the Emperor himself would be eager to solicit afterwards.)

خاقانی ازین درگه دریوزه‌ٔ عبرت کن
تا از در تو زان پس دریوزه کند خاقان

38

Today if a vagabond begs for [his] ration at the door of the Sultan
Tomorrow, the Sultan will seek provisions at the door of the vagabond. (The “vagabond” refers to Khāqāni [humbling] himself [in deference to the Sultan]. Although today, the poet depends for his sustenance on the rations he receives from the Sultan, he will be able to reciprocate, tomorrow, by sharing with the Sultan, the valuable “spiritual provisions” that he has accumulated through his experience of visiting Madāen.)

امروز گر از سلطان رندی طلبد توشه
فردا ز در رندی توشه طلبد سلطان

39

If [where] the nourishment of the road to Mecca is souvenir in every city
You take the nourishment of Madāen as souvenir for Shervān. (The poet recommends this action to himself. Shervān is the birthplace of Khāqāni, his residence, and the capital of Khāqān Shervānshāh.)

گر زاد ره مکه توشه است به هر شهری
تو زاد مدائن بر تحفه ز پی شروان

40

Everyone takes from Mecca a rosary made of the clay of Hamza
(Hamza refers to Hamza ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib, the uncle of the Prophet Mohammad, who is revered as an early martyr in Islam. )
Thus you take from Madāen, the rosary from the clay of Salmān
(Salmān refers to “Salman the Persian” [Salmān Farsi], one of the companions of the Prophet Mohammad. Everyone who visits Mecca, takes rosaries made from the soil of the grave of Hamza. It is befitting, thus, for you [poet] to take from your pilgrimage to Madāen, a rosary made from the soil of the grave of Salmān the Persian. The poet plays on the metaphoric martyrdom of the grandeur of Madāen and the martyrdom of Hamza, using Salmān the Persian as the token of [the civilization that created] that martyred grandeur.)

هر کس برد از مکه سبحه ز گِل حمزه
پس تو ز مدائن بر تسبیح گل سلمان

41

Behold this sea of insight, do not pass it without a drink [from it]
For parting, thirsty-lipped, from the stream of such a sea, is not possible (The poet now returns to where we started: Tigris. The poet implies that the account described in this qasida transforms Tigris from just the river that physically feeds into the Persian Gulf (the sea in verse 7), into the stream/river that feeds into that metaphoric sea/ocean of insight revealed by the poet's experience of and reflections on Madāen.)

این بحر بصیرت بین بی‌شربت ازو مگذر
کز شط چنین بحری لب‌تشنه شدن نتوان

42

When brothers come from the[ir] road [trip], they bring souvenirs
This piece is a souvenir for [the pleasure of] the hearts of brethren

اخوان که ز راه آیند آرند ره‌آوردی
این قطعه ره‌آورد است از بهر دل اخوان

43

Observe how in this piece [the poet] runs such magic
The dead whose heart praises [God], the insane whose soul is wise.
(The “dead” and the “insane” both refer to the poet himself. He foresees that after his physical death, his heart would live on, continuing to praise God; the seemingly insane poet, whose soul, in reality, was indeed wise!)

بنگر که در این قطعه چه سحر همی راند
مهتوک مسبح دل، دیوانه‌ٔ عاقل جان

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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