Hammam*
(translated from a
ghazal by 10th century poet Rabia Balkhi رابعه بلخی - one of the first woman poets to write
in Persian)
I am back, caged in this love again,
all my daring escapes end here.
Love is a broad shoreless sea
tell me, o wise ones, who swims it and lives?
To take love all the way
you must embrace every horror;
adore ugliness like a fair face;
make sweet delight of poison.
I bucked like an unbroken mare; I did not know:
the harder you pull, the tighter the rope.
© Melinda Smith, 2016
(with many thanks to Omid Behbahani and her husband to Mr
Tahami for their generous assistance with the translation, and to Dr Hashem and
Mina Etminan for putting me in touch with them. I have also referred to other
translations by Inamul Haq Kausar, Manouchehr Saadat Noury, and Vesta Sarkhosh
Curtis with Sheila R. Canby)
(*Hammam – my title, given to a ghazal with no title - means
‘bath house’ in Persian and refers to the tragic, semi-mythical story of Samanid-period
poetess Rabia Balkhi. She is said to have been murdered by her brother for
falling in love with one of his slaves. According to the legend he cut her
throat and locked her in a bath house to die, where she wrote her last poems (including
this one) on the wall in her own blood.)
this is stunning, Melinda. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThank you so, Melinda, for this new sister of mine Rabia Balkhi. I feel the rope and write it in blood. Is that your exquisite art work, too?
ReplyDeleteNot my artwork, no. An uncredited image that is used on a memorial sign to her in Balkh, (a ruined town in what is now Northern Afghanistan, formerly a great Persian city) where she lived and died. So glad she has resonated with you all. I've been teaching myself to read a bit of Persian so as to get to know her better...long road ahead...
DeleteI am there, with her, with you. Thank you.
ReplyDelete