>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington, DC. >> Good afternoon, everyone,
and thank you for being here. I'm Mary-Jane Deeb, Chief of
the African/Mid-East division. And I'm really excited
about today's program. And I always say something about
our division before we start. Because people see
the programs online, and so if they're watching online,
they probably want to know something about who we are and what we do. So we are a division that's
made up of three sections. And those three sections
are the African section, the Hebraic section,
the Mid-East section. We're responsible for collections
from 78 different countries and at least 30 languages. We're very active in acquiring
and developing collections from sub-Saharan Africa,
North Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and
we go as far as Afghanistan, sometimes into [inaudible]
Russia and China. And we brief visitors. We serve collections. We organize programs. And we also and we do
exhibits and displays. We also invite scholars and experts
who have researched the collections, who have written books, who
have prepared research papers, based on our collections,
to come and talk to us. And so to help us all get a better
understanding of these collections in other countries and societies
for which we are responsible. And so in that spirit, today
we have our own, our very own, in-house poets and scholars
and writers and thinkers, who have put together for you a very
special program for Valentine's Day. I know it's gone, but, you know, Valentine's Day is a
permanent feature, okay, and it was only two days
ago that we celebrated it. And this program has been -- is under the able direction of
our grand maestro, Dr. Ann Brener, the Hebraic area specialist
in this division. She opined in a meeting,
in a divisional meeting, that it behooves our division to
celebrate the poetic traditions of the Middle East that go
back thousands of years, and that have had a major
impact on Western poetic forms. [inaudible] form of
poetry, of Southern France. Because Valentine's
Day was approaching, she suggested that we should have
love poems from the Middle East in some of the major
languages of our collections. The Mid-East collections,
the Hebraic collections. The African section also has
its own series of poetry, which we call conversations
with African Poets and Writers. But the other two sections do
not necessarily have a series. So this is a way of
celebrating their collections. The idea was immediately
endorsed unanimously. And today we have a treat for you. With, from the Hebraic section,
Ann Brener and Sharon Horowitz, and an adopted member of our
division, Joseph Englesberg. And from the Near East section,
we have the head of the section and also Turkish specialist,
Joan Weeks. We have Muhannad Salhi,
Arab World specialist. And Hirad Dinavari, the
Persian area specialist, who will read love poems, both
in the original languages, the languages that we
collect, and in translation so that we can all understand and
fall in love with the love poems. And so we are going we'll let
the show begin with our master of ceremonies, Levon Avdoyan, who is the Armenian-Georgian
specialist in the division. And now, Levon. >> Levon Avdoyan: Thank
you, Mary-Jane. I suspect I have been chosen
as I don't want to call master of ceremonies, I suspect
I'm the leader of the love caravan at the moment. I was chosen because after 70, it's just presumed you
don't have a valentine. And so I welcome you all. And rather than actually start
with a bit of Armenian poetry, I am going to recite one
of the shortest poems that has ever been penned, and in
my viewpoint, the greatest love poem that has ever been created,
and that is the 85th Carmen from Catullus' Carmina. And it is, [foreign language]. I think Freud actually
knew this poem. I hate and I love. Why do I do this, perhaps you ask? I do not know. But I feel it happening
and I am greatly tormented. So what you are going to hear
is romantic love, partial hate, a great deal of torment in
four languages of the Hebraic and the Near East section. Now picture this as
being a wind swept desert from seventh century Arabia. And I introduce our Arab world
specialist, Dr. Muhannad Salhi. [ Applause ] >> Muhannad Salhi: Good
afternoon, everybody. Thank you all for coming. As the title says,
this was meant to be on Valentine's, it's two days later. And some of us are quite
a few dollars shorter. But that's all right,
that's all right. The poem that I have chosen for
you today is by Qais Al-Mulawah, whom you will probably
know as Majnun Layla. Majnun Layla, the story of
Majnun Layla, I should say, is probably the most famous
love story in Arabic literature and has indeed influenced
the entire Middle East, if not saw the entire East. The story itself is known in Arabic
