The Rubaiyat - Omar Khayyam

Though made famous in his own time for his studies as a mathematician and astronomer, Omar Khayyam's name is now well-known for his Rubaiyat, a collection of evocative and passionate verses introduced to Victorian England by Edward Fitzgerald. The Rubaiyat is a collection of ruba'i ("foursome" in Arabic), two lined stanzas of verse, each divided into two hemistiches. The first, second and fourth line of each stanza must rhyme in this form. The form was popularized in 11th and 12th century Persia, mostly as a reaction against the lengthy, single-rhymed, narrative verse forms that dominated Arabic poetry. The ruba'i were short and witty, delivering a sharp blow in the last line. I read the contemporary translation by Peter Avery and John Heath-Stubbs, supposedly the most literal translation possible. This translation ignored many of the poetic devices in the original Rubaiyat, but unlike Fitzgerald's popular translation, it seemed to more honestly express Khayyam's intent.

The Rubaiyat begins by bemoaning the pointlessness of a life that ends suddenly, to the complete disconcern of the world. The narrator has become disillusioned, wondering why he was created, wishing he hadn't been given the opportunity to feel pain and know disappointment and confusion:

"He began my creation with constraint,
By giving me life he added only confusion;
We depart reluctantly still not knowing
the aim of birth, existence, departure."

This questioning of purpose on earth continues for many stanzas, the narrator focusing on the wheel of heaven, turning a fate of rising and falling for mankind. He mentions the image of a broken earthenware pot often, judging its fragility to be like his own--reminding his listeners that they, like the pot, were made of clay and will return to lifeless clay. With this image, he draws the audience towards the idea that, as the eathenware pot is a vessel for wine, so the human body is a vessel for the spirit of enjoyment, that pleasure is the purpose to human existence:

"Do not expect much of the world and live contented,
Ignore the good and ill that time brings;
Take wine in your hand and a sweet girl's tresses
For they quickly go and these few days will not last."

Khayyam seems to feel a certain disregard for the religion of the Koran. He states in his verse that man should not sacrifice his happiness on earth, waiting in pure discontent for the glory of deserved comfort in the afterlife. He tells his audience that "Whoever made the world could not care less about the pair of moustaches you are and the beard I am." He was a skeptic, and could not bear men martyring their pleasure to an ascetic lifestyle sanctioned by religion.

The picture used above was taken from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, translated by Avery and Heath-Stubbs. It is the Fete Champetre, kept at Riza, painted during the Safavid period in the Izfahan style (c. 1610-15). For the Wikipedia biography on Omar Khayyam, link here; an entry for the Rubaiyat can be found here.

Al Ayyam (The Stream of Days) - Taha Hussein

The Stream of Days is an autobiographical work by Taha Hussein (Wikipedia biography), worldly reknown for his political activism and studies of language and literature in early twentieth century Egypt. The section of his autobiograhy included in the Anderson anthology recounts his experiences as a blind student at the Azhar University in Cairo. He became blind after an illness at the age of 3 but was able to attend both the Azhar and Cairo Universities, the first to graduate with a Ph.D. from the secular Cairo University.

The excerpts included in Anderson's anthology are beautifully written--there is much description, so much that it's easy to forget that the narrator has left out the visual aspect of his experience. It is written in third person, and the style is reminiscent of Chekhov, with similar distance from the characters and scenes, and short moments of quiet reflection. There are few abstractions as the reader is carried along with the boy through his day of schooling and study. Most evocative were the moments that the boy was sitting in the background, absorbing the sounds of his brother and roommates:

"The din of eager laughing voices flooded though the room, burst out through the window on the left, and dropped echoing to the street below; it overflowed through the door on the right and cascaded into the well of the building, where it interrupted the bickering or whispered undertones of the worker's wives on the first floor."

