AboutBehzad Expertise I can answer questions about the usage and meaning of Persian words, proverbs, and idioms asked in Persian or English. Controversial grammatical issues are beyond my knowledge. In addition, I cannot corroborate my answer to a question about newly coined slang words.
PLEASE do not ask me to translate more than 1 or 2 sentences.
Experience Persian language is my mother tongue; however, my knowledge is remarkably more than a mere native speaker.
ببرد از من قرار و طاقت و هوش
بت سنگین دل سیمین بناگوش
I'm really interested in the poem here. Please could you give a literal, word-by-word translation, i.e. explaining each word in detail.
If you're busy there's no hurry, this isn’t urgent. Much as I'd love to make an acquaintance with Persian poetry, I know from my own experience that poetry and haste do not make good stablemates!
All the best, and many thanks,
Simon
ANSWER: hello,
It was not very hard fortunately.
ببرد= she took away
از= from
من= me
قرار= 1. Peace, comfort, or tranquility 2. Stillness 3. Agreement 4. Rendezvous (both the arrangement and the place) 5. A legal term that I do not know what exactly means.
In this poem it means peace.
طاقت= 1. Stamina 2.patience
Here it means patience.
هوش= 1.intelligence 2. Common sense and understanding (literary)
A very common word for anesthetized or unconscious is بیهوش, e.g. general anesthesia= بیهوشی عمومی
بت (bot) = 1. Idol 2. Figuratively, in literature, it means beloved
سنگین= 1. heavy 2. باوقار dignified 3. Hard and serious, example: وظیفه سنگین 4. Made of stone (literary)
Here it means made of stone.
دل= 1. Heart 2. Stomach. For example دل درد means stomachache and has nothing to do with heart.
Here it means heart. Therefore, سنگین دل means stone-hearted and cruel
سیمین= 1. Made of silver 2. Whatever has the color of silver 3. Very white and light-colored 4. It is a name for girls
The third meaning is used here.
بناگوش = 1. lobe of ear especially the side facing the neck 2. It may mean some other parts around ear according to Dehkhoda: dictionary but I cannot understand his explanations
The second verse is very similar to a poem from Neza:mi, who lived one or two centuries before Ha:fez:
پری پیکر نگار پرنیان پوش
بتی سنگین دل سیمین بناگوش
Best regards,
Behzad
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: Dear Behzad,
Many thanks for providing me with a most enchanting first encounter with classical Persian poetry.
ببرد از من قرار و طاقت و هوش
بت سنگین دل سیمین بناگوش
Perhaps it would be a good idea for me to transliterate it; please could you correct me where necessary, paying particular attention to the ezafehs?
Bobord az man qara:r va (o?) ta:qat va hush
Bot-e-sangi:n del-e-si:mi:n bana:gu:sh.
My attempt at a translation (is it okay?) follows:
A stone-hearted, snow-white-earlobed sweetheart
Deprived me of peace, patience and sanity.
Is “bobord” simply an alternative for “bord”? Perhaps it's an example of the old Indo-European reduplication, which is found in Latin, Greek and Sanskrit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduplication.
You might be interested to know that the standard Turkish word for rich, “zengin” apparently comes from “sangi:n”, the idea being presumably that rich people lived in houses of stone rather than of some cheaper material.
Bana:gu:sh is interesting – gu:sh is an ear, so is bana: a lobe/ball/fleshy protrusion?
Just to be absolutely clear, when you say “beloved”, is this always synonymous with the woman in the relationship? Were there any female poets who perhaps called the men they were in love with “bot”? Somehow I imagine this would not be concordant with the culture of the time, but Persian is always full of surprise...
All the best, and many thanks again,
Simon
Answer Hello,
You are welcome.
I think your translation is perfect.
I can just mention two points: First, as you guessed va is read o. Second, ببرد is pronounced bebord, so it does not fall under the reduplication category. In literature and old texts, sometimesب is added to the beginning of verbs, but usually it does not add anything to the meaning, e.g. ببرد = برد , برفت= رفت , بنشسته است= نشسته است or ...
Thank you for the interesting information about reduplication. In that web page there is a part about reduplication in Persian, which is very common in colloquial language.
I do not feel very self-confident in replying to the rest of your question; I, nevertheless, do my best.
I do not think that bana: means lobe as I could not find that meaning for it in dictionaries. In fact, I do not know enough about the word bana:go:sh. All I can guess is it might have something to do with bon, meaning foundation, base or root because the most accurate pronunciation of بناگوش is bona:go:sh according to dehkhoda:.
There have been very few female poets before the modernization of Iran. In their poems beloved is a man although a lot of their works has been lost. Two most famous female poets in old times are رابعه قزداری (ra:be’e ghozda:ri:) who was originally Arab, and مهستی گنجوی (mahsati:-e- or mehsati:-e-ganjavi:). Ra:be’e has been in love with one of the servants of his brother. It has been said that mahsati: worked in the court of a governor as a secretary or amanuensis, singer, musician, and poet. Now, many contemporary poets are women.
What might be surprising for you is that notwithstanding many people has tried to council it, in some occasions the beloved person in a poem of a male poet has been male. For example, vahshi-e-ba:fghi: has composed a very beautiful poem in which he explicitly address his beloved ای پسر , but in some versions, because it has been considered unethical, it is changed to ای یار which destroyed the rhythm.
