Inescapable Sin

In Ode 44, by Hafez, figurative language is used a few times, mainly in the first stanza,”Narcissus-eyes all shining for the fray/Filled full of frolic to her wine-red lips, “Warm as a dewy rose”, and the second stanza “Wine of the tavern, or vintage it might be/Of Heaven’s own vine” to make the reader understand how Hafez is trapped within lust and addiction, which is first thought to be romantic love, and makes Hafez a hostage to those sins in where he must use figurative language as a subliminal message which showcases things of interest like the wine, lust, lips, warmth, and Heaven.

When Hafez mentions “Narcissus-eyes”, I get an immediate definition for what Hafez means. Narcissus is apart of the Greek mythology in where he falls in love with his own reflection, but that isn’t what is meant in the poem. Narcissus is used mainly as a symbol of lust or love, this ties in with the end stanza where Hafez exclaims about himself in where he has promised for penitence, which basically means to feel bad for the sins that they have done. He ridicules himself in saying that since he is often surrounded by wine and women, that he can’t keep his promise of penitence, meaning that Hafez has fallen into lust and addiction. The part about being filled with Frolic, is personification, in descriptive ways it makes sense but in literal terms it doesn’t, Hafez uses “filled with Frolic” to emphasize excitement, mainly, from what I presume, from lust. Due to wine being an addiction, it also makes sense why Hafez would describe the woman’s lips as “wine-red”. Hafez creates a world in which everything around him, is out to keep him in, like he is trapped. He knows that he shouldn’t be lusting over women or constantly drink wine yet, even in looking at a woman, he can’t help but see his downfalls.

From one downfall to the other, Hafez remarks the woman’s lips as “Warm as a dewy rose” meaning not all traits of a dewy rose will transfer over due to being a simile. Personally, I am glad he made it a simile as it would be uncomfortable to make it a metaphor. A dewy rose refers to a rose in the morning, like how grass is wet from the dew, a rose can also be the same, but Hafez doesn’t mean a dewy rose in this way, rather he means the warmth of the rose from the sun. It means to introduce a nice warmth after being cold, like before the sun rises. The attribute from the vehicle was very easy to know as it was told directly to us, but to visualize what it truly meant was poetry in itself.

Another fun quote to visualize is the quote on “Heaven’s own vine”, which is a metonymy and a metaphor. The tavern is being thought of as a vine coming down from the heavens. The reason this is a metonymy is because Heaven, in my mind, is picture as a place above the clouds and everything is perfect, everything is good, So when Hafez makes the comparison to the Tavern and it’s wine to be a vine from Heaven, it creates the visual guarantee that the wine is the most spectacular wine in the moment Hafez is drinking it. This creates a connection to the second/main stanza in which Hafez proclaims that both him and the woman are drunkards, but it is okay to be so since drunkards have been cursed by with a divine decree from the Heavens to enjoy the wine and to be forgiven for it. Almost like a self-lie, to make himself feel better which doesn’t work because in the last stanza, Hafez recognizes that he struggles with stopping his addictions.

The way figurative language is used to convey love with Hafez and the woman/addictions is used to portray a true understanding of himself in which that he understands that these things are bad, he recognizes lust through the woman’s Narcissus-eyes, he crumbles to his addiction when he sees the woman’s wine-red lips, when the woman gets into bed with him, her warmth is like the warmth a rose gets in a cold morning, finally, Hafez is captured by his addiction/love for wine when he cements himself in by deeming his suffering as a divine decree. He is fully aware of what struggles he goes through, on the surface it looks like a very romantic evening but in reality Hafez knows he must get out, and yet he doesn’t possess the power to do so, forever entrapped.

Roman Arroyo

Pretty Women and Wine

In Hafez’s poem, “Ode 44”, figurative language is used to depict the dangers of temptation to the religious man by utilizing a continuous metaphor to compare temptation, the tenor, to a drunken woman, the vehicle.

The poem’s first stanza describes a woman who is wearing very little,” With tilted glass, and verses on her lips,” (line 3). This line utilizes a metonymy to establish that the woman is drunk. The “tilted glass” connotes a glass of alcohol that has been drunk and the “verses on her lips” mean that she must be singing or maybe even mumbling. Drunk people are known to slur their words and speak incoherently. So, the narrator chooses these words to establish the fact that the woman is drunk. This line creates an image of a drunk woman, who we know is half-naked from the previous line, singing a song. Later in the stanza, the woman, “slips into [the narrator’s] bed,” (line 7). This hyperbole creates a comedic effect and further emphasizes the fact that the woman is drunk because drunk people often stumble around and lose their bearings.