His story was very moving, especially to a student attending a Western University 100 years later. His lifestyle was at once demanding and relaxing. The classes at the Azhar University were much like mine, but in the context of the Koran, they became a moral and spiritual obligation. I could feel that the boy's understanding and judgement were somewhat clouded by youth and inexperience, especially when he thought condescendingly of the sheiks, his superiors and teachers at the university. However, Hussein also managed to point out that the sheiks themselves were clouded by their fierce defense of their religious practices and antiquated traditions.

The picture above is of the mosque at Azhar University, in Cairo, Egypt. It can be found with information about the University here.

Poetry of Hafiz

Hafiz of Shiraz is best known for his lyrics, and continued the tradition of mystical poetry in which Rumi and Sa'di took part (Wikipedia biography).

The collection of poetry included in the Anderson anthology is of love poems, formal lyrics called ghazals, similar to a sonnet in brevity and strictness of form. The following is an introduction to his divan, his collection of mystic love poems. The translation if from Fifty Poems of Hafiz, edited by A.J. Arberry.

"Ho, saki, haste, the beaker bring,
Fill up, and pass it round the ring;
Love seemed at first an easy thing--
But ah! the hard awakening.

So sweet perfume the morning air
Did lately from her tresses bear,
Her twisted, musk-diffusing hair--
What heart's calamity was there!

Within life's caravanserai
What brief security have I,
When momently the bell doth cry,
"Bind on your loads; the hour is nigh!"

Let wine upon the prayer mat flow,
An if the taverner bids so;
Whose wont is on this road to go
Its ways and manners well doth know.

Mark now the mad career of me,
From wilfulness to infamy;
Yet how conceal that mystery
Whereof men make festivity?

A mountain sea, moon clouded o'er,
And nigh the whirlpool's awful roar--
How can they know our labour sore
Who pass light-burthened on the shore?

Hafiz, if thou wouldst win her grace,
Be never absent from thy place;
When thou dost see the well-loved face,
Be lost at last to time and space."

The first stanza serves as an invitation to the reader and an introduction to the surface theme--unrequited love. The second stanza furthers this theme, with the evocative phrase "musk-diffusing hair," but many translations consider the subject of this couplet male--particulary the divine, beloved one. This stanza then becomes the junction for another theme: being torn between desire for spiritual completion and desire for worldly pleasures and goods.

The third stanza points out that there is little use in clinging dearly to the world, for life passes quickly. The next stanza becomes a bit muddled in the Arberry translation. Most other translators use "elder" or even "priest" in the place of "taverner" (in the word by word translation this character is an elder of the tavern who bears authority). In other words, he is the one who knows the way on this road--the road through life that Hafiz refers to with the caravanserai in the previous stanza. Thus, Hafiz is saying that acts considered blasphemy (the wine on a prayer-mat) may sometimes be necessary, and that we can be guided by those who truly understand life and mankind.

By such acts of sacrilege, Hafiz points out in the fifth stanza, he has moved from "wilfulness" to "infamy." Most translator's interpret the rest of the stanza as Hafiz questioning how he can conceal his shame--his infamy--when other men take such joy in speaking of it. However, within the spiritual context of the poem, Hafiz might be considering that the mystery of life remains concealed--perhaps he is not asking a question at all, for the word by word translation reads "concealed who remain that secret about which him/her they arrange gatherings." I'm arguing that the Arberry line should read "Yet how concealed this mystery/Whereof men make festivity!" This concealed secret (about the beloved) is what Hafiz is trying to uncover--these lines seem to be exclamatory, or even plaintive, rather than inquisitive. The sixth stanza is concerned with the blindness of those who don't plunge into the questioning of life and soul that Hafiz has taken on and lost his reputation to.

The last stanza, however, makes it clear that because Hafiz is willing to face the "whirlpool's awful roar" he will see the Beloved's face. Again, many translations use a male pronoun, and I feel that Hafiz means both genders here. He intends to describe an earthly bond with the woman he desires as well as a holy bond with the beloved one. I believe the ambiguity of the Persian language is part of what makes Persian mystic poetry so powerful, for it's easier to write two ideas at once when the words themselves mean two ideas. The final lines are a promise of sorts: Hafiz will see the Beloved (and his beloved) if his true to his path, and once he sees the beloved, the world will fall away--he will no longer be troubled by spiritual and material conflict. I think Hafiz is saying that the God-realization is heaven itself, for the earth falls away as the soul begins to understand God.

