"Grieve not!"

This is a truly wonderful ghazal by that master of the Persian language, the Lisān al-Ghayb, the Tongue of the Unseen, Hafez of Shiraz. I recently read two different translations of it into English, one of them a beautiful (albeit secularized) version by Haleh Pourafzal and Roger Montgomery (p. 54 of their book Haféz: Teachings of the Philosopher of Love), and another, much more literal, much more archaic, version by Wilberforce Clarke (pp. 499–500 of The Divan-i Hafiz). The two translations are hugely different in style, and there are a few points where they vary in semantics as well. I thought I'd give it a shot and produce my own version. It's heavily inspired by Pourafzal and Montgomery, but sticks a little closer to the literal sense of the poem (at least as far as I can understand Hafez!).

Before that though, some of the verses of this ghazal in the inimitable voice of Mohammad-Reza Shajarian:






The original Persian is taken from here:

یوسف گمگشته باز آید به کنعان غم مخور

کلبه احزان شود روزی گلستان غم مخور

ای دل غمدیده حالت به شود دل بد مکن

وین سر شوریده باز آید به سامان غم مخور

گر بهار عمر باشد باز بر تخت چمن

چتر گل در سرکشی ای مرغ خوشخوان غم مخور

دور گردون گر دو روزی بر مراد ما نرفت

دائما یک سان نباشد حال دوران غم مخور

هان مشو نومید چون واقف نه‌ای از سر غیب

باشد اندر پرده بازی‌های پنهان غم مخور

ای دل ار سیل فنا بنیاد هستی برکند

چون ترا نوح است کشتیبان ز طوفان غم مخور

در بیابان گر به شوق کعبه خواهی زد قدم

سرزنش‌ها گر کند خار مغیلان غم مخور

گرچه منزل بس خطرناک است و مقصد بس بعید

هیچ راهی نیست کان را نیست پایان غم مخور

حال ما در فرقت جانان و ابرام رقیب

جمله می‌داند خدای حال‌گردان غم مخور

حافظا در کنج فقر و خلوت شب‌های تار

تا بود وردت دعا و درس قرآن غم مخور

In my translation this came out to:

Joseph, now lost, will return to Canaan; grieve not!

The hut of sorrows will become a rose-garden some day; grieve not!

O heart that has seen much sorrow, your condition will improve, fear not;

this scattered head will return to order; grieve not!

In the springtime of life, o beautiful songbird, unfurl headily the umbrella of the rose

over the seat of the garden; grieve not!

If the heavens don't revolve around our wishes, even for two days—

They don't spin the same way for all eternity, so grieve not!

Ah, do not lose hope if you're unacquainted with the Unseen,

There may be hidden games behind the veil; grieve not!

O heart, if the flood of transience sweeps away the foundation of your being,

Since Noah is your captain in the typhoon, grieve not!

If, as you walk through wastelands out of your yearning for the Ka'ba,

the thorns of the lote tree reproach you, grieve not!

Though the waystation be dangerous and the destination far, far away,

There is no road that has no end; grieve not!

Our condition is separation from our Beloved and the insistence of our rivals—

God, the Bestower of all conditions, knows all this; grieve not! 

Hafiz! Even in poverty, in the lonely retreat of black nights,

so long as your prayer is the recitation of the Qur'ān, grieve not!

As always, apologies for butchering the beauty of the original.