In the second stanza, the narrator uses irony to express his rationalization for being tempted. In lines 20-21, he says, “Yea, by the special privilege of heaven/ Foredoomed to drink and foreordained forgiven,” (Hafez). The irony here is that heaven is supposed to be a perfect holy place, yet the narrator believes it is heaven’s fault that he is tempted. If the heavens didn’t create wine, he would not be so easily tempted. This is further emphasized in line 26 where the narrator says, “O knotted locks, filled like a flower with scent,” (Hafez). This line uses a metaphor to compare his penitence to a “knotted lock” and then uses a simile to compare his desire to a “flower with scent”. How can a man not be tempted to bend down and smell a delicious rose? This is his rationale for wanting to be with a woman, especially if she offers him wine.

I believe this poem, in its original language, would have reflected an acceptance of Islam. The narrator clearly wants to be a sinless man, but the temptation is just too hard to resist sometimes. However, when the poem gets translated, it is hard to realize it was written by a Muslim. I would still know that this was written by somebody who followed a religion, but I would have guessed Christianity because of words like “Puritan” and “penitent”.

By: Tierney Bowden

An Ordained Love

Within Hafez’s “Ode 44,” he utilizes an extended metaphor of wine and an allusion to Narcissus to describe the love between two people in order to describe a divine love and relationship for God. Hafez first uses both metaphor and allusion in the first stanza, writing “Narcissus-eyes all shining for the fray,” (Hafez li. 4). Narcissus, a mythological figure, infamous for being in love with his own image (and beauty), eventually is transformed into a flower before he perishes. The allusion lends itself into the greater metaphor of comparing the lovers to a relationship with God, as the speaker portrays their love as something that cannot be distracted from, much like God– in doing this, Hafez aims to display how much like the lovers, the relationship (between people) to Islam and God is unyielding and devout. However, the metaphor is somewhat ironic in the way that Islam preaches selfless love and unity with God, but the speaker aims to have some sort of selfish relation with God, where they only gaze upon God, but it is possible that Hafez uses the seeming selfishness as a vehicle to show devoutness rather than selfishness itself. Further, Hafez describes the wine that the woman pours for the speaker as “[o]f Heaven’s own vine” (Hafez li. 14); the wine and grapes are used to express a love and passion for God, showing the innate divinity of the love they carry together. Ironically, the speaker gives into his lust for the wine, or rather he gives his body and soul over to God– he contrasts this with temptation in the lines after, to symbolize how the love that the speaker and woman emanate is holy, and quite frankly, the opposite of a sinful relationship. The metaphor serves as a conduit to truly show how devout and passionate love for Islam truly is; even in a metaphor containing seemingly sins, the contents allow a translation of a relationship to God as one that is undying and devout (seen through Narcissus) and also the only thing that may tempt a person (seen through wine).

The love emulated in Hafez’s “Ode 44” does showcase an acceptance of Islamic spirituality, as the way it is portrayed through metaphor shows how divine and pure the love is, and in extension, how beautiful and devout love with Islam and God is. The poem’s extended metaphor of wine displays how God is the only thing that tempts man, as Hafez uses wine from a woman to describe the tenor of a relationship with God, showing how nothing else may tempt man, for their relationship with God is undying and devout. Further, the allusion and metaphor through Narcissus also further explains an acceptance of Islamic spirituality, as even though it may be seen as a narcissistic, selfish love, the divine love itself is that of a devout nature, as once again, nothing may tempt the man from looking elsewhere– only God may provide him with solace. With these details in mind, it can be safely concluded that Hafez’s “Ode 44” does showcase acceptance of Islamic spirituality, as the extended metaphors and allusion in the ode describe a devotion and love for God that can only be described as divine.

Isaak Puth

The Pleasure in Euphoria

As we continue to analyze poetry we learn that figurative language has a lot of impact upon a poem when added in the right places under the right circumstances. In the poem written by HAFEZ, Ode 44, we see figurative language connect the euphoria that you experience with being drunk, and the pleasure of being sexual. HAFEZ stratigically places figurative language in the poem in order to emphasize the relation between these two.

HAFEZ uses metaphors such as “Filled full of frolic to her wine-red lips,” and similes such as “Warm as a dewy rose,” HAFEZ uses these in order to emphasize the scene and elaborate on the sensuality of sexual desire and how aloha emphasizes the sensuality. HAFEZ also continues to add “the gods above above ordained this wine for us” which of course is not true as the gods were not the ones that made the wine, yet the idea that the gods made the wine helps emphasize how good the wine was.

This seems very odd to juxtaposed to what is believed by Islamic spirituality. Islam is viewed as very private and a conservative religion so the talking of sex and drinking seems very taboo. Yet there is connection with the feeling of pleasure and the spirituality and unity that comes with the euphoria of sex and drinking.