The beginning of the last stanza employs a takhallus--a device by which the poet names himself in his work, usually at the end of a poem. This self-naming brings the reader back to the material sense of the poem, for it is easy to be drawn to the questions of the spiritual levels and forget the literal situation, which alone can offer resolution. Though Arberry's translation takes many liberties (mostly to preserve form), it exemplifies Hafiz' ability to write on many levels at once.

The Rose Garden - Sa'di

Sa'di was a medieval Persian poet deeply concerned for human race as it dwells on earth, and in his works, he strove to give his readers social maxims, so that they might improve their mortal condition (Wikipedia biography).

The Rose Garden is a collection of didactic stories intended to instruct readers on the subjects of honor, justice, love, mercy, etc. The poetry interspersed within these stories contains memorable advice--its purpose not to astound intellectuals with beautiful phrasing, but to provide a moral guide to regular men.

It was in Saadi's maxims and poems that I began to realize the importance of physical beauty to the Persian intellect. There is some sense of outer beauty revealing an inner beauty, but physical "perfection" needs no moral/spiritual purity to be worthy of the poet's praise--it is an end in itself. It seems to be viewed as the craftmanship of God--praised because God created it perfectly. The poet finds spiritual completion in merely viewing a beautiful woman.

Knowledge and education are also highly praised--because they spring from a never-ending fount, and cannot be extinguished as beauty, fame, power, fortune, or property can be by time. Saadi encourages young men to gain the knowledge of their fathers, and then to add to that knowledge, making their own merits the criterion for judgment after death.

Piety (especially that of the dervishes, those who have accepted poverty as a means to draw nearer God, as a disconnection with worldly goods and concerns) is praised a great deal, as could probably be expected. A complete giving over of control to God's will was demanded by the poet, praising God in the midst of suffering, remembering Him in prosperity. Vanity is considered a crime against the soul; pride, however, is valued--as it applies to honor. Mercy should be alotted when possible, but justice should always be served, for it is God's will that justice be meted out by humans on earth.

The image at the top right is a poem by Sa'di, and can be found at the Iran Chamber Society webpage. The image at the left is a page from Sa'di's Rose Garden, or Gulistan, and was found at the Chester Beatty Library image gallery.

The Mathnawi - Rumi

Rumi, born 1207 in Balkh (a city in present-day Afghanistan), is considered to be one of the greatest mystic poets, and the greatest Persian poet (Wikipedia biography). His poetry expresses the necessity of coming nearer to God by learning to understand that

"Everyone sees the things unseen
according to the measure of his illumination.
The more he polishes the heart's mirror,
the more clearly will he descry them."

This illumination, which leads to total understanding of God, is the purpose of life, of love and all the experiences which fill human existence. Rumi mocks the man who "learns by rote"--parrots, he calls them--and tells of the spiritual ascension that man will reach in his drawing nearer to the idea of God. Rumi's teachings blend Sufism, Hinduism, Muslim, and all other modes of thought, having evolved (spiritually) beyond a single religion. The man who gains this understanding becomes a "Perfect" being, realizing that God is within himself, as He is within all things, and once a man is a perfect being, he can coexist peacefully with all other men, knowing that all others are one with himself.

Rumi's Mathnavi (Masnavi-l Ma'navi) are the "Rhyming Couplets of Profound Spiritual Meaning." He dictated the six volumes of poetry shortly before his death, intending them to reveal the path of a man searching for God. The opening verses introduce the theme of separation. Following is Reynold Nicholson's rhyming translation of the first poem:

The Song of the Reed

Harken to this Reed forlorn
Breathing, even since 'twas torn
From its rushy bed, a strain
Of impassioned love and pain.

"The secret of my song, though near,
None can see and none can hear.
Oh, for a friend to know the sign
And mingle all his soul with mine!

