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Symphony of the Dead

by  Abbas Maroufi

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Primordiality to Eternity

Critical Study of Symphony of the Dead

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Abbas Marufi, Pioneer of a New Wave in Persian Fiction

By Ismail Salami

 

Born in 1957 in Tehran, Marufi was raised and educated in Tehran. He studied dramatic arts at Tehran University while teaching at schools and writing for the newspapers. He served as the editor in chief of the literary Gardun magazine from 1990 to 1995. His first published work was a collection of short stories entitled Into the Sun. He also wrote a few plays which were performed on stage.  In his The Last Superior Generation, he touched on social themes. His last collection of short stories, The Scent of the Jasmine was published in the United States.

 Marufi came to prominence with the publication of The Symphony of the Dead (1989) which is narrated in the form of a symphony. The novel provoked a slew of criticisms from the critics. Some saw it as a great masterpiece in the Persian literature; still some others relegated it to a sheer imitation of Faulkner’s Sound and Fury. Yet, the novel proved so influential that it came to be imitated by other writers. In this novel, Marufi uses the stream of consciousness technique very effectively. The Year of Turmoil and The Body of Farhad are among his other works.

Marufi is currently living in Germany with his family. Some of his works have been translated in German.

 A Moonlit Night, which follows in English translation, narrates the story of a shepherd boy called Mandal who is deeply in love with Nilupar.

In this story, the writer touches on a main theme in a traditional society where a man finds it impossible to express his love to his beloved; rather he prefers to keep his love to himself and burn in the cauldron of his passionate love. Albeit, there is more to it. Psychologically, Mandal is a sort of a voyeur who spends his time secretly watching the naked body of his beloved, thereby gratifying his sexual urges.

Voyeurism is a sexual perversion but the hero resorts to it because he cannot achieve his object of desire. Mandal is not a kind of character the reader may wish to identify because he is weak and undecided. There are moments in the story where he can open his heart and divulge his long-harbored secret. Yet, he prefers to keep it to himself as if he takes delight in inflicting pain upon himself, as if we were faced with a masochist. 

  
 

 

A MOONLIT NIGHT

 

Mandal was again troubled by uneasy dreams. His heart pumped violently and his body was soaked in sweat. The barking of a dog drifted into his hearing from afar. He saw that he was falling from a cliff into an unknown place and that darkness prevented him from finding a hold. He was then swept away by a gust of wind into the branches of a service-tree which stood in the depths of a valley whose side had been eaten away by flood. There was many a time he had carved Nilupar on the bark of the tree with the point of his knife.
    Turning over in bed, he tried to accustom his eyes to darkness and saw moonlight through the crevices of the canvass. At that moment, his mother, holding an oil lamp, came into view from the tent which opened to Mandal's.
    "Why were you talking in your sleep, Mandal?" she asked.
    Mandal sat up and cast his eyes over the various objects around him.
    "Mm-m?" he moaned.
    He waited for his mother to go to bed. But she insisted.
    "You were talking deliriously.’ Get them! Tie them up!'" she resumed, "Where was your mind wandering?"
    "I don't know." he replied
    But he did know. His mother raised the lamp higher. Instantly, his eye fell on the yellowed muslin round her wrist once more. For months, she had been applying a poultice of turmeric and goat's suet to her broken wrist to help it knit together.
    “Are you ill?"
    "No. I am fine."
    "Any quarrels or fights?"
    "No."
    "Why do you look so restless, then?"
    Tell her you are in love with Nilupar and then it's over, he thought to himself but remained silent. He had grown impatient and despondent. For him, days and nights slipped slowly by. No longer was he full of  energy. A permanent feeling of lethargy had taken possession of him.
    "What's the matter with you?" she said.
    At this, Mandal looked down at his hands, buttoned up his left cuff, stretched out his arms and drew the quilt over his head.
    "I don't know," he replied.
    "All right, you better sleep," she observed, blowing out the lamp before she left.
    The tent was again engulfed in darkness and moonlight fell needle-shaped through its crevices. Mandal's heart began palpitating. Mountains and rocks threatened to approach and he seemed to be falling. At that very moment, he fixed his eyes upon the black wooden pole, unable to keep it still or to stop it from receding into the distance. So he shut his eyes.
    Ever since his father had died, his life had been taken up by the sheep, the pathways, the mountains and the desert. From the moment he woke up at dawn, he would drive the flocks to the mountains where he would stay with only his thoughts until dusk. Entrusting the flocks to the care of the night shepherd, he would go to collect firewood. He could not remember a time when anyone had returned to the dark tents before the evening star had been sighted. When he came back, he would remove his leggings, scratch his body, gulp down one or two glasses of tea and kept yawning until his mother served him food.
    That night at dinner, they had not exchanged a word as usual.
Crawling under the quilt, Mandal allowed his mind to dwell upon Nilupar once more.
    In his half-sleep, he had dreamed that an immense flood had swept down the service tree of his previous dreams. When he woke up, he racked his brains to interpret his dream but to no avail. At that moment, he felt that nothing in the world would afford him more pleasure than sleep. What happiness to be able to slumber in a cozy warm bed. And how irksome to suffer the toil of going up and down the mountain paths after the flocks, with your chukha* falling over your shoulders.
    Before sleep overtook him, he would muse about turning over a new leaf. But then he would banish the idea from his mind, saying:
    "I shall do something about it in autumn."
    At length, autumn would come. The tribe would be moving to Sangsar.
Shepherds would sign their annual contracts with their masters. And by the time they had got settled in one place, Mandal would have to set off for eight months in the desert.
    "Oh, for the spring!" he would murmur.
    Spring ran into summer, summer into autumn. The succession of seasons, the job of tending the flocks, the agony of cold and snowy days and many other things so preoccupied his mind that he hardly knew he had reached the age of twenty five. Now he was thirty. His skin was sunburnt.
He had tiny pimples on his forehead, some white hairs in his moustache and broad shoulders which had remained unused as he had no wife to embrace. It was a certain relief to hear his mother praying. He followed suit. Yet he found himself unable to banish the memory of the rocks and the eerie darkness. As he was praying, his thoughts would turn involuntarily to Nilupar. The recollection of her walking, lisping and swimming formed his fantasy. In the course of all those years, he had only managed to have one single conversation with Nilupar. It was while her mother was cooking oatmeal in front of their tent and his father, chukha flung over his shoulder, was chatting with the shepherd dealers. Mandal himself was moving goatskins of yoghurt into the tents.
    "May I trouble you to turn the carpet loom for me?" Nilupar had asked.
    "And you don't need to take off your chukka boots," she had added.
    "But I may bring in dust?"
    "Never mind. I will sweep it clean."
    And what a beautiful carpet she had woven! Fine, carmine, with a design of blue flowers. It was then that Mandal knew he was deeply in love with her. It was a long love which he had harbored in his heart without anybody knowing. The mere sight of her or the sound of her voice was enough to draw him back into the vortex of his nightmare. He was fighting the inevitable fate. He would talk in his sleep until he was startled out of it as he felt himself thrown onto the service tree. Then sleep would be denied him until morning. The nightmare of falling from the precipice recurred whenever he indulged in the passion of watching Nilupar's naked body in the mountain stream. During the day he would drive the flock to the mountain whence he was in a position to let his eyes wander over the area, the long black tents, the idle dogs, some diseased sheep and a group of people working. He knew well when the women got together to go to the mountain stream. At noon, when the sun weighed heavily overhead, the women, bundles hoisted onto their heads, babies pressed against their bosoms, would flock to the stream to wash their bodies.
Even with her back turned, Mandal was able to pick out Nilupar among the forty or so women from a distance. Mandal's eyes had followed her for twelve years. He had watched her grow from eight to twenty eight. It dawned on him then that Nilupar, instead of setting her bundle on her head, would secure it over her shoulder with her fingertips. Before they stepped into the stream, Mandal would conceal himself in a snowy hollow in the mountain.
    Lying prone on a black mass of rock, he would devour the stream with his eyes. The one who poured water over her headwith cupped hands, splashed the others, swam daringly in the cold water, called out the loudest and sat herself on the rocks warmed by the sun, unhurriedly put on her green dress and wrung her hair dry was no one but Nilupar. At the very sight of her, a shudder would go through his spine, immobilizing him. Then a sense of fatigue would overcome him and an unspeakable pain would so twist his stomach that he remained for hours in a state of  bewilderment.
    Consequently, he would have a terrible dream that night. Well, what could he do? To marry Nilupar had never been a possibility, for the simple reason that he used to work for her father as a shepherd in those early years. Besides, he could not pluck up courage to seek her hand. He pined for her. Now that Mandal had his own flock, Nilupar was engaged to an untrained shepherd by the name of Gelverdi. Mandal burnt even more passionately, in a perennial fever.
    His eyes were burning and he could not sleep. He got up, put on his chukka boots, swung his chukha over his shoulder and crept out of the tent. It was a moonlit night. Polaris and Achernar had already risen. He could hear the rushing water and it seemed as if a bird were moaning.
Bravely, Mandal made his way towards Nilupar's tent and tiptoed along it. From the interior came the sound of people sleeping. Her father and brother were snoring loudly and there was a constant moan from her mother. As for her, she was breathing softly as if the Wheel of the World were spinning for her alone. Mandal paused for a moment.
    "You are alone or I?" he murmured to himself.
    Then he made straight for the mountain and climbed up without stopping to catch his breath. Once there, he saw the first glimmer of dawn.
Suddenly he felt that his eyes were burning with an excruciating pain.
It was as though the rims of his eyes were on fire. He felt as if a hot metal spit were being thrust into his eyes. He had wandered over the mountains before, staying awake until morning, but never once had he been in such a quandary. He knew without any doubt that his painful eyes were in some way connected with his spying on the naked women. What else could be the cause of this agony? Again, the vision of Nilupar's bobbing up and down in water came into his mind. It made him experience such vertigo that he had to put his hands out to find a support in the air.
    When he shut his eyes he felt that his eyelids had caught fire and had started to crack. He was convinced some terrible affliction had befallen him. His temples throbbed until he thought they would burst. He felt as if tiny creatures were eroding his eyes. A strange sorrow gripped his soul. He touched the corners of his eyes and felt afraid.
Inflamed and blistered. Then an overwhelming sensation of weariness came over him. His knees trembled and gave way beneath him. In vain he groped for a support but he subsided helplessly onto a stony slab. As soon as he opened his eyes, his eyelids tore as material does and burnt painfully.
Then a veil of darkness fell in front of his eyes. From behind the veil, he could barely see the sun in the sky. The sheep were bleating and dogs barking in the distance. He could hear a child crying and the sound of a man's voice echoing faintly through the wind. Mandal was quite unable to move.
    There was one thing he yearned for and that was sleep. His mind went blank. His one desire was to return to the peaceful dreams he had had before. Trying to see, he looked all around him. Everything was blurred. The veil of darkness blinded him. All he could make out was the vague and misty shapes of the steep mountains. He endeavored to resist his blindness and see more but in vain.
    "Oh my God, I've gone blind," he said to himself.
    He got to his feet and slowly went back down the mountain. He did not have the least idea where he was going. He only wanted to reach somewhere. Suddenly he found himself entangled in a thicket of aloes.
Desperately trying to protect his face and hands, he took refuge in the shade of the thicket and sat down. By then he realized that the swollen rims of his eyes had turned into large blisters. He could not see anything.
    "Oh my God, I haven't gone blind, have I?” he said to himself.
    Frightened, he prayed, not knowing which part of the ritual prayer he was mouthing.
    Without thinking about what he was saying, words tumbled out of his mouth.
    "Save me!" he prayed.
    In his religious fervor, his hands began to work involuntarily.
Blindly, he undid his leggings and tied himself to the petiole behind him, which served him as a shrine. The heat of the sun was intense. His mind traveled back to his father, Shir Agha, a plain and honest man. For years he had earned his living by cutting wood. He used to have strange dreams and once he had dreamed that he had gone to Mirza Ali Akbar's store.
    "Mirza, this famine will come to an end one day and so will the troubles. Besides life is short. Tell me, does it please God to see my wife and children sleep on empty stomachs?" he had asked.
    "Shir Agha, have you ever asked for anything that I have refused you?" Mirza Ali Akbar had replied.
    "You know, it's hard for me to ask. Misfortunes are raining down on us. How can I go to Himeh to cut wood in this blizzard?"
    Snow had covered the ground and was still falling. It was almost dawn. As his father was recounting his dream, there was a sudden knock at the door. Mandal was then seven or eight years old. He opened the door and was amazed to see Mirza Ali Akbar with a laden ass. He called to his father. Sacks of flour, sugar, tea and rice were carried into the room.
    "Shir Agha, I saw you in my dream last night," said Mirza. "I asked how life was treating you in this ungodly year. I asked. And you said: 'God is merciful.' Now don't let anything trouble your mind. I've brought you some flour, rice, tea and a few odds and ends. We'll reckon up! You can give us some firewood in the new year."
    "Is there any other way I can repay?" said Shir Agha gratefully.
    "Listen, my wife is expecting a baby very soon. If it should be a boy, we'll name him Mirza Ali Akbar."
    Contrary to their expectation it turned out to be a girl and she was named Noresa. It was a desperate spring that year. Many sheep perished. The Russian Cossacks were roving round Sangsar.
    No one had bread. Snow still lay in the alleyways. Every morning, Shir Agha used to go to Khoreh to gather wood. One day, as he was loading the panniers of his donkey, he began to scold his dog: "Stay away from us starving people!"
    However, the dog had grown accustomed to going to the forest with Shir Agha. But as the sight of the dog's hunger became too much for Shir Agha to bear, he decided to tie it to a tree. To his astonishment, he found the dog sitting on the doorstep when he reached home. The next day he threw the dog from the top of the cliff into the foaming river below. Yet hardly had they gone to bed than they heard the whimpering of the dog. All night long he tormented them so that they could not sleep. As dawn was breaking, Noresa was born.
    "I shall become a shepherd tomorrow," vowed Shir Agha. “It’s no use waiting for things to get better."    Until that time they had been settled in one place, but from that day on they started to live a nomadic life.
    Mandal fastened the leggings more tightly round his waist and pleaded as a pilgrim tied to a shrine.    "Dear God, I lost my father when I was fourteen. For his sake, please forgive me! Dear God, Oh dear God, dear God ...."
    He dissolved in tears and repented his actions most sincerely. He promised he would never again watch the women swimming naked in the stream. And he vowed to keep his eyes clean and to depart this life with a pure soul, to deserve the trust of others who could look up to him as they did to his father. He began his prayers afresh and everything and everyone sank into oblivion. He felt deep down that he had absolutely no one he could turn to. All alone. He seemed to have become an integral part of the tree. Just then, he heard footsteps but was unable to see anyone. He could only hear.
    His heart raced. Terror overcame him and he felt like vomiting.
    Despite his giddiness he sensed the footsteps getting closer.
    Raising his head, Mandal saw a figure clad in a dark blue transparent dress. He had the impression that the figure in blue was a woman.
    "Wh-wh-who are you?” he said with difficulty.
    The figure made no reply.
    "I am Mandal," he said with a tremor in his voice.
    Still, the figure said nothing. The edge of her gown streamed through the wind into the distance.
    "I've gone blind," said Mandal.
    As the figure in blue, Mandal felt something within him rise and fly out of his head. He was tongue-tied and a trembling took hold of him.
The figure laid her hand on Mandal's forehead, stroking him gently. He felt as if he had died. He remained without any feeling, like a lump of meat until the hands touched his eyes.
    Then he sensed nothing more. He could feel only a coolness drawn over his eyes by a gentle hand. He thought he was dreaming. He blinked. He opened his eyes easily and looked all around him. No one was there.
He could see the tall bushes clearly. Then he looked at his hands and saw the calloused fingertips. He realized he had tied himself to a tree.
No one was there. Untying himself, he put on his leggings and stood up. Light, tranquil and painless.
    He looked around. No, there was nobody there. Overhead the sun was shining and a north wind was blowing. Mandal climbed up the slope and lay on the lofty mountain side, looking over to a bank of cumulous cloud. Down below he saw the tents and a flock climbing up. Close to the tents men were heating milk. The women and young girls were leaving the camp on their way to the stream. Among them was Nilupar with her bundle hanging from her fingertips over her shoulder.
    "Fate!" said Mandal.
    Into his blood surged the pleasure he had felt when the figure in blue had passed its hand over his face.
    With a smile of fulfillment, he glided unseen down the mountain and hid himself on a huge rock overhanging the stream. Like leeches clinging to the udders of cows, the long tents had patterned the mound. On the hillside opposite, Gelverdi was driving his flock; the girls' laughter reached his ears. Transfixed, Mandal watched. A group of women were swimming and one woman was undressing her child. Nilupar plunged into the water. As her head surfaced, she cast her eyes to the cliff surface. Mandal ducked down. He kept his head low for a moment and then came up from his hiding place. Nilupar pointed to the top of the cliff and let out a burst of laughter. He froze, unable to move. His heart was pounding. Again he ducked down. For a moment he held his breath, and then raised his head. Nilupar came out of water, fixed her gaze upon him and gave a laugh. Mandal felt as if he were falling from the top of the cliff and however hard he tried he was unable to gain a hold.

