Readers' Forum
Parsi ladies
While researching a paper I did on the Iran League I came across the following poem, titled "Parsi ladies,” written by the Iranian poet Salar, also known as Naser-ud-din Khan Shirazi, who was president of the Literary Society of Shiraz. Written some time in the early 20th century, it was part of a common trend where Iranian poets of the era wrote extensively on Zoroastrianism and Zoroastrians, both in India and in Iran. Salar wrote this while visiting Bombay. The poem is translated from the original Persian.
"Parsi Ladies
If the Parsi fair ones gracefully walk in this fashion, the gracefully/ waving motion of the tall cypress in the garden will be rendered/ nugatory (lit. legal) by them./ When they let their black locks dangle round their moon-like faces,/ they make the morn of the heart-lost ones dark and dismal like night./ If, of a night, they display the crescent of their eyebrow, they make/ the full moon blush, and put the ring of servitude in its ears./ They sprinkle salt on the wounds of the heart-wounded, when like a bud/ their sweet lips melt into a smile./ It is incumbent on all the people of Fars to hold them in high esteem/ as they come from the ancient stock./ Salar will not care to be the master of the world if, out of/ generosity, they make him the humblest of their slaves./ O Naser, don’t talk on this subject, for the fair ones care not to/ take any notice of raw and immature persons.”
DINYAR PATEL
dinyar.patel@gmail.com
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