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#the point of love made the contemplators heart bleed. except heart is also love/stomach/life/soul/etc etc. point is also dot and the sharp
oatbugs · 2 years
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trying to find a suitable translation of the poem from which my name primarily comes from is actually impossible . persian is untranslatable.
#the way me and the person i was staying w in sweden talked abt this ..made my heart hurt a little but also made me glad that i understand#such a special language. persian is made for song and poetry and so the etymology and layers of each word are carried in their meanings#to a far stronger extent than other languages ive seen including english. this makes communicating in a straightforward way#much more difficult. it makes ambiguities more common and one could easily commit some horrid#epistemic crimes against another person by warping the meaning of their words. but it makes lyricism and poetry and anything which is#supposed to have depth and meaning so much more beautiful. which is why translating a good persian poem is so so difficult. yeah you could#use the word beloved but you could also use heart you could also use soul you could also use breath you could also use stomach you could#also use life etc etc . even with more common words.. its just. the only way to get it is to translate each word to a sentence/multiple#words but then the work would lose its impact . idk#thinking abt نقطهٔ عشق دل گوشه نشینان خون کرد#this is seemingly a simple line from the poems sixth verse found in only 3 of its manuscripts. gooshe neshinan is maybe literally#translated as corner-sitters or corner-dwellers but really it means more intellectuals/contemplators/academics but it could also mean#the isolated or lonely or the people who are waiting for something. now combine all the possible meanings into one english word. you just#cant carry the same meaning and depth even for such a simple phrase. the entire line would be#the point of love made the contemplators heart bleed. except heart is also love/stomach/life/soul/etc etc. point is also dot and the sharp#point of a blade. to make bleed could also be to be bloodied or to become blood. its not that#آتش آن است که در خرمن پروانه زدند#fire is that which burns the harvest of the moth. except it has the implication that the moth is also burned whole and#that love is a form of annihilation. moth is also butterfly. khorman means harvest but it also means crop and mass and product and shock#and halo around the moon and the aura of something bright and unseperation. now combine all of that into one english word.#it is also what made me mildly frustrated with non-persian scholars writing on hafez and persian poetry arguing about what translation is#correct when the point of persian lyricism is that the beauty of the verses stems largely from the layers and layers of meaning. love is#annihilation but inherently it is also an unseperation. love is all consuming in the way the halo of a moon is and the way laughter#that wraps you in light is. you are destroyed unwillingly. you are both the butterfly unravelling and the moth burning.#all one short line. i want you to understand why i chose this name and also to understand the poetry i was born from#and why it rests on the table in our new years table and why it is used to cast fortunes and why poetry is pilgrimage and a point of#worship for us and the sheer weight this language carries!!!#(خرمن)#(beside every definition given above it also means thrill and fruits of labours and Time and panic and damage)#my brain was built around a poetic construct from the moment i was born im so happy about that
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