Description
THE following renderings from Hafez diwan have been made on the has is of two literal English translations of the poet; namely (I) the prose translation by Colonel Wilber force Clarke (Calcutta: 1 89 1) and (2) the verse translation “ in accordance with the original forms" by Mr. john Payne (London : I 901 As both these gentlemen are learned Persian scholars; as the aim of both has been exact 'verbal literalness, at any cost, rather then literary transmutation ; and as they virtually corroborate each other, I feel myself justified in thinking that in their translations I have as trustworthy, not more trustworthy, material for the making of an English rendering than I had studied Persian for my myself ten years. Were Ito make such original studies, I should arrive in the end no nearer to the poet's meaning than the previous labours of Colonel Clarke or Mr. Payne enable me to do by the comparatively light study of their translations. I would refer the reader to Odes 16, 24, 26, 192, 330. The phrase I have chosen to repeat is not always the phrase chosen by Divan Hafiz, hut sometimes one which struck me as vividly concentrating the 19% of the poem. This is an Ode 1 as translated by Colonel Clarke: “Ho! O Saki, pass around and offer the bowl (oflove for God): For (the burden of) love (for God) at first (on the day of covenant) appeared easy, but (now) difficulties have occurred.