 

Notes:

This story is set in the Sangsar district in the north of Iran. The tribes move around the edges of the Great Desert and the Salt Desert with their flocks.

 *The service tree, commonly found in the area is a 'love tree'. It is said to arouse passions and it is forbidden for girls to go there.

*Chukha is a woolen garment worn by shepherds or farmers.

*Leggings are a sort of cloth binding round the legs to protect them from thorny plants and for warmth in the cold winters. 

* The story was published in Pakistan in 1999.

Alireza Abiz

 

       Alireza Abiz was born in Abiz, South Khorasan on August 06,1968. He  studied English Language and Literature in Ferdowsi University of Mashhad  (B.A.) and University of Tehran (M.A.). Abiz writes poetry and literary criticism. He is a professional translator and interpreter to the Iranian  Justice Administration. His publications include:

        Stop, we shall get off ( a collection of poetry), Naranj Publishers, 1996 . The Lay of the Love and Death of Cornet Christoph Rilke by Rainer Maria  Rilke (a translation), Abiz Publishers, 2000 .

        Spaghetti with Mexican Ketchup (a collection of poetry), Saleth

        Publishers, 2004 .

        Contemporary African Art by Sydney Littlefield Kasfir (a translation),

        Academy of the Arts Publications, 2005 .

      Abiz has translated a number of Persian short stories and poems into  English which have been published overseas. Some of his poetry has been   translated into English and German languages.

      Alrieza Abiz lives and works in Tehran, Iran.

      The following is a  poem by Alireza Abiz originally written in persian and translated into English by the poet :

 

     Untitled

 

      Hallelujah, Hallelujah!

      Brethren, oh, Brethren

      Hallelujah, Hallelujah!

      Brethren, oh, Brethren

      The end of the world is close

      -And mothers bear headless babies-

      Hallelujah, Hallelujah!

      With a red night cap

      The yellow Satan!

      Brethren, oh, Brethren

      Under London Bridge, the river air

      Hallelujah, Hallelujah!

      Until the next stop

      Apocalyptus, Apocalyptus!

      He came out of the house

      Out of the alley

      Out of the street

      Out of the city

      Keep silent, oh brothers

      Silent

      From above the clouds

      Our Lady, Mary, speaks with us:

      Ah, Pharisees!

        Put a thorn crown on His head-

      Who the hell goes to hell in this age of Epicurus & Manicurus?

      Hallelujah, Hallelujah!

      French kissing and tongue wrestling sounds better!

      How do you think, Virgin Mary?

  

Jalal Al-e Ahmad

An Engagé Writer

 

By Ismail Salami

Born in Tehran into a family of clerical stock, Al-e Ahmad studied religious subjects in Najaf for some months. Upon his return to Iran, he joined different political parties. Yet, he failed to find his desired goals. He studied Persian literature at Tehran University and took on a job as a teacher.

 His first collected stories entitled Pilgrimage (1945) appeared in the Sokhan Literary Magazine. Exchange of Visits, his second collected stories, influenced by Sadegh Hedayat were published in the same year. The narrator of all these stories is an alienated man oscillating between belief and unbelief. Soon afterwards, his stories The Pains We Suffer (1947) were published. The stories, influenced by his political leanings, detailed the pressures exerted on the political activists by the government agents. It was in the same year when he defected from the Tudeh Party together with Khalil Maleki.

 In his collected stories, Extra Woman (1948) and Setar (1952) he depicted the ignorance and blind prejudice of the lower classes. In these stories he employed the interior monologue, a technique which he brought to perfection in such stories as "An American Husband" and "The Auspicious Celebration". Pursuant to the 1954 coup, he was put to prison where he wrote the Story of the Honeycombs (1954) in which he illustrated the social situation of Iran during the oil nationalization process through the migration of the bees. The use of folk elements epitomizes the writer’s efforts to create a native literature. In his novel N and the Pen (1961), he used the form of folk literature and shed light on the modern social issues. In all, Jalal tries in his novels to prove himself as a social reformer and leads his characters in a direction to prove his points.

 He is best-known for his novel The School Principal (1958) in which he illustrates the life of the frustrated generation who seeks to find solace in a restful spot but fails to do so. Bitterly tired of teaching, the hero is assigned as a principal of a school in a god-forsaken place. Events happen one after the other and the writer analyses the social ills. However, unlike his other fictional works, he tries to communicate his message through the narrative events and characters. We come to know all the characters through the school principal. The scandal of the sodomy between two students drags the principal to the court. Thinking that there is someone to listen to him, he puts down to paper his views and opinions. Yet, much to his disillusionment, he discovers that even the court lets the whole affair slip by as if nothing serious has happened. As a result he resigns and leaves. His style is marked by colloquialism, and simplicity. The idea of failure is once again illustrated through this novel.

 In his next novel The Blight of the Earth (1968) which is somewhat the continuation of The School Principal, the narrator reports the changes following the land reforms in the villages. Instead of creating a novel of artistic value, Jalal dwells on issuing a revealing manifesto about the role of the land reforms on traditional agriculture. As a result, he offers a critical report of the existing situation.

 His book Westoxification (1962) represents him as an intellectual writer who entertains a burning desire to go back to traditions and native beliefs. Lost in the Crowd (1968)’ is about Hajj.

 In his autobiography entitled A Stone on a Grave (1983) he deals with his impotence and its effect on his social and emotional relations.

 Jalal Al-e Ahmad was married to Simin Daneshvar, the great Iranian writer. He died in 1966 in Asalem, Gilan.

 The importance of Al-e Ahmad lies in his true depiction of the social situation, colloquial style, simple narrative technique and criticism of the then prevailing social milieu. He is more of an engagé writer who seeks to lay bare the social problems, the ignorance, and blind prejudice of the common people and the evil influence of modernism and mechanization on people’s lives.  

 

Bozorg Alavi, A Leading Iranian Writer

 By Ismail Salami

 

Born in Tehran on February 2, 1904, Bozorg Alavi received his early studies in his hometown. In 1923, he went to Berlin with his father where he learned German. In 1927, his father Seyyed Abolhassan Alavi committed suicide in Berlin. Upon returning to Iran in 1928, he started teaching German at the Industrial College of Shiraz.

 In 1929, he returned to Tehran and embarked on a Persian rendition of Noldeke’s The National Epic of Persia. In 1931, he came in contact with Sadeq Hedayat, the prominent Iranian writer and became involved in a group known as the Four including Sadeq Hedayat, Mojataba Minovi and Masoud Farzad. His collected short stories The Portmanteau, deeply influenced by Hedayat and Freud, were published in 1934.

 In 1937, he was detained and imprisoned together with 53 people on grounds of having Communist leanings. He remained in prison for seven years. While in jail he wrote Panjāh va siho se nafar (Fifty-Three People), describing the members of the socialist group and their ordeal in prison, and the short-story collection Varaq-pārahā-yē zendān (Notes from Prison) which detailed the plight of the intellectuals under Reza Shah. He was also one of the founders of the Tudeh Party of Iran. With the fall of Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq in 1954, Alavi left Iran and took a teaching post at the Humboldt University of Berlin in East Germany.

 Alavi is best known for his novel Her Eyes (1952) in which he details the love between a painter and a woman of the upper class. Maestro Makan is an intellectual who is opposed to the tyrannical rule of Reza Shah. Farangis, an upper class girl, gets painting lessons from the maestro. She is coldly treated by him; therefore, she leaves for Europe. She believes that she has caused the death of the maestro. She also believes that she has sacrificed her life for him.

 While in Paris, she enrolls in the painting classes where she becomes acquainted with Khodadad who draws her attention to the social problems. Khodadad asks her to return to Iran and live with Maestro Makan. Farangis returns to Iran to either express her passionate live to him and take revenge on him. Upon her return to Iran, she becomes involved in political activities. All she does is meant to win the love of Maestro Makan. To achieve this end, she takes on the most precarious tasks. An introverted type, Maestro Makan does not express his secret love to her nor does he take her seriously. Finally, love triumphs over social commitment and he finally embarks on a passionate love affair with Farangis. One day he invites her over to his house. Farangis accepts the invitation with doubts in her heart. Due to this feeling of suspicion, the maestro jilts her. Farangis claims that the maestro has then begun painting her eyes.

 The maestro is arrested and Farangis marries Colonel Aram in order to have the maestro liberated. The maestro is exiled and Farangis returns to Europe. Many years afterwards she learns about the death of the maestro and sees his last painting “Her Eyes”. The picture shows a pair of lustful and unfeeling eyes.

 Farangis is deeply saddened for the maestro has never managed to realize what a supreme sacrifice she has made for him.

 In this novel, Alavi deals with the struggles of the Iranian intellectuals and artists against the despotic rule of Reza Shah. However, the love between the maestro and Farangis overshadows the struggles. In analyzing this love affair, the writer reinforces the repressed desires and aspirations of the intellectuals who rarely find an outlet for their psychological needs. Farangis is among the early female characters in Persian literature who have been depicted as having sublime feelings and great devotion to an ideal.

 The Portmanteau is the first collection of short stories by Alavi in which he shows the spiritual and psychological attitudes of the characters. This book, which exhibits the influence of Sadeq Hedayat and Sigmund Freud, represents a panorama of characters who often fail in their love either for impotence or for psychological problems such as the Oedipus complex. In some stories in this collection he explores the gap between two generations, the fathers and their sons.

 Alavi is also credited with writing some works in German, among them, Kämpfendes Iran (1955; The Struggle of Iran) and Geschichte und Entwicklung der modernen Persischen Literatur (1964; The History and Development of Modern Persian Literature). Alavi died on February 18, 1997, in Berlin, Germany.

 The story, which follows in English translation, is one of the most famous ones by Alavi. In this story, purely Freudian, Alavi explores the relationship between the father and the son in a patriarchic society: the father is the master of the house who tells others what to do and what not to do. He is the one who decides as how his children should act and think. The deep gap between two generations makes it impossible for the son to establish a reasonable relationship with the father whom he sees as the personification of a world which is rotten to the core. Both awed and horrified by the father figure, the protagonist tries to find solace in the arms of a woman of foreign origins who merely epitomizes his repressed sexual desires and in whom he has the chance to vocalize his innermost passions. The girl who is the mother figure finds little chance with the protagonist. They basically engage in secret trysts as though their relationship is of a forbidden nature. The characters in the story are without any names with the exception of the girl. It seems that they have no identities of their own and they are only referred in the story as the father and the son. The tragic sense of the story becomes apparent and more forceful when the protagonist realizes that the girl is going to marry the man whom he detests. In other words, this is the point where he painfully realizes that his father is the rival in his love for the mother figure and he finds himself utterly helpless in the face of this sour truth. Therefore, he prefers to leave as he is but a frustrated man in love.

 

 

 

The Portmanteau

 

I

It was August-a dull Sunday morning in Berlin. The intense heat made me toss and turn in bed, sweat oozing at every pore. However, I was not in the least inclined to get up. The smoke souring up from the factory chimneys mingled with the mist of the jungle the particles of which poured in through the window as if they wanted to intensify the pressure they exerted upon my soul and body. I was then a student in Berlin. It was about half an hour that my landlady had laid my breakfast upon the table. But I had no intention of getting up.

 

Once or twice, she had shouted from behind the door: "Sir, you are wanted on the phone from your father's residence."

 

But I had given no reply. At nine o'clock, someone hastily knocked on the door and slipped in. At first, I presumed that it was my landlady so I paid no heed. All of a sudden, I was startled by my father's voice, springing up on my feet. He took the liberty of ensconcing himself on a chair, taking out his golden cigarette case from his pocket and lit a cigarette.

 

"Why is your room so topsy-turvy? Why don't you pick up your books? Look! Soap, pen, comb, tie, cigarette holder, and photo all jumbled up!"

 

His clean-shaven face emanated a whiff of perfume which was distasteful to me. He was right. His scrupulous care, his self-esteem which had descended to him from his forefathers and his camel-like poise had nothing to do with my wounded delicacy. In his house, he had a special shelf for soaps, a special shelf for cigarettes and a special room for books.

 

Today more than ever before, my noble father had demeanor himself by gracing my house. Was I not the same prodigal son who after a long strife had left his house on grounds that I no longer wished to eat lunch at one, go to bed at eleven and be ready at the breakfast table at seven in the morning? As he was smoking, I splashed water over my face and settled down beside him.

 

"Don't you fancy the idea of traveling?" he asked.

 

I didn't understand what he meant. Did he mean to say "travel or travel with me?"

 

"I am stone-broke. Give me some more money this month." I said, by way of parrying the question.

 

"It's a good thing I came here."

 

"Had I not seen you I would have borrowed some."

 

Knowing that he abhorred the idea of my borrowing money, I deliberately said it to his face so that he might not taunt me with his wealth. He fell silent a moment. His silence-this pernicious habit of his-was a torture to me. His large red eyes in which the brutality of a barbaric father was clearly discernible wore a peculiar look which would set fire to me if they could.

 

To me, it was both repulsive and fatal. After a moment's silence, my father produced his bankbook from his pocket, writing me a check for five marks.

 

"I am traveling to Sitto, a country bordering Czechoslovakia (I have forgotten its name). The train is due at 11:00. Go to my house and wait there until the inn keeper's son takes my portmanteau to the railway station. You can be there so we may travel together.’

 

Without looking at him, I said: "All right."

 

"What do you mean all right? Will you come or will you have my portmanteau taken there?"

 

"Can't you take your portmanteau to the station yourself?"

 

"I am already busy. It's 9:00 and I am about to be somewhere at nine thirty." he said with complete indifference as was his custom.

 

"All right. I'll drink a cup of tea. Then I'll go to bank from where I'll go to your residence. I'll stay there until the inn keeper's son takes your portmanteau to the station and comes back."

 

"It'll be too late if you go to bank."

 

"Unfortunately I don't have any money."

 

At this he gave a metallic laugh and so did I. He gave me ten marks. I thanked him. My father departed. I felt sort of chagrinned. My father was an excellent personification of the past. But his face? His perfume and tie belonged to the present age but his thoughts?! He had to eat at 11:00 sharp or life would come to standstill. Honor would be marred and the holy pillars of family would crumble. It would be nice if sons and daughters gathered together and chatted while father, the head of the family, would sit above all, everybody at his beck and call. Father is the god of the house. He is the reflection of religion in the family or the other way round, just like the old times. I dressed and walked out.

