Hafez (1315– 1390) was born (born Khwāja Šamsu d-Dīn Muḥammad Hāfez-e Šīrāzī) in Shiraz, Iran, but not much is known of his life.
He is said to have learned the Quran by heart as a child. When his father died he left school to work as a baker and as a copyist, before becoming a poet at the court of Abu Ishak and also taught at a religious college. He studied Sufism, an Islamic form of mysticism, under a Sufi master. His lyrical poems, called ghazals, use love, wine and women to express the ecstasy of divine inspiration.
This treatment of bodily joy, not as a temptation but as a mystical equivalent of the divine, is an achievement that would be inconceivable in Western poetry of the Middle Ages (though it can be matched in the Old Testament Song of Songs). Even today, Western readers of Hafez’s poems (which are available in translation) still find it difficult to relate them to religious experience. In Iran, however, they are prized as the greatest achievement of Persian literature, and have passed into common currency, being drawn on for proverbs and sayings.
Hafez is one of the most celebrated of the Persian poets, and his influence can be felt to this day. As the author of numerous ghazals expressing love, spirituality, and protest, he and his work continue to be important to Iranians, and many of his poems are used as proverbs or sayings. Hafez’s tomb is in Musalla Gardens in Shiraz.
My Brilliant Image by Hafez
One day
the sun admitted,
"I am just a shadow.
I wish I could show you
The infinite Incandescence
That had cast my brilliant image!”
“I wish I could show you,
When you are lonely or in darkness,
The astonishing light
Of your own being!”
For years my heart inquired of me
Where Jamshid's sacred cup might be,
And what was in its own possession
It asked from strangers, constantly;
Begging the pearl that's slipped its shell
From lost souls wandering by the sea.
Last night I took my troubles to
The Magian sage whose keen eyes see
A hundred answers in the wine
Whose cup he, laughing, showed to me.
I questioned him, "When was this cup
That shows the world's reality
Handed to you?" He said, "The day
Heaven's vault of lapis lazuli
Was raised, and marvelous things took place
By Intellect's divine decree,
And Moses' miracles were made
And Sameri's apostasy."
He added then, "That friend they hanged
High on the looming gallows tree—
His sin was that he spoke of things
Which should be pondered secretly,
The page of truth his heart enclosed
Was annotated publicly.
But if the Holy Ghost once more
Should lend his aid to us we'd see
Others perform what Jesus did—
Since in his heartsick anguish he
Was unaware that God was there
And called His name out ceaselessly."
I asked him next, "And beauties' curls
That tumble down so sinuously,
What is their meaning? Whence do they come?"
"Hafez," the sage replied to me,
"It's your distracted, lovelorn heart
That asks these questions constantly."