Odes, from the Divan of Hafiz

Hafiz was born in Shiraz early in the fourteenth century. His personal names were Shams-ud-din Mohammed. The name by which we know him means “One who can recite the Koran,” and is something in the nature of a distinction. Hajiz as a student seems, therefore, to have distinguished himself in the theological classes; and, in fact, he was later on to become officially a theologian. The exact dates of his birth and death are alike unknown, but it is considered that he died, an old man, not later than 1391. He was thus contemporary with Chaucer and almost contemporary with Dante.

His enemies strove to prevent the circulation of his poems, which were first collected after his death by his friends, and speedily made Hafiz, as he has since remained, the favorite poet of the East. So great was the popularity of the Divan that the Sufis endeavoured to have it placed on the Mahommedan “Index” and canonically forbidden as improper reading for the Faithful. They failed, however; for the chief mufti, Abou Suoud, with whom the decision rested, and to whose good sense be everlasting honour, not only withheld the interdict they expected, but practically gave ecclesiastical countenance to the poet by the issue of a formal decree to the effect “That everyone was at liberty to use his own judgment in the matter of the meaning to be assigned to the poems of Hafiz”

Then it was that, as a last resource, the Sufis determined to appropriate the poet they were unable to silence, and the Divan was declared to be a mystical celebration of spiritual wisdom in terms of the senses, and is the orthodox Persian view to this day.

Whatever mystical meanings may lie beneath, on the surface, at all events, the poems of Hajiz seem easy to understand, and if they should have a secondary significance, most of us will, be content to take them in their primary aspect as lyrical expressions of the joy and sorrow of earth.