 

The gray color of Berlin streets and the peculiar look of this city in August especially on a suffocating summer's day almost killed me. Shall I go to the country with my father? Will he be going to the frontier to Czechoslovakia? I shall be going with him. But no, a few days ago, that Russian girl ... What was her name? Katushka ... Katushka ... when we bade farewell, she put her slender white hand with her bony long fingers in mine, she said: "I hope to see you again. I am going to Sitto. Why don't you join me there?"

 

The previous night when she had rested her white gaunt face upon my lap, when she had clung her prominent cheekbones to mine, she was murmuring something. Was she flattering me? No, in that state she was incapable of untruth. What was she doing then? Clutching at my hair, she said: "You are different from others." All of a sudden, I burst into a peal of laughter in the middle of the street. When I was jolted into realities, I perceived that I had walked aimlessly for more than half an hour. I had passed my father's residence. A car was coming. I got in. The soft rocking of the car lulled me to slumber like a baby in a cot. It was a slumber of different happenings. Katushka Oslovovna! Where is she going? To Sitto? I heard this name today. That's where my father is going to. I will be going to Sitto with my father to see Katushka Oslovovna. This name has a peculiar music. Katushka ... Oslovovna. At all events, it is worth spending time with these Russian emigrants. She related to me stories about the prince, the duke, the court, Rasputin, Tsar, Tolstoy and Siberia. She knew well that I was opposed to her remarks. I only loved her lips, not the shining jewelries in her bosom. Every time I disagreed with her, she pressed her lips upon mine to silence me. She knew that I had put aside all those words and that I regarded her words as lies and that I knew the truth of her words. However, she loved me and still does.

Sure, she does.

 

"Where are you headed?"

 

"What time is it?"

 

"Ten-thirty."

 

"To 28 Oland Strasse."

 

I was determined to go to Sitto, but in that case I would not have time to go to, my father's residence. First, I went to his residence, put the portmanteau in the car, drew money from my account and set out for where my father had gone at 1:0 in the afternoon.

 

II

As our car had a stop for nearly an hour in Gorlitz, I arrived in Sitto in the evening from where I went to the country by train. I left the portmanteau in the railway station and inquired after Katushka in the country inns. (There were only two.) She was staying at the Green House Inn. There I rented a room. Katushka, her mother and another woman had two rooms at the Green House. After a time, I wrote a few words on my card: “My dear Katushka, I have just arrived. I wish to see you. Fix the time and place. F."

 

I rang the bell. A nineteen year old maid opened the door. She had blonde hair and greenish eyes. She smiled as I gave her the card.

 

"Are you Mr. F? It's four days since the Lady has been inquiring after you."

 

"From you?"

 

"You know. I like her. They were here last year. They gave me a book. You know?"

 

"What?"

 

"Mistress confides her secrets to me."

 

"What's your name?"

 

"Friedel."

 

"Well, Friedel. Will you tell me her secrets?"

 

"Please don't insist."

 

"All right. Don't tell me if you don't wish to." The girl reflected.

 

"No, I'll tell you because I know Miss Katushka loves you. She's been inquiring after you since the day she came here. Today, a certain gentleman came to mistress. He was with them when they came here to rent the rooms. Mistress doesn't like him, you know. I think she is obliged to be with him. This evening she was wondering when you would come."

 

Fishing out a two-mark bill from my pocket, I furtively thrust it in her hand and asked: "Well Friedel. Tell me what kind of man is he?"

 

"I simply don't know. I didn't see him distinctly."

 

"All right Friedel, have this card to mistress and take care nobody notice."

 

It was as if cold water had been poured on me ... I thought of leaving the inn and going to where my father was staying. After all girls are girls. Their tears and smiles are false. If Katushka is a liar, all the girls are liars. But how can these glittering eyes lie? Have not these eyes and cheeks ensnared me? That man must also be in love with beauty. In what ways am I superior to him? In fact she may love me but his bank account is surely bigger than mine. Yes, money is the first pillar of the holy foundation of family. I wish I had not sent her the card. Why should I have cheapened myself by sending the card? But as the girl was aware of everything, I could not do otherwise. Friedel came back. On a card, Katushka Oslovovna had written: "My mother wishes to make your acquaintance and invites you to have dinner with us in the veranda.”... Now I must change my clothes, observe etiquette and kiss her mother's hand... I've come for the sole purpose of kissing Katushka's cheeks and looking into her eyes. Excuse me tonight. I should call on my father as I've already planned to. Katushka Oslovovna. I uttered the name aloud. It actually escaped my tongue. The door opened. Katushka entered and stepped up to me.

 

"You came at last! I had no hope of your coming," she observed.

 

The soft music of her voice made me forget all I thought of her. Kissing her hand, I seated her on the coach.

 

"Yes, I came at last," I answered.

 

Perching on the edge of the coach, I put my hands round her neck. She gazed at me.

 

"I'd forsaken all hopes of your coming."

 

"Why?"

 

"Why?! Do I not know you? You are fundamentally a daydreamer. You are never awake. Now that I am talking to you, you are not listening to me."

 

She was right. At that moment, I was watching the rosy flowers on her white gown. I had feasted my eyes on her voluptuously white breasts which were visible through her transparent batiste. Her shapely neck, now wrapped in a black muffler, gave me enormous delight. I gazed at her black eyelashes which had almost curtained her eyes. I was not listening to her remarks simply because they were so commonplace. My eyes were fixed into hers.

 

"I came in person so as to ask you not to refuse my mother's invitation," she said.

 

"What made you think that I wouldn't turn up?"

 

"I know you hate such formalities," she said.

 

For answer, I pressed my lips upon hers, sucking them awhile. She knew me so well. (How did she know me so well?) This question would be an insult to her. This girl was oversentimental. Still, she was incapable of false feelings. Was such a thing possible? "It's a month since we have known each other. But it seems I have known you ever since I knew myself. Where did I first see you? In a dream? Yes, in a dream. Maybe I was then fifteen years old. I was always in love with greenish eyes like yours. I've always loved blond hair like yours. Do you remember what I told you the first night we met? I have always cherished an illusion. Now I see it manifested in you, in your lugubrious thoughts, in your life and in your troubled soul. You know my life well. You are an odd people. I know well that your love is not for ever. It's a wave that comes and goes. A wave goes but water remains for all the time to come. You will forget me, won't you? But I won't forget you. My dream has eventually come true. My life is not wasted away. So far I've been fostering this illusion. From this onwards, the reminiscence of those days will keep me alive. You can't marry me. So how can you live with me your entire life? But as long as I am with you I ....”

 

She burst into an agony of tears.

 

"I'll have to get married sooner or later," she sobbed.

 

Now her mystery broke upon my understanding. The man with whom she had newly become acquainted was to become her husband. Katushka might love me without being my legal wife if she wished so and other factors didn't compel her. But now she was compelled by nobody neither by father nor by mother but by an accursed ghastly demon, money, society and environment to sell herself for an entire life so as she may sustain life. All the girls sell themselves either for an hour or a day at a low price or for an entire life to keep soul and body together.

 

"Stop crying Katushka. Now you see why I detest the world so intensely."

 

She did not understand what I said but kissed me a kiss which could have been given by none but a Russian black haired girl.

 

"When shall we meet again?" she asked.

 

"Can we go for a little turn after dinner?"

 

"All right. After dinner."

 

 

III

On the whole, I had a dull time having dinner with Katushka her mother and the other woman. After dinner, Katushka and I went for a turn. We walked for more than half an hour. The sky was being mildly enveloped in darkness.

 

Leisurely we perambulated through the cypress trees in the woods. A thin mass of cloud had rendered the sky blue. The routes were silent and solemn. The barking of dogs fell upon our ears from afar. Katushka was murmuring a Russian song and I was listening. Half an hour rolled away. On a hill in the woods was mounted a scaffolding. Katushka was tired.

 

"Would you like to rest awhile?"

 

"Good idea!"

 

"Let's go up the scaffolding."

 

"I dread I may fall."

 

"Don't fear. I'll help you up. The air here is rather unbeatable. Up there, the air is far better."

 

The scaffolding had five steps. The instant she put her foot on the first step, the scaffolding made a jerk. Katushka flung herself into my arms. It was a propitious moment for us to exchange passionate kisses once more. Then, I helped her up. We were surrounded by black trees whose tops quavered like ripples. Softly and soulfully, Katushka resumed murmuring the same Russian song. I held her hand in mine and called her name. For answer she reclined her head upon my shoulder. If only this silence would elongate itself into eternity! An instant afterwards, she asked: “What brought you here?"

 

"First, I had promised you so."

 

"And second ... ."

 

"Second, I came here because my father is here."

 

"Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

 

"It was hardly worth mentioning. You respect your parents so much. My attitude, however, is the exact opposite, in everything, I mean."

 

"Acquaint me with him or are you ashamed of doing that?"

 

"Why should I be? I simply don't like it. But if you wish, tomorrow, I ... ."

 

She buried her face in my arms.

 

"Not tomorrow."

 

"Why not tomorrow?" She put her hands round my neck, covering me with frantic kisses and wept excoriating tears. I unclasped her hands from my neck, taking her cheeks between my two hands and cast a glance into her eyes in the dark.

 

"Stop crying Katushka. I understand you. Such is your world. I love

you, Katushka. I love you so much that I can't buy you. We had better continue to cherish this illusion. Besides, it's not a bad one. It consoles us, and inspires hope and courage. You intend to go for a turn with that new-comer tomorrow, don't you? Well, we shall meet each other tomorrow night."

 

"Don't fancy that I'll be alone with him. Mom will accompany us. We'll be his guests at the White Horse Inn tomorrow night. Come without fail. I want to introduce him to you. I wish to know your opinion about him."

 

"All right, Katushka. I should call on my father first. After which I’ll join you at White Horse Inn tomorrow night."

 

We said no more. Then ardent kisses and caresses spoke for us. Gradually, the moon emerged into sight. It was late. We climbed down the scaffolding. The doves, intoxicated by the moonlight, were billing and cooing. We took great pleasure in giving ear to those warbling birds. It was already 11:00 when I arrived home. I called Friedel. She brought me wine. After some time, the sound of music came to my ears from my neighbor’s room. For a while, I indulged in wine and cigarettes.

 

IV

At 9:00 in the morning, I came out of my bedroom. At first, I paced up and down the corridor for some time. Friedel, with a white kerchief round her head, was cleaning the rooms. She told me that Katushka and her mother had gone for a turn. I made for the railway station from where I got on a coach while I had my father's portmanteau with me and set out for the White Horse Inn where my father staying. I got there at 2:30 but my father wasn't there. I was told that he had left early in the morning. I left the portmanteau with the inn keeper and set out. I reached Green House Inn in the evening but Katushka wasn't there. Again, Friedel made her appearance. Unlike usual, she was attired in a gorgeous dress.

 

"Sir, the ladies came and went."

 

"You look good tonight, Friedel."

 

"I am going to a dance with my fiancée."

 

Upon having dinner, I set out for White Horse Inn on foot. I arrived there at 9:00. I was told that my father was in the hall downstairs. I dismounted the stairs and opened the door.

 

Astonishment seized me when my glance fell on Katushka sitting beside my father. The waiter was removing the used goblets, replacing them with new ones. My father was clean shaven. Katushka was wearing her blue gown and looked prettier than ever before. Immediately, I stormed out. On my card, I scribbled a few words and gave it to the waiter to hand it to Katushka.

 

"My dear Katushka, you had asked me to introduce my father to you. He is the same man sitting beside you. You had asked me to give my opinion about your would be husband. He'll make a good husband. You'll be happy with him. F."

 

I turned to the inn keeper and said: "The portmanteau belongs to the man sitting beside that lady."

 

Attar, A Great Mystic Poet 

By Ismail Salami

 

Attar is one of the greatest Muslim mystical writers and thinkers of all times. The importance of this towering literary figure largely rests on his dissemination of Sufi thinking through his poetry and prose works.   

Little is known of his life. Born Farid od-Din Mohammad ibn Ibrahim Attar in Neyshabur c. 1142?, he traveled widely throughout Egypt, Turkistan, and India during his youth. It is generally agreed that his father was a great apothecary and that Attar followed in his footsteps pursuant to his demise. Attar went through his spiritual awakening while he was practicing medicine. Jami, the great Iranian poet and mystic, states that he was an adherent of the mystical thoughts of Majd ad-din Baghdadi. Legend says that Attar was once sitting in his shop and a dervish entered and asked him: How will you die? He answered: As you will. Then the dervish lay down and mentioned the name of Allah and died on the spot. This event produced in him an indescribable state whereupon he relinquished all worldly matters and joined the circle of the dervishes.

Narration has it that Baha Walad, Father of Rumi, together with his son Rumi met him on their way to Mecca in Neyshabur and Attar gave them a copy of the Asrar-Nameh (The Book of Secrets).

A prolific writer and poet, Attar wrote and compiled many works of literature which are used as great references in Islamic mysticism.

In his works he deals with many sublime ideas; yet, a dominant theme which pervades most of his works is the notion of ‘Mad Wise Men’. The readers may be astounded by the way he addresses God through the tongue of his characters. Most of them are mad or half-wits. According to Attar, there are three groups of people who are allowed to speak audaciously to God: the prophets, the mystics, and the mad men. And the characters in his narratives are licensed to talk audaciously to and about God because they are mad.

Yet, Attar is best-known in the West for his Mantiq al-Tayr (The Conference of the Birds), a poem consisting of 4600 couplets. The book has long caught the attention and interest of the orientalists all over the world. There are more than seventy English renditions of the work in English alone, a fact which testifies to the significance of this work in the West.

Mantiq al-Tayr describes the journey of a flock of birds to the home of their guide. Each bird symbolizes a certain attribute. The birds are in fact after a king to rule over them. They assemble together and the hoopoe rises and states that the only bird who deserves to rule over them is but the Simorgh (phoenix). They start an arduous journey and some of them die on the way and the surviving thirty birds (simorgh=phoenix) arrive at their destination and look in the mirror-like countenance of the Simorgh (phoenix), only to realize that they and the Simorgh are one. The book in fact exemplifies the union between the human and the divine.

Another great work by the poet is Tadhkirat al-Awliya (Hagiography). It details the biographies of the Muslim saints and mystics. It includes the biographies of such great mystics as Hallaj, Bayazid Bastami and Imam Ja’far Sadeq (AS) whom the writer believes was one of the initiators of the doctrine of Sufism in Islam.

Attar’s influence is extremely felt not only in Iranian literature but also in other Muslim literatures.

Attar was killed at the hands of a Mongol soldier c. 1220.

Helmut Ritter is among the great orientalists who have conducted exhaustive studies on the works of this great mystic poet.

 

 

 

Simin Behbahani, The Lady of Today

 By Ismail Salami

 

A poet of lyrical gift, Simin Behbahani was born in 1927 in Tehran of literary parents. Her father, Abbas Khalili, was a novelist and her mother, Fakhri Arghun, a noted feminist, teacher, and writer. She published her first poem at 14. Simin is the author of over a dozen books of poetry in Persian including The Broken Lute (1951), Footprint (1954), Candelabrum (1955), Marble (1961), Resurrection (1971),  A Trajectory of Speed and Fire (1980), Arzhan Plain (1983), and Paper Dress (1992).

 

 

 The Waxen Doll

You were a darling doll of love

Which I made out of the wax of fantasy.

With the hand of illusion, I infused your body

With the grace of the clear spring waters. 

Your soft body I clad

In the white attire of my poem.

Of your face, purer than marble

I wrote a few lines in my poem. 