literature as [foreign language] "The Virgin Love," for lack
of a better translation. And it takes on many
iterations throughout the region. Once it is adopted by and adapted,
I should say, by Persian literature, it goes on to acquire
a mystical dimension. And it's adopted by
Azeri literature. It's adopted by Indian literature. It's adopted by Ottoman literature. And goes on to have so
many different iterations and explanations and takes on
entirely different characters. But the bare bones story really,
and we have the [inaudible] and it is mentioned
in Kitab al-Aghani, [inaudible] Kitab al-Aghani, and
Ibn Qutaybah's al-shir wal-shuara. Actually, the person
who should be speaking about this is our own Dr. Tadras
[assumed spelling] who's done a lot of research on this. But I'll try and do my best
since it's a short time that I have to speak about this. The bare bones story is we have
the suth [phonetic] named Qais ibn Al-Mulawah who is completely
infatuated by a girl named Layla Al-Aamiriya. And he is writing this
love poetry about her and he is completely
uninhibited in his love poetry. He writes and writes about her,
and he's getting bolder and bolder in that he's mentioning her name. So there's no mistaking
who he's talking about. One thing I should mention, when
he talks about, for example, communion with Layla, he's talking
about communion through verse. This is not a physical relationship. This is purely platonic
relationship, let's call it. It's love through verse. He is completely infatuated by her. The fact that he's uninhibited,
he's going overboard, let's say, in wooing her, and he's mentioning
her by name, scandalizes her family. I mean, the poetry
reaches her family. Her father is scandalized by this. He begins to deem him
a little bit unstable, not to say a little touched, and so
he decides to nip this in the bud and marries her off to another man. The man we are told is
named Ward Althaqafi. And Ward in Arabic means rose, because apparently the
man has a rosy complexion. And so once she is married to
this Ward Althaqafi and takes off, Qais is completely -- he loses it. He's completely lost. He takes to the desert. He's seen reciting his
poetry alone in the desert. And his family starts to leave
him food out in the wilderness so he can get something to eat. And he's completely lost to society. Meanwhile, Layla, having
lost any hope of communion with her beloved Qais, falls ill,
she's completely heartbroken, falls ill and dies
shortly thereafter. Upon hearing this, Qais
roams around her grave. And the last three verses attributed to Qais ibn Al-Mulawah
are apparently engraved on a stone right by her grave. So it is an entirely
tragic love story. Once it is, as I mentioned
earlier, adopted and adapted by the Persian tradition, it
requires a more mystical nature. Love for the beloved becomes a
vehicle for love for the divine. So by losing yourself, in
completely losing yourself in love for the beloved, it becomes a
stepping stone for losing yourself in the divine, in another
words, beloved with a capital B. So it is a mystical exercise. And then again, there's so many
different reiterations of this, there's so many different versions. There's one version that I was
looking at, has them both in school and the schoolmaster is beating Qais for not paying attention
to his school work. He's paying too much
attention to Layla. And when he beats Qais, Layla
is the one that gets the scars. The Indians take it in a
completely different direction. In fact, they have Qais -- they believe the two lovers flee the
deserts of Arabia and they manage to find their way back
to India, Rajasthan, and their graves are there. And I'm told there's a fair in
India ever year where newlyweds and lovers go pay homage
to the two lovers. But back to the deserts of Arabia
and to our pour forlorn Qais. I ask that you are
forgiving and kind, I'm the one who did
this translation. And as we all know, doing poetic
translations is a patently unforgiving and unthankful task. So I will do my best. I will first read the Arabic and
then I will read the translation. [ Foreign Language ] Did you not promise me oh heart that if I foreswore the love
of Layla, you would too. I have kept my vow. So why is it that whenever
she is mentioned, you melt. And why do you now long
for Layla, after you swore to that path you would never return. Indeed, you have returned
to her, my heart. And low, tears are shed
profusely pouring forth, foretelling that passion
is a fire ignited. And beneath fires'
embers, the heart melts. Thank you. [ Applause ] >> Levon Avdoyan: Well, I did
promise you love and torment. We now go to our second act,
which is a flowering courtyard in Muslim Spain and
we have Ann Brener and Sharon Horowitz
