Evolutionary promotion of Hafiz’s repeated lines

 
It is a common tradition among poets to repeat some of the lines in their poems. There are also seventeen repetitive couplets and one verse in Hafiz poems which is not in order. It seems that the repetition of these poetic lines has been deliberate and follows certain aims. Now the point here is what rhetorical aims and purposes Hafiz had had to do this deliberate repetition. In this article, the descriptive-analytic method this issue been discussed. Since the exact history of Hafiz’s poems isn’t clear, we can't certainly identify the precedence and consequence of his verses, but an eloquent survey and care in the vertical and horizontal processes in his poems and verses which have repetitive couplets makes clear that some of these verses in relation to their counterparts are different and often have a reference to the mental and artistic approaches. Since he always reforms and looks critically at his poems, we can conclude that verses which are mentally and eloquently richer and more experienced have been composed after other verses. This turn in his artistic and rhetorical views, regarding his increased age and the socio-political changes of his time is one of the reasons for this rhetorical repetition (or with the change of words in the verse lines).
 
 
 
                                                              Keywords: Hafiz, borrowing, repetitive hemistiches
 
 
 
1.1.Introduction
 
Because of different reasons, the poets sometimes repeat or allude to a line, a couplet or more lines of their poems in some other poems. For example, Khaqani says in an ode:
 
Remember the point where you have remarked
 
I will no more lose my credit for bread
 
Which refers to a couplet in another ode:
 
I will no more lose credit for bread 
 
I will give fire to the natural soul instead of bread
 
(ibid: 314)
 
Or Saadi implies some lines of his sonnets in Golestan: …I saw a boy ultimately balanced and very handsome in whose description it is said:
 
Your teacher taught all making sport and courting
 
Taught cruelty, coquetry, pounce, and oppression
 
I have not seen a human being with such form, height, manners, and face
 
Has he learned it from fairies?
 
(Saadi, 1990: 139)
 
Which are lines from sonnet 31 in Divan Saadi (ibid: 423). Of course, sometimes these repetitions pass the borders of implication and further reasons have to be investigated for them.
 
In the sonnets of Khwaja of Shiraz (Hafiz) too, apart from different types of implication, there are 17 lines and one scrambled couplet from the poet himself. The research problem is that how are these repetitions justified in the poems of a poet who everyone believes has written his poems very precisely and to-the-point? Is it possible to find any artistic value in some of Hafiz’s repeated lines?
 
1.2.Research methodology   
 
In this article, the repeated lines and couplets of Hafiz are studied through interpretative and descriptive method. The precise dates of Hafiz’s writings are not clear, therefore, it is impossible to assuredly determine chronological order of these couplets, therefore, by studying the articulateness and by paying closer attention to vertical and horizontal movement of the poems as well as the repeated lines, it can be identified that some of these couplets, from artistic and intellectual aspects, have differences compared to their similar lines and in most cases, they are superior.
 
1.3.Discussion
 
The story of Hafiz’s repetitions of his own poems has a fundamental difference with that of other poets. Although apparently, all of his sonnets are maximum masterly, it is natural that gradually and in his old age, his attitude towards many issues have experienced changes. Most apparently, this change has led to Khwaja’s reconsideration of many of his previous poems. He sometimes changed a word and sometimes added a couplet to a sonnet or deleted one.  For example:
 
I give you a piece of advice listen to and practice it
 
That I have heard it from my master guide
 
Don’t worry about the world and don’t forget my advice
 
That my delicacy of love is from following the knowledge
 
Do not seek fulfillment of promises from the insecure world
 
“Since this witch is bride of a thousand grooms”
 
 (Hafiz, 1991: 114)
 
From Hafiz’s first two couplets, it seems that one is added or was later replaced by him, but both two couplets have remained in the sonnet. It seems possible that they have been replaced by one another. Perhaps, Hafiz once called Ohadi his master (even his own master), however, later he changed his opinion and replaced the first couplet with the second one, or he had first mentioned Ohadi as an ordinary follower, but later has named him his master and has made changes to his couplet. Ohadi’s couplet reads:
 
Beware do not give the harness to the beautiful world
 
Since this witch is bride of a thousand grooms          
 
(Ohadi, 1995: 114)
 
Before this couplet, Ohadi mentions:
 
You have shown that: it further listens to us
 
Do not talk of its promise that it never keeps
 
Learn the advice I give you and after me
 
Tell the truth that: is reminder of Ohadi
 
When Hafiz recommends Ohadi’s last couplet: “report this from Ohadi”, remembers it and mentions him in his sonnets as the “master guide” or “strider”. Purnamdarian believes that by a master guide, Hafiz means Jesus (peace be upon him) who had called the world a witch with lots of grooms (Purnamdarian, 2005: 176). Perhaps one of the reasons for the existence of differences in the versions of Divan Hafiz is these deliberate changes. “Hafiz, in the contemporary words, used to work on his poems” (Shamsia, 1009: 189). Shafee Kadkani believes that: “it is crystal-clear that throughout his literary life, he had always been polishing his art and completing its different aspects. Sometimes, these changes have appeared because of political and social oppressions in his time, and sometimes it was because of transformations in aesthetics of his art” (Shafee Kadkani, 1989: 422-423). Also “there is more valor and bravery observed in the sonnets of his young age. Satire against votaries and sheikhs is stronger, whereas, in his old age, he becomes more careful” (Shamisa, 1009: 135). Hafiz’s change of perspective is not limited to political issues, but his strengthening of Sufi perspective and following that, his attention to Sufi articulation is also considerable.
 
1.4.Conclusion
 
Although most parts of the results have been presented in the table, in addition to that, it can be said that: Hafiz has repeated these lines intentionally. One of his most important reasons for these repetitions or implications of his lines (not in two sonnets but in one) has been the newer and more precise relationship he has later found between the repeated lines with the other lines. This is because Hafiz had specific attention to the precise linking between lines. It might be because of the fact that unlike many poets, he has never repeated a whole couplet in his poems. It is quite natural that in most cases, both changed lines have unbreakable links with the repeated line and it is not easy to take one as superior to the other. In some of these lines, considering the growing process of Hafiz’s intellectual and oratorical growth, and considering the vertical axis of poetry, he has inserted few but meaningful changes. He has sometimes repeated the exact line but has applied his art of substitution and multilateral changes to combine it with the other line. Considering the historical and stylistic proofs, new lines and couplets are more general. Paradox, multiple meanings, and domination of Sufi ideology have a lot of frequency in these lines and in the sonnets where these lines have been repeated. The new couplets are literally more technical unless there were other reasons such as comparing himself with others or specific attention to the appraisal of the king compared to the appraisal of vizier.