Many a night, with the tips of my eyelashes

I stole stars from the sky

And put them in row one by one

To hang round your neck. 

I fetched dews from the tulip garden

Wherewith to wash your white body.

I fetched the scent of vernal morn

To perfume your breasts. 

When morning smiled,

I borrowed its smile for you.

Night fell, and I took

From its tresses a musky strand. 

Your face looked fresh

And pretty as a charming rose.

I tried hard

Alas, your waxen body did not warm up. 

One day of all warm autumnal days

I sat you in the sun;

I went and came back. Oh what a sight!

The sun had molten you. 

You melted and the attire of my poem

Was bathed in your clear lucid body.

And the waxen stain of your body

Left forever a mark on its white garment.

 

  

Gale

O eye! If you assist tonight I will raise a gale

Fire I will cast into heart and into the sea I will sail 

I will seek you though you are out of sight

I pine for you though with my feeling I fight 

The prison of patience I will break

The burning virtue I will into prison take 

For the virtuous intellect a shroud will I find

Or I will divest myself of the power of the mind 

Return and at your coyness my heart will I lay

Whatever you demand of me, I will obey, I will obey.

  

Sadeq Chubak and Quest for Justice

By Ismail Salami

 

 

Born on August 5 , 1916 , Bushehr , Sadeq Chubak studied in Bushehr , Shiraz, and Tehran . For some time he was employed the Ministry of Education and the Oil Company. Widely considered as the greatest naturalist writer in Persian literature, he has written a large bulk of works including novels , short stories , and plays . The collected stories Puppet Show and The Monkey Whose Master had Died  have exercised profound influence on modern Persian literature.

 His novel Tangsir details the valorous acts of the fighters in Tangestan. It has been translated in many languages. Irked by social injustice, the protagonist, Zar Mohammad, takes justice in his own hands and fights the social iniquities. Zar Mohammad has earns a considerable sum of money and embarks on trading but he is ripped out of his money by the governor. Bitterly despaired by the delay or absence of justice, he takes a gun and kills his enemies one by one. After the killing of the frauds, he is dubbed Shir Mohammad (lion-hearted Mohammad) by the villagers. The theme of justice and revenge fills the entire ambience of the novel.  After long ordeals, Shir Mohammad escapes the grip of the law. The quest for justice turns into a messianic mission for the protagonist who comes to be viewed by other villagers as a man who is tasked with liberating them from the tyrannous hands.

 After the publication of The Last Alms and The First Night of the Grave Chubak wrote his novel The Patient Stone which is a great modern novel in Persian literature. This novel details the events in a neighborhood. One of the neighbors called ‘Gowhar’ is lost and the characters talk about her from their own point of view. All the characters of the novel are infernally captivated by their desires and deterministic powers. They are all exposed to threats of death, rape, and violence. The destructive influence of superstitions is clearly discernible in their lives. The novel is divided into 26 sections, each section narrated through free association. Gowhar is absent in the novel but she constitutes the main talk of the characters. Gowhar which literally means jewel can be taken as a symbol for the lost jewel of humanity in the society. Chubak depicts a very brutal world in which people are extremely mortified and they cannot bear the sight of each other.

 In his works, Chubak studies the lives of the downtrodden people of the society who are victimized by iniquities and natural deterministic forces. Sympathetic to the sorrows and miseries of such people, he offers one single solution, combating corruption and injustice.

 Chubak died on July 3, 1998, in Berkeley, California, U.S.

Simin Daneshvar
                                                                                       By Ismail Salami

 Born on 7 May 1921 in Shiraz, Daneshvar finished her high school studies in her hometown. In 1938, she came to Tehran where she started studying Persian literature at Tehran University. Her father was a medical doctor and her mother was a painter. She wrote and translated many articles on women’s affairs and youths before her first collected short stories The Dying Fire (1948) was published. In 1949, she obtained her PhD in Persian literature from Tehran University. In 1950, she formed a union with Jalal Al-e Ahmad, the prominent Iranian writer.

In 1952-54, she went to Stanford University on a Fulbright scholarship. Upon her return to Iran, she was employed at Tehran University as an associate professor of art history, a post she held for twenty years.

Daneshvar is best-known for her novel Savushun. The story is narrated by a woman named Zari who tries to project her family during the turbulent years of World War II but she fails to do so. Crisis soon grips her family and disintegrates it. The first chapter of the book shows Zari with her husband Yusef at the marriage ceremony of the governor’s daughter. The British have deployed forces in the area and war has brought but famine and disease. The governor is a puppet of the foreigners and the merchants sell the supplies of people to the British forces and reduce people to more hunger and misery. Yusef, a man of nationalistic leanings, refuses to sell the supplies to the British forces. At the marriage ceremony, his conduct sparks the ire of the British people. His wife Zari tries to quiet him and the efforts of his brother to collaborate with the British come to waste. Duped by the British, the Qashqai khans come to Yusef to buy supplies so that they may sell them to the British and buy weapons instead to fight the Iranian army. However, Yusef does not agree. The city is rife with corruption, insecurity, and typhus. At home, Zari tries to keep things in order. In order to help the needy, Zari goes to prisons and madhouses and becomes familiar with the calamities which have blackened the fate of people there. Khosrow, Zari’s son, is drawn to political ideology and his teacher creates unrest and anxiety in their family. Gradually, Zari comes to fathom the social problems more than ever before. Zari is filled with anxiety for the life of Yusef until one day his body is brought to the house.

 Other important works by Dansehvar include Whom Shall I Greet?, The Island of Bewilderment, and A City Like Paradise.

 

Forugh Farrokhzad

By Ismail salami

 

One of the leading modern poets of Iran, Forugh Farrokhzad was born and brought up in a military family. She married Parviz Shapur, the well-known Iranian satirist at the age of 16. She learned painting and sewing and moved to Ahvaz with her husband. Thence she started corresponding with well-known magazines; her first volume of poetry The Captive came out in 1965. The Captive was a romantic collection widely influenced by Fereydoon Moshiri, Nader Naderpur, and Fereydoon Tavallali. Later on, her books The Wall and The Rebellion were published in the same poetic mood. In 1962, she went to Tabriz and made a film entitled The House is Black about the lepers’ colony which bagged numerous international awards. In 1963, she published her fourth volume of poetry Another Birth which was indeed another birth in the modern Persian poetry.

Her long poem Let us Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Season  was published posthumously which is beyond doubt the best-structured modern poem in Persian. Her collected poems are a perfect prototype of modern Persian poetry.

Forugh died in a car accident at the age of 32 on February 14, 1967.

Forugh was a lonely woman as professor Hillman suggests. This sense of deep solitude and isolation was largely imposed by the society where she lived. She accepted this bitter feeling of isolation as an essential part of her feminine being.

In my little night creeps an anguish of ruin.

Listen!

Do you hear Darkness blowing?

I view this felicity in the attitude of a stranger

I am addicted to my despair.

Despondent though she is, she is waiting for a messiah to come and liberate her from this sense of loneliness with the power of love.

O Green from sole to crown!

Place your hands in my loving hands

Like a blazing memory!

Forugh rules out the possibility of true love and attacks the male-dominated society, arguing that a woman is seen only as an object of sexual gratification rather than as a being endowed with human feelings.

With a voice so false, so strange

One can cry:

"I love"

In the domineering arms of a man

One can be a pretty healthy female.

Her poetry lays bare a voice imprisoned in a patriarchic society where women find little chance or freedom to give _expression to their innermost repressed feelings and desires. Risking the possibility of being ostracized, she creates candidly feminine poetry. Early critics showed a diverse range of reactions to her poetry. To some, her poetry was a manifestation of a trouble soul and to some others, it was just an audacious effort to fly against the social norms. However, after her tragic death, critics came to accord serious attention to the aesthetic aspects of her works and her poetic courage.

Forugh left a precious legacy of poetry though she lived only a brief life.

 

ANOTHER BIRTH

My entire soul is a murky verse

Reiterating you within itself

Carrying you to the dawn of eternal burstings and blossomings

In this verse, I sighed you, AH!

In this verse,

I grafted you to trees, water and fire

Perhaps life is

A long street along which a woman

With a basket passes every day

Perhaps life

Is a rope with which a man hangs himself from a branch

Perhaps life is a child returning home from school

Perhaps life is the lighting of a cigarette

Between the lethargic intervals of two lovemakings

Or the puzzled passage of a passerby

Tipping his hat

Saying good morning to another passerby with a vacant smile

Perhaps life is that blocked moment

When my look destroys itself in the pupils of your eyes

And in this there is a sense

Which I will mingle with the perception of the moon

And the reception of darkness

In a room the size of one solitude

My heart

The size of one love

Looks at the simple pretexts of its own happiness,

At the pretty withering of flowers in the flower pots

At the sapling you planted in our flowerbed

At the songs of the canaries

Who sing the size of one window.

Ah

This is my lot

This is my lot

My lot

Is a sky, which the dropping of a curtain seizes from me

My lot is going down an abandoned stairway

And joining with something in decay and nostalgia

My lot is a cheerless walk in the garden of memories

And dying in the sorrow of a voice that tells me:

"I love

Your hands"

I will plant my hands in the flowerbed

I will sprout, I know, I know, I know

And the sparrows will lay eggs

In the hollows of my inky fingers

I will hang a pair of earrings of red twin cherries

Round my ears

I will put dahlia petals on my nails

There is an alley

Where the boys who were once in love with me,

With those disheveled hairs, thin necks and gaunt legs

Still think of the innocent smiles of a little girl

Who was one night blown away by the wind

There is an alley which my heart

Has stolen from places of my childhood

The journey of a volume along the line of time

And impregnating the barren line of time with a volume

A volume conscious of an image

Returning from the feast of a mirror

This is the way

Someone dies

And someone remains

No fisherman will catch pearls

From a little stream flowing into a ditch

I

Know a sad little mermaid

Dwelling in the ocean

Softly, gently blowing

Her heart into a wooden flute

A sad little mermaid

Who dies with a kiss at night

And is born again with another kiss at dawn

 

 

THOSE DAYS

Those days are gone

Those darling days

Those vigorous verdant days

Those sequin-studded skies

Those branches bearing cherries

Those houses leaning on each other

Within the green hedges of ivies

Those rooftops of playful kites

Those alleys stupefied by the scent of acacias

Those days are gone

Those days when from the slits of my eyes

My songs boiled out like air bubbles

Whatever my eye settled on

It drank up like fresh milk

As if in the pupils of my eyes

Dwelled a restless merry rabbit

Each morning together with the ancient Sun

It went hunting in unknown pastures of discovery

At nights it sank into deep dark jungles

Those days are gone

Those snowy silent days

When from behind the windows in the warm room

I stared out

My pure snow

Gently fell like soft cotton

On the old wooden ladder

On the slack clothes-line

On the tresses of aged pine-trees

And I thought of tomorrow, ah

Tomorrow-

That slippery white mass

Began with the rustle of grandma's chador

A large veil worn by women in some Muslim countries

And her shadow fluttering at the threshold

-Suddenly left in the cold sense of light-

And the confused pattern of the birds' flight

Within the colored cups of glass

Tomorrow...

The warmth of the korsi induced sleep.

A heater-like object formerly used in winter

Quickly and boldly

Far from grandma's eye, I erased

Checkmarks from my old notebooks

When snow settled

I rambled in the garden, woeful

Beside vases of dry jasmine

I buried my dead sparrows

Those days are gone

Those days of ecstasy and wonder

Those days of sleep and wakefulness

Those days each shadow contained a secret

Each closed box held a treasure

In the silence of noon, every corner of the storeroom

Seemed to be a world

Anyone who knew no dread of the dark

Was a hero in my eyes

Those days are gone

Those New Year days

Those cravings for sunshine and flowers

Those vibrations of scent

In the silent coy company of wild narcissuses

Visiting town

In the last morning of winter

The cries of venders in the long green-flecked streets

The bazaar was afloat in wandering odors,

In the astringent smells of coffee and fish

The bazaar stretched out, elongating and mingling

With all the moments along the way

And turned in the depths of the dolls' eyes

The bazaar was Mother rushing

Towards green fluid volumes

Then returning

With boxes of gifts, with full baskets

The bazaar was rain, which was falling, falling, falling

Those days are gone

Those days of gazing into the secrets of body

Those days of cautious familiarity

With the beauty of blue colors

A hand holding a flower

Calling from behind a wall

Another hand

And little stains of ink on this terrified, tormented,

Trembling hand

And love

Manifesting itself in a bashful greeting

In the sweltering smoky noons

We chanted our love in the alley's dust

We perceived the simple language of dandelions

We took our hearts to the garden of innocent kindnesses

And lent them to trees

And the ball passed from hand to hand, conveying a kiss

And love was a baffled meaning

In the darkness of passageway

Suddenly,

It encompassed us;

And drew us in the burning gust of breaths, beatings,

And secret smiles

Those days are gone

Those days like vegetation rotting in the sun

Rotted in the sun

And those alleys stupefied by the scent of acacias got lost

In the clamor of streets of no return

And the girl who colored her cheeks

With cranesbills petals, ah!

Was now a lonely woman

Was now a lonely woman

 

Reza Julai

By Ismail salami

 

Born into a middle class family in 1950, Julai was educated first in Tehran and then studied medicine at Shiraz University. However, for reasons only known to himself, he abandoned his studies for economy and obtained a BA in the discipline.

In 1972, some of his stories appeared in different magazines. Yet, he buckled down to serious writing in the 1980s. His first collection of stories was centered on the Qajar period and the defeat the Iranians sustained at the hands of the Russians. In his other stories too, Julai mingled the violence and political repression of the Qajar period with the calamities wrought by war, thereby creating a hair-raising ambience. Still in others, he uses natural elements and god-forsaken spots in order to show the dark corners of human soul. The Blood-stained Garment (1989), which garnered public acclaim, is among his historical stories. The Immortals is a novel loosely based on Bram Stoker’s Dracula. 

Julai is immensely drawn to the writings of the Qajar period, and such writers as Franz Kafka and Edgar Allen Poe. His Kafkaesque style bears testimony to the depth of his attachment to the writer. Albeit he has managed to gain a style of his own which is novel and unique in modern Persian fiction. In his works, history and fiction together with his unique style mingle to create enviable works in the history of Persian writings. Complexity, originality, powerful narrative techniques and superb use of old words mark his style.

The Blood-stained Garment (1989), a collection of short stories, won him the title of the best post-revolutionary Iranian writer and catapulted him into the limelight.

Julai is a writer of great capacities with a short way to go to the top list of the few Iranian writers who have exercised a lasting impact on Persian fiction.

Attempt on His Excellency has been translated into German.

‘The Lucifer’ which follows in English translation, is a short story included in his The Hall of The Tavern.

 

 

 

LUCIFER

The sky was red and dismal. Clouds of dust were blowing in the wind. The dry branches of the trees were swaying. The man put up the shutters, hurried into the shop, brought the hasps and fastened them onto the shutters. With his hands, he inspected the doors closely. The barking of the dogs reached his ears from a distance. The wind ceased for a moment but the flickering light of the lantern was still trembling on the wall. Again, the wind began to howl, throwing the motes to his face. Sinking his head between his shoulders, he put his hands in his pockets and departed. His fingers touched the cold metal of the statue. He thought he should be happy but he was not. He had bought the statue cheaper than the real price. The seller had been in a hurry as if he had stolen it. He could have bought it at a lower price but reflected that the seller might have relinquished the idea of selling it had he been greedy. While in his shop, he had bent over the yellow leaves of an old book amidst the old furniture in his second-hand shop, and pored over the pale lines with a magnifying glass. It was a chirographic ancient book. The writer had witnessed the attacks of Tartars with his own eyes, and had lost his wife and children. At the end of his life, he had consigned to paper his assumptions regarding Divine predestination.