and their intern. >> Ann Brener: Thank you. Arabic poetry was born in
the desert, but the spread of Islam soon swept it into palaces and courtyards across
the Middle East. And it left its traces
wherever we look. Poetry was chiseled
into palace walls, as we see here in the Alhambra. Poetry was woven into
royal garments and rugs, carved in marble and stone. Poetry was a prerogative of kings and poets the ornament
of courtly society. And in Andalusia, in the tiny
kingdoms of southern Spain ruled by Muslim kings and princes,
it was also eagerly adopted by Jewish poets for Hebrew poetry. These Jewish poets who lived in
cities like Granada and Cordoba in the tenth and eleventh
centuries, composed poetry based on classical Arabic models. Only they wrote their poems in
Hebrew rather than in Arabic, and they used the treasures of the
Bible and not the Koran to do so. The Hebrew Love Song, which
we present to you today, is based on a model of Arabic poetry
that was unique to Muslim Spain. Unlike the classic
form of Arabic poetry that features one running rhyme,
the kind performed by my colleague, Dr. Salhi, just now,
and very beautifully, this new poetry has a far
more intricate rhyme scheme. In Arabic, this kind of
poem was called a muwashah, or as we translated into
English, a girdle poem. A girdle or a medieval girdle
being an ornamental sash or belt studded with jewels. And just as a girdle would
be wrapped around the body of its princely wearer, so
would the girdle poem be studded with intricate set of
rhymes weaving in and out of the poem and holding it together. And here I've made -- I know
you can't read the words, but here I've made a
diagram of the colors, so that you can see just
how intricate it is. The yellow, green,
and turquoise colors, you see how they weave
through the poem? Well, that would be the
muwashah, the girdle belt. Now, all this makes for a very -- all these rhymes make
for a very musical poem. And indeed, it was usually
performed by professional musicians in courtly setting, a palace
or flowering courtyard. Now, just like the classical Arabic
poems, the muwashah, or girdle poem, is composed in the classical
language, that is the language of the Koran, and spoken
in the male voice. Except that is for the last two
lines, and that is the kicker. For in the muwashah, the
final two lines are written in colloquial Arabic, the kind
of language you would hear if you wandered out of the palace
into the bazar or marketplaces or if you went down to the rivers where the servant girls
were doing their laundry. And we have kings creating poems
to those very servant girls. And since we are talking about
Muslim Spain, this colloquial Arabic in these last two lines is often
mixed with words in Spanish and they are usually lifted
directly from popular songs. These last two lines in muwashah
are known as the [foreign language], an Arabic word meaning exit. And as one literary critic described
the [foreign language], oh, some 900 years ago, the [foreign
language] is, and I'm quoting, "the spice of the poem, its salt
and its sugar, its musk and amber." This same critic also described the
very strict rules governing the use of the [foreign language]. The transition from the body of
the poem to the [foreign language], he writes, and again I quote,
"the transition should be affected by a jump and by suddenly passing
from one subject to another. In addition, it should be spoken by some other person,
animate or inanimate. The most common thing is to put it into the now [inaudible]
Lucette girls or doves cooing in the branches of the
trees, or drunkards." The lines immediately preceding the
[foreign language] must contain an expression like, he said, I said,
she said, she sang, etc, etc. Now, a lovesick girl, a cooing
dove, a drunk, in other words, the [foreign language] must be
put into the mouth of someone who doesn't usually have a voice
in classical Arabic poetry. And it is this play between
highbrow and lowbrow , etween the two very
different voices, that give the poem
its salt and sugar. The love poem we now present
is one of these girdle poems. But while the [foreign language] is
in the colloquial mixture of Arabic and Spanish, the body of
the poem is in Hebrew, beautiful biblical Hebrew. This Hebrew poem follows the
rule of the Arabic girdle poems to the letter and also presents
a virtual catalog of motifs from the repertoire
of Arabic love poetry, including the tortured lover. Thus, we have a suffering
lover, a cruel mistress, and a stern personified fate,
know in both Arabic and Hebrew as [foreign language], or time, a convention that goes
back to pre-Islamic poetry. Arabic poetic traditions demands that the poet's mistress be
beautiful as well as cruel. And, as you will now see, our heroine fits her job
description to perfection. [ Foreign Language ] >> Joseph Englesberg: O sun behind