Guadalupe Lemus

Love, Lust

Ode 47 by poet Hafez, tells the story of a drunk trying to win over a beautiful lady. This lady is amused that the drunken man has a crush on her. We can see this in line 15, where he say’s, “…And mocked my foolish hopes of winning her.” She continues on and uses a simile to compare him to her girdle. We can see this simile in line 19, “Thou shall not clasp me so, Like my good girdle – not for all thy songs!” With this simile she tells us she does not want his arms around her body.

I would say these poems go against Islamic spirituality. These poems go against Islamic spirituality because Islamic people are not allowed to consume alcohol. Since these poems talk a lot about drinking, and being drunk I feel that Islamic people would find this shameful.

Drunkenness

In using figurative language in poetry, instead of direct and precise words, an author is able to help the reader in visualizing what they mean as well as understanding the feeling and point they are trying to get across in certain lines of their work. In Hafez’s poem, ‘Ode 487’, the line that stood out to me the most was the line, “If you would reach your daily destination, /The holy city of intoxication.”. This metaphor creates the feeling that the act of getting drunk, resembles a journey. He also adds to the metaphor by stating that intoxication is a ‘holy city’, which to me gives the impression of a glorious and heavenly place, which is what he is insinuating being drunk is. By stating ‘holy city’ he only refers to the positive connotation of being drunk, which allows the reader to see his perspective on intoxication and prevent us from missing his point of the fact that he believes drunkenness is something positive. This start of the poem makes one realize that the whole poem is about Hafez and his drunkenness. Yet the other metaphor that stands out to me is where he states “Well, HAFIZ, Life’s a riddle – give it up: /There is no answer to it but this cup.” He uses a metaphor about life, insinuating life is confusing and hard to comprehend, but at the ends, claims the answer is in ‘this cup’. This poem starts off by insinuating that drinking is this wonderful journey, by using positive connotation, yet ends with a shift to claim that it is the only answer in life. In the end Hafez makes it seem like drinking is something he must do, in order to find the understand his own life.

Emily Mayo

Breathless First Love

Love poems have a way of using a lot of figurative language to describe delicate feelings in the most intricate of ways possible. Not only does it invite the audience into the poet’s mind, but it also paves a pathway of imagination and what it is like for one to feel when in love. In Ode 44, Hafez tells a story of a specific night with a woman and wine through metaphor usage for the purpose of conveying one’s deepest desires in a vulnerable position.

Hafez starts off with laying out the central setting of the poem, which I feel really helps set the scene and gives a visual to the audience of what the atmosphere is like before continuing on with his thoughts. He further continues to describe her appearance and body language by saying “Narcissus-eyes all shining for the fray” (Line 4, Hafez). This word choice lets the readers know that the woman has light, yellowish colored eyes. The second part of the line, especially ‘shining”, indicates that the poet sees a sense of lust in her light eyes, waiting to essentially undress and become exposed to him. Such body language gives the narrator ideas of what the woman might want to initiate. Immediately after the observations, the woman makes a move and gets into bed with him then proceeds to ask if he’s asleep or awake. This questions forces the narrator to literally springs in excitement to show her that he was ready to move forward towards wherever these actions were leading. Hafez then writes “Of Heaven’s own vine: he surely were a churl” (Line 14, Hafez). This line is intriguing in a few ways. For one, readers can notice that the poet capitalizes the word ‘Heaven’, showing the underlying respect he might have when it comes to religion, culture, and God. Going off of that thought, this creates an almost contradicting meaning in the line because it basically shows how an un-welcomed deed is committed while recognizing the respect to the ‘All Knowing’. Such assumptions are later backed up when towards the end Hafez mentions “Foredoomed to drink and foreordained forgiven” (Line 21). The poet is aware what he is doing is a sin, but decided to do it anyways. Taking in account the story and figurative language, this love rejects Islamic spirituality because a lot of things that take place goes against the religion and one can tell that the poet/author is well aware of it, but decided to pursue the love anyways. That’s how powerful this love is for him.

Simranpreet Kaur

Lust and Love

Reading the first poem Ode 44 by Hafez really surprised me. This poem shows what it is like to be drunk and in love or lust. In the first poem he described the beautiful girl by saying “ her wine-red lips”, “warm as a dewy rose” describing her by using similes. Then the author goes on to explain how they started interacting with alcohol, “wine of the tavern” by using metaphors. Hafez then switched his feelings about the girl and her being there. He uses a metaphor to compare him being a traitor to wine and love. Which is odd because he seemed happy at the beginning of the poem about the girl and the wine. It seems like he loves wine more than he loves the woman.

However, that shows how this love is rejected by Islamic spirituality. Hafez then continued to talk about the wine by saying, “ordained this wine for us, but not for thee;”. In this poem there is a lot of use of metaphors and personification like the example above. He then ended the poem with a simile and used personification, “O knotted locks, filled like a flower with scent”, “how have you ravished this poor penitent”. The uses of the figurative language gave the readers, and myself a real description to what Hafez is telling us. Finishing this poem, I realized that the love/lust is not for the women at all, it is about comparing the woman to wine and how easy it is to fall in love/lust for both of them.