'Tis the flame of Love that fired me,
'Tis the wine of Love inspired me.
Wouldst thou learn how lovers bleed,
Hearken, hearken to the Reed!"

Rumi considers himself the Reed in this poem, fashioned by God to perform his role in life, to share the truth of love and to help guide others to understanding of God. Though this translation of the opening poem is somewhat abridged, the main idea is still apparent: Rumi is introducing his audience to the purpose of his collection. He begins by telling that he has been separated by God, and as he makes his way back to God, he is ravaged by both the torture and beauty of human existence. He wishes to share the knowledge he has gained while seeking God, knowing that to be his purpose in life. He tells that God (the flame of love) created him, and that his work has been inspired by worldly matters (the wine of Love)--namely the experience of humans as they struggle to rediscover God, how they "bleed" for him.

In a more literal translation, Rumi continues in this poem to explain the mutability of worldly goods and physical existence. He praises the greatness of God, and instructs the reader to take joy in Him, and join Him to leave death and loss behind.

The above image comes from a 17th century illustrated edition of the Mathnawi. A link to its origin on the internet can be found here.

The Shahnameh (The Book of Kings) - Firdausi

The Shahnameh (Shanameh on Wikipedia) is a largely historical account of the kings of Persia, beginning with the creation of the world and ending with the Arab invasion of the Sasanian empire in the 7th century A.D. It is based on an oral tradition, and most feats and descriptions of its characters are the product of myth and legend. It is considered the national epic of Iran, and Firdausi, in many respects, the Persian Virgil. (Wikipedia biography) He based his epic poem on a prose translation from a Pahlavi history of the heroes and leaders of pre-Islamic Iran which he discovered in Tus.

Firdausi begins the epic with praise of God and with an invocation to Wisdom. He then tells the creation of the world per Sasanian belief: In the beginning, God created matter and the substance of the four elements (fire, wind, water, earth), which rushed together to form the earth, the master of the stars and planets in a spherical universe, much like that which Aristotle propounded. Firdausi explains the creation of the celestial bodies, praises the prophet Muhammed, and tells of the heavenly-sanctioned creation of the Shahnameh before beginning his epic of Persian kings.

The first age of kings continues in the myths surrounding the beginning of the Persian empire. Keyumars was the first king, who lived in the mountains and introduced civilization to the world through clothing and order. His grandson, Husheng, discovered fire, and taught the arts of husbandry. Jemshid, grandson of Husheng, divided the year into months, organized society and constructed Persepolis. And so the epic continues, cataloguing wars and advancements, revealing the heroic deeds of kings, and their fatal vices.

The selection included in the Anderson anthology deals primarily with the king Bahram. Bahram was born under a favorable star to the greedy and merciless king, Yazdeherd. In his youth and adolescence it was obvious he would be a powerful warrior and wise leader. Most of the Bahram legends follow the same pattern: problem is presented to Bahram; Bahram succeeds; Bahram spends evening with many beautiful women. Bahram says that happiness is the source of health and well-being--this mindset caused problems for him when he assumed the rule of the kingdom. He was given to seeking pleasure rather than creating and keeping order within his kingdom. He was eventually defeated by a Chinese force and lost his empire. Though he regained his throne, he was a man who valued happiness and pleasure more than prosperity, and by the end of his rule, the treasury was depleted. At that point, he gave his crown to his oldest son and devoted himself to God.

Firdausi does not judge the kings he presents, but he does use their stories to impart a moral education to readers. For instance, readers learn from the example of Bahram's "calling out against his father's tomb" and dishonoring his name that Yazdeherd, with his ruthless and torturous order, was more culpable that Bahram with his free-spirited emptying of the coffers.

The picture above is a painting found in the Shahnameh of Bahram siezing his crown. It was found at the website for the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, under the Materpieces of Persian painting exhibition (link).