Intent on estimating the price of the half-torn book in terms of money he observed someone gazing at him. He looked up. A man, wrapped in a muffler, was standing in the dark. His heart began palpitating at the unexpected encounter. He wanted to bawl him out but remained silent when the man took a step forward.

"I have a statue for sale," he said huskily.

In an effort to see the man, he screwed up his eyes but saw nothing but a mere shape.

"Come closer," he said.

But the man did not move a muscle. He waited but the man remained motionless.

"An unseen object has no price," he declared.

Still, the man did not move. Then, he picked up the lantern from the table and drew up the wick. At this moment, the wind blew the window open, whirled in the room, shook the curtains, trembled the flame and scattered the papers. Swiftly, he went towards the window and bolted it. As he came back, he found the statue on the table. He took it and was surprised by at its heavy weight. He examined it in the light of the lantern. It looked like a dwarf in shape of a man with a pendulous pouch, an open mouth, two shut eyes and a pair of free hands and a dangling penis. As he was studying it with a magnifying glass, he surreptitiously scratched its surface with his thumb-nail and saw the flash of silver beneath its black coating. Did the man know it? The feet of the statue were planted in a rectangular pedestal.

He conquered his dubiety and said, "It's not obvious to which age it belongs."

Seeing that the man was silent, he pursued, "Such an object can be found in any historical era. So it knows no certain historical value ... And the erosions ... Have you washed it? To wash such antiques, there is a special way of which ordinary people are unaware. As a result, instead of cleaning them, they just ruin them."

Again, he set to examining its engravings. As he saw the man's silence, he felt emboldened, shrugged his shoulders and said, "It's obviously made of brass."

Then he cast a sidelong glance at him. The man took another step forward. His face was still invisible.

"How much will you pay for it?" he asked.

His heart sank at the sound of the man's voice. He was slightly frightened but pulled himself together, took the statue again, assumed a thoughtful face and studied it carefully and heaved a deep sigh. He uttered a certain price but did not dare to look at the man. From the corner of his eyes, he saw that his lips had split into a derisive smile. He thought he had gone too far.

"It's a deal," he announced.

He drew a sigh of relief, opened a chest, took out some coins, counted them and gave them to the man. Without counting the coins, he put them in his pocket, opened the door and rushed out, leaving the door open behind him. The ominous howling of the wind whirled in. He craned his head out. The man had vanished in the murk. He closed the door, fetched his touchstone and set to examining the statue. The price he had paid was not even half the price. The barking of dogs arose in the dark. He was not looking where he was going. He reached the bazaar. A burning lantern was dangling from a peg on the wall. He hastened towards the lantern.

From the heart of darkness came the snarls of the dogs. His feet refused to budge. Again, he turned round, seeking a way into the street. The wind began blowing anew. A piece of the gable fell off the roof noisily. A glass broke. A child cried. The horrified crying of the child soothed him to some extent. Yet, he couldn't find his way out. Holding the statue in his pocket, he started running through the lanes. He dreaded he would lose his way.

Upon reaching home, he was completely out of breath. With apprehension, he looked for his key. His hands were trembling. The paws of the dogs sounded threateningly. He shut the door behind him and sat down on the bottom stair. He gasped. But soon, he felt relieved. An illimitable wealth was in his pocket. Now he was powerful. His shattered hopes marched before his eyes. A lantern was burning feebly in the room. He drew up the wick. His father was staring at the ceiling with wide opened eyes. He said hello but did not wait for answer. He went into another room and took off his clothes. Shortly afterwards, he was at his father's bedside.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

His father looked away in disgust.

"I am awaiting death which doesn't come so you may throw this carcass of mine into the well," he said.

He removed the sheet. A putrid smell forced itself to his nostrils.

Then he removed the gauzes. Serum had oozed out from the violet-colored abbesses under his arms and between his thighs.

He wiped the abbesses, covering them with a thick layer of black oil. He recollected that the doctor had strongly recommended his father not to scratch or press his wounds.

"The cause of the disease is the existence of a tiny worm in the skin. In case it goes under his skin, he will die."

"Untie my hands!" moaned his father.

But he gave no answer. Slowly, he removed the anticassamer which was besmeared with blood and excrement from under his body. The old man cursed. A thick green liquid was accumulated under his body which emanated a fetid odor. He felt sick and averted his face. Then, he cleaned his body.

"Why don't you let me alone? My eternal curse fall on you!" swore the old man.

"Untie my hands! You want a clear conscience, you spawn of the wicked? You don't feel for me. Untie my hands!"

He cried convulsively, turning his head right and left. He waited for the old man to calm down. He wiped his hands and face, brought the pottage he had heated and put it in his mouth spoon by spoon. Then, he gave him a drink of water. Drawing down the lantern wick, he went into another room. There, he lit the samovar, ate a loaf of bread and drank a cup of tea. Taking out the dwarf from his pocket, he put it in front of himself and stared at it. The wind was blowing boisterously. But he felt secure inside.

"After years of waiting, I am in luck at last."

He thought about its value. Then he took the magnifying glass, stared at its minute engravings and transferred them onto paper. He, then, started rummaging through his books. It was midnight when he found similar lines in a certain book. He found similar letters and put them together.

It said, "I am Lucifer, the weaver of the wafts and wefts of fate." Astonished, he rose up with great difficulty. His hand struck the cup. It broke. He stared at the bits. So, he had found the statue of Lucifer of Babel who had fled hell.

With a trembling hand, he pulled a heavy book from the shelf, leafing it over until he reached this passage: "By magic, Lucifer discovered the Great Secret, namely the fate of mankind. In the town he roamed, revealing to people their fate. The virgins and the veiled dames surrendered themselves to him so as to learn their fate. It went on to the point where there was no virgin in Babel and a great dissention arose amongst people for those who gained knowledge of their fate washed their hands off the world and sank into depravity. At length, God was wrathful and had him hanged upside down in a burning well in Hell. Deceiving his guardian angels, Lucifer fled amongst people, disseminating the notion of necessarianism, regarding sins as inevitable. The Almighty commanded Michael to chastise him. Thus, he took orders and obeyed.”

It seemed as if the dwarf were sneering at him with closed eyes. All night long, he dreamt that he was roving in the dark narrow alleys. And he couldn't find his way out. It was as though someone was after him. His legs were disobedient to him like a pair of logs.

Upon opening his eyes, the moaning of a man which resembled the howling of animals reached his ears. He went to his father's room. His haggard face was soaked with sweat. He was breathing heavily. He woke him up and gave him a drink of water. His father stared at him vapidly. "You cannot imagine what a treasure I have got hold of. We are rich. I shall bring the most experienced doctor to your bedside. We shall sell this hovel and that shop with all those odds and ends. We will go to another city with a pleasant climate. We will buy a big house. We will have servants and maids. Now is the end of your poverty and sickness. "

The old man had averted his gaze. His eyes were wet with tears. "You are not happy, father?" he asked.

There was no answer. He turned round. His glance fell on his own reflection in the mirror. How he resembled his father! The wind abated in the morning. He gave breakfast to the old man. Then, he put on his clothes and crept out. The streets were dusty and empty. Broken branches and motes scattered in the streets. He commenced his long stroll.

II

In the evening, he, completely soaked, struck the knocker of Hezkiah's tavern door. Water was dripping down from the roof and the branches. Dust had given place to dampness and wind to rainfall. Holding a lantern, shabby Hezkiah opened the door. He had tiny eyes and henna-colored beard. He recognized him but said nothing. In the poorly-lit cubbyhole, he sprawled down on a carpeted bed. Hezkiah put a glass, a dust-laden bottle, a loaf of bread and a bowl of grape juice before him. Then he departed. Soon afterwards, he came back with a lantern he had lit in honor of his guest. He filled the glass and sipped it. Now the old Lucifer was silent.

All day long, he had hauled him from one place to another, sneering at him. As he neared the coachman, the bulging-eyed horses neighed wildly, raising their forelegs in an effort to break loose from their shafts. However hard the coachman striven to quiet them proved abortive. Hence, he was compelled to go to the antiquarian's house on foot. The sound of knocking was lost in the clamor of the wind and rain. He knocked louder. He saw an old man looking at him through the window.

"Open the door. Look what I've brought with me!" he yelled.

Holding the statue above his head, he mulled over how to conduct business with him.

"Get away!" the man snarled, frowning like a lunatic.

He didn't hear him.

"What?" he said.

"Get lost, you miserable wretch!" he barked.

Then, he withdrew the curtain and vanished from view. He speculated that the man must have gone crazy. An hour later, he was at another house. Under the influence of an unknown power, he didn't utter a word of what he had in his pocket. He remained mute until he was admitted into the house. In a luxurious hall decorated with antiques, he sat waiting so that the servant might inform his master of his presence. Covetously, he stared at the flower patterned carpets, the crystalline candelabrums with their bejeweled pedestals and the precious paintings, trying to make a mental estimation of the wealth accumulated there.

"Amidst all this affluence, there is no terror of tempest," He thought.

The house master appeared with his ebony cane. He was garbed in sumptuous clothes. Leisurely, he walked, looking ahead of him. He ensconced himself on a velvety divan, propping his head upon his cane, ignoring his salutations.

"I have been told you have something precious for sale," he said.

Then he looked at him and pursued: "As a little boy, I used to cling to my mother's skirt in fear of such days. My father turned me out of house and yelled that I couldn't return until I had earned such and such sum of money. That was then when I came to know the importance of money.

"At this point, the servant came back with two cups of tea and a jar of jam, put them on the table and went out.

"In fact, you must have serious occasions to come out on such an accursed day," he said.

Producing the statue from his pocket, he placed it on the table. The tea made him cough. He put the cup on the table, bringing his head close to the statue. Then, he put his hands in his pockets, took out a pair of round glasses and wore them. He picked up the statue and his lips split open into a stifled sigh. Then, he looked at him and at the statue. Taking a magnifying glass from his pocket, he scanned it intently. After which he put it on the table and went towards the window staring at the black darkness. All of a sudden, he pressed his hand upon his chest and bent down. It was then when he heard that hoarse laughter. Dazzled, he glanced round but saw nothing.

"What's the matter with you?" he asked.

But the man did not answer. He produced a handkerchief from his pocket, turned to him, sat beside him and began to speak in a low tone of voice as if he were talking to himself.

"Scleirmacher spent his entire life in Mesopotamia in quest of his statue. Two of his children died of cholera and he died of Black Death. Lichter Wald professor of Munich University and holder of a chair in Babylon archeology spent seven years on a research the results of which he published in the form of a valuable book. When he thought he was about to find the statue, he sank beneath the debris in the ruins of Ishtar Temple. Austrian Frisch had a more painful destiny. "

Again, he stared at the statue and wiped his sweaty face. Opening his shirt, he said, "What damp air!"

Against the wind, he advanced forward laboriously in the alley. The unabated howling of the wind rang in his ears. God alone knew where he was going. He thought he would make a right turn but did not know why. He had the premonition that something appalling would befall him. The house master had offered an exorbitant price for the statue. Notwithstanding, his senses had reeled and his head fell upon the table as his steward put the money before him. Amidst the din of the servants and the women of the house, he had taken his statue, and run out. Then , he felt compelled to go to the antiquarian's house with the knowledge that he would pay a lower price than others.

An old tree hovered over his house and a flock of people were coming and going. The old antiquarian, leaning against the wall with bare feet and head, was murmuring some psalms. His black frock was swaying in the wind. He went nearer, his gaze alighting on his sallow face. He was dumbfounded. He roamed the alleys and the streets but could not find a buyer. It was evening when some point attracted his attention.

"It may not happen." he thought to himself.

He sank into faraway reflections. He thought about the lives of those who were in search of this statue. All of them must have had logical minds. Surely, they couldn't imagine that this statue was in possession of supernatural power. The commanders who had found this statue had rent their abdomens asunder. The princes who had obtained this statue had set fire to themselves and their harems. Famous and obscure men had fallen under the spell of this statue. As he was revolving the history of the statue in his mind, he observed that the tempest had abated.

The redness of the sky had given place to somberness of torrential clouds. He stood in a corner. The first drops of rain began to fall. But he did not try to find a shelter from the rain. The heart of heaven tore open. He began walking in the torrential rain. He recalled the dark face of the man who had sold him the statue and his own pointless attempt to see his face.

"Now I know who has been deceived." he said.

The same course laughter ran in his ears. He laughed too. The "You sound of laughter grew louder. He also laughed louder.

“I knew who had been deceived." he muttered.

He was wet through. Moments later, he was at Hezkiah's house. He gulped down the fifth glass. Hardly was he now mindful of his frustrated desires.

"Where shall we go now? Take me with thee. I will follow thee with peace of mind." he addressed the statue.

Then, he stared at the green bubble until he felt he had to rise up. Casting a coin beside the tray, he walked out. As he opened the door, his feet felt the sodden street. The rain had stopped.

A turbid stream of water was flowing in the street. Hardly had he walked for an hour that he stopped to gaze at the walls and realized where he was. he knocked on the door. There was no answer. He knocked louder. A gruff voice came in answer. A woman, holding a lamp, opened the door. It was impossible to guess her age.

"What the devil is the matter with you? Is your semen backing up to your brain?" she screamed.

"Could you do me a favour?" he said, huskily.

She wanted to hit the lamp against his face but stood there, petrified. Taking out a coin from his pocket, he offered it to her. She gazed at it intently in the light of the lamp and softened on the spot. She flashed a grin which showed a set of decayed teeth. And he laughed.

"You are hungry for sex, apparently." she said, moving aside.

She, then, slammed the door and uttered an imprecation on her bad luck and the sky. She led him to a room with dirty walls. There were a filthy bed sheet and a tattered carpet. A red light peeped through the broken window. An unpleasant odour hit his nostrils.

"Thou hast dragged me to such a hellhole. I know the owner of the house. She is nonpareil in disease and insults." he thought to himself. On the settee beside the wall, he sat, staring at the porno pictures on the walls which were ludicrous rather than erotic.

"Man's struggle to ward off death." a voice said from within him. And he laughed. A woman over forty years of age walked in. Her old cashmere gown was deliberately open. Her pendulous breasts aroused no desire. She was wearing a heavy make-up. As she welcomed the man with a lewd jest, he perceived from her hoarse voice that she was diseased.

“I know younger and healthier women who do not flaunt their whoredom so blatantly. I am sure I will leave this place diseased. Why don't I get up and go?" he thought.

Brushing at her dyed hair, she advanced forward. An eerie force goaded him on. From deep within him came a voice which was not his. He penetrated his virility into her, exerting himself to tear her apart.

An acrid reek forced itself to his nostrils which did not belong to human beings. Silent, she commended his savagery. Both of them had transcended the realm of unanimal man. Languid, he crawled in a corner.

"What dost thou want from me now?" he whispered.

At this point, the woman rose up, her face assuming its original state. She asked if he cared for anything but did not wait for his answer. She slipped into her gown and walked out. He took out the statue. The face of the statue seemed to be filled with delight.

"It seems that you have not copulated with women for ages." He addressed the statue. The woman came back with a tray of eatables and a black bottle.

"Would you accept this for money?" he said, pointing to the statue.

Taking up the statue, she stared at it. Her features changed once more. It was as if someone wanted to liberate herself from beneath the wrinkles of her face which revealed different faces. It first revealed the face of a young girl with eyes and then the face of a woman whose lips quivered as if she were saying something beseechingly.

Shortly afterwards, her face assumed its original form.

"Do I have to keep this little demon to deprive me of my sleep?" she said.

"It's made of pure silver," he said.

