PersianI have been reading more of Haft Peykar lately. The verses are superb and I thought it could be useful to practice scansion. Persian meter has the reputation of being obscure and overly complicated, but this is not entirely true in my opinion. I have decided I would go through an example بیت / beyt (a line of poetry, a beyt, is always made up of two verses called a مصرع / mesra').
The following verses are taken from the first chapter, آغازِ داستان بهرام / âghâz-e dâstân-e bahrâm, 'The beginning of the tale of king Bahram'.
روز اول که صبح بهرامی
از شب تیره برد بدنامی
Now, there is a high level of ambiguity because we cannot be sure where the vowels are. This is because some grammatical features are affected by the position of short vowels, which is not indicated.
Of course, we know how each individual words is pronounced (and if we don't, we can always check in a dictionary).
However, what is not clear here is how those words are put together.
Here is a very basic transcription of the words in these two verses:
rûz avval ke sobh bahrâmi
az shab tîre brd badnâmi
We can notice two things. First, we don't have any precise indication as to where the ezafe vowels are (if there are any). The ezafe construction is of critical importance because it is an essential connector. Attributive adjectives are linked to the nouns they describe by the ezafe vowel (a short /e/). The ezafe construction is also how the genitive case is rendered in Persian.
Second, the distribution of short vowels can also be affected by verbal inflection. In our case here, the verb برد / brd can have two readings. It could be read as /bord/ or /barad/, the former being conjugated the preterite tense while the latter is in the present tense.
So how can we make sure we read the verses correctly?
This is when scansion enters into action. We know that Nezami composed Haft Peykar using a meter that is called khafif / خفیف. The khafif meter is made up of 11 syllables and its pattern is as follow:
x u _ _ u _ u _ u u _
There is also an alternative form:
x u _ _ u _ u _ _ _
u stands for a short syllable, _ is a long syllable while x can be either short or long. Persian words can contain overlong syllables, those correspond to the following sequence: u _.
Now, we can go through each verse syllable by syllable to check if our reading is compatible with the pattern.
rûz is an overlong syllable, so we have _ u
av is a long syllable, _
val is also long, _
ke is short, u
So far, so good. We have _ u _ _ u
Now things are getting more complicated.
sobh is overlong, so _ u
but we could also assume the word صبح is followed by an ezafe vowel, in which case we would obtain
- sob, long
- he, short
Both work as far as the meter is concerned. However, we also have to pay attention to the meaning of the verse. صبح is followed by an adjective so chances are those two words are linked. If we assume there is an ezafe construction, then we can translate the words as 'when the morning of Bahram...'. Otherwise, we would get something like 'when, in the morning, a Bahram...' which doesn't make sense.
Now we can finish our first verse:
bah is long, _
râ is long, _ (we have a long syllable, but we could also have two consecutive short syllables)
mî is long, _
And now we have our first verse!
Let's see how verse number two turns out. As a reminder, our khafif pattern is
x u _ _ u _ u _ u u _ .
az is overlong, _ u
shab is long, _
tî is long, _
re is short, u
You could remark that شب / shab is read without any ezafe vowel. After all, you could be tempted to read شب تیره as /shab-e tîre/ ('the dark night'). But we insert an ezafe vowel here, our meter will be u u, which is not possible because we need to have _ _ .
Now we have to solve برد. Remember that it can have two readings. /barad/ is u _ while /bord/ is overlong and thus _ u. Yes, we need to have a _ u sequence. This means the correct reading is /bord/.
The rest of the verse is quite straighforward:
bad is long, _
nâ is long, _
and finally, mî is also long, _
We have now deciphered our two verses. We can render them in scriptio plena:
رُوزْ اَوَّل که صُبحِ بَهرامی
از شَبْ تیرهْ بُرْد بَدنامی
And here is a simple, litteral translation:
When that day came (روز), at first (اول), when (که) the morning of king Bahram (صبح بهرامی) swept away (برد) dark infamy (تیرهبدنامی) from the night (از شب).This is a poetical way of saying that the advent of king Bahram put an end to the corruption of the previous ruler, king Yazdgard.
Now, most verses are more straightforward than this. But it is not rare to stumble on obscure verses. Some verses are so ambiguous that even scholars are unsure what the intended meaning was. Ambiguity was obviously embraced and cultivated by poets
So if you want to know why the birth of king Bahram was such an auspicious event, I suggest you give learning Persian a go. In all honesty, the language in itself is not very complicated and you will be able to read your first verses after a few months of dedicated study
Then, if you wish to take it further, you will encounter material that might leave you speachless. Chances are that if you enjoy reading Latin or ancient Greek, classical Persian will blow your mind.
MusicAnother point that is worth discussing is the musicality of the meter. It is indeed interesting to note that Persian verses were commonly sung and recitated in public. There is a very intimate link between meter and the Persian music system. As a dilettante santour player myself, this is a topic I am quite naturally interested in.
The Persian musical tradition is mostly made up of آواز / âvâz. An âvâz is a semi-improvised melodic pattern, a sort of template if you will. This tradition made no use of sheet music so these patterns used to be transmitted orally exclusively.
Each âvâz is part of a larger collection called دستگاه / dastgâh. You could say that a dastgâh is a novel that contains several chapters, several âvâz. So each one of the dastgâh has a very specific character.
Now, what is important is that an âvâz doesn't have a set rythm. The rythm is free. This is why the meter is so important. It essentially helps shape the rythm of the performance.
To illustrate these concepts, you can listen to the following âvâz. It is sung in a dastgâh called ابو عطا / abû atâ.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlwqvRVJNmkHere are the lyrics, written by هاتف اصفهانی / Hâtef Esfahâni in the 18th century:
che shavad be chehre-ye zard-e man nazarî barâ-ye khodâ konî
u u _ u _ u u _ u _ u u _ u _ u u _ u _
ke agar konî hame dard-e man be yekî nezâre davâ konî
u u _ u _ u u _ u _ u u _ u _ u u _ u _
to shahî o keshvar-e jân to râ, to mahî o molk-e jahân torâ
u u _ u _ u u _ u _ u u _ u _ u u _ u _
ze rah-e karam che ziân torâ ke nazar-e be hâl-e gedâ koni
u u _ u _ u u _ u _ u u _ u _ u u _ u _
ze to gar tafaghod o gar setam, bovad in enâyat o ân karam
u u _ u _ u u _ u _ u u _ u _ u u _ u _
hame az to khosh bovad ey sanam che jafâ konî che vafâ koni
u u _ u _ u u _ u _ u u _ u _ u u _ u _
You can now practice singing your very first Persian âvâz