Mu'allaqat (The Golden Odes)

The Mu'allaqat are a collection of the poetry of Pre-Islamic Arabia made shortly after Muhammad's death. An entry in the Wikipedia online encyclopedia can be found here. The odes are the survivors of the oral tradition among the nomadic Bedouin tribes (ca. 6th century C.E.). Four of the seven odes were included in my study: The Wandering King, Whom the Gods Loved, The Centenarian, The Black Knight.


The Wandering King

This is the ode of Imr al-Qais, a warrior poet who bemoans the leaving of his mistress as he travels towards war. The language is incredibly sensual--and while this is expected when the narrator speaks of women, it's surprising when his horse is given such regard:

"Fiery he is, for all his leanness, and when his ardour
boils in him, how he roars--a bubbling cauldron isn't in it!
...
His back, as he stands beside the tent, seems the pounding-slab
of a bride's perfume, or the smooth stone the colocynth's broken on."

There is an emphasis and a celebration in physical consciousness. Sight, taste, touch--stimulation of the senses is the goal of the narrator. Beauty is found everywhere, from the stars, "glittering like the folds of a woman's bejewelled scarf," to a lover's hair, "a dark embellishment clustering down her back like bunches of a laden date tree." This attention to sensory detail reveals the mindset of a people not afraid to pause and appreciate. It also reveals the heavy emphasis placed on sensual gratification. Imr al-Qais, though he is charged to avenge his father's death, seems to be entirely consumed by his love for women and his horse. In the beginning of the ode, he is unable to stand, weeping disconsolately in the road at leaving his lover behind. And this, he claims, is his regular response to such separation. He is forced by circumstance to leave, however, and shortly forgets about his affairs, conversationally talking about the weather and admiring the grace of his steed. The language is beautiful, passionate and evocative.


Whom the Gods Loved

Tarafa's ode is similar to al-Qais'. It begins in the same manner--weeping over lost love--but seems to pick up speed as the narrator races away from the source of his grief. If al-Qais spoke in a reverent tone of the beauty of his horse, Tarafa speaks of his she-camel with an even more intimate understanding than he speaks of the she-humans. In fact, it is almost impossible to distinguish in most places which species he is speaking of. He uses the image of the she-camel often to mirror the vision of the woman he loves.

A pervasive idea in the second half of the ode is that life should be enjoyed, for death comes swiftly. "Unceasingly I tippled the wine and took my joy," the narrator says, realizing that there will be no avoiding his death, pointedly asking those who disapprove of his waste and self-gratification if they can prolong life with their prude asceticism.


The Centenarian

The Centenarian, by Labid, has a more detached, sweeping tone than the previous odes, describing the rain that falls on the deserted ruins of Mina, recounting the thoughts and concerns of the nomadic warriors as they fly over the desert hills on their camels.

The story is that of a young man who's love was not reciprocated and takes a journey in order to cool, and forget, his passions. He returns indifferent to the woman he adored. Many of the images in this ode imply the passage of time, and the change it causes. Entire villages are destroyed by water, we see the sun in its interminable path across the sky glaring in "the shimmering forenoon haze" or "[flinging] its hand into dusk's coverlet." The narrator notices the aging of his companions, and questions the purpose of the continual growth and destruction.


The Black Knight

This ode is a testament to the narrator's strength, vigor, and nobility. He shares examples of his favorite traits as he recounts the journeys he has taken to his paramours, his fights with other knights, and his drinking habits. The author is 'Antara, the son of an Arab prince and a slave--his illegitimacy and mixed blood kept his father from claiming him as a son, and he was considered a slave by his own family until the moment his father freed him to fight in battle. Perhaps this is the reason he must tout his manliness, to mask his connection with an inferior race. His is the most violent voice encountered in the odes; he nearly revels in the blood and sweat of battle. Here he speaks of his the pain his "black steed" endures:

"Continuously I charged them with his white-blazoned face
and his breast, until his body was caparisoned in blood,
and he twisted round to the spears' impact upon his breast
and complained to me, sobbing and whimpering."