"I wouldn't take it even if it were made of gold. Perhaps you are parsimonious. A black coin from you Excellency's purse is preferable to it," she said.

At his silence, she pursued, exasperated, "It was my ill fortune to have you here. Get fucked and pay my rent. Is that what you mean?"

"Don't fret, you whore!" he snarled.

Then, he pulled a few coins from his pocket and threw them to her. His wet clothes were repellent to him and so was his body. Putting his hand on the cold statue in his pocket, he said, "What wishes I had! Oh old Lucifer, never repudiate that thou longed for that woman. She might have been thy sweet heart in days of yore. A virgin had given thee delight in hopes of the knowledge of her fate. But I won't demand my fate of thee."

Upon arriving home, he thought that he had no good news for the old man. The house was in darkness and silence. He had the premonition that some awful event was awaiting him in that silence.

Quickly, he lit a lamp and made for the old man's room. He had arranged himself in a supine position in bed, staring at the ceiling. He touched his body. Cold and cadaverous. He removed the sheet from him.

His face twitched in disgust. Thousands of white maggots were wriggling in his wounds. Alarmed, he crept into a corner, placed the lamp on the shelf, covering his mouth with his hands.

"What willst thou do with me then?" he heard a voice say.

A coarse peal of laughter rang in his ears. In an instant, he bridled his confusion and burst into a guffaw.

   "How didst thou find me? Was I the worthiest one?”

FREIDOUN  MOSHIRI

Ismail Salami

 

 

Born in an educated family, Moshiri has been the most popular Persian poet with the young generation since the 1950s. His maternal grandfather, Mirza Javad Mo'tamen al-Mamalik, ranked among the poets of the Qajar period. He was educated in Meshed and Tehran. His first collection of poems was published under the title of Nayafteh (Unfound) [later called Thirsty for Typhoon] in 1955. His early poems - sincere, simple, naturalistic, melancholy and lyrical in nature - caught the attention of younger poets, among them, Forugh Farrokhzad.

The Sin of the Sea, his second collection of poems, was published in 1956. Though not very different from the former, it aroused a chorus of favorable and adverse criticisms, leading to impassioned discussions which played no small part in the introduction of modern poetry. A ten-year hiatus ensued. The Cloud appeared in 1966 in the same style of his previous books. Nonetheless, it failed to gain attention due to the fact that lyrical poetry was no longer in vogue. Things remained unchanged until twenty years later, readers bent back towards lyrical humanistic poems. Moshiri was once again ranked among the best-sellers. Moshiri died in Tehran on October 25, 2000.

The name of Moshiri is well-known to the ears of old and young alike and those who cherish a passion for the glorification of human values. He was indeed a great poet obsessed with Man. Man as an enigma, Man as a Supreme Being among other creatures, Man as a savior. However, he has not come to appreciate his place in the world of creation:

Man

 This sage, this prophet

Has not fathomed the secret of love.

Why is Man

such a stranger to Goodness?

Come, let us weep for the desperate state of man

Who is not even able to dwell with his brethren.

Poetry is the language of the soul. The soul itself is poetry. Moshiri expressed his soul in poetry. And what a poetry ! A poetry full of music and rich imageries ! In his poetry, he expressed the truth of Man; that Man could play a great part in disseminating love and that he could make earth a better place to live in ; and that Man could be a brother to all human race !

Words flowed from his pen like honey into the mouth of truth. His words are sweet; his style is clear ; his language is simple ; his message is great ! Man is the Message. His poetry is like painting ; and he has painted a beautiful panorama of life.

He bears love to every human being and to every living creature. To him, a man at gallows is worth pitying as a bird in cage.

I who at the withering of a rose

At the silent glance of a sick child

At the crying of a canary in cage

At the distress of a man in chains

- even a convict at the gallows -

Have tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat.

At this age with poison in my cup, blood and tears in my goblet,

How can I believe his death?

He keeps inviting his readers to avoid animosity and aversion and bids them to love instead. He believes that Love is a miracle which can turn a thorn into a rose and through which Man can attain salvation in this world and in the Hereafter.

What great beauty lies in

Cleansing our hearts from spite with kindness!

What great charm lies in

Changing a thorn into a rose with love!

To Moshiri revenge is but an inhuman attribute. Speaking in the let-us-love-one-another manner of Jesus Christ, he states that the alchemy of love is the answer to all misconceptions and venomous words. Once the sapling of love is planted into the heart of man, the tree of humanity will come to full fruition.

Let us speak of love if they draw swords;

Let us speak of tender words,

If  they speak harsh words.

He rebukes the tyrants of the time, warning them that they are slaughtering the servants of God. He can hear the silent moan of mothers who have lost their loved ones in an unfair battle. He can hear the cries of orphans crying for water in the wilderness of this world. All these he hears with the ears of soul and gives vent to them in his poetry.

Wherefore see not all these tyrannies?

Wherefore hear not all these cries?

This is the bloody cry of Adanese children,

And the vibrating cries of Vietnamese mothers.

Who bewail in bereavement of their loved ones.

Hearken to the cries of these orphaned children

Who bemoan at your tyrannies.

Like many other great poets, he felt a great responsibility upon his shoulders as a poet. His task, he felt, was to open the eyes of people to the truth that Man could be Man if he lived in peace and love with his other brethren. Moshiri left us his miracle of poetry.

 

The Alley

Alone I walked through the alley again on a moonlit night

My body, a pair of eyes seeking your sight.

My soul, a cup brimming with your desire

I was again the same frantic lover on fire.

Deep in my soul, the rose of your memory gleamed

The garden of a hundredfold memory beamed.

The scent of a hundredfold memory wafted in the air.

I walked through that alley, an experience with you to share

Arm in arm, we walked in solitude tender and fair.

We sat awhile by the brook,

Within your black eyes the secret of world you took,

And I, enthralled by the panorama of your look.

Sky serene, night still,

Fortune smiling, Time tranquil.

Within water, Grapes of moon were falling,

Arms of branches to the Moon were calling.

Night, mead, flower, rock and vale,

All enraptured by the song of the nightingale.

You said, "Avoid love!" I recall

"Let your eyes upon the brook fall.

"Water mirrors love, transient and short.”

"Today with another amorous glance you disport.

"Tomorrow, your heart to others will bend.

"Forget love, and some time from this town wend!"

"Avoid love? I cannot

"Go away from you? I cannot,

I cannot.

The first day, when my heart craved for your love

I perched on your roof like a dove,

Stones you pelted at me; I didn't fly away,

I did not fall from above.

I said, "A hunter you are and I am a gazelle in plain."

I roamed about to get in your trap glad and fain.

Avoid love? I cannot, I cannot.

A teardrop fell off the bough

Nightingale flew away with a bitter sough.

Tears quivered within your eye.

The Moon smiled at your love with a sigh!

From you I heard no words of relief.

Thus, I donned the robe of grief.

I did not go away. I did not fall apart.

Many a night has ever since passed in darkness of woe

You never sought any news of your lorn lover to know.

You will never again set foot in that alley though!

Through that alley I walked once again but in sorrow.

 

 

Pain

I wonder why

-And this very pain harrows my soul-

Man

This sage, this prophet

Has not fathomed the secret of love

- Something beyond miracle -

In his attempts.

WHY?

For what reason

Has he has not yet

Recognized Love?

Ignorant is he of the wonders lying

Within a smile!

I believe that in this world,

To be good, indeed, is the easiest of tasks.

And I do not know

Why Man

Is such a stranger to Goodness.

And this very pain harrows my soul.

 

Another One in Me

Behind this mirthful mask,

Behind this gay glance,

Lies the mute face of another man.

Another man, who for years,

Has dwelt in deep despair,

In outright silence and solitude.

Another man who behind this mirthful mask,

Has wept full sore with all his heart,

Under any pretexts whatsoever.

Behind this gay glance another man is sitting,

A man on whose weary shoulders weighs

An unbearable burden of unmerited torments!

A weary man whose eyes

Silently narrate his woes.

Behind this mirthful mask

There falls upon ears the cracks of whips.

Patience!

Patience!

Patience!

Patience!

Through red crevices

Fresh blood keeps dripping

Upon the cheeks of this silent emaciated soul.

Behind this mirthful mask, another man is sitting,

His eyes drowned in tears,

His heart pressed within his fists,

A dagger sunk within his chest!

A dagger plunged within his back!

Would these eyes wet with tears

Were granted to another world!

If only this heavy heart

-with little value as to the coins of other hearts-

Were gambled under another vaulted sky!

If only Man fled to another galaxy

From under these blind stars!

With whom shall I share these words?

For fleeing from one's battle is another pain!

And drinking all these diverse poisons,

To the last drops like sweet water.

O invisible eternal infinity!

Where will you shelter

This patient crestfallen Man?

O you harkening to my words!

There is another Man

Conversing with you.

Another Man whose silent laments

Are embodied within my poems.

 

Jalal ad-Din Mohammad Rumi

By Ismail salami
 

Today, the greatest mystic poet is read and appreciated throughout the world as a poet of all nations. The reason is clearly the plethora of sublime messages communicated through the medium of a simple language. Toady, the whole world bears testimony to the grandeur and sublimity of this great poet who did not hesitate to bring all people into union through his poetry. Regardless of any religion the readers may have they are readily absorbed into his poetry for it embodies all the human qualities they seek. Thirteen centuries have passed since his death; yet, his poetry never ceases to fascinate and mesmerize people and as time goes on, the lovers of his poetry increase day by day. Language works miracles in his poetry and Rumi is a pure miracle-worker. One wonders if there is a better poet than Rumi in the whole world who so clearly communicated the message of brotherly and divine love. Love is a quality which is being consigned into oblivion in the modern world and the poet clearly succeeds in infusing a new life into the hearts of people through this everlasting concept. Through love, he says, all bitter things turn sweet. If just for a minute the readers come to think of the miraculous power of love of which he speaks, there would be no room for ennui, war, and enmity in the world.

Who is this cleric-cum-poet who has cast the fire of love into hearts of people all across the globe? What does he say which appeals to every heart and mind?

Jalal ad-Din Mohammad known in the West as Rumi was born on September 30, 1207, in Balkh. His father, Baha Walad was a noted scholar and an eminent Sufi. Bitterly displeased with Khwarazm Shah, his father immigrated with his family to Western Iran when Jalal ad-Din was only six years of age. The fateful day in Rumi's life occurred on November 30, 1244, when he met a wandering dervish, Shams ad-Dīn (Sun of Religion) of Tabriz in Konya. His charismatic personality deeply influenced Rumi and through friendship with him, he came to discover the secrets which had been hitherto hidden to him. His friendship with Shams made him oblivious of everyone else. Exasperated by this close relation between the two, his friends forced Shams to leave the city. At his absence, Rumi donned the robe of grief and his son brought Shams back to Konya from Syria. Yet, Shams disappeared for a second time and never returned. This separation drew him into such spiritual agony that he wrote about 30,000 verses in memory of his lost friend and guide. The Divan of Shams is a manifest expression of spiritual yearning and experience. The language is so passionate that one has to admit that such lofty ideas can only be translated into words by a man who has tasted the bitterness of separation of a spiritual guide. Nature and whatever exists therein seems to sympathize with him in his poetry. Only a soul in torment can fathom the depth of feelings expressed in the ghazals of Rumi.

Characteristic of his style is the use of new-fangled mystical concepts. Early Sufis have only touched upon mystical subjects within the backdrop of literary traditions; however, Rumi  through his innovative prowess, invented such concepts as sama’, whirling round, dancing accompanied by flute, creating a world of feeling, thought and language interwoven into a novel and buoyant rhythm. While he wishes to describe his ecstatic state, he employs novel literary forms, which are per se nonpareil. Sometimes his ghazals exceed the usual size, amounting to 30 verses and take the form of qasida (ode). In describing a ghazal, he sometimes tells a story, giving it the form of a mathnavi.

Rumi’s Mathnavi is yet another masterpiece of the poet. The first distinctive feature in Rumi’s mathnavi is the diversity of motifs. Mystical, religious, ethical, and sometimes psychological motifs are used. Most of the chapters in mathnavi contain narratives generally drawn from the Qur’anic narratives about prophets. In addition, he includes the Qur’anic verses and hadiths, giving them a mystical interpretation. Most of the tales are allegorical and some of them are taken from the Kalila wa Dimna and some others from the literary works of Avicenna, Sana’i, Nizami and Attar. He seemed to have taken anecdotes from the wandering Sufis who would come to Konya. Tales in the mathnavi are direct and semi-conversational and in appropriate places become profound but not complicated. The use of everyday language is evident in most of Rumi’s works. Anyhow, the combination of the elements of literary style with the elements of conversational style is a characteristic of Rumi’s style.

Rumi’s intellectual sources are the Holy Qur’an and the tradition. Even when he is not inspired by these two sources, he does not borrow ideas from philosophers and Aristotelians. By using the Holy Qur’an, he demonstrates such an art as to be called the Qur’an in the Pahlavi language. A large portion of the Qur’anic verses used in the mathnavi has interpretative functions and Rumi may have employed them with a view to justifying and explaining mystical connotations. In his works, there is a kind of pantheism which is analogous to Ibn al-Arabi’s outlook. Although Rumi might not have had the opportunity to meet ibn al-Arabi, Sadr ad-din Qunavi, the great commentator on ibn al-Arabi had meetings with Rumi which served as a factor in transferring ibn al-Arabi’s ideas to Rumi. What gains importance in ibn al-Arabi’s pantheism is that the Reality of the Being is the origin and source of all manifestations. The works of Rumi are replete with complaints, separations, nostalgia, and lamentation.

   Mulavi (Rumi) died on December 17, 1273.

The face of the Beloved

Emits sparks of fire,

Bringing doubts into my heart.

The Satan works at temptation,

Drawing people into agitation

The Beloved brings me great woe

And closes the door to my face so

The friends seek to console me

You drink the wine alone

And bring the drunkard to the throne

You give vent to your rage

And give sugary taste to this stage

Once the night is past

And joy conquers at last

The sun shines at full blast.

Once the beggar is generous

And the lover constant

The world is filled with light.

Let us celebrate love

And bring mercy back to our hearts

O wise Muse!

Come forth

And bring wisdom and light

The beggar blows to king

And gains wealth galore

And partakes of heavenly bliss.

The pharaoh works at mischief

And Moses finds relief

The ugly wolf of ignorance

Drowns into Joseph’s good nature.

Shams, Ambassador of peace

Planned the marriage of the west and east!

The Satan at God’s will

Deceived Adam

And a tempered man was born.

Once the moon begins to shine

And lavishes its generous light

The souls fly heavenwards

From your insight

The ignorant and the blind

Greater wisdom find

Greater than that of Christ

The souls begin to grow

And you begin to glow

Your anger was mercy

Sweet was your poison

As is the fruit of heavenly clouds

Let me alone! I am drunk

And bound to this earthly show

My mind reels and feels naught

Ahmad Shamlu

 

The last great modern Iranian poet, Ahmad Shamlu, was born on December 12, 1925, in Tehran; yet, he was forced to live in Baluchistan until the age of 10, and then, in Mashhad. Shamlu had to travel from place to place due to the fact that his father was a military officer. He was arrested in 1943 for his political activities in Tehran and was transferred to the prison of the Allies in Rasht. In 1945, he was released from prison and went to Rezaiyeh together with his family and kissed his academic studies goodbye for ever. Shortly after his release he was detained together with his father by the separatist local government of Azerbaijan. They awaited their execution before a firing squad for hours until their order of release was announced and so they saved their skin. With the fall of Mosaddeq government, the most popular government since the 1906 revolution, Shamlu had to go in hiding for six months.

 In 1947, he had his first collected poems published entitled Forgotten Tunes.

