>> 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.
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