Below and to the right you’ll find links to the ghazals that Magan Lal and Jessie Duncan Westbrook have rendered from Persian into English in The Diwan of Zeb-un-Nissa. I’ll be posting the original poems as I develop new versions of them. I’m sure I’ll be revising the new versions even after I’ve posted them here.
On each page, the new version is on the left; the image of the original poem from the Lal and Westbrook book is on the right.
Clicking on the image will open the original poem in a new browser window or tab. Check the Glossary/Notes as you come across names of unfamiliar people, places, and things in the originals.
I suspect there are mysteries and meanings embedded in the meter, rhymes, cultural references, and images of the original Persian that have been lost in translation. I hope they can be sensed, by resonance, in the energy surrounding the poems now.
The images of the original poems derive from a digitized copy of The Diwan of Zeb-un-Nissa belonging to the University of Toronto Library, call number PK/6559/Z4A25/1913. This volume was published in 1913 by John Murray, Albemarle Street, W., London.
As listed in the Internet Archive, this book is no longer in copyright. The text can be downloaded for free from the archive in several forms.
This page has the following sub pages.
- I. Nothing without your love
- II. You’ve created everything
- III. The holy one’s fragrance
- IV. A pang of rapture
- V. This is the path of love
- VI. My heart is looted
- VII. Like rain-fed rivers
- VIII. Beauty flows to
- IX. You who serve the wine
- X. I don’t ask Heaven
- XI. It’s spring!
- XII. I used to have many
- XIII. Why bother to argue
- XIV. Foolish heart
- XV. My sighs have fanned
- XVI. I’m indentured to Love
- XVII. The wine of my delight
- XVIII. Tyrannical Love
- XIX. Desolate one
- XX. If our generals
- XXI. My path never led
- XXII. Tears water my garden
- XXIII. Everyone scorns me
- XXIV. My heart is burning
- XXV. In the springtime garden
- XXVI. Love, what are you?
- XXVII. I have no need for wine
- XXVIII. I’ve struggled long
- XXIX. My impatient hands
- XXX. This cup contains
- XXXI. My honor’s dust
- XXXII. Hurry, wine-bearer!
- XXXIII. Don’t look at me
- XXXIV. Why should we only
- XXXV. How long will you
- XXXVI. Try reading the riddle
- XXXVII. You unveil your face
- XXXVIII. The nightingale sings
- XXXIX. Moth, this flame
- XL. If the veil fell away
- XLI. Happiness?
- XLII. You who source yourself
- XLIII. Another radiant stain
- XLIV. Like a temple curtain
- XLV. Ease and joy are not
- XLVI. Friends, keep an eye
- XLVII. The roses hear
- XLVIII. Your glance
- XLIX. A single ringlet
- L. The dust that collects
- Glossary/Notes
