abdul-qadir bedil aka bedil dehlavi was one of the greatest poets writing in persian > his place in persian literature is special for many reasons:
bedil's mother tongue was bengali, but he wrote most of his works in persian
during bedil's lifetime (1642-1720), the mughal empire began to fall apart, coinciding with the british east indian company's expansion, outcompeting the dutch east indian company' (voc) once and for all > though bedil does not mention the british, he was a keen observer of his times, and he wrote at length about regional and religious customs and morals undergoing rapid changes
bedil championed both individual and religious freedom, condemning hypocrisy and challenging the clerics > because of this, bedil's writings have influenced many generations of writers especially in central asia (today's afghanistan, uzbekistan, tadjikistan etc) > since the 1980s, bedil also rose to a certain prominence in iran
bedil championed the rights of minorities
being an indian poet, bedil (= the one who lost his heart) is often regarded as very difficult to understand due to the fantastic imagery he employed, expanding the boundaries of the persian language > otoh, many of bedil's verses are written in candid language, which makes them enjoyable until today
here is another couplet by bedil:
It is gratifying that I am not a regular opium-eater,
I have only fancy for Bhang (hashish), and that too now and then.
@livus thank you! yevtushenko is dismissing any glorification of the soviet army here, sharply deviating from common practice in the ussr during the 1950s - "weddings" is a remarkable poem
sry for not being able to provide the translator's name > internet is too bad here, hence i could not open the original pdf at https://tabjournal.org/vol-10-2022 > believe me, i would have loved to open that file because, ummmh, yes: bibinur salykova
This poem feels to me like one of those apologies that you owe but don’t deliver because it would hurt the other person more to hear it than to let it be, even when it would feel good to get off your chest.
How desperate I would be
if I couldn’t remember
the sun rising, if I couldn’t
remember trees, rivers; if I couldn’t
even remember, beloved,
your beloved name.
The cadence is reminiscent of a person sobbing, or of a mind unraveling, struggling to get words out.
The entire first half though, I didn't enjoy. The author discovered they have cancer, and the discovery was sudden/unexpected. I suppose the author felt themselves to be "hunted" by the cancer, and, like prey, they were taken unawares. But for me the analogy of cancer/hunter body/forest doesn't work.
The line Hunters walk the forest appeared on first reading only to refer to The hunter, strapped to his rifle; I had to read a second time to understand the intent. On third reading, I realised I should have paid attention to the capitalisation, which may have made it clear from the start.
I think changing 2 words would improve the poem:
The hunter, strapped to his rifle,
entered the forest of my body,
to
The man, strapped to his rifle,
prowled the forest of my body,
In this way the word "hunter" is not repeated, and the sentence is less likely to be misread. And "prowled" emphasizes that the cancer has already struck. To me, the word "entered" makes the cancer feel too distant.
The poplar's blackness bolder
Against the dawning sky,
Poplar trees aren't native in my region of the world, and I interpreted this as "The poplar's blackness" being the shadow cast by the poplar. So I was taken out of the poem when I saw that in the next line the author meant the silhouette of the tree (or perhaps the colour of the bark, there seem to be black variants).
Though, now that I'm reading the lines correctly, I do appreciate the imagery evoked.
I also don't understand the line And laughter of dead showers, I assume that is referencing rain, but I'm not sure.
My reading of the poem has generally been that the speaker is looking over a river at night under the full moon, and remembering happier times spent there some time in the past — the “laughter of dead showers” are part of the “passionate pale-lit hours” that encompass wood and lea. Perhaps the dead showers (dead because they are in an unrecoverable past moment) are laughing as part of a cheerful memory of being caught in the rain with someone else.
In the second stanza, the tone turns colder, and the excited, anticipatory, summer-like imagery gives way to a bleak and silent December as the dawn comes. It seems to be a “times were happier once, but all that is gone now” poem.
This matches up with the context in which the poem was written — this is a war poem by a young man who died in the trenches of France during WWI, and he may have been looking out over a river that he’d once visited before in better days.
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