And here he passionately describes killing his enemy:

"So I thrust him with my lance, then I came on top of him
with a trenchant Indian blade of shining steel,
and when the sun was high in the heavens I descried him
his fingers and his head as it were dyed with indigo."

Palace Walk - Naguib Mahfouz

Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006), born in Cairo, served as a civil servant for most of his life and wrote many novels, short stories, and plays. He won the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature and today remains the best known modern Arabic writer.

Palace Walk is the first book of the Cairo Trilogy, considered by most to be Mahfouz's masterpiece. The trilogy follows a family living in post-World War I Cairo, chronicling their reactions to the chaos of an Egypt striving for independence.

Palace Walk begins with the character of Amina, wife to the domineering and tyrannical patriarch, al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad. She is introduced as hard-working, generous, and completely submissive to the (in her time) outmoded traditions that Arabic women are subject to. The closest thing to "outside" that Amina has experience in the 25 years since she married al-Sayyid is an enclosed balcony.

"She entered the closed cage formed by the latticework and stood there, turning her face right and left while she peeked through the tiny, round openings of the latticework panels that protected her from being seen from the street."

The image above is of the al-Husayn mosque, visible from al-Sayyid's home. Al-Husayn was the grandson of Mohammmed, and was especially treasured by the family in Cairo. Amina, completely devoted to the religious figure, risked her husband's anger by visiting the mosque to pay homage while al-Sayyid was away on business. When he learned of her disobedience, he ordered her to leave his home. Divorce loomed in Amina's mind, but thankfully (and according to Amina, in response to her prayers at the mosque), al-Husayn turned her husband's mind towards forgiveness, and she was allowed to return home.

Amina does not grudge her captivity--in fact, she embraces the strictness of her husband, and her father's before, that has allowed her to remain pure. The rare questions her character asks herself are immediately justified by gratitude for the joys that marriage has brought her--children, security, and the knowledge that she has fulfilled her role as a woman.

The brutality and hypocrisy of al-Sayyid are subtly portrayed as a question of the "old ways." At home and with his family he is cruel, cold, and demanding. Away, however, he is the genial host of parties filled with wine and women, the inviting shopkeeper who bestows gifts on friends and respected officials. He has taken many lovers during his 25 years of marriage, feeling that it is his right to enjoy the beauty and pleasure he can find on earth.

Al-Sayyid is an egocentric. Mahfouz brings these selfish qualities to the surface by the character's repeated use of "me." When confronted with the news that a man has proposed marriage to his youngest daughter, he immediately asks if the man has seen her, intending only to grant their marriage should the his motives be to make an alliance with the patriarch: "No daughter of mine will marry a man until I am satisfied that his primary motive for marrying her is a sincere desire to be related to me...me...me" (157). And when trying to force his son, Fahmy, to swear his obedience on the Qur'an: "The only word that counts here is min. Mine. Mine." He aggressively states that his own words are of more consequence than God's.

His tyranny at home is answered with fear and subservience by his wife, daughters, and sons. However, when his first son, Yasin, spies al-Sayyid with a lover, he is surprised, and somewhat vindicated in his own depraved lust for women of any type and wine in great quantities.

When al-Sayyid realizes that Yasin is following his footsteps, he is at once alarmed and furious. He has raised his sons to be pure and righteous. He doesn't trust Yasin's, or his other sons', judgment to match his own. He feels that his own abberrations will be forgiven by the merciful God, who understands the true reverance that lies in his heart. "If his tongue said, 'O God, repentance,' his heart limited its request to pardon, forgiveness, and mercy" (413). Al-Sayyid abhors the idea of an aescetic's life--he and Yasin both feel that life devoid of wine and women would be empty and meaningless.

The chapter in which the men of the family visit the mosque proves to be the least spiritually enlightening of all. Yasin and his father are concerned mostly with avoiding God's wrath while still enjoying life's pleasures. Fahmy, somewhat skeptical of the traditional beliefs, is concentrating on his part in the impending revolution. The concern that idols can eclipse God also surfaces. In Kamal's experience, "When he was in the mosque, the intensity of his devotion to al-Husayn, whom he loved more than himself, also interfered with giving the kind of total attention to God that a person should when praying" (412).