your curtained hair reveal your light to me. And let I thee implore! A love-sick slave go free. Time thought to hoard your
manna and thereby do me wrong So take a seat here in my heart. You'll see it's firm and strong. What can Time do then,
if you to me belong? If I forget thy face so fair,
then God, may I forget Thee! 'Tis you, O sun, I most adore. What's Time to do with me? You're beauty incarnate,
why deck yourself in gold? It only makes it harder,
for me to kiss and hold! The Rose of Sharon then replied
and sang out clear and bold: >> Sharon Horowitz: I don't
want to wear a necklace, O Mama. The dress's enough for me. My lord will see a neck
that's white and pure. He won't want jewelry! [ Applause ] >> Levon Avdoyan: It's no fair
that I have to stand back there. So we go from Muslim
Spain to Act Three, with Hirad Dinavari doing the Shiraz
Palace fourteenth century Persia. >> Hirad Dinavari: To
continue, a wonderful tradition that has its roots in Arabia by the
time Islam had come to the shores of Persian lands, and by
the ninth, tenth century, you have Persian poetry blossoming
using Arabic weight and scale and rhythmic motifs
that you see that came in through the Arabic language. The first few centuries, of course,
started with shanom [phonetic] and panegyric and poetry
that was based on praise of the king or storytelling. But by the eleventh, twelfth
century, we have a style of lyrical poetry, which essentially
is mystical, all the things that Muhannad alluded to earlier. It's a divine love, a
talk about spiritual love. And we have several great poets that
start to blossom in this period. The city of Shiraz is one of
the great cities known for many of these wonderful poets that
came, two very noteworthy ones, of course, are Saadi and Hafiz. You're looking at Hafiz's
mausoleum here. I've decided to recite
a famous mystical poem from Hafiz for you for this event. And, of course, the good thing
about Hafiz is, today in Iran, he has become an icon for lovers. Everyone once a year
gathers at the Hafiz here, and essentially they read -- open the book, his book
off odes or ghazal. His love poetry are known
as [foreign language] art, which in English, you could
roughly translate as ghazals. And what we have is a series of
poems rhyming couplets following that wonderful rhythmic style. And the end, with the
last two lines, essentially referring
to the poet himself. And I'm going to read
you one of those that I think you'll
find quite interesting. For translation, I went ahead and
selected John Hindley's translation, with a few modifications. He's an author from the
nineteenth century who wrote in a more classical style. And I try to make it a
bit more contemporary. So I'll start with the Persian
and I will go into the English. But before that, I also wanted to quickly give you a little
background on Hafiz himself. Hafiz was a great poet that started
a tradition that became renowned in the Islamic- and, of
course, Persian-speaking world. Persian speakers today in
Afghanistan and Central Asia, all the way to India, for centuries
have been using him as a role model and have been, you know, writing in
his lyrical Sufi style essentially. His poetry was so loved that even it
hit and came to Europe in the year of 17 -- I have it here somewhere -- in 1771, it was translated
into English by William Jones. And essentially it has
left its mark, his poetry, on authors such as
[inaudible] Ralph Waldo Emerson, who have been influenced
strongly by his style of poetry in the eighteenth and
nineteenth century in Europe. So here is the poem. It is Ghazal 270, or ode number 270. Roughly translated or given a
heading as a mysterious love. I read the Persian and I
will switch to English. [ Foreign Language ] If you noticed, every
line of the couplet ends with the word [foreign
language], ask me not. While in English it's
impossible to translate it so that it gives the meaning. So this is an attempt at
getting close to that meaning. Again by John Hindley. I have born the anguish of love,
which ask me not to describe. I have tasted the poison of
absence, which ask me not to relate. Far through the world have I roved, and the length I have chosen a
sweet creature (a ravish of hearts), whose names ask me not to disclose. The flowing of my tears
bedews her footsteps in such a manner as
ask me not to utter. Absent from thee, a beggar
and a sole tenant of my heart. I have endured such tortures,
as ask me not to enumerate. Thus am I, Hafiz, arrived
at extremity in the ways of love, which, alas! Ask me not to explain. Thank you. [ Applause ] >> Levon Avdoyan: And from
the shaw's [phonetic] Palace, we go to the court of
the Dolmabahce Palace, nineteenth century
Istanbul with Joan Weeks. >> Joan Weeks: Poetry, literature,