 In his ‘Aida Poems’, the poet explores three layers of experiences: first, he makes relentless efforts to utilize a language which is his own; second, he tries to write passionately for his beloved to whom he ascribes his poetic achievement and third, he pays particular attention to the architecture of language. These poems feature the overflow of feelings of an educated imagination, epic style and a cry of protest against the ambivalent attitudes of the precursors and restless quest for truth and beauty. Using a style reminiscent of the prose of the tenth and eleventh century in Persian literature, Shamlu succeeds in finding a singular rhythm and musicality which draws his style towards what can be called mythical or biblical style.  

 In Phoenix in the Rain, Shamlu discards his earlier narrative style and focuses his attention more on the state of man. The poems in this collection are more elevated and more complicated. Although the main concern of the poet has been the ‘I’ of the poet, his poetic ego is divorced from individuality and takes on a more universal state of man. The poems in Aida in the Mirror are concerned with the encounter of the poet and his beloved with the world and the society whereas in his later poems, he deals with the issues which preoccupy the mind of modern man such as political and social issues.

 His poetry is marked by meticulous choice of words, complicated themes and immaculate style hitherto untouched by any other poets before him.

 Shamlu died in 2000 in Tehran.

 He was nominated for Nobel Prize in literature for a number of times; yet, he departed this life without obtaining one.

 Shamlu is survived by his wife and four children.

 

THE SONG OF ABRAHAM IN FIRE

 Under the bloody tumbling of twilight
there stands a man of another kind,
who wanted the land to be green,
who wanted love to be worthy of the most beautiful of women;
For this to him
was not so worthless an offer
as to become dust and stone.
What a man! what a man!
who said, "better for the heart
to sink in blood by the seven swords of love;
and better for the lips to utter the most beautiful name.
And a mountain-like hero, thus in love
crossed the bloody battlefield of destiny
with the heels of Achilles
an invulnerable hero
the secret of whose death
was the sorrow of love
and the depth of solitude.
"Ay, sad Esfandiâr
your eyes
better closed.
"Was a NO,
just one NO
enough
to make my fate.
I only cried NO
I refused to sink.
"I was
and I became
not as a bud becomes a flower
nor as a root becomes a shoot
nor as a seedling becomes a forest
but as a common man becomes a martyr,
for heavens to worship him.
"I was not a servile little slave
and my way to a heavenly paradise
was not the path of submission and servility.
I deserved a God of another kind,
worthy of a creature,
who does not humble himself
for the indispensable morsel.
"And a God
of another kind
I created."
Alas! mountain-like hero
that you were
and mountain-like,
formidable and firm
before falling on the ground
you were dead.
Yet neither God nor Satan
but an idol wrote your destiny
an idol whom others worshipped
an idol whom others worshipped.

 

 

AIDA IN THE MIRROR

 Your lips, delicate as poetry,
turn the most voluptuous kiss
into such a coyness
that the cave animal uses it
to become human.
And your cheeks, with two oblique lines,
that lead your pride
and my destiny
I who have endured the night
without being armed
in anticipation of the dawn
and have brought back
a proud virginity,

sealed

from the brothels of barter.
(Never did a man so ruinously rise

to kill himself

as I settled the task of living)
And your eyes are the secret of fire
and your love
is the victory of man
when he rushes to battle against his fate.
And your bosom
a tiny place to live
a tiny place to die
and an escape
from the city
that accuses the purity of the sky
shamelessly with a thousand fingers.
A mountain begins with its first rocks
and man with the first pain
in me, there was a cruel prisoner
not used to the clanking of his chains
I began with your first glance.
Tempests play magnificently
a tiny flute
in your grand dance.
And the singing of your veins
makes the sun of the always rise.
(Let me rise from sleep so
that all the lanes of the city
perceive my presence.)
Your hands are reconciliation
and friends helping that hostilities
may be forgotten.
Your forehead is a tall mirror
luminous and high
in which the Seven Sisters stare
to realize their beauty.
Two restless birds sing on your chest
from which direction will the summer arrive
so thirst will make
all the waters
even wholesomer?
That you may appear in the mirror
a life-long I kept
staring at it
all the lakes and the seas
I wept.
O Fairy in human form
whose body would not burn
except in the fire of illusion
your presence is a paradise
justifying escape from hell
it is an ocean overwhelming me
to wash me clean
of every lie
and of every sin.
And the dawn awakens by your hands.

 (translated by Ahmad Karimi Hakkak)

Hafez, A Poet for All Times

By Ismail Salami

 

Hafez was born in circa 1326 in Shiraz. After the death of his father, his brothers dispersed and he and his mother led a destitute life. In his prime days, he became a bakery worker and simultaneously attended the traditional school. Gradually, he pursued religious and literal sciences, achieved masterly skills in the 14-fold recitation of the Holy Qur’an and conducted exhaustive research on the Holy Qur’an. It is likely that his surname Hafez is derived from this source. Since literal sciences were a prelude to religious sciences, he acquired necessary mastery in this field too.

Shiraz was a safe haven for literati during the time of Hafez and this fact had a profound impact on the nature of his education. Besides religious and literal sciences, he was interested in clerical and administrative activities as well and paid due attention to these activities.

Hafez is an indisputable master of ghazal. The evolutionary course of ghazal started from Sana’i and was brought to perfection by Hafez. He synthesized the lofty amorous and mystical subjects and is therefore the inheritor of Sa’di and Rumi.

His ghazal is the most popular form for all social strata. This characteristic can hardly be traced in other poets and this fact induced posterior poets to follow him. His regard for predecessors resulted in the fact that in his style we see the examples of remodeling, but this refashioning is metamorphosed in his ghazal and is divorced from its previous form.

The skill of Hafez in the selection of words and meanings is such that it is almost impossible for other poets to achieve. In fact, Hafez was deeply influenced by Sa’di and has intermixed his ghazals with varying subjects and a bit of Khayyamesque thinking. He has exhibited his social agonies in ghazals and wherever expedient, he struggled against ostentatious ascetics and tyrant rulers.

His frequent use of double entendre makes him a complicated poet. The readers are sometimes entrapped into a mesh of contradictory concepts. Well versed in Islamic mysticism and teachings, Hafez could create an infinite capacity of purports and an unbounded scope for inspiration.

Sacred and profane mingle together to bring forth a poetry beyond human capabilities. To Hafez, poetry is not a means to express his innermost feelings but a means to express his love for the beloved. The beloved in Hafez’s poetry is no ordinary one. He goes beyond ordinary love and arrives at the truth of love, which is God.

Hafez died in between 791/1388 and 792/1389.

O preacher! Mind thy own business. What is all this frenzy meant to be?

My heart hath fallen in a trap. What hath befallen thee?

The connection with her which the Lord hath created from naught

Is a subtly the solution of which no living being hath sought.

Of her lips I was deprived to satiate my desire

The counsel of the entire world is like oil on fire.

The beggar of thy street hath no need of the heaven above

Free of this and the next world is the captive of thy love.

Intoxicated by love, senseless and numb have I grown,

Thus, the foundation of my being have I once again known.

O heart! Carp not of the tyranny of the one so dear

Thus hath she advised thee and justice to thee this should appear

Hafez! Go utter no tale; compose no verses of joy or woe

Many of such wondrous conceits and verses do I know.

 

 

Sadeq Hedayat: Legend or Writer?

By Ismail Salami

 

Born into a prominent family, Hedayat received his education at Dar al-Funun high school and left for France to study engineering. Yet, he left his studies for literature for which he cherished a perennial passion. While in Paris, he felt the pangs of a frustrated love which influenced his life and works. As a result, he became more introverted and a deeper sense of sorrow came over his life. And the notion of death seized him for the rest of his life. In 1928, he made his first suicide attempt by throwing himself in a river but was saved by a fisherman. He detailed the incident in a short story entitled ‘Notes of a Madman’ which he included in his collected stories Buried Alive. In 1930, he returned to Iran and obtained a job at the National Bank of Iran. However, he could not stay long in the position and switched to different jobs. Together with Mojtaba Minovi, Mas’ud Farzad and Bozorg Alavi, he made up a literary circle called the Four in protest against the traditional literati. In 1930, hepublished Parvin, Daughter of Sassan and Buried Alive. In 1932, he made a journey to Isfahan and wrote his travelogue Isfahan, Half of the World. His collected short stories Three Drops of Blood were published in the same year. His satirical essays were published in a book entitled vagh vagh sahab for which he was summoned to the gendarmerie. In these essays he lambasted at the different cultural aspects of the society in which he lived. In 1936, he left for Bombay where he published his magnum opus The Blind Owl and there he learned Pahlavi. In 1937, he returned to Iran and started translating Pahlavi texts into Persian.

In parts of his works, Hedayat depicted the sufferings and frustrations of the intellectuals of his time in a symbolical language. His masterpiece The Blind Owl won him great reputation and acclaim both at home and abroad. Many Iranian writers tried their hands to produce a similar work; yet, The Blind Owl remained a nonpareil work of literature in Iran. In 1950, overwhelmed with a vision of absurdity, he left for Paris where he committed suicide by turning on the gas in his sealed apartment.

His masterpiece The Blind Owl, translated in many languages, is a complicated novel which has long baffled the minds of Iranian and foreign critics. The novel has never ceased to fascinate the readers although they may have never been able to understand the different layers of meanings embodied therein.

In the first part of the novel, the uncle of the young narrator enters his house unexpectedly. In order to offer him some refreshments, he goes to bring a bottle of wine. Through the crevice of the wall which happens to be there, he sees an ethereal girl offering a lotus flower to an old man who bursts into a hair-raising laughter. Surprisingly, this is exactly the picture he keeps drawing on pen cases as a calling. He is then jolted into realities. The thought of the old man gradually begins to loom over his life and sow the seed of anxiety.

The narrator embarks on a journey in search of the ethereal girl and the old man. His journey, however, takes him into a study of history and myths. Bitterly despaired by the misery and wretchedness of life, the narrator is in search of an ideal life. He wishes to attain self-discovery by delving into the dark corners of his past. He states that his only fear is that he may die without having attained self-knowledge.

The narrator comes back and realizes that his uncle has left, leaving the door agape like the mouth of a dead man. Desperately he goes out to look for the ethereal girl. But upon returning he finds the girl sitting on the front stairs. The girl enters the house as if she knows the way and lies in bed. But she is dead. In the morning the narrator cuts the body into pieces and puts them in a trunk. Then an odds-and-ends man appears out if the blue to help him with burial. While digging the ground they find an ancient pottery which the old man takes as his wages. The pottery bears the same picture he keeps painting on his pen-cases. The implication is that another painter in a previous life has had the same occupation with a similar thought.

In this section, everything happens in a state bordering sleep and wakefulness. Time and place mingle together and the characters are transformed into one another. Reality and fancy mingle and create similar characters between the old world and the new one he finds himself in. This section looks like a lost paradise to the narrator. The ethereal girl of the past life gives place to the prostitute in the following sections of the novel. In this section Hedayat laments the death of purity and innocence in a world which is departed. The symbols used herein are all symbolic of innocence. The lotus flower, a key symbol in the novel taken from Buddhism, epitomizes an innocent man caught in the marsh of this world just like the flower which is to be found in marshes. Yet, it is destined to wither away. The current of life stops and the narrator finds himself in a different world which is more realistic. The narrator represents an intellectual in the society who looks for ideals which are no longer chained to ‘this savage world.’ The surrealistic ambience of the first section contributes to the notion that the ideal world is gone for ever and the narrator wakes up only to find himself in an earthly and down-to-earth life.

In the second section of the novel, the narrator finds himself bedridden in a room with two small windows to the outside world. Through the small window he can see a butcher and an odds-and-ends man. He recalls his past; his mother leaves him and goes to India and entrusts him to the care of a nanny. Later the narrator marries his cousin who does not love him and instead sleeps with the rabbles. He gradually wastes away and approaches death even more. The only communication in his small world is his nanny who evokes his feeling of hatred for old beliefs and superstitions. Feeling the sharp fangs of death on his neck, he decides to the take his wife with him. So he disguises himself as the odds-and-ends man and kills her. And he becomes the odds-and-ends man himself. In fact, the narrator becomes one of the rabbles whom he holds in great abhorrence.

His nanny represents the past ill-founded beliefs and superstitions which keep tormenting the narrator while his wife represents the fallen values of the society.

The whole novel, more like a nightmarish journey into Hades, is an internal journey in the course of which the narrator loses his ideals and degenerates into a lowly being which he always upbraids.

The influence of The Blind Owl on modern Persian fiction is so powerful that the rest of writers are at loss to escape the inevitable grip. Audacious though it may seem, Modern Persian fiction was born out of the works of a legend called Sadeq Hedayat.

The following story ranks among the best short stories ever written by Hedayat. The writer depicts the life of a dog that loses his master and is rejected by people. The dog, now beaten and miserable, looks for compassion but finds none. At the end, he succumbs to inevitable death.

 

 

THE STRAY DOG

A bakery, a butcher's shop, a grocery, a barber's shop and two tea- houses all of which were conducive to satisfy the very basic human needs constituted the Varamin Square. The square and its inhabitants were half-baked and half-grilled in the heat of the tyrannical sun and passionately longed for the first breeze of evening and the shades of night. The people, the shops, the trees and the animals were dead still. An intense heat heavily hung over their heads and a pall of dust waved in the sky, which grew thicker due to the traffic of cars.

On one side of the square stood an old plane-tree whose trunk had withered and dried up but which had spread its awry gouty branches with an indomitable perseverance. Beneath the shade of its dusty leaves was a huge massive platform on which two street-urchins were vending rice pudding and desiccated pumpkin seeds. A turbid stream of water flowed sluggishly through the gutter in front of the tea-house.

The only building that might catch your sight was the famous Varamin Tower with its cracked cylindrical trunk and its conical top. In the chinks of its fallen bricks, the sparrows had built their nests. Silent, they had dropped off in shelter of the fiery heat. Only the whimpering of a dog broke the silence in succession.

He was a Scotch terrier. He had a sooty muzzle and black spots on his pasterns as if he had run in the mire. He had drooping ears, a pointed tail, dirty fuzzy hair and a pair of human-like clever eyes in the depths of which could be seen a human soul. In the night that had enshrouded his entire life, an eternal thing undulated in his eyes, carrying a message which could not be fathomed as if stuck in the back of his pupils. It was neither light nor color but something incredible just like what can be seen in the eyes of a wounded gazelle. Not only was there some sort of similarity between his eyes and those of a man but some kind of equality between them. Those were two hazel eyes fraught with the pangs of agony and waiting which could only be found in the muzzle of a stray dog. But it seemed as though nobody could observe or understand his eyes which were charged with pain and supplication.

In front of the grocery, blows rained down on him by the errand boy and the butcher's errand boy pelted stones at him in front of the butcher's shop. Had he taken shelter under a car, he would have been welcomed by the heavy kicks of the driver's spiked shoes. When everybody ceased to torment him, it was the urchin's turn to derive a fantastic delight in torturing him. For every moan he let out, a piece of rock descended on his back at which the urchin uttered a boisterous laugh and cried out:

"Dirty filthy cur!"

Shortly afterwards, the rest of others burst into a hearty laugh as if they had joined him in sympathy and insidiously encouraged him. Everybody kicked him to please their Lord. It seemed completely natural to them to beleaguer a dirty cur which had seven lives and on which religion had put a curse.

Harassed by the urchin, the miserable animal eventually ran away towards an alley leading to the Tower. In fact, he limped off on a hungry stomach, taking shelter in a gutter. There, he rested his head on his pasterns, put out his tongue and watched the grand fields waving before him in a state of sleep and wakefulness.

His body was exhausted and his nerves all frazzled. In the damp air of the gutter, a singular sensation of solace enveloped his entire being.

