Some Poems in the Sabzawari Dialect

W. Ivanow

doi:10.1017/S0035869X00056914

Some Poems in the Sabzawari Dialect

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011

W. Ivanow

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W. Ivanow: Affiliation:
Calcutta

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It is one of the most popular devices of wits and humorists of all nations to make use of various slang expressions, dialectical or rustic sentences, or local words in order to add to the “fun” in their narrative. Persians are no exception to this. Moreover, educated people regard all the numerous local dialects of Iran as unwritten languages and in their writings occasionally make use of them, but only for such facetious purposes. Peasants and the less educated people strive to use high-flown diction in their correspondence, and even in their songs an imitation of this appears instead of their native dialects.

Type: Articles
Information: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 59 , Issue 1 , January 1927 , pp. 1 - 41

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00056914 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1927

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^{page 1 note 1} Browne, E. G., “Some notes on the poetry of the Persian dialects”: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1895, pp. 773–825Google Scholar.

^{page 2 note 1} Completed about 1596. The biographical appendix had probably been written earlier.

^{page 2 note 2} Completed in 1594.

^{page 2 note 3} The main portion written about 1748 and 1749.

^{page 2 note 4} His name can easily be misread as , as may be seen in different copies of the same work, where the name appears in these two forms. The misreading as WālihĪ leads to the confusion of this poet with a dozen or more others, who used the same takhalluṣ, but never wrote in dialects. For biographical information about Dānahī see the Muntakhabu't-tawārīkh, Bibl. Indica, 1899–1922, part iii, p. 229, or p. 319 in W. Haig's translation. In the Haft iqlīm the name of the poet is given in its correct form in the MS. in the India Office Library, see H. Ethé's catalogue, column 434, No. 767; in the MS. of the As. Soc. of Bengal (D 327, f. 198 v.) it appears as Wālihī. Cf. also the Nafā'isu'l-ma'āthir, in A. Sprenger's Oude Catalogue, p. 49, where the correct form of his name is also given. In the Society's copy of the Riyāḍu'sh-shu'ara' (D 102), he is referred to on f. 193.

^{page 3 note 1} Double diminutive form, kchurdakak.

^{page 3 note 2} Mukna = .

^{page 3 note 3} Sic, in all copies, perhaps khushmakak?

^{page 3 note 4} Muzna = .

^{page 3 note 5} I.e. “steals my heart”, or “my heart stops”.

^{page 3 note 6} This verse is omitted in the Haft iqlīm.

^{page 3 note 7} Apparently gidar, a common slang for .

^{page 4 note 1} Mu ki = .

^{page 4 note 2} In the Haft iqlīm .

^{page 4 note 3} Not clearly legible, in all copies: Perhaps bä channak (dim. from channa), “with some bargaining” (in rustic Persian diminutives are often used for expression of contempt). Nahinak, or nakhinak (dim, from ), may mean also “as much as can be picked up by the finger tip”.

^{page 4 note 4} Mu chi = .

^{page 4 note 5} Instead of this verse the Haft iqllm gives:

^{page 5 note 1} Some twenty years ago an inhabitant of Birjand, Ḍiyā'u'd-din Qāinī, compiled a tadhkira of some thirty local poets of Birjand, Qain, Gunabad, and Tun. Only a few of them are really local rustic poets. A copy of this work was brought by me to the Asiatic Museum of the Imperial Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg.

^{page 5 note 2} There are several versions of it in circulation, but none of them appears to be complete.

^{page 5 note 3} A.S.B. copy, f. 315 v.

^{page 5 note 4} Ibid., f. 394 v.

^{page 5 note 5} Ibid., f. 234.

^{page 6 note 1} He lived in Shushtar and Basra; in 1902 he was still alive, and composed poetry in Mamaaani and Bakhtyari, see Mann, O., Kurdisch-Persische Forschungen, Abt. ii, Die Mundarten der Lur-Stämme (1910), p. xxxiiiGoogle Scholar. It is difficult to decide whether he is or is not identical with Fāyiz, whose quatrains are popular amongst the peasants of Fars near Kazerun and Shiraz. Several of them were collected and published by me in the Zapiski of the Oriental Section of the Imperial Russian Archæological Society, St. Petersburg, 1915, pp. 43 and 44.

^{page 6 note 2} See Mann, op. cit., ibid.

^{page 6 note 3} Ibid.

^{page 6 note 4} Mann, op. cit., p. xxxi.

^{page 6 note 5} Ibid.

^{page 6 note 6} Mann, op. cit., p. xxxiii. He died in 1905.

^{page 6 note 7} Ibid. He flourished about 1850.

^{page 6 note 8} See about him Browne, E. G., A literary history of Persia, vol.iv, pp. 337–44Google Scholar. His diwan has been lithographed in Tehran, 1866.

^{page 6 note 9} Christensen, A., Le Dialecte de Samnan, Mémoires de l'Academie Royale de Danemark, 7-me s., S. de lettres, t. ii, Copenhague, 1915, pp. 287–91Google Scholar.

^{page 7 note 1} There are indeed many poets with the surname Fayyāḍ that are mentioned in the different tadhkiras, but those of whom biographical details are given seem to have nothing to do with the Sabzawari Fayyāḍ.

^{page 10 note 1} A village near Khusrawjird, 5 miles west from Sabzawār.

^{page 10 note 2} Another village, close to Kūhpāya.

^{page 12 note 1} A common expression: to be punished for an intrigue, dishonest trick. In Persia this is treated as mild abuse, but in Bukhara it is used only in some especially vile cases.

^{page 14 note 1} The translation is omitted here and in the 3rd verse on account of what may be styled as the “excessive realism,” from the Western point of view, of these verses.

^{page 16 note 1} Originally this poem contains eleven bayts. Four have been omitted after the bayt which here is marked 1, and one after the bayt 3.

^{page 18 note 1} The leopard is supposed to have a long mane.

^{page 20 note 1} Incomplete in the original text. It contains 20 bayts. Here omitted: two bayts after 4; two after 5; one after 7; two at the end.

^{page 22 note 1} I.e. the angels, Nākir and Munkar, who will question ever’ believer at the day of judgment. The word dargana is purely local; I could not trace it in the literary language. Therefore it is left in the paraphrase as it is, in brackets.

^{page 24 note 1} The text here seems to be corrupt; the hemistich is two syllables shorter than it should be. Gharqati probably is (or ) The second word, qātī, apparently Turkish, is often used in the colloquial language, cf. bā ham qātī shud, “it became mixed,” etc.

^{page 26 note 1} Originally seventeen bayts. Here omitted eight bayts after 2, and two after 4. The end may be not quite genuine, but taken from another poem.

^{page 30 note 1} Two more bayts of highly indecent contents are added to this poem in the original. They most probably do not belong to it at all.

^{page 32 note 1} Originally nine bayts. Two of them have been omitted after the third bayt, as being illegible.

^{page 35 note 1} A strange form, but it seems to be exactly so in the original text.

^{page 36 note 1} Originally ten bayts. One is omitted after 5, and another after 7.

^{page 40 note 1} This poem is very popular in Sabzawar, and many people know these few lines by heart, but the original text, as well as the end of the song, could not be found, in spite of a long search.

^{page 40 note 2} I.e. God.

^{page 40 note 3} literally: caught my side.

^{page 41 note 1} There is probably no exact equivalent of this onomatopæic expression in the literary Persian, and therefore I have preserved it unchanged in the paraphrase.

^{page 41 note 2} This is a diminutive of or , which means “a fingertip-ful”. With the verb it gives the sense of digging in, trying to carry on an intrigue gradually.

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Some Poems in the Sabzawari Dialect

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