Modern Arabic Poetry

Badawi al-Jabal (1907-1981)

Born to a distinguished family of Northern Syria, Jabal served in the government as a member of Parliament and as Minister of Health. His political career ended in exile, however, when the radical Syrian Communist Party and Baath Party gained control of the government and accused several opposing Conservatives of high treason. Jabal's style is classical, relying on Arabic literary conventions popular for hundreds of years. He brings the influence of the mystical tradition in imagery to his poetry. The following is "Immortality," questioning the appeal of a pleasant afterlife.

Immortality

Immortality and the vaunted joys
of eternity cannot be reconciled.
All who dwell there weary of their bliss
just as the sick man tires of his sick bed.
The eons pass over them one like the other
each day the same, filled with facile laughter.
They look for nothing new in their immortality
night and day worn down by eternity's tedium.
No more dear hope is nursed in their dreams;
there is no more distinction between faith and denial.
You wretched soul, after fulfillment
Emptied now of desire, regret and bitterness
All these immortals made stale by eternity--
Even angels' solicitude could not stir them.
They recline among houris, but without joy;
they drink the wine, though they do not thirst.
They would trade the bounteous honey and wine,
they would trade blessings of diamonds and rubies
for one moment of anguish assuring them
of their communion with pain.

Al-Jabal's condemnation of the pleasant, peaceful afterlife reveals the epidemic of skepticism that has plagued modern literature. This poem is not a distortion of optimism, a claim that man should accept tragedy as inescapable, or even as a shaping experience. Here, al-Jabal questions the desire for tranquility; no human, born to know grief, could endure endless comfort. That said, his ultimate argument is that life should be regarded with perhaps higher esteem than the afterlife. Life, with its torments and pain, is a human experience that should be not merely borne, but cherished. There is a sense of fear that concentrating on the (ambiguous) "what will be," allows the present experience to completely lose meaning. Al-Jabal's poetry argues that men were not placed on earth simply to reach heaven, but to be on earth, to be thirsting and hungering, and striving. By painting immortality so perversely, al-Jabal reminds us that the human condition should not be ignored nor forgotten.


Yusuf al-Khal (1917-1987)
Born in Lebanon, al-Khal was the son of a Protestant minister and earned a degree philosophy from the American University of Beirut. After a career of traveling, he returned to his country to begin the poetry journal Shi'r, a quarterly publication devoted to modern, experimental literature. Al-Kahl translated several the works of several modern English poets (Eliot, Pound, Frost, et al.) into Arabic, as well as supplying a new Arabic translation of the Bible.

Cain the Immortal

When you turn at the road's
last bend
you eat the distance with your eyes
as if it were an idol raised to heaven.

You can't go back,
you will wither and fall
or reach the crossroad
until some oracle appears
like an image on the wall.
Perhaps the oracle is nothing
but the fist of God
dropped open with a sign?

No,
you are leafed with worry,
devoured by stares.
Grumbling, you pierce the dust
with a curse
like Adam's rib,
and wander off
into forbidden grounds
into a cleft between
two shores--
the region of your death.
Not knowing
where you belong.
Your pallbearers are carrying
no one in your coffin.

Cain cannot die.

Al-Khal's poem reveals the endless, empty path drawn by hatred. He describes the desolation of the emotion, with desert imagery and unyielding focus on the poem's subject, and there is utter hopelessness in Cain's anxious expectation and unknowing. He journeys alone, in uncharted desert, to an unrevealed destination; his actions have placed him in this position--he can't turn back from the path he's chosen. Al-Khal succeeds in bringing the proud futility of hate to his phrases. Cain could repent and find forgiveness, but pride prevents him and further fuels his hatred. The sadness is in knowing that the state is self-perpetuating, immortal. Hate will always exist as long as pride begets it. Pride is misplaced reverence, the fatal misstep conscious beings are prone to.