Joseph Jordan

Emotional Intoxication

After an initial read, it’s obvious that Hafiz uses an interesting series of imagery and metaphors to craft his poem, “Ode 44”. Upon further examination, we see that he toys heavily with themes of love and sex, explaining them artistically through a medium of a very original, and well developed metaphor. In his poem “Ode 44”, Hafiz aims to illustrate that love- as well as words spoken with true love- is a wine, and the intimacy of sex which follows is the drunkneness achieved as a result of “drinking” just a little bit too much.  

Hafiz builds his narrative slowly, giving you the important bits of his metaphor little by little, as he describes the beauty he finds in his presences. Starting off, he gives his the initial building blocks of his artistic interpretation in line 3, “With tilted glass, and verses on her lips” and line 5, “Filled full of frolic to her wine red lips”. “Tilted glass” obviously referencing a wine glass, but also “verses on her lips” pointing to words, or phrases. Not only mere phrases, mind you, but verses. Excerpts of poetry or music. There is beauty in this choice of vocabulary, intending that the content of her words sends music through his mind and his heart. “Wine-red lips” then ties the two together, establishing the connection with wine and words, that being them both bestowed upon the lips. The first half of the metaphor is then finalized on line 12, where Hafiz explains he “drank whatever wine she poured for me”, after his lover calls for his attention in the middle of the night. She confides in him with whatever is burdening her, whether that be anger, fear, stress, or simply her overwhelming love for him, and he listens to her and accepts everything she is saying to him as if it were a fine wine. After engaging in excessive consumption of the wine that is the love shared between these two people, the narrator describes a sort of inebriation achieved as a result. On line 19, Hafiz explains his narrator and their partner as, “Drunkards we are by a divine decree”. Based on the seductive tone of the poem and connection to sexual behavior involved with nudity, it’s easy to assume that overconsumption of this wine has resulted in the intoxication of sexual desire. However this is no ordinary drunkenness, oh no. They’re not getting drunk off cheap liquor and 91% rubbing alcohol, they’re drinking fine wine. This is drunkenness to a divine decree. He’s pointing towards the kind of inebriation conjured not only by the simple the act of sex, but by something more meaningful, more spiritual, something more divine. An emotional intoxication only achievable through the consumption of the verses of love. 

One might say that this would be an anti religious way of viewing love and sex; through the medium of inebriation and substance abuse. And upon first glance I interpreted it this way as well, however I recognized some important things as I persisted dissecting the idea. As stated previously, the imagery of alcohol here takes the shape of fine wine, not hard spirits or foaming beers. Most religious texts which hold faith in Christ (referred to as Īsā in the Islamic faith) believe that regulated consumption of fine red wine is righteous and holy, and brings one closer to the spirit through the consumption of his holy blood, symbolized by such wine. Similarly, the depictions of sex here do not include adulatory or similar unholy sexual acts, and are instead meaningful and intimate, reflecting the love shared between two people. Any fair creator would smile upon this act of passion. 

That is, given I’m correct! The final stanza kind of threw me. Let me know if there’s anything I missed or might need further elaboration on.  I also think the rhyme scheme between “divine” and (fine)”wine” are cute, but they aren’t canon unless these phrases also rhyme in Farsi. It was worth mentioning in my opinion, but since this poem wasn’t translated by Hafiz himself in no way has right to act as evidence in my argument.

Hayden Namgostar

Is It Really Love?

The poem “Ode 44” by Hafez describes a unique situation in which love is the main focus. In this work of art Hafez uses metaphors, similes, and personification in order to convey the feeling of falling in love. The author describes a woman as somewhat of a temptress by using words such as “half naked” and “wine-red lips”, which represents the visual aspects of what Hafez believes love is like. This is why this poem describes this type of infatuation as a woman pouring wine, since this visualization happens to be one of temptation and loss of inhibition. 

Hafez uses figurative language in a very interesting way in order to describe what love is like between two people. The author uses a simile in the line “warm as a dewy rose” in order to represent the woman in which this poem embodies. This simile is used to describe the comfort of intimacy and how love creates a warm sensation within each person who experiences it. Hafez also uses personification in the line “narcissus-eyes all shining for the fray”, which is used to describe the visual change in a person’s eyes when they become infatuated with another person. The phrase “narcissus-eyes” is also very unique since it shows that the author sees love as a selfish feeling instead of the free emotion most people relate it to. This idea that love can be a singular temporary feeling that does not necessarily have to be shared with another person. When it comes to Islamic spirituality this poem seems to go against the traditional views of Islam since it focuses on the temptation of love instead of the positive views that most people associate with that emotion.

Jamey Cain