Iranian national poet offers art in language unmatched by English use

Landscape of Shadegan in Iran

Carol Forsloff—As Iran continues to be central to American concerns in the Middle East, with its burgeoning populace and nuclear buildup, it is important to remember that the country once known as Persia, has always had eloquent poets, whose spiritual nature brings people everywhere to celebrate the beauty of the best in language and thought, as it happens with Iran’s national poet, Hafiz Shirazi

During the period of the Dark Ages, when Europe’s arts and literature were found largely in the church and the common man seldom shared the beauty of language and art in all its forms, the Arabian peninsula saw a flowering of science, art, music and invention. That joy of the language, and its poetry, remains a part of Iranian culture, despite political controversies and the clerics who come and go.

Iran’s national poet is Hafiz Shiraz who writes the following in words that anyone can appreciate for the message it offers us all:

Don’t find fault with others, oh pious one;

God will not blame you for the sins of others;

If I am well behaved or not, you watch your own actions,

Each person will face the result of his own actions;

The alert and the drunk are both looking for the beloved;

The mosque and the temple are both the home of love;

Do not disappoint me in the history of eternity;

What do you know about the unseen and what is good or bad?

While the Western world writes and speaks in increasing abbreviations and slang and folks, including American teens,  worry about the degradation of the English language these days, one can’t help but admire, even through translation from the Farsi of Iran to the English here, the beauty of the poet and the message of understanding it can bring. And one might wonder how that potential for eloquent English is being lost in our daily affairs.