Various smells of half-dead verdure, a moist old shoe and living and non-living objects revived in his muzzle distant confused memories. His instinctive desire aroused and his past memories awakened afresh in his mind when he kept his attention riveted upon the field. This time, however, this feeling was so overmastering that it prompted him to bounce up and down. He felt an intense urge to frisk in the field. It was a hereditary sense for all his ancestors had been freely bred amidst the green fields.

He was so exhausted that he couldn't budge. A painful feeling of helplessness pervaded him. And a handful of forgotten and lost feelings arose within him. In the past, he had diverse bounds and needs. He felt bound to be at his master's beck and call, to turn a stranger or an outsider dog out of his master's house and frolic with his master's son. He had learned how to behave toward known and unknown people. He had learned to eat on time and expect caressing at a certain time. But now these bounds had been lifted from his neck. All his attention was focused on rummaging through the garbage in search of a mouthful of food.

He got beaten all day long and whined-it was his sole defense. He used to be plucky, neat and sprightly. But now he was cowardly and oppressed. At every sound, he trembled all over.

Even his own voice frightened him. Basically, he had got used to dirt and rubbish. His body itched but he did not feel like hunting his lice or licking himself. He felt he had become part of the garbage.

He felt that something had died within him, faded away. Two winters had elapsed ever since he had wound up in this hellhole. Since then, he had not had a square meal. He had not had a comfortable slumber. His passions and feelings had been smothered. No one had stroked a caressing hand on him. No one had looked into his eyes. Although the people resembled his master, it appeared that his feelings and demeanors were as different as chalk and cheese from theirs. It seemed as if those who were associated with him were closer to his world, understood his agonies and needs better and protected him more. Amidst the smells that reached his nostrils and stupefied him most of all was the smell of the rice pudding in front of the urchin-the white liquid which was much so similar to his mother's milk and summoned up memories of his puppyhood.

Suddenly, a feeling of lethargy seized him. When he was a cub, he sucked this nutritious liquid from his mother's beasts and her soft firm tongue licked his body clean. The heavy pungent smell of his mother and her milk was revived in his muzzle. As soon as he got milk-inebriated, his body would go warm and relaxed and a fluid warmth would run into his veins and sinews. His head being heavy, he would drop loose from his mother's breasts. Then, he would fall into a profound slumber and feel delicious tremors come over his entire body. It would really be a great joy for him to press his mother's breasts involuntarily and gain milk with complete ease. The fuzzy body of his brother and the voice of his mother were charged with caress and delight. He remembered his wooden kennel and his romping about with his brother in that green gardenlet. He would bite his drooping ears. They would fall and rise and run. Then, he found another playmate who was his master's son. IN the bottom of the gardenlet, he would run after him, bark and bite his clothes. He could never forget his master's caresses and the sugar cubes he grabbed out of his hand. But he loved his master's son more for he was his playmate and never beat him. Afterwards, he lost his mother and brother. There were only his master, his wife, his son and an old servant left for him. He knew their smells so well and recognized their footfalls from afar. At lunch or dinner, he would circle round the table, sniffing at the eatables. At times, his master's wife, despite her husband's desire gave him a morsel out of kindness. Then the old servant would come and call him: “Pat ... Pat..." And he would put his food in a special pot beside his wooden kennel. Pat's calamities commenced when his rut came on him because his master did not allow him to go out and chase the bitches.

Incidentally, one day in autumn, his master together with two other men who frequented their house and whom he knew got into his car and called Pat. They seated him beside them. Pat had traveled by car with his master several times. But this time, he was in the heat. And there was a special excitement and anxiety in him. After some hours, they got off in the same square. His master and the other two men passed the alley beside the tower. But incidentally, the scent of a bitch, the peculiar smell that Pat always sought maddened him at once. In different successions, he sniffed until at last he entered a garden through the gutter. When the evening was drawing to its close, the sound of his master's voice fell upon his ears twice. "Pat.... Pat ... “Was it really his voice? Or just an echo of it? Although his master's voice had a singular impression on him, for it reminded him of his bounds and duties, a certain power transcending all other external powers goaded him into going after the bitch. He felt that his ears were deaf and heavy to other external sounds. Powerful feelings had awakened in him.

The scent of the bitch was so strong that made him experience a vertigo. All his muscles, body and senses were disobedient to him. He had no power over his actions. But it was not long before he was assailed by clubs and spade handles and driven out through the gutter. Pat was exhausted and stupefied but light and calm. When he came to realities, he went to seek his master. In several alleys, there was a faint smell left of him. He investigated them all, leaving behind him in certain distances traces of himself.

He went as far as the ruins outside the village. He came back because he discovered that his master had returned to the square. Yet the faint smell of his master was lost in other smells. Had his master left him behind? A delicious feeling of fear and anxiety took possession of him. How could Pat possibly live without his master? His God? His master was his God. At all events, he was sure that his master would come after him. Horrified, he started running in some alleys. His attempts were futile, though. At last, he, weary and helpless, returned to the square at night. But there was no sign of his master. He made a few other turns in the village. Finally, he made his way towards the gutter where he had seen the bitch.

However, the gutter was blocked by rocks. With a peculiar vehemence, Pat began digging the earth in the vain hopes of forcing his way into the garden but it proved fruitless. Desperate, he dropped off there. When the night was far advanced, he woke up with a start from his own moans. Alarmed, he rose up and roamed in the alleys, sniffing at the walls. For a while, he wandered in the alleys. At last, an extreme feeling of hunger filled him. As he returned to the square, the smell of diverse eatables reached his nostrils; the smell of left-over meat, of fresh bread and yoghurt mingled together.

Yet, he felt he had trespassed a territory. He felt he had to beg these people who resembled his master. If he did not find a rival to scare him away, he would gain ownership right. He might be even kept by one of those people who had eatables in their hands. In fear and trembling, he approached the grocery which had just opened. The pungent odor of baked dough had filled the air. Someone who had a loaf of bread under his arm said: "Come! Come!"

His voice seemed so foreign to him. He threw a piece of bread to him. After slight hesitation, he ate the bread and wagged his tail. The man put the bread on the grocery platform and fearfully and cautiously stroked Pat's head. Then, he opened his collar cautiously with his hands. How happy he felt! It was as if all responsibilities and duties had been lifted from his neck. But as soon as he wagged his tail again and approached the grocery shop, a firm kick landed on his flank. Whining, he fled away. The shopkeeper piously washed his hands in the stream to eliminate the unclean effects of the dog. Pat still knew his collar which was dangling from a peg in front of the grocery shop. Ever since that day, Pat received but kicks, clubs and rocks. It appeared that they were his sworn enemies and derived a wondrous delight in torturing him. Pat felt he had stepped into a world which did not belong to him and in which nobody could understand his feelings and desires. The first days went on uneasily but soon he got accustomed to his situation. Besides, at the turn of the alley, he had found a spot where they deposited their garbage in which he could find delicious pieces such as bone, fat, skin, fish head, and many other eatables he was not even able to distinguish. He spent the rest of the day in front of the butcher's and the bakery. His eyes were on the butcher's hands but he received blows instead of delicious pieces. But he was used to his new way of living. From his past life, only a handful of vague feelings and some smells had been left to him. Every time he felt exceedingly miserable, he found a sort of consolation in his lost paradise and the memories of those days were awakened in his mind. What excruciated Pat most of all was his need for fondling.

He was like a child who always got beaten and insulted but his delicate feelings had not yet died within him. In his new wretched life, he had a peculiar need for fondling. His eyes begged for it. He would be ready to die if someone stroked a loving hand on his head. He needed to express his kindness to someone, to make sacrifices for him, to show his sense of adoration and fidelity. But it seemed as though no one needed him to express his feelings. There was no one to protect him. In every eye, there was but wickedness and maliciousness. Every movement he made to attract their notice incurred on him their wrath. While Pat was dozing in the gutter, he let out several moans and woke up as if some nightmares were passing before his eyes. At this point, he felt infernally hungry.

The smell of Kebab forced itself to his nostrils. A feeling of hunger tortured his innards so oppressively that he forgot his helplessness and agonies. With great difficulty, he rose up and cautiously made for the square. At this time, an automobile entered the square noisily, raising a pall of dust. A man got out of the car, stepped up towards Pat, stroking a loving hand on him. The man was not his master. Pat was not deceived for he knew his master's smell so well. But how could another person pat him? Pat wagged his tail and looked at the man dubiously. Was he not deceived? He no longer had the collar round his neck so that others might fondle him. Again, the man stroked a caressing hand on him. Pat went after him. His surprise increased when the man entered a room which he knew well and out of which came diverse smells of eatables. On the bench near the wall, he lay on his haunches.

Warm bread, yoghurt and eggs and other eatables were brought to him. The man dipped pieces of bread in yoghurt and threw them to him. At first, Pat devoured them quickly but then he slowed down. Pat fixed his painful pretty hazel eyes on him in token of gratitude and wagged his tail. Was he asleep or awake? Pat had a square meal without being interrupted by beating. Was it possible that he might have found a new master? The man rose up went into the alley leading to the tower. He paused awhile. Then, he passed the winding alleys. Pat followed him until he was out of the village. He went towards the ruins which had several walls where his master had gone. Did these people seek the scent of their females? Pat waited for him beside the wall. Then, they returned to the square through another route.

Again, the man stroked a fondling hand on him. Then after a little turn round the square, he got into the car he knew well. He sat on his haunches beside the car, looking at the man. All of a sudden, the car stared running in the pall of dust. Without the slightest hesitation, Pat started running after the car. No, he did not want to lose him. He was panting heavily. He was running after the car with all his might despite the sharp pain he felt within his body.

The car got away from the village and passed through a desert. Pat caught up with it several times but lagged behind again. He had summoned all his strength, taking desperate bounces. But the car ran faster than he. He was mistaken. He could not catch up with the car. He felt helpless. He felt an aching pain in the pit of his stomach.

All at once, he felt his limbs were not obedient to him. He was not capable of the slightest movement. All his efforts were useless. He did not know why he had run or where he was going. He could go neither forwards nor backwards. He stopped. He panted, his tongue hanging out. His eyes grew dark. With bending head, he waddled along the road towards a stream in vicinity of a farm. He put his stomach on hot moist sands. With his instinctive desire that never deceived him, he felt he was incapable of moving on. His head swam.

His thoughts and feelings had grown obscure and obliterated. He felt an aching feeling in the pit of his stomach. A sickly light gleamed in his eyes. In his death throes, his hands and feet went numb. His body was drenched with cold sweat. It was mild and delectable.

Near evening, three crows were flying above Pat's head for they had picked his smell. Cautiously, one of the crows alighted near him, gazed at him intently and flew away as it realized that he was not yet dead.

These three crows had come to gauge out Pat's hazel eyes.

 

NIMA YUSHIJ

BY  ISMAIL  SALAMI

 

Born Ali Esfandiari in 1897 in Yush, in Mazandaran province, Nima Yushij grew up in Yush, helping his father with the farming and the flock tending in the mountains. Life in the mountains created in his mind a powerful image which was later revealed in his poetry.

 He first studied with the village Mulla. At the age of twelve, he was taken to Tehran and registered at the French Saint Luis catholic school where he learnt French. This marked the beginning of a fundamental change in him. There he came into contact with a well—mannered and well-humored teacher called Nizam Vafa, the then major poet, who took him under his wing and helped him turn to poetry.

 While at school, he started learning Arabic. In 1921, he published a loosely-structured mathnavi called The Pale Tale under his penname Nima. Nima is the name of hero in Tabari which means a great arc. In 1922, he published the poem ‘O Night ’. The poem did not mark a serious breakaway from the traditional poetical style. Yet , the passionate style of the poem won him the support and attention of the critics . His poem ‘Legend ’ even brought him more fame.

 Later poems ‘The Phoenix’ and ‘The Raven’ published along with a long essay entitled ‘The Value of Feelings in the Lives of the Artists ’ put him on a pedestal and revealed the face of a revolutionary poet who sought to change poetic forms fundamentally. In 1926, he published ‘The Soldier’s Family’ which was not a great literary success. Afterwards, Nima became more introverted and isolated. He died in 1960 in Tehran.

 Nima is erroneously described as the first modern Persia poet by a host of Iranian critics. Yet , poets such as Shams Kasmai, Taqi Raf ’at and Abulqassem Lahuti wrote poems in the modern style. A diligent and self-confident man, Nima felt the need for a breakaway from the classical poetic forms and fundamental changes in poetry. It was he who first accorded serious attention to the new forms and composed the best-structured modern poems in Persian.

 Nima abandoned the traditional themes of love in the classical poems in favor of the sufferings of people in a modern style . He felt that the classical rhythm and rhyme were impeding the free flow of feelings and thoughts and instead the new poetic modes could better express the feelings of the modern man with modern needs . Literary language was replaced by the everyday language spoken by the common people . If poetry is to communicate with people , he thought , it should use the language of the people on the streets . Like Wordsworth he believed that a poet is a man speaking to man . So , in his poetry, symbolism is of secondary importance . Nima opened an untrodden path to future generation of poets who imitated his style and brought modern poetry to perfection .

 

 

The Boat

 

My face is withered

My boat is stranded.

 

With my stranded bark

I cry :

“ I am stranded in sorrow

In this dangerous seashore

And the water is far away

“ Help , O friends ! ”

A smile of derision breaks upon their lips

But directed at me

At my askew boat

At my tumultuous words

At my infinite perturbation

At my infinite perturbation

Suddenly a cry issues from me :

I fear but danger and annihilation

The commotion of `to be or not to be'

It is but for endangered life .”

With their mistake

I buy mistakes

From their disheartening words

I suffer

Blood spurts out of my wound

How can I dry the water ?

I cry .

My face is withered

My boat is stranded

My words are clear to you :

 

One person is alone

I extend my hand to you for help

 

My voice is broken in my throat

And if voice is voluble

I cry

For your salvation and mine

I cry !

 

 

My house is Cloudy

 

My house is overcast by clouds

Permanently weighed by a pall of cloud over the earth.

The wind, broken, desolate and intoxicated,

Whirls over the pass.

The world is laid waste by it

And my senses too!

O piper!

O you enchanted by the music of the pipe, where are you?

 

My house is cloudy, yet

The cloud is impregnated by rain.

 

Cherished by the illusion of my bright days,

I stand opposite the sun

I cast my gaze upon the sea.

And the entire world is desolated and ravaged by the wind

And the ever-playing piper progresses onto his path

In this cloudy world.

 

It is Night

 

It is night

A night so abysmal and dark.

On the branch of an aged fig tree

A frog is croaking incessantly ,

Auguring a tempest, a rainfall ,

and I am harrowed with wonder.

 

It is night ,

And the world looks like a dead man in grave;

Alarmed I say unto myself:

"What if rain overflows every place?"

"What if rain sinks the world like a small boat?"

 

In this night so dark and bleak

Who knows what dawn has in store for us?

Will the Sun rise from the mountain?

Will Morning outfrown this tempest?

 

 

Moonlight

 

Moonlight's streaming

Glowworm's shining

There's no second to disturb sleep in the eye, but

The sorrow of swarming sleepers

Disturbs sleep in my wet eyes.

 

Distraught stands the Dawn with me

Inquiring me

To bring word to this fallen mob of its auspicious breath

Yet, there's a thorn in my heart

Easing this irksome journey.

 

Fond stalk of a fair flower

That with my soul I planted

And with love I watered

Alas! breaks in my arms.

 

Hands I rub

To open a door

I wait in vain

For someone to answer

Rickety door and walls

Cave in on our heads

 

Moonlight's streaming

Glowworm's shining

Feet blistered by this journey

A lonely man stands at the village gate.

 
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