music, and art flourished in the palaces of the
Ottoman sultans in Istanbul, as well as infused the very
fabric of Ottoman culture. All sorts of everyday events
were expressed in poetry, such as impassioned
pleas for favor and love. Poets could be funny, naughty,
insulting in their poems. Elite poets not only entertained
the Sultan, but participated in the many festivities and major
events surrounding palace life. Ottoman poetry is highly developed and poets built upon
a shared knowledge of earlier themes and motives. Sexuality and spirituality merge and
evoke an intense passion for love. The basic unit is a couplet with
two equal half lines that follow one of about a dozen rhyming patterns. Further, the Turkish
language, Vowel Harmony, lends itself to rhythmic schemes. Each couplet is self-contained
in grammar and theme and may or may not have a direct
connection to other couplets in the poetic composition. See if you can hear this rhyme
pattern in the poems that I read. Also, listen for the poet's name. They seem to be talking
to themselves in the poem. Translation of these Ottoman
poems is very difficult, not only because of the old words
no longer used in modern Turkish, and the cultural idiosyncrasies
of the Ottoman culture, but because the sound of the
rhyming patterns in Turkish differ so greatly from the
translated language. I tried to translate
these poems by Leyla Hanim that I'm presenting today, but right
away I saw that I could not begin to capture the rhythmic patterns. So today I'm presenting
[inaudible] transliteration from the Ottoman script
into modern Turkish, and then using Talat Halman's
translations into English. Leyla Hanim is one of the most
important Turkish female poets of the nineteenth century. Her birthday can't be determined, but she was known to
have died in 1848. Leyla Hanim, [inaudible] are among
the most important female poets of the Ottoman lyric poetic form. Leyla was born into a noble family. The daughter of Moralizade Hamid
Efendi from [inaudible] and Hadice. Her mother was the eldest daughter of the famous statesman
and poet [inaudible]. Leyla received private
tutoring in poetic composition from her grandfather
in the Palace court. She lived during the reign of
Sultans Mahmut and Abdulmecid and had a close relationship
with palace women. It is said she could compose
poetry on the spur of the moment and was well known in her
expression of women's feelings, as well as quick wit satire
abounded in her poetry. She was well aware
of her gender role and its predetermined marginality,
but she used it to her advantage. In today's world, we would
say she had attitude. And that's why I chose her
poetry for today's presentation. [ Foreign Language ] The translation: Get on
with the festivities, let them say what they will. Enjoy your wine with
your [inaudible] darling. Let them say what they will. Night after night in dreams, the
lover kissed and caressed you and your fragrant dark amber hair. Let them say what they will. The love lock of my darling
put its feathers on my heart. I'm still hopelessly in love. Let them say what they will. What do I care if all my
friends would reproach me today? They will come around in the end. Let them say what they will. On judgment day, this disgraced
dark face of mine might turn white. Come what ne in this world today. Let them say what they will. What on earth does it matter to
me if I get praised or blamed? So long as friends are alive,
well, let them say what they will. Leyla, offer your devotion
to that fair faced darling. Kneel, fall at the fate
of your beloved's feet. Let them say what you will. The second one, to continue. I have another little one. Itch by [inaudible]. [ Foreign Language ] Drink all you want
in the rose garden. Who cares what they say. Better enjoy life to the hill. Who cares what they say. Could it be that my cruel lover
sees my tears as dew drops, like a blooming rose,
and is all smile? Who cares what they say. I see my rival is chasing
you, come lie beside me. Say no, well, then so much for you. Who cares what they say. Leyla, indulge in pleasure with
your lovely moon face friend. Make sure you pass
all your days in joy. Who cares what they'll say. [ Applause ] >> Levon Avdoyan: So we've seen
tormented love, romantic love, funny love, frivolous love. But the philosopher in me wants
to say that everyone who falls in love is aiming at something
eternal, something long-lasting. So I would like to end this
celebration of Valentine's Day with quoting the toast, the traditional toast,
at Armenian weddings. Which is: [foreign language]. May you grow old together
on the same pillow. May I invite our presenters to come
up and accept your applause, please? [ Applause ] >> This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress. Visit us